The Confabulator Cafe

Author: dwilliams

  • 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…)

  • 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…)

  • Career Day

    “Well that escalated quickly,” Pri said.

    She sat on the bare floor across from me in our shitty apartment, mugs in hand. We watched the cheap coffee table between us in rapt attention, where most of a law textbook had grown. Only the last inch was left, still wriggling out of the wood. The wood of the table squealed like nails on a chalkboard as the book worked itself out.

    “Has your career grown in, yet?” I asked her. I didn’t mean it to come out in a whisper. Speaking any louder seemed to make the whole thing real.

    “Not even a hint. I thought only prodigies and shit got their careers in their teens. Is there such a thing as a law prodigy? Oooh, are you going to be a supreme court justice?”

    It started as nothing but a nub in the wood when we noticed it, something we could have polished out tomorrow morning. Maybe something that we should have polished out. The first book of my budding future had grown in before the end of our first cup of coffee. We were planning to go dancing tonight, but Pri had changed into sweats. I was still in my sequined dress, heels discarded by the door.

    The textbook made a little popping sound and a bang as it settled on the table, fully formed and properly inanimate. I couldn’t touch it. I couldn’t stand to look at it but I couldn’t look anywhere else. I thought the grain of the wood beside the book wavered. Maybe it was just a shadow passing over the knot. I couldn’t get two books in one night. No one had two books grow in their first night.

    Pri cocked her head ninety degrees to read the title. “‘Questions and Explanations for Civil Procedure.’ Sounds dull as fuck.”

    I slammed my mug down over the knot in the wood to keep it from shifting again. “We should go out.”

    “You’re not gonna read your book tonight?” Pri asked.

    “I’m not even going to be a lawyer. I can’t afford to be a lawyer,” I said, getting my keys. “C’mon. If you don’t want to change then at least let’s get some food or something.”

    (more…)

  • Lisa West and the Goat

    Lisa West was used to receiving odd messages. Running a 24-hour bakery brought that kind of thing to her. Well, that and her moonlighting career as a spy. Not a detective. She was pretty sure you needed a license for that and she hated the imagery of teenage heroines hunting ghosts. She’d discovered last year that her hometown was crawling with spies, so what was one more joining the profession?

    But lately the messages were getting weirder.

    She’d checked into the motel 15 minutes ago when she found a package on the grimy bedspread in the room. It beeped at her and kept beeping until she tore it open to find out what she had.

    She found a burner phone inside, of the ancient flip phone variety, and tipped it into her hand. It flashed a text message at her.

    “Bring the money to the place where the wheat meets the light at sundown.”

    (more…)

  • Hero Day

    The bells in the towers rang out through the kingdom on the first anniversary of evil vanquished. From behind reinforced palace walls dripping with spikes and arrow slots, the queen heard music drift up from the town.

    “The townspeople celebrate our success,” she said offhandedly as her dresser laid out the day’s finery.

    “Yes ma’am. They celebrate someone’s success.”

    “Whose?” the queen asked, watching her head dresser from the mirror as the woman drew her lips tight. “Whose success do they celebrate, Madge?”

    “They celebrate our hero, today.”

    “Their hero… The many men and women who fought to free this kingdom from evil, you mean?”

    “Yes, ma’am. I’m sure that’s what I mean.”

    But the queen was not an idiot and she did not come to power by ignoring the signs when she was being put off. She went to the dark cabinet in her dressing room, the one where her previous life was locked away. The cabinet was dark wood the color of a forest burned by fire. The brass lock was kept oiled, the filigree dusted. From the outside, it looked like any other fine cabinet in the palace. The musk of old lavender and cedar chips trapped too long assaulted her face as she opened the door. This was her life before. The life she lived in exile. The lessons lived with her even though she was careful not to let them show.

    She slipped into her previous identity more easily than letting down her hair. The guise of a young man sat on her shoulders, his face covered by desert cloth, his boots and gauntlets fine but built for utility rather than artifice. She slipped from the window before there were questions among the staff and joined the crowd into the city proper.

    (more…)

  • The Strength of Winter

    There was too much summer in Winter when she met the other queens. Blackberry wine burned her stomach as Summer and Autumn approached, pale in the blue light of her palace. Summer shivered in her cotton dress, her sandaled feet ankle deep in snow. Winter understood the bitter touch of ice. Her wife was dead. The winter would not end by her choice.

    “Come to wrest power away from me, sisters?” Winter welcomed the hollowness the summer berries carved inside of her.

    “The winter months have long passed and Spring is due her right to rule in turn,” Autumn said beneath the carved arches.

    Winter laughed, gesturing to her ice palace around them. Windows of interlocking snowflakes, her crown of icicles, tapestries spun from frozen threads. All of her nice things. The rooms that her wife, Nadine, spent time in. The statues of her, carved in ice. Her face was already fading from Winter’s mind.

    “You speak of turns like we’re children? You would take everything I’ve built this season and leave me with a puff of frost amongst the dew.”

    “We want to help,” Autumn said. “We were sorry to hear of her death.”

    A flash of a memory burned Winter’s mind before she managed to freeze it back out. Dark skin against the snow. The warmth of her kiss. Rage bubbled up hard and cold. “You were against us from the very beginning.”

    (more…)

  • At the Edge of the World

    At the Edge of the World Dave thought it was a Tuesday when the stranger came. He’d tried to keep track, but it was hard. He was certain he’d missed days in his counting. There was no work week without civilization to insist on it. The world was gone and the only time that still existed was right now.

    From the window in the kitchen, he watched Jonathon out in the garden, trying to pollinate the cucumber blossoms without any honey bees left to do the job. Jonathon poked at each tiny flower with a dirt-covered finger, convincing them to give up their pollen. He looked up and gave Dave a goofy smile, smearing dirt across his forehead. Dave laughed, short and sharp. But it was gone quickly as the memories of the world pushed back in on him.

    Behind Jonathon, the laundry snapped in the warm, salt-flavored air, a soft contrast to the crusty ground and crashing waves beyond. Tuesday was always for laundry.

    In the distance, the silhouette of a man crossed the isthmus that connected their homestead to a larger piece of land. No one had crossed that land in years. Dave had finally stopped feeling that clench in his stomach every time he looked toward it and now his stomach dropped. He called out to Jonathon, who hadn’t noticed him yet, while he went to get the shotgun.

    (more…)

  • Help My Elf

    Please, Please, Please Help My Elf

    This project is fully-funded.

    Amount requested: $100

    Amount raised: $1,225.18

    Backers: 1

    Hello and welcome to my Crowdfunder. My name is Bethany and I am asking for between a hundred and two hundred dollars to help my elf.

    Every year in December my elf, Mr. Sparkles, comes to my house all the way from the North Pole. Mom says that he comes to tell on me to Santa if I’m naughty, but Mr. Sparkles is a naughty elf, himself. He poops chocolate kisses on our mantle piece every year and one time I found him hanging from our ceiling fan all wrapped up in Christmas ribbon! Ha! I’ve tried to tell him that he needs to be nicer, but Mom yells at me if I talk to Mr. Sparkles too much. She says that I don’t have time to play silly games.

    This year, Mr. Sparkles didn’t show up at my house. Mom told me that he probably got into trouble at the North Pole and can’t get here this year. She also told me that I shouldn’t worry about it. And she told me that worrying about elves is silly. And she told me that he’s probably just lost in a box somewhere upstairs, but I don’t think that one is possible. He got stuck in a jar one year, but I’ve never seen Mr. Sparkles in a box, ever. And she told me that if I wanted my damn elf so bad I should just go find him. So I’m going to.

    I read a book once on polar explorers and I know that it requires a lot of funding, which Mom says means money. I already have the sled. My dog Scotty will come with me. I have a backpack and a good coat and I can make my own sandwiches to pack as long as they’re peanut butter or cheese. I just need the funding for my journey.

    Risks: It will be very cold and I might miss my toys and friends.

    Deadline: December 21 so I have time to get to the North Pole and back before Christmas so I can open my presents on Christmas morning.

    One comment:

    Nikolas

    Dearest Bethany. Mister Sparkles misses you. Head north. Watch for the reindeer. They’re on their way for you. Merry Christmas.

  • Spelunking

    On days where a field trip is required I always find a new dress in my closet.

    Treasure will be found if you only get off your couch and dig for it beneath the cushions. 5 17 18 24 93

    It was an oddly specific fortune cookie. But when one of the kids in my classroom gets an oddly specific fortune with their chow mein, it can only mean that it’s field trip day. The dress covered in springs and couch pillows makes sense now.

    “Come on, kids! Everyone aboard the bus!”

    No one ever asked about the bus. Not the school board. Not the administration. Not the other bus drivers.

    “Not another field trip.”
    “I thought we were going to learn long division this week.”
    “Not again, Mrs. Frizzle,” the children whined.

    “Hup to, hup to. Learning requires sacrifices from time to time,” I said, clapping my hands together.

    The kids dutifully filed out to the bus and took their seats. The bus winked a headlight on me as I boarded behind them. I dropped into the driver’s seat and starting cranking things like I had any idea what I was doing.

    The bus knew the way, though. The bus always knew the way. (more…)

  • Motorcycle Jack

    Her name was Motorcycle Jack and I didn’t know whether I wanted to be her or to fuck her when we met.

    “Motorcycles aren’t just machines. Motorcycles have a soul. They’re better than people.” That was her motto and I adopted it like the eleventh commandment the summer I worked the round-up, sitting beneath the stars on the dry plains listening to her wisdom. I was a hired hand, helping to bring in the car herds on an old paint they’d given me. That bike was a rust bucket, prone to problems no matter how I nursed the throttle. No faster than the cars we were bringing in, but I rode her with pride and a sore ass until we reached the plant.

    2,000 hood of cars on their way to Detroit. Dumb beasts, on their way to be stripped for parts at the end of the line.

    The days were long and the nights were short and uncomfortable. I would stare at the sky and wonder what the hell I was doing there. But there was money. There was the open road. And there was Jack.

    We were deep into the trail when we spotted the Harley. Every head in the camp went up. Her engine thrummed as we strained for the sound of a road bell on her, but none came. A road bell meant she was lost and probably registered. Without one she was a wild Harley and she was beautiful.

    Quick as a snake, I grabbed my rope and rushed my old jalopy to life. If I could rope myself a Harley I would be a true cowboy, destined for a life on the plains. Six other engines roared their full-throttled agreement beside me as everyone mounted up. The other hands weren’t riding borrowed rust buckets. Their engines didn’t backfire as they crested the hill. These were seasoned pros in pursuit.

    Motorcycle Jack was in the lead, whooping and hollering as the wind picked up against us.

    I was outclassed. As my tires slid in the muddy ruts the other bikes left behind, the Harley climbed the next hill like it was nothing but flat ground, unbothered by pedestrian worries like gravity and torque. She took the downhill like a river over a waterfall. She was grace incarnate. A creature born not to the plains, but placed here by some deity to show us all what freedom could be. In that moment, she was the only creature I loved more than Jack.

    I pulled my bike up and watched Jack give chase. We cheered her on as each hand pulled up. It was clear she was the only one who had any chance of catching the Harley. I screamed until my throat was raw. I don’t even remember what the words were. My spirit soared with the Harley as Jack gave chase. (more…)