# Literary Maneuvers September 2022: Beautifully Strange



## Harper J. Cole (Sep 1, 2022)

*Literary Maneuvers September 2022
Beautifully Strange*​
Introduction
Aesthetic eccentricity abounds this month, as we challenge you to write a short story based on the theme of "Beautifully Strange".





650 words max., deadline 23:59 GMT / 18:59 EST, Saturday, 17 September
If you win, you'll get a badge pinned to your profile, plus the chance to enter our Feb 2023 *Grand Fiction Challenge*, which carries cash prizes.

Judging

Our judges include* Vranger,* *KeganThompson*,* Riptide* and *SJ Ward.* If you'd like to volunteer, please let me know via PM or in the Coffee Shop. If you wish to know more about scoring, take a look at the NEW JUDGING GUIDE which also includes a template to use for your scoring. Please use this template for consistency.

Additional

All entries that wish to retain their first rights should post in the LM WORKSHOP THREAD.

*All anonymous entries will be PMed to myself and please note in the PM whether you want your entry posted in the workshop.*

Please check out our Rules and Policies for extra details on the LM contests.

Everyone is welcome to participate, including judges. A judge's entry will receive a review by their fellow judges, but it will not receive a score, though some judges are happy to let you know their score for you privately. Please refrain from 'like'-ing or 'lol'-ing an entry until the scores are posted.

Judges: If you could send the scores no later than* September 30th,* it will ensure a timely release of results. Much later than that and I will have to post with what I have. Again, please see the Judging Guidelines if you have questions. Following the suggested formatting will be much appreciated, too.


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## Louanne Learning (Sep 3, 2022)

*Evie McMurphy

(646 words)*

Evie McMurphy was beautifully strange. She lived next door to me but we never hung out. We played in each other’s backyards when we were little, but high school classified us. I had friends, Evie did not. She was a loner.

We shared one class our sophomore year—Drama. In an improv exercise, Evie and I were paired and went up before the class with the assignment to act out a reunion after a long absence.

I smirked to my audience and hammed it up. “You haven’t changed a bit!” I said.

Evie played rain to my shine. “You have,” she replied, her cheeks hollowed. “The years have darkened your soul. I see a shadow around you. It has tentacles which choke you. And you don’t even seem to notice. You go about, a captive, more about appeasing the monster than finding out who you are.”

Before we left class, I got Evie alone. “Why do you have to be so weird?” I asked her.

She glanced at the cache of popular girls across the room. “You want me to be like them?”

“Well, yeah—fit in—”

She pursed her lips. “Ugh—like being in jail.” She put a hand on my arm. “You know, you don’t have to be funny.”

I blinked. “What?”

“In improv—you don’t have to be funny.” Then she turned on a heel and gave me her back.

The next day, she was washing her father’s car in the driveway. I peeked out the window and got up the courage to go over. “Hi Evie,” I called.

Her hand on the car pushed around a sudsy rag. “What do you want?”

“Nothing—I—uh—why do you ask such questions?”

“It’s my job to ask questions.”

She stood straight, faced me and flustered me. “Rebecca is having a party this Friday,” I blurted. “Want to come?”

“With you?”

“Well, yeah.”

She smiled. Its warmth radiated through me. “I’d love to.”

Evie was an enigma. I had to figure her out.

The party was crowded. All eyes turned to Evie and me as we entered. Rebecca came over and said, “How nice of you to join us, Evie.”

“Thanks for having me.”

“You make the party—shall we say—more _interesting_.”

Rebecca left us. Evie’s eyes were downcast. I said, “They don’t know what to make of you.”

“So—I should be like them so everyone likes me?”

“Don’t you want that?”

The sadness in her face touched my heart. “But then I won’t like myself,” she murmured.

An urge of protectiveness towards her filled me. “Want to get out of here?” I asked.

Her smile was her answer. “Come on,” she said, “—I have something to show you.”

We walked the deserted night-time streets all the way to the abandoned quarry, moonlight glimmering on the water. Standing on the stone ledge at water’s edge, I asked, “Evie, don’t you ever have doubts?”

“Of course. But then I remember some good advice I once read.”

“What’s that?”

“When in doubt, howl.”

“What?”

“Howl!” Then she lifted her chin and let out a howl that could rival the call of the fiercest wolf.

I laughed. “I’m not doing that!”

“What are you afraid of?”

“Looking like an idiot.”

“To who?” she demanded. “It’s just us here.”

“Yeah, but—”

“No buts!—I’d be more afraid of being a coward.”

I laughed and we howled at the moon with all we had. The release was exquisite. Grinning, we turned to one another, and she took my hands in hers. “Be who you are,” she said.

It fell into place. We kissed on the lips and all was right with the Universe.

She hopped into a sprint and I caught up. Two girls who found love. I finally caught up. Rather than me making her normal, she made me free, and beautifully strange.


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## Laima_Bean99 (Sep 3, 2022)

Harper J. Cole said:


> *Literary Maneuvers September 2022
> Beautifully Strange*​
> Introduction
> Aesthetic eccentricity abounds this month, as we challenge you to write a short story based on the theme of "Beautifully Strange".
> ...



Beautifully Strange. 
568 Words.

I know I was born different; it wasn't so apparent to me as a child, but the older I grew, the more pronounced my affliction became. After countless trips to the doctors and weeks of study and surgery, no one was any closer to the truth. You could go as far as to say that I am nothing more than a walking brain, a sexless body with a woman's name. Not even gene testing provided any clear answers. Finally, specialists discovered that I was a mosaic, a mix and match if you will, with some cells in my body having the XY genotype and others having XO. The decision was made to raise me female. 

The only desire I had for my body was to grow a penis or a vagina, to have something that wasn't just an awkward in-between. Hitting around the age of 17, I knew this would not, of course, be possible. 
Nevertheless, the feeling of being alien never faded. I felt as if everyone around me had an innate understanding of their bodies; they knew how to carry themselves and what they desired. My friends were dating, fooling around, giving and receiving hickeys, while I, whose puberty came in pill form, watched alone from the sidelines. I slowly realized that to feel whole; I would need to change myself completely. I dreamed of bigger breasts, mentally calculating that if I somehow developed attributes deemed 'womanly,' I would also start to feel that way. Yet neither the breasts nor the feelings came. Knowing I was incomplete made each day more isolating than the last; where could I find a place to exist if I could not even find solace in the body that homed me? 

Months turned into years, and after countless hormone treatments and discussions of major surgery, I gave up on making a final decision. I was simply an 'unfinished' girl. Doctors and friends desperately wanted me to be someone they could easily categorize. To be a person that can be placed quickly into a 'male' or 'female' ticking box. Yet I occupied all of the boxes and none at the same time. Spiraling into a deep depression, I attempted to take my life in my late twenties. What _was_ I? The question haunted me day in and day out. I knew I was incomplete. I could see that compared to—well, to everyone!—I was numb from the neck down. When would I be finished? 

Along with time, however, came change. 

 I fell in love with Quinn when I turned 38. Coming out as a lesbian was the most powerful act I had ever undertaken. Even despite social pressures and a mountain of shame surrounding my genitals, she was the first person to see me as me, not as a fetish or scientific anomaly. Quinn taught me to love myself without limitation and to see in myself what I had been missing for the majority of my adult life. I wasn't an "unfinished girl"—I was simply butch! I didn't need gender to be able to identify myself sexually; the label simply helped define who I was. I was finally unequivocally and unapologetically myself. 
Looking in the mirror every morning, instead of a faceless mannequin, I see someone proud of who they have become. I see love, resilience, and strength. I smile, finally recognizing that being beautifully strange is better than being nobody at all.


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## Tettsuo (Sep 7, 2022)

The Long Ones (634w)


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## Vera (Sep 7, 2022)

*Choice*

Word count: 593 

"Are you sure?" he asked her.

She looked around the hall, an almost-smile lifting the corners of her mouth. It was cold, but not icy. It was dark, but her eyes saw everything. It was haunted, but the moaning of the guilty didn't bother her.

"Why wouldn't I be?" was her reply.

He crossed his gray arms, the black fabric of his chiton like pitch over the expanse of his chest.

"That is not an answer."

"I already gave you an answer." She frowned. "If you do not want me here, say so. I will leave by morning."

A growl left his throat. Running a hand through closely-shorn hair, he walked to her and said, "I am not talking about the scenery, girl!”

His hands had found her shoulders, as if they would shake some sense into her. She pressed her lips together, studying the lines of his face—heavy brow, aquiline nose, downturned mouth. The gods were supposed to be beautiful; he was not. Not strictly. She liked that about him. She found it easier to speak her mind this way.

“I know what you meant,” she bit back, wrenching herself free. “And I am no girl.”

The stalagmites began to shake. His dark eyes widened; clearly, he hadn’t expected his world to respond to her will so quickly.

_That’s right, Your Majesty, I’m in control now_.

“Your mother is going to be—”

“Livid?” She was smiling again, enjoying how it unsettled him.

“Yes,” he said.

“Does that scare you?”

A gnarled root pushed through the polished marble floors. A ridged trunk appeared not ten paces from them. Nestled in its bunched leaves was a curious round fruit, red as open veins and smooth as firestone.

Ignoring the tree, he leaned close, lips almost brushing her ear, and said, “No. Only you scare me.”

Mineral formations crashed to the floor, scraped loose by the wild tree. The highest branches now reached the stalagmites.

For the first time, the god-king smiled. “You need to calm down.”

It should have been unpleasant, being so close to him. The air around him was strangely warm, completely at odds with the rest of his world.

“I am calm,” she said.

Unable to climb past the onyx ceiling, the tree began growing out, its arms winding through the hall until a network of passages and slings had formed. Twisted branches surrounded them, pushing the god-king closer to her.

His chest pressed to hers. Not warm—scalding hot. She did not flinch.

Almost lazily, she draped her arms around his neck. His slow breaths hitched. His almond eyes flickered with something like…what? Regret? Satisfaction?

She had known him for a long time, could read his face and body like sailors read the clouds. But this expression was new.

“You are strange, goddess,” he said.

“And you are not?”

His arms circled her waist. “You have me there.”

Her arms closed tighter around his neck, bringing his face down to hers. “Will you let me stay, then?”

His lips brushed hers, like ospreys skimming the water. She opened to him, delighting in the feel of his tongue, his taste of smoke and honey. He was sweeter than she had imagined.

“You can stay… But”—he placed his palm on her belly—“if you every want to leave, start a family of your own…”

She folded her hand over his. “I know what I want, and what I don’t.”

The branches slumped with fruit. He plucked one of them and handed it to her.

“Then,” he said, “eat.”


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## SueC (Sep 8, 2022)

*The Strangler Fig Tree*​


_Odd_, _unusual_ and _unexpected_ describe the way the limbs of the Banyan tree twist and turn, dropping roots from branches that stretch out from the main trunk, disregarding traditional tree growth and creating a structure more eloquent and inviting than any other wooden abode by comparison. The tree, sporting long branches that push out like children leaving home, displays woody umbilical cords that camouflage their path back to mother.

They came upon the tree Hawaiian natives called _ka hale_, “the house.” The children from the Midwest had never seen the like. Three boys, walking under branches and through unexpectedly welcoming open spaces, were silently reverent for the moment, and then, spying a branch daring to grow near the ground in its travels, teasing, playfully mocking the dirt beneath that remained static, they saw a climb in their future.

Hours were lost in pursuit of a thrill, of which there was plenty to be had. The trio of youngsters climbed and yelled to one another across expanses, higher and higher, each claiming their own space on some lofty perch; feeling as if all they had to do was reach out and fly. And fly they did, singing childish “lookit me!” songs, joyful in this beautifully strange edifice. No Internet or phones were required or even missed. It was play they sought and play they found.

An accident then. Fatigue robbed one boy of sure-footedness. He felt it was a familiar now, this new Banyan friend, a tree that had allowed him to run on its broad limbs, protecting him from the wasps that hovered almost silently in the air above him, and giving aid as he grasped for support along its branches. He saw several nests, potential life in all as bird-parents hovered, understandably anxious of small hands and eyes peering into their twiggy nurseries.

Hours of this and it only took one slip. He had just put away his Swiss army knife–every boy had one–after carving his initials while standing on a broad limb and lost his balance as he stepped away to admire his handiwork. It was not a long fall, no bones broken, but the pressure of landing on his back pushed air out of young lungs, so all there was to do for the moment was stare up into the woven web above him, amazing branches crisscrossing, weaving a path all the way to Heaven, he thought, and listen to voices of those still enraptured and held to safety in the arms of the great tree.

Too soon, it was time to leave. Darkness under a Banyan does not contain the same fun as in daylight, especially in the middle of a forest already crowded with competition, making the space more treacherous, even on solid ground. The small party made their way out just at dusk. Protesting, they finally accepted they could test no more of the Banyan mysteries, of its surprising twists and turns. Parentals were guiding them back to a tree-less reality.

Nearing the edge of the forest, the lad dared a last look, turning back just once to seek the beautifully strange tree that existed nowhere else in his world. The sun, on the edge of the horizon and a blessing in the moment, its rays filtering through branch after branch until finally reaching him as his eyes, in turn, sought only one spot in the landscape. From that vantage point, it was hard, but yes! He was sure he could see the very branch, the one where he had put his mark, forever to be part of that tree; he knew he could find it again when he returned.

The boyhood memory of “the house” remained all of his days. In old age, he’d see it in his dreams, his initials carved where he knew he could find them still, joyfully calling out “lookit me!” as he did.


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## KatPC (Sep 11, 2022)

*autumn leaves*


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## piperofyork (Sep 12, 2022)

P'Teh's Lullaby


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## Nemz (Sep 12, 2022)

Goo Child

Word count: 650

It was odd, the apparition was gone as soon as it had arrived. It seemed as if it were never there, but for a lingering feeling of presence. However, the message was clear: All of Helen’s life up until this point, was a lie.



2 children, one for each husband, and what was finally becoming a successful career in the form of an offer to be made partner. The oldest was off to school studying what, Helen couldn’t quite remember. She could call to ask of course but the terse replies whose tones were as mono as their syllables, were too much to bear. Each begrudged response of ya, its fine, no, we broke up, I gotta go, nails in a coffin, in which laid the image of ‘mother’ in her firsts eyes. The second was better off, at least his father was still alive, but was just as far removed from her daily life. Dad was always home, thanks to ‘mum’ he could afford to be, but it didn’t leave ‘mum’ in very good standing as a parent.

“You try explaining to a 5 year old the motives of a suffering 30 year old widow, throwing work into the hungry mouth of a demon called grief. One who bore an unwanted pregnancy to please a trophy husband 20 years her junior, himself just a desperate grasp at fleeting tendrils of a love tragically lost. All while contextualizing single income bread winner relationships.” Helen assembled these muttered defenses for herself as if _she _were the phenomenological accuser, just witnessed. “Especially when you are 55 and have been working 98 hours on a case that could ‘bad apple’ an otherwise fruitful career” adding another line under her breath while reaching for a deposition to re-read for the -enth time. Clutching the statement like the anchor it was, fleshy vice grips ripping the file, like a boat being rocked by a storm that threatened to swallow it as the ocean would a ship: in pieces and without notice. The main sail soaked with sobs as her head hit a sea floor formed of fine teak wood. Eons passed until the janitors gentle request arrived: “Mrs. Tagstadt, may I come empty the garbage?” Barely hearing him over silent heaves of crippling anguish, “No!” composing her voice as much as possible. “No.” the second response, steadied with mock calm. “All these years” thinking as she sat up “I still haven’t grieved”. Hands on temples combined decisions to go home and surprise, as translucent webs of goo connected probing fingers to stray hairs. “Its ectoplasm” explained the apparition, smiling. Now more than mere ghostly form, it was just about as solid as Helen. “What the fu-” She was barely able to say before a stretch armstrong like appendage reached quivering lips, laying a pointer finger across them, while whispering “shhhh”.

Overcome, she softened then slept.



The dream state was visceral, more than it had been in decades. Looking about the astral form and thinking back to the day’s when terminology to exactly match experiences wasn’t needed. As dreaming children have less want for accurate diction. Helen, in her favorite red suit -though it felt as if it were made of 1400 thread count silk- stared, awestruck. “Now we can communicate directly, its also quite hard for me to maintain form in the 3D plane”, the voice was her own! Helen not only felt shock but watched it reverberate, lime green pulsing through the surroundings. The form beheld clear as light-less day: her own seven year old self. Helen’s hand stretched forward like some comic book characters, touching Helen’s forehead. A pale blue glow filled both bodies with warm, vibrating grace, illuminating the path to be taken upon awaking.

With a start, her eyes flung open.



Within 15 minutes of waking, a resignation letter was drafted.

Eric would be furious, but Helen was glowing.


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## Lawless (Sep 13, 2022)

(645w)

*The Lost Gift of Insight*

It all started when I saw a picture book of Dunhuang, a site in China with marvelous murals in Buddhist cave monasteries. I yearned to visit Dunhuang ever since. Fast forward ten years, and there I was, in the city in the middle of a desert after two nights on the Beijing–Ürümqi train.

#

We stand near the entrance to the caves site, a dozen Western tourists. A few employees with name tags idle nearby. They ask me where I'm from, America? I shake my head and say the name of my country. It doesn't seem to mean anything to them, or maybe I can't pronounce it correctly. I say "_Ouzhou_" which means "Europe" and they nod in understanding and smile, and I smile.

The lighting in the caves could be better, but I suppose they want to protect the thousand-year-old murals. Many of them are quite discolored already. There are landscapes, buildings, deities, people, animals... It's a truly amazing place. And only a small part of the site is open to the public.

As I'm back in the open air, an old man with a name tag approaches and says something I can't understand. Apparently he offers to show me something special. So I follow him. He unlocks a wooden gate and motions me to enter.

A corridor leads to a cave somewhat wider than the others. There's a large mural depicting two female figures flying above a bizarre landscape of mountains and buildings. The man tells me they're called "apsara". I believe it's something from Indian mythology.

I'm stunned by the vivid colors, strikingly different from the faded murals I saw in the other caves. Why are they keeping this from the tourists?

The more I stand there, the more I'm drawn to that outlandish, yet so alluring scene. I suddenly remember a stray dog who wanted to make friends with me at a bus stop many years ago, then the cheeky sparrow who kept flying into my kitchen last summer whenever the balcony door was open. I have to smile, and I could swear the flying apsaras smile back. I feel connected to the universe itself. Everything makes sense. Everything is the way it's supposed to be.

I feel like I'm home. This is where I belong.

Something tugs on my arm. What? I tear myself loose from the hypnotic mural and look surprised at the old man who motions that it's time to leave. Oh. Sure.

After he has locked up behind us, he asks me to give him 10 yuan. Is he crazy? I give him a 100-yuan banknote. He shakes his head. He has no change. I say in English it's all right and he seems to understand and bows. He leads me to the exit where the other tourists are already waiting in the hotel minibus.

#

The next days, I strolled aimlessly in the city. I looked in the faces of people of all ages. I watched the cars drive over a bridge across a wide riverbed without a single drop of water in it. I went everywhere like I was a part of it, and people told me things with their gestures, their facial expressions and their incomprehensible guttural dialect. And I understood everything they said.

Too soon I had to get on a train to catch my flight home.

That bliss stayed with me for a couple of weeks. I remember it, but I'm no longer able to feel it. Every time I read a book about China, I long to return to Dunhuang, to somehow get to that cave again that is not open to the public. But I know it's not going to happen.

And here I am once more, looking at the sparrow sitting on the edge of my kitchen balcony. It has become too cold to keep the door open.


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## KellInkston (Sep 14, 2022)

*Aurora Fatalis

(648w)*


“Beautifully Strange?” the lean mercenary on the right huffs out from his speaker as he nearly trips over the ridge, almost planting his newly forged helmet into the purple-gray snowstorm.

The mercenary on the left, jacketed over with a worn atmosphere suit, gives an airy sigh. “That’s what they said,” the densely-coated man says as he limberly navigates the snow drift with his two rifles in tow.

“Ain’t no such thing, sir,” the one on the right says, “Beautiful is beautiful. _Strangeness_ is creepy: the shit that crawls around-”

“Naw, it’s not like that, Ged. It’s… it’s like when you the rations are just finished bein’ heated up in the canteen. How it bubbles like a microwaved marshmallow.”

Ged, the one on the right, slings his gaze through his visor over to the man at his side, “A _wha-_”

“Never you mind it,” the man on the left scoffs. “You’ve never seen one- just sugar, but specially treated... Anyway, the rations.”

“In the microwave, right.”

“How it expands, Ged.”

Ged sighs. “…Yeah?”

The man on the left waves out a hand in dramatic presentation. “_Strangely beautiful._”

“Okay sir, whatever.”

The one on the left flinches with a playful indignant, like a golden retriever deprived of his fetching stick. “Wh- now just what the hell you mean, _whatever?_ That was a perfect analogy!”

“Sir,” Ged snips, “I’m not about analogies, and I don’t agree. _Food_ is not strangely beautiful. It could be shaped like _anything_, and it’ll still just be food.”

“Even if it was shaped like Caina- _w-easy there, sprout!_”

He narrowly side-steps a swing from Ged, but the kid is too slow in his kit that it’s more like watching a penguin try to slap someone with his wings.

“Now you just shut the fresh hell up about her, _sir!_“ Ged warns.

“Oh? I didn’t think you to be so defensive ‘bout ‘er. Really she’s just the kinda person I’d consider _strangely beautiful._”

“Not you too!” Ged shouts before failing another swing.

The man on the left reels out a long, unbothered laugh.

“No, I’ll be nice. The other boys give it to you well enough… she’s a right catch, you know.”

“I…” Ged sighs as he steps neatly and carefully around a dilapidated pile of what was clearly a heatsuit at some time. “Thank you.”

“Well no bother about it, ki-”

“About more than that, I mean. You’re a good guy, Van.”

Ged can practically hear the wide smile forming across Van’s mouth as his whiskers brush against his suit-bound mic.

“Shucks, kiddo. Don’t tell anyone I said it– they’ll think I’ve gone so-”

_*beep*_

Like the cessation of formalities before a race, the two men immediately turn to the bulky device on Ged’s forearm.

“It’s… wow, it’s at point forty,” he reports.

“And this thing is supposed to be at a point thirty-eight,” Van notes. “Probably visible just over this ridge here.”

The two men clamber steady and slow up the steepest part of the ridge before their steps begin evening out. Just as the waypoint said, they find themselves at the base of the waystation.

“There, goddamn. Finally,” Ged puffs out as he steps into the brutalist concrete structure, lit only by the scant reflections of the snow outside.

“Ready?” Van asks, flipping the two firearms off his back and producing one for the young man. “You’ll need to drop most of that kit.”

“Right,” Ged agrees, already in the process of ditching most of his suit-bound modules on the floor.

A few seconds of clicking plastic and plopping Kevlar passes, and the boy takes up his rifle.

“Let’s do this,” he adds.

They ascend the spiral staircase up to the observation deck, and they can see the other side of the mountain.

Ged’s labored breath suddenly draws quiet when he sees it floating in the sky.

“Well?” Van asks.

“…_Strangely beautiful_,” Ged admits.


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## Taylor (Sep 15, 2022)

Silent Moments


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## rcallaci (Sep 15, 2022)

When Water Washes against the Desert Sand(650 w)

The desert air chilled the personification suits we inhabited as we watched the stars and their companions do their dance in the night sky. This beautifully strange nightscape full of flickering stars, raging comets, and falling meteors against a moonless night was truly breathtaking beyond imagining. We were mesmerized by this frightening display of celestial anger. We all knew Gaia’s time, Old Mother Earth, was coming to an end, but at least the blue planet was going out with bang rather than a whimper. A premature death was to be the fate of this magnificent planet due to humankind’s constant warmongering and need for technological superiority, no matter the dire environmental impact that it created. It choked the life out of Gaia. It was a primary factor in her impending demise. And now due to humanity’s hubris the planet that gave them birth and nurtured them from infancy to adulthood was now in its final death rattle.

Every millennium or so we take on these personification suits to witness the end-stages and final fading of a sentient celestial body. These suits imbue us with a bevy of emotions so that we can fully embrace the heartbreak of what will be lost forever in time. The dying ones also don the suit as well. It gives us a chance to say our goodbyes and bestow our blessings. Gaia’s impending death was particularly hard on Solaris. He knelt beside his child and gently caressed her. Tears glistened in both their eyes as they said their final goodbyes.

Gaia left Solaris’s embrace, stood before us, and sang her last song. It was a melancholy dirge that celebrated her life as well as her imminent death. It filled us with a sense of joy as well as a deep well of sadness. All the outer and inner solar systems heard her song. With her last bit of strength Gaia commanded the winds to carry the last vestiges of the waters to gently wash over the desert sands. Gaia’s final breath turned the desert into a great lake where she let herself drown in her own tears. All the sentient Suns and planets in the outer and inner solar systems wept.
………..​
“Regent Commander we’re being bombarded with light and sound that’s coming from our former solar system. To be exact it’s coming from Old Earth. It’s an invasion! _What are you_ _babbling about, our ancestors strip-mined that system centuries ago, there’s_ _nothing left living on that dead rock._ Don’t you hear it! Singing, for God-sakes someone’s singing a damn song. IT’S DEAFENING, I CAN’T THINK STRAIGHT, AND THOSE LIGHTS THEIR BLINDING, THERE HEADING RIGHT FOR US.”

…………​
All the world was transfixed by the vision they were seeing within their minds. A golden being with a halo of fire swirling above his head carrying a beautiful woman in a skin of green in his massive arms. Tears of blood flowed down his cheeks as he gently laid her down on a sea of clouds.

In a booming voice he said: “Look upon your mother whom you wantonly killed with arrogance and stupidity. I’m Solaris, the consciousness of over a thousand suns. In over thousands upon thousands of worlds where I succor, sustain and love; only thirteen planets’ have gained full consciousness. Your pitiful species has maimed and killed one of them, my beloved child Gaia. She loved you even when you were raping and killing her. But in the end when you totally abandoned her and left her bones to rot is when hatred bloomed. If it was up to me, I would burn your planet and colonies to dust but she had other tortures in mind. You shall hear her song till the end of days, it will split your eardrums and sizzle your brains. Your kind are not worthy to inhabit the outer and inner solar systems. Look upon her and weep…

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## Ladyserpentine (Sep 16, 2022)

*Shattered Kingdom*


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## Matchu (Sep 17, 2022)

https://www.writingforums.com/threads/lm-secure-thread-september-2022-beautifully-strange.199799/post-2417279


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## Harper J. Cole (Sep 17, 2022)

*Topiary*
_by Anon_
650 words by Scrivener, 660 by Word because it counts ellipses as words​
I’ve always been fascinated by topiary. The patience. The time required. The vision.

The street of my youth ended in a cul-de-sac, and from the circle a drive extended up the hill. You could see the top of the house with its turrets at each corner and the fanciful fairy-tale gingerbread house painting scheme … all pastels … and all pastels of a primary.

Twelve-foot boxwood hedges hid the building’s lower floors, thick and impenetrable. They were immaculately trimmed although I never saw a lawn service or anyone else with clippers.

A wrought iron gate protected the drive, operated by a remote-controlled motor. No one on the street knew who lived in the house, which all the kids called “The Witch’s Castle”. We didn’t think a witch lived there, and it didn’t really look like a castle, but you know how kids are.

The owner couldn’t have been a witch because the gate never opened for Halloween trick-or-treaters, and we all knew a real witch would want to entice children to capture them for miscellaneous arcane spells … or maybe a snack. Kids back then knew all about Hansel and Gretel.

Sometimes I’d see the gate open long enough for a classic car to drive out. The darkened window gave no view of the driver … or passengers if such there were. Eventually I got interested and rode my bike to the library to look in picture books of old cars. I identified it as a 1927 Austin 20 tourer … menacing grill and all. I used to think about jumping onto the running board and hanging on to find out where they went. We never saw the car parked at the grocery store or anywhere else. It left the street and seemed to vanish.

Once, I tried to follow it on my bike. I thought I’d easily keep up since it never went fast. It must have been an off day. My legs tired after the second corner the Austin turned, and I struggled to catch up to the intersection. When I got there it had disappeared. Oddly, my legs worked just fine as I turned the other direction toward the ballpark.

When next the Austin left, I rode up the hill and leaned my bike into the hedge. For a boy of eleven, the gate held no challenge. I climbed the wrought iron, perched on top, and jumped over. Kids do that. Adults break a leg or tear up a knee.

I walked up the curving drive and beheld my first topiary. Topiary filled the lawn in random spots. The one closest was a bear and twice the height I expected a bear to be. I walked around it and saw ducks … huge ducks. Bush-sized squirrels. Dogs the size of dire wolves, but recognizable breeds … a German Shepard, a Doxen, a Great Dane … and others. Everything grew more than life-sized, of course. You can’t have a sculptured bush the size of a squirrel or a duck, can you?

I saw the base of the house for the first time, or part of it. From a perimeter boxwood hedge, shoots sprang out at random. Some boxwoods seemed to be further out, as if trying to escape an orderly row.

One had reaching branches I thought looked all the world like arms stretching out … an entreaty for assistance.

I regarded everything in sight as beautiful, if utterly strange to my sixth-grade experience. I decided to leave, and found my feet rooted to the spot. Literally rooted. When I managed to pull up my shoe, tendrils extended into the turf. In those days I didn’t say things like “What the FUCK?!” I do now.

I took my Boy Scout knife and cut myself loose, then got off the grass back onto the drive … and LEFT.

By the time I left home for college the boxwood hedge was scraggly. I never found out who lived there.


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## YggNate (Sep 17, 2022)

*Growing Pleasures - 650 words*

Between the two of them, they were sure they could make the future up. She had shown the kid how to fly standing, and he knew it really worked. You always ended up at something new that everyone else would then catch up on. It was a headstart on the day.

‘You have to keep your base solid, really dig your heels in!’

They had both been standing inside her khaki and olive coloured tent, the biggest on the site. It had been cleared a day earlier for an important dig, seeking a Scythian treasure hoard. The kid laughed up at her, holding out his arms like any kid doing aeroplanes.

‘But I feel like I am flying! Look Zara,’ he laughed again, almost bursting with hysterics and losing his balance, ‘don’t you feel it? I don’t know where the floor is anymore!’

She laughed too now, but glanced down at him through a still half-serious squint. He reminded her of when she had first learned to do it, the secret flying, and it was exhilarating. But it still required skill and that required respect.

‘Be serious, let the ground come up at you. And you go forward towards what you want. This is just the beginning, you will get better at it.’

He sensed the tentatively grave notes creeping into her manner and cleared his throat. Screwing up his eyes he looked through his forehead into a glass earth. It was kind of like an electrified ball of wool, spinning in all directions at once under the balls of his feet. He checked her stance and saw she was bending her knees like a skier taking bumps.

‘I’m going for a find. A big find! I’m going to discover something outside that gets me in the newspapers!’

She carried on, chasing her six bedroom detached in the Florida hills. Zara had been flying standing on her new porch since she learned the technique in the New Mexico desert. Within a month of beginning she had been posted as a research archaeologist and moved out of her car into a colleague’s spacious apartment. Three moves since had all been upgrades.

‘Okay well, be careful, if you’re too specific it can backfire on you.’

The kid wrestled with this. Starting to work the little dips into his legs that seem to come naturally with the thrust into the possibles. It seemed strange, but kind of made sense. Only so many futures could be feasible and anything was not exactly something. Something too specific must make everything recoil.

‘I can see it, it’s beautiful! It’s like a golden bell but it has a door in it and there’s like this steam coming out of the top of it. And the door has a window in it and it’s got purple fire inside. That can’t be how it is now though? That can’t be how it is now! That’s how it was!’

Zara was moving through the destined trajectories of, first, everyone she had ever interacted with, next, everyone else. This had started happening more and more in her flight. In the not too distant future it seemed physical limitations would be radically reappraised. Telepathy and teleportation might be the pop science terms for it, but they didn’t do it justice.

‘You’re going to do okay. We’re all going to do alright. Everything is going to get better, you’ll see!’

The kid was approaching young manhood now, his whole body flicking up and out like a building bonfire in the tent. He could see his desk and his framed certification of discovery for the bell. And he could see his beautiful braided wife, barefoot and giving readings on the porch.

‘Tell me if I am moving too fast,’ he stepped forward to her closed eyes and raised face, peering in fierce contemplation and now beneath his, ‘I guess this is me being early.’


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## tonsonenotany (Sep 17, 2022)

Cratr


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