The Confabulator Cafe

Blog

  • Closing Time

    Hello, dear patrons. Thank you for stopping by.

    It is with a heavy heart we announce that for the foreseeable future, the Cafe will not be producing new content. We are putting chairs on top of tables, shutting down the espresso machine, and turning off the lights.

    That said, the benefit of the Cafe being a virtual space is that the stories we’ve written will continue to live on, here. Please stop by any time and catch up on stories you may have missed or revisit stories that you loved.

    And maybe someday, the stars will align, and we’ll return to this place of pure imagination.

    Thank you so much for visiting us, and for all of your support over the years. Take care, and never stop dreaming.

    -The Confabulators

  • Of Fathers, Ghosts, and Beans

    Lotus had no idea what she was looking at. That is, it was very clear that she was sitting in a giant’s castle, looking at a golden harp with her father’s face carved into one side. She could see where the gold leaf had flaked away on one of his cheeks. The pale wood underneath looked like a tear streak running down his face.

    Behind her, heavy footsteps sounded. Lotus had to make a choice. The harp was too heavy for her to carry. But her father had been a pragmatic man and he’d raised a pragmatic daughter. Lotus slipped away and climbed down the beanstalk to the world of flowers below the world of clouds.

    #

    Plant beans. And do not mourn me. They were the only two commands her father ever gave Lotus and they came only a few days before he died. She was never able to follow either command. Because, as it turns out, in the real world we don’t get to choose who and how we mourn. It just happens, and Lotus found that it happened to her quite a bit.

    (more…)

  • Kate and Tate were Great

    Trying to find the right time to make the announcement felt impossible. Our last concert? What if it ruined the magic for the audience that night? It wouldn’t be fair. Should we say something early so that anyone who’d wanted to make it to one of our shows could try and scrape together a last minute ticket?


    But the show was already sold out and scalpers were already skyrocketing prices, if it was known this was going to be our last concert, we worried that more people would be likely to get taken advantage of.


    And it’s not like we’d known in advance that we were for sure never going to perform again. It had always been a hypothetical one day with encroaching certainty that it would be this tour. But if we announced it, then we couldn’t ever come back from it.


    So we said nothing leading up to the show. We performed that night as if it were the last concert of our tour, not the last one of our lives. And if we cried a little bit more than usual? If we came back for encore after encore long after we usually would have stopped? Well, no one in the band faulted us. And we let the crowd believe it was because we wouldn’t be performing for a while.


    But things had to end and mom was there to remind us it was past our bedtime and shut the show down. We bid the audience a final, tearful goodbye. Our last farewell as Kate and Tate.


    And then the world didn’t hear from us again.

    (more…)

  • December Stories at the Confabulator Cafe

    Hello, dear readers. Welcome back to the Confabulator Cafe for our final month of stories for this year.

    Our prompt for this month is “goodbyes.” We bid this year, and all of you, a fond farewell.

    Here’s the schedule for December.
    Monday, December 16: “Kate and Tate Were Great” by Eliza Jaquays
    Monday, December 30: “Of Fathers, Ghosts, and Beans” by Dianne Williams

  • Bone Deep (A Witch’s Daughter #3)

    The ebony-black door had been permeating my dreams, its silver bolts, inlay, and door latch glimmering as if winking at me. Dream me stood before it, and I hefted a small key carved from bone in my hand. The blackness of the empty keyhole called to me, and I leaned forward.

    “Come away from that door, child. There’s only black magic that way.”

    My eyes flew opened, and I had to blink away the image of the door from my sight.

    I looked around the tower, but the Hags weren’t paying me any attention. I’d thought one of them had spoken, but if they had, it hadn’t been vocally.

    I wiped drool from my chin as I sat up, struggling off the beanbag chair I’d fallen asleep in. My leg was asleep, though, so I rolled over onto my back, sprawling out on the plush rug that covered the lounge area of the Hags’ tower.

    (more…)

  • October Stories at the Confabulator Cafe

    Autumn is officially here, Halloween only a month away, which means here at the Cafe, we finally have permission to up our creepiness level.

    The prompt for this month was: “To open the door, a person must use a key whittled out of one of his or her own bones.”

    We hope you’ll enjoy the two stories we have for you this month. Here’s the schedule:

    Tuesday, October 15: “Bone Deep” by Sara Lundberg

  • Blood and Darkness

    We lay naked, spooning, on her four-poster bed, the silk sheets having been thrown back during our nocturnal activities. I curl my body up, trying to avoid skin contact, but she curls more tightly around me, not letting me get away, this time.

    “It will only hurt for a second, my love.” Her voice is nearly a purr in my ear. I tuck my hair behind my ear to keep it in place, to keep her breath from making it dance, tickling me.

    “I don’t care about the pain.”

    She traces a finger along my side, and I force myself not to flinch.

    “What is it, then?”

    I take a measured breath to avoid sighing. “You know what.” I may not be afraid of pain, but I am afraid of death.

    “Oh, dear heart. You shouldn’t fear that. You are strong enough.”

    Her tone, rather than making me feel better, makes me feel worse, like she’s talking an ignorant child, lying about how bad the day’s rations were going to taste. We always knew.

    “How can you be sure?”

    (more…)

  • September Stories at the Confabulator Cafe

    When does autumn officially start? Can it begin in September? I think so. The wild sunflowers are already peeking their heads out. Hopefully soon, the weather will cool down, the leaves will begin to change, and neighbors won’t mind Halloween decorations out this early.

    To kick off the Halloween season’s mood, our prompt for this month was “the bite of a creature (insect, animal, person?) either kills you or gives you powers.” Could be spooky or could be super heroes. Only time will tell.

    To find out what our sole Confabulator contributor did with the prompt this month, please visit us on the scheduled day:

    Monday, September 16: “Blood and Darkness” by Sara Lundberg

  • The Cutest Dragon

    This is Norman. Norman is a dragon.

    Norman wasn’t like other dragons. Norman wasn’t scary.

    His friends all had horns, or scales, or long, spikey tails. But not Norman. Norman had cute, fluffy feet. And a cute little nose. And big yellow eyes. His spikes were soft and fluffy. Bright spots dotted his belly and long whiskers tickled his face. His tail ended with a big fuzzy pom pom.

    Norman didn’t like being cute.

    He struggled to hide his cuteness, tearing out his fur and baring his sharp teeth. Being cute made it very hard to scare people.

    “You couldn’t kidnap even one princess looking like that,” his friends said.

    “I could if I wanted to,” Norman muttered under his breath.

    “Oh yeah?” his friends said. The other dragons chose the smallest princess they could find. She was a little girl in a froofy dress sitting beside the pond outside of the castle.

    (more…)

  • August Stories at the Confabulator Cafe

    Welcome back, readers. It’s been rather quiet at the Cafe, these days, and our time is winding down. Our last month of stories will be December.

    I’ll write a bit more about that soon, but in the meantime, please enjoy our August story! Our prompt was treehouses versus castles.

    Thursday, August 15th: “The Cutest Dragon” by Dianne Williams