Thursday! the E-Zine for June 14, 2023

Jun 14, 2023

V3, E30

Hello! I have searched out several morsels of entertainment for you this week — two poems, a very short story, and one story of greater heft. You may enjoy that one most of all, especially if you share a love for dragons (or at least their ghosts).

I think I’ve discovered a way to add internal links to Thursday!, though I can’t know for sure until I hit the magic “publish” button. Unfortunately Substack did not give me a good way to test the links and I was forced to…well, let’s just say I tried to test them, but the results told me either that the Way of the Linking1 failed or that it does not exist. Neither result was much help, so we’re just going to ru with what we hve. Either it will work and we’ll all be quite happy or it won’t and we’ll all sit around and frown at each other. I’m hoping for the former, obviously. I don’t want you to frown at me. If the links do work, please let me know. I’d love to use them again and, apparently, Substack really wants you to tell me instead of bearing that heavy emotional burden itself. Which is just a little bit rude. Anyhow, enjoy this week’s ziney zine.

‘Ware the sea monsters!

Poems:

Stories:

A Wooby’s Duty (250 words)
Reading the Light of the Ghost Dragons (~1,300 words)

The Pink Bracelet

My sister sent me a pink bracelet
Made of heavy cord, a few months ago,
All the way from near Boston where she lives.
It is cold there and there are sea monsters.

She didn’t sent a note with it, like
Enjoy this bracelet that I made, or
I hope you like bright pink because I used a lot of it.
No. She just sent it in a plain envelope.

But she didn’t need to tell me why she
Sent me a handmade pink bracelet.
I know her and she knows me.
And we know about the sea monsters.

I used to smell them near my house a lot
Especially in August, the horrible month.
They smell floppy and vile, like old mud and fish.
That was then, though. That was before.

Before the handmade pink bracelet arrived
Before my sister sent it in a plain envelope
Without a note of explanation
But with mighty anti-sea-monster magic.

Meow, Wrote the Poet

If I were a cat
You wouldn’t be able
To read this poem.

It would be written
In a secret lovely tongue.
The one cats use.

Meow, I would write
With a long claw in mouse blood
Harvested fresh.

Meow, once again
With such anguish and desire
To make you cry.

But I don’t speak cat
So I can’t write that poem.
Which is a shame.

(Meow)

Share Thursday!

A Wooby’s Duty

Why did the stuffed duck cross the road?

That, thought Quackers Duckerson, was a hell of a question. Why, for Ruxpin’s sake, would a small, waddling creature attempt to cross a concrete path on which bicycles, ATVs, golf carts, motorcycles, unicycles, pedal cars, Volkswagons, and probably actual tanks regularly travel? Why would a proud duck, once the main prize in the biggest claw machine at the highest-earning pizza restaurant based on an animatronic animal, have waddled over a mile and face de-stuffing on a lonely concrete path under the wheels or treads of Gund only knows what?

The Child.

Quackers Duckerson was a Wooby and not just that, but a Wooby with a Name. There was no higher calling for any toy anywhere than to be Named by a Child as Wooby, the thing for which she cried in the car, the thing she cuddled at night. A Named Wooby was a Guardian against the Things that come at night to steal the good and pleasant dreams from the hearts of Children asleep. A Wooby was not just important; it was life.

And now the Child needed him. Quackers had felt her cry from under the bed where he fell earlier that morning when the Child’s mother had taken her for a walk, a cry of deep distress. She needed Quackers, her guardian and her friend, and Quackers would get to his Child. No matter the distance. No matter the peril.

Why did the stuffed duck cross this road?

Duty.

Reading the Light of the Ghost Dragons

The lights that were the spirits of the Great Dragons flowed across the northern sky, reds and yellows, greens and deep purples. They curled around each other in an intricate dance, tangling and untangling, tossed high and diving low, flashing wide arcs in blurs of bright color. They curled around each other, weaving patterns that seemed almost like words written on top of each other.

Sammit watched her daughter’s face. The girl’s lips moved, trying to decipher the message scrawled across the sky. Her deep brown eyes narrowed, pupils scanning back and forth, up and down. The index finger of her right hand moved in small whirls and stuttering loops. No other part of her moved. She might as well have been a statue, carved of granite and clothed in the rough fabrics of the frontier village.

She’s close, Sammit thought. Too close. Where have the years gone?

She put her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. The girl twitched and blinked, her concentration broken.

“Mom! I almost had it! They were saying something to me!” She stomped her small foot and glared up at her mother in frustration.

“Nancit,” her mother said in a clear, scolding tone. The girl’s face softened. She looked down.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “Just…I almost read the words!” She looked up and her eyes were bright with excitement. “I did what you told me! I thought like a big Dragon! All bright and golden and I almost did!”

Her mother smiled and drew Nancit in for a big hug. “I’m proud of you! You’ve worked very hard but what did I say about too much?”

Nancit took a half step back and stood in her serious, formal recital pose. “A Sage must never be too much of the Dragon or she will forget to be human. But…”

“But nothing, bright girl,” she said in a stern voice, even as she used the nickname they both loved most, for different reasons. “Who is the Mother Sage and who is the daughter?”

Nancit ducked her head again. “I’m sorry, Mother Sage. Can I try again tomorrow?”

“We shall see. Now run home. It is late and your bed is calling.” She gave her daughter a quick hug and a gentle shove down the trail from the clearing back to the village. She had no concern for any wild animals this time of year. The hunters would be out and they’d hear Nancit’s light steps. They would look out. Everyone looked out. She stood up slowly, put her hands in the small of her back and stretched. The lights still capered and swirled in the deep, dark sky, covering and uncovering the moon, playing peep-eye with it.

They’re trying to get my attention, she thought. They have something for me, but… Closing her eyes, Sammit slowed her breathing and turned her focus inwards. The chirps of crickets and night frogs faded and the growl and fire of the dragon’s ghost grew louder in her mind. A single light from the sky, bright gold like the glitters in a fortune-seeker’s pan, swung out of the dance of the others, spun slow, lazy circles closer to her. Sammit held out a hand and the light stopped in the sky above her, expanded, grew more diffuse, then faded out. She opened her eyes and there were gold flecks in the dark brown. She considered the other lights and they considered her back. They danced above and around her, diving and dodging separately now, as if each light were trying to gain her exclusive attention. Her eyes scanned the sky as her daughter’s had, but with the focus and direction of a Mother Sage.

The ghosts were writing words, but in a language that died with them over a thousand years before. It was the language of the Great Dragons of the North, the ones long gone, the ones who had first terrified the world, then enthralled it, then terrified it once again. They were agitated, even the greatest of them, the gold dragon that had flowed into her and spoke with her, spirit to mind. It translated the ghost-writing for her and, as it did, tongues of small golden flame flashed from her eyes. She listened to all of it, and there was much to hear. The dragons, all of them, were agitated as she had never seen before.

She struggled to keep up. Once in a while she shook her head, and said a word or two of the old language out loud. The dragons would answer her by retracing a word or a thought, but they were moving faster and faster in their agitation, swirling in tighter patterns. The sky glowed to her eyes like a field of bright flowers tossed in a tornado. The gold in her head chattered so quickly that she almost couldn’t tell one dragon’s words from the other. Then, a thought from outside the chatter came to her — the cold discernment of a Mother Sage.

This is fear. The dragon-ghosts are afraid.

The din in his head was suddenly too loud and too frantic. She held her hands up, palms out, and yelled, “HIE!”. At once the lights held their positions, quivering in the air. Stop, she thought to the gold. I know. I understand. It settled. Waited.

Sammit crouched, let her weight settle comfortable on her heels. She took in two long breaths, then a third for good measure. The lights above her did not move. The gold left her slowly, like water from a drain, and joined the others above her. Sammit watched them, wearily. The focus had taken much of what energy she had left after a busy day in the village and with Nancit, but there was more.

The words they had written were not good words. She had seen blood in them, flight, a great horror her people knew only from the artifacts they found when they settled here a score of generations ago. The truth she had seen among the fear and history had come down to a single word, the most terrifying word of all.

“Soon”.

Something was coming. Something that frightened even the centuries-dead ghosts of mighty dragons.

Sammit flexed her shoulders and turned her head from side to side, loosening the stress-tight muscles. She stood slowly and looked up into the lights. They lit her face, red and yellow, gold, purple, and green. She could sense the worry in them — worry not only for themselves but for her and her people.

“Do not worry, Great Ones,” she said. “We have our lore. We will find a way. I will come back and we will talk more. Is it well, then?” The dragons each bounded up and down as if nodding. She nodded back and all but one of them they zipped upwards and away into the dark night. The great gold hung there, holding her attention, as if it wished to ask her a question. She looked skyward and smiled wearily. “It will be well,” she said, her voice loud in the clearing. “It will”. The gold spun a lazy circle, like a wave farewell, and faded out of her sight.

Sammit remained for a moment after they had gone and listened to the crickets and night frogs whose music returned to fill the late autumn night with their music. The dragons were not the only ones who would worry. She thought of Nancit, eager to be like her mother. She thought of the whole village, who relied on the Mother Sage and the words she brought back from the Great Dragons of the North. They would not like the words she brought tonight, but they needed them. They would need all the time they could get to prepare.

She spun on her heels and began to jog to the trail and home.

Above her, a single gold light winked back into visibility, and watched her run.

Fancy more stories and poetry? Read all you want at JimmieWrites.

Buy my picture book of poems about werewolves and atomic monsters!

Read “The Paper Swans of Ellendell” in Postcards from Mars!

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