The Confabulator Cafe

Tag: leftovers

  • The Stork’s Feather

    The fortune teller studied the side of my palm. Her slender fingers traced the lines of my calloused hand, turning it this way and that to catch the light. I kept my eyes off of her, concentrating on the colorful tapestries on the wall. I knew what she was looking for. And I already knew what she would find.

    “You’ll never have any children,” she said.

    “I know,” I replied.

    Those lines had been scraped off of the side of my hand years ago. She must have seen the half line. The faint, broken line that signified my unborn child. She was tactful not to mention it. Most practitioners loved to bring it up. They liked to play it up to prove that they knew their business. But she sounded like she was giving me the specials. ‘You’ll never have kids, oh and the soup of the day is broccoli cheese.’ She didn’t even sound sad about it.

    “It doesn’t have to be this way if you don’t want it,” the woman said. (more…)

  • The Cow of Cthulhu

    On the morning of the unfathomable event, I, Robert Joseph Edgerton III, was awaken from a fitful slumber by a heavy knock upon my bed chamber door.

    “Bobby Joe,” my mother said. “You’d best get out of that bed and get to breakfast. Those chores ain’t gonna to do themselves.”

    I wiped a crust of sleep from the corner of my eye. My faithful feline companion Applejack stretched and then leapt from my feather-stuffed mattress. Applejack and I had spent my sleeping hours exploring the Dreamlands city of Ulthar, using sleep techniques promoted by my renowned professors. My feline guide had escorted me on a tour of the legendary village where no man may kill a cat. (more…)

  • Autumn’s Fall

    Flutter shivered as the cold north wind blew a handful of red leaves past her and whipped them out of sight. The Heart Tree had already lost so many of its leaves. It couldn’t have many left. Would she reach it before the last one fell?

    The gonging of a bell, deep and resonate, announced another leaf had gone. She quickened her pace, curling her useless wings around her to ward off the chill. She had to get to the red oak at the center of the city.

    The corn stalks that circled the city, dead and barren from the early frost, were bent at awkward angles from the wind. She wasn’t sure if it was a trick of the light or if a figure stood among them, watching her. She glanced nervously over her shoulder and jumped as stalks cracked behind her.

    She broke into a run, dry laughter—or was it only the wind?—at her heels.

    Once she was past the city wall, she put her hands on her knees and panted, trying to catch her breath. Not that she was safe. Far from it. Everything in this city would try to stop her on her quest. (more…)

  • January Stories at the Confabulator Cafe

    Happy New Year, friends! Welcome back to another year of free fiction from us here at the Confabulator Cafe. We’re brainstorming all new prompts and preparing for another awesome year of storytelling to entertain you all.

    We’re kicking off this year with a 2015 throwback, though. January is going to be what we’re calling a “leftover” month, because after the holidays, we’re too tired to cook and we still have tons of frozen leftovers from Thanksgiving and the holidays.

    So visit us all this month for a bit of a “best-of” as we all revisit our favorite prompt from 2015. And keep coming back all year for brand new, free fiction that we write just for you.

    Here’s the January schedule!

    Friday, January 1: “Autumn’s Fall” by Sara Lundberg
    Friday, January 8: “Home in Time for Cake” by Aspen Junge
    Monday, January 11: “The Cat Came Back” by Emily Mosher
    Friday, January 15: “The Cow of Cthulhu” by Jack Campbell, Jr.
    Friday, January 22: “The Stork’s Feather” by Dianne Williams
    Friday, January 29: “The Workers’ Tower” by Ashley M. Hill