Full Moon Story: Blissful Skies

(UPDATE: The full moon story series was only available in 2017. All stories posted in 2017 have been taken down.)

It’s another full moon, which means it’s time for a new story. This moon’s story involves a peculiar celestial event as the earth passes through a field of cosmic debris that creates periodic meteor showers. But, really, it’s a story about a little boy that hates his grandmother.

Blissful Skies

Through his bedroom window Rolando watched the cascade of shimmery lines sparkle on and off across the horizon as the tiny fires lit up the night sky. He knelt on a wicker laundry hamper his mother rescued from a curbside years before, his arms folded on the window ledge, his head pressed against the screen. He was small for his age and the fraying wicker felt sturdy under his knees. The meteor shower sent a literal shiver of delight up his spine.

“Close your window.” He was startled by his abuela’s sudden presence behind him. She reached over him, slammed the window shut, locked it, and let down the blinds. Rolando’s abuela, his grandmother his mother always corrected him, could barely reach the window over the hamper. She wore a threadbare and stained floral nightgown, her parakeet Prettypretty perched on her shoulder.

“It is not safe when the meteors are falling. Go brush your teeth, it is time for bed.” Without a word Rolando carefully slipped from the hamper, then moved quickly to the small bathroom to brush his teeth with a Mickey Mouse toothbrush he’d used as long as he could remember.

Read the rest here.

New Story: The Conscience Switch

(UPDATE: The full moon story series was only available in 2017. All stories posted in 2017 have been taken down.)

It’s the first full moon of 2017! That means it’s story time.

The blog goal for this year is to publish a story every full moon. This moon’s story is “The Conscience Switch.”

Ever wonder why humanity’s humanity seems intermittent? It turns out there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation.

“The Conscience Switch”

“All morning he watched reports of soldiers abandoning their posts, drone operators walking away from their consoles, billionaires donating substantial sums to charity, pundits recanting their hate speech, criminals turning themselves into the police, high-level politicians resigning their positions, priests and rabbis and pastors and imams admitting they didn’t believe in God. Every moment, someone was clearing their conscience.”