Month: April 2017

Perfection

Glad you could join us for the next perilous episode of Elliot’s Adventures. If you’re new here, you can catch up by returning to the beginning, and reading really fast…

Elliot P
Photo credit: Uda Dennie

Elliot’s touch was as soft as breath, as gentle as love, but it did not resurrect the divine creature laid out before him. He wept.

Juliet leaned her head against James’ neck, her own tears flowing.

“Hey, Jules,” James wrapped his wing around her, “maybe that CPA stuff you do can, like, help her. You know, like you helped the little guy.”

“You mean CPR?” she asked, looking up at him with bemused affection.

“Sure, whatever.”

“I’m afraid it’s too late.”

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Overwhelmed

Glad you could join us for the next obligatory episode of Elliot’s Adventures. If you’re new here, you can catch up by returning to the beginning, and reading really fast…

Elliot O
Photo credit: Uda Dennie

One by one, the ducks bobbed upright aiming toward the mossy knoll. Unable to see their faces, Elliot waited, anxiety swelling within his chest, squeezing his frozen heart with an iron fist of dread.

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“Nooooooo!!!”

Glad you could join us for the next nail-biting episode of Elliot’s Adventures. If you’re new here, you can catch up by returning to the beginning, and reading really fast…

Elliot N
Photo credit: Lee Daniels

Before Elliot’s scream skidded to a halt, the mushroom cap sat empty over an expanding set of ripples.

Juliet was the first to jump into the water.

“Come on, you guys!” she called, paddling hard and fast for the center of the vanishing rings. “Are you really gonna let the little guy’s chance for True Love slip away?”

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Mysterious Mushroom Maiden

Glad you could join us for the next maddening episode of Elliot’s Adventures. If you’re new here, you can catch up by returning to the beginning, and reading really fast…

Elliot M
Photo credit: Vadim Trunov

How do you know you’ve found your One True Love? Is it the sudden racing of your heart? The catch in your breath? The lightheadedness that is so like being drunk? Some say you can’t know until your hands touch for the first time. But what if you haven’t any hands?

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Lorenzo & Co.

Glad you could join us for the next lovely episode of Elliot’s Adventures. If you’re new here, you can catch up by returning to the beginning, and reading really fast…

Elliot L
Photo credit: Vadim Trunov

“Dudes!” Lorenzo called to James and Juliet. “Look at this!”

“What is it, man?” James asked, prodding Elliot with one toe, “Is it, like, alive?”

“I dunno, dude. This foreign guy just came up out of the water with diamonds in his mouth and stuck it on my boat.” He plucked Elliot off the side of the log with his bill and lay him at their feet. “I don’t think he’s breathing, man.”

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Kisses and Eggs

Glad you could join us for the next kooky episode of Elliot’s Adventures. If you’re new here, you can catch up by returning to the beginning, and reading really fast…

Elliot K
Photo credit: Grayson Hartman

Walter never stopped to question why he had opened his heart (and his mouth) to the little stranger lying so helplessly on the river bottom. It was his nature to care. Ask anyone.

Ask his wife, Darlene. She had seen his compassion and compulsion to nurture everyone he met when they were just small fry in school. But it had been during their senior year, when they had both worn Kissing Fish masks to the Enchantment Under the Sea Masquerade that she had known he was The One. He was the one she chose to bear the ultimate responsibility of carrying their adorable roe to term.

Every spawning season since, Walter had protected his soon-to-be progeny from marauding pike and sinister scuba divers. And he had never — even accidentally — swallowed a single one. Around the reef they called home, he had earned his reputation as the World’s Greatest Dad. Ask anyone.

Ask Darlene — if you can find her.

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Jelly Balls

Glad you could join us for the next jarring episode of Elliot’s Adventures. If you’re new here, you can catch up by returning to the beginning, and reading really fast…

Elliot J
Photo credit: Judy Townsend

The approaching shadow spread over Elliot, blanketing him with a dark so deep he knew it was Death. He closed his eyes, apologized with all his heart for the time he’d told his little brother that the salt lick they’d happened across was an icy slip-and-slide, and he prepared to die.

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I is for Imagination

Imagine reading your own copy of Cat Tales and finding a story by someone you know. Me! 🙂 That’s the third best reason to purchase a copy for yourself, each member of your family, all your friends, and the Crazy Cat Lady down the street. Of course, the two best reasons are the Against Malaria Foundation and Cats Protection, the worthy charities to whom the proceeds flow. Please do. For only $1.99 (digital) or $9.50 (print), you can help make the world a better place, and read some really entertaining stories. Thank you. Thank you very much.

curtisbausse's avatarcurtisbaussebooks

Sue1 Illustration by Louise Kimber

Which a writer like Sue Ranscht has oodles of. Not just her – Harlan too. In Cat Artist Catharsis, Sue’s story in Cat Tales, the anthology drawn from last year’s Book a Break short story competition, Harlan doesn’t just imagine the cats, he imagines them into life. How’s that for the power of imagination? Phew!

By the time he was fourteen, Harlan’s bedroom walls were two-thirds covered by drawings of cats and parts of cats. He’d switched from crayons to two sets of coloured pencils, one set left dull-pointed for soft and blended colours, keeping the other set’s points pointy with his little pen knife, perfect for detailing claws, fangs, raspy tongues, and whiskers. And eyes—green or blue, yellow or orange, brown or copper, deep and speckled, flecked with gold, shiny and wise. Diligent practice had elevated his skill to a level…

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Infinite Blue

Glad you could join us for the next intriguing episode of Elliot’s Adventures. If you’re new here, you can catch up by returning to the beginning, and reading really fast…

Elliot I
Photo credit: staticflickr.com

The shocking splash was a cold, dead hand slapping Elliot smack in the face, yanking his breath right out of his lungs. Water filled his shell, now a brick dragging him belly-up to the bottom of a crushing grave. His life swam before his eyes; it looked a lot like bubbles.

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Holy Hydroplane, Batman!

Glad you could join us for the next harrowing episode of Elliot’s Adventures. If you’re new here, you can catch up by returning to the beginning, and reading really fast…

Elliot H
Photo credit: Grayson Hartman

One moment, Elliot’s foot surged over moist dirt, the next, it hit a large, wet stone and surfed across its surface, out of control and gaining speed as he streaked toward a precipitous drop into the roiling rapids.

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