#vss365 #lightning A seaman piloting the skies in my sailing Cumulonimbus ship, I seek distant shores in the endless sea of night. I travel the stars, weaving through the constellations, planets, and the Moon, vigilant for shallow shoals with my whip of cloud-to-cloud lightning leading the way.

#vss365 #lunar I'd been under the influence of the Moon's full phase--upbeat, joyous, full of energy and promise. Then it slowly waned as I went through the lunar month and now I face its darkness. Only a tiny sliver of hope remains. New Moon they call it. Watch out! The dark side beckons.

#vss365 #undersea What a surprise! Wee Todd went for his first undersea adventure with his new diving mask. Dropping to his knees in the shallow end, he was surprised to find he could see as clearly under water as above it in the air. He drew in a breath to shout out...and choked water instead.

#vss365 #jade Time to query. Mariah placed her jade ring on her ring finger, rubbed it for good luck, and to knock off some of the White Out that had clung to it over time. It looked old, weary, lifeless. Just as she felt. How many queries had she written? With how many sales? She wasn't a quitter!

#vss365 #trickery I ordered from the ads on the fast food store signs. They featured fluffy buns, large portions, enormous crisp leaves of lettuce, bright cuts of tomato, bountiful pickles. My sandwich was tiny in comparison, dripping with grease, the lettuce wilted, the tomato pale. Such trickery!

#vss365 #seafoam Take yourself back to your childhood. Visiting the candy store. Selecting that odd block of chocolate called seafoam. Hard on the first bite but softer after breaking its surface, brittle, crunchy foam like packaging material, sweet, with the chocolate coating. How is like seafoam?

#vss365 #loop Ever feel left out of the loop? The loop, the word around town. What's up. Wuz happ'nin'. Fred felt that way when he showed up at the designated spot and the others weren't there. Fred with a knitted face mask, gloves, and a gun--in a bank. "Uh, wrong address..." He slithered out.

Michigan is setting up for another evening of severe storms. Perhaps not as wild as last night. Looking out my window while the tornado sirens whined, I watched what looked more like a hurricane with horizontal rains wash across our parking lot. May have been straight line winds, not a tornado.

Should be part of his next test.

#vss365 #water "Water, water, every where..." Coleridge "...nor any bucket to bail it." Michigan "Wettest spring in ages." Michigan dams

#vss365 #water Eyes shut tight, I stared into a shallow brook. There appeared a gentle-rain-dappled brook passing over stones and pebbles as sun reflected from its floor and raindrops bubbled grains of sand to its surface. I could almost smell the petrichor of fresh rainfall, hear thunder call.

#vss365 #sink He was a slinky, slithering snaky son of a bitch. A sinking, stinking, smelly son of all stench. And what's worse, he knew it and relished it, embellished and even celebrated it. His armpits stank, his feet ranked, and his teeth reeked. And he always sat upwind. Meet Dewy Funkmore.

#vss365 #sing Careful, listen! A gold finch sings out in song. But it's not a choir part. No, its whistles and trills sound more like speech, words sung in conversation. One sends out a string of notes, then far off its mate responds alike. "What would you like to eat?" "Bring *fresh* seed!"

#vss365 #ink When you run out of ink, there is always blood, a testament to your resolve and passion.

Just posted a couple of my recent Very Short Stories (vss) from my Threads account onto my website. Enjoy. experifiction.wordpress.com/2026/04/08/s... #vss #writingcommunity

But will the evangelical wing of the GOP let them, with Armageddon on the line? Mad men (and women) want their End Times.

seems kinda bad that the House GOP is ordering half a trillion in cuts to Medicare now? Not Medicaid but Medicare. Is that bad?

@peters.senate.gov Please vote no on this atrocious bill that puts the burden on the lower and middle classes once again. Support the people who voted you into office!

Hey there! I’m reaching out to share a heartfelt cause to help honor Kate's final wishes. Every donation, any size, will ease the burden of her cremation and memorial, allowing us to celebrate her beautiful life. Please click the link below to donate or share. Thanks so much! gofund.me/5c3a3d32

@tearosekent.bsky.social What’s happening?

Elon, folks will be going to The Atlantic page 2 NOW. Your failed snark of the day.

Saying immigration is a civil not criminal proceeding and that's why there is no obligation to due process is insane if the outcome of the "civil" proceeding is *checks notes* incarceration in a violent labor camp in a foreign country.

If only America would protect school children the way it protects Teslas.

“Dogged though I was to escape your eye, you found me. Because you were dogged on your pursuit of me, I suppose. That ‘Where’s Waldo?’ ethos. Every spy image a challenge to your technique, your talent, your skill. I kept to busy streets and bustling scapes and messy scenes. ‘There’s Waldo!’” #hbp149

Approaching the midnight hour. My breath is shallow, my body tired—I slow then stop. “I outran another day,” I say to no one in particular then notice I’m surrounded by a dozen other beasts slinking in the brush, heads bowed in self-reproach. “New day’s begun!” one says and we all run on. #hbp148

I’m a theoretical physicist. Closing my eyes, I’m near-sighted in four dimensions, which puts me firmly in the quantum level. Nothing is concrete, all shapes are fuzzy and speculative. Open my eyes and I’m on firmer ground, at the macro level, looking up at objects fuzzy and speculative. #hbp147

The basement room was dark and dank, so not that unusual. Until I found his desk with old medical journals and a corner with an ancient diskette player and a box of mixtapes with hand-scrawled dates. I popped them in and played samples: human screams and cries punctuated by creepy giggles. #hbp146

Rich misread it. A brilliant civil engineer, he took their money and built their luxury underground bunker as they demanded, and filled it with the wealthy. Rich, you see, turned underground living into an art farm. Now they spend their lives moving “pebbles” many times their own weight. #hbp145

Work had been suspended for the day, so the foreman was surprised to pull into the worksite and find Journeyman Joe at the top of a lean tower of plywood and one piece nailed across the top, he exhausted asleep there. “He built without experience or knowledge but with limitless passion.” #hbp143

There is no such thing as “clean coal”. He’s dragging us back to the dirty air era. Welcome back asthma, black lung disease, smog, coal ash in our rivers and lakes. Wonder how much the orange orangutan is taking under the table to make this decision.

Before there was Ford Field in Detroit, there was the Silverdome in Pontiac. One autumn day in the mid-‘70s I went to my only Lions game. We had tickets, all we had to do was park, walk into the building, hike up the ramp, and pass into the stands. It was ginormous. I’ve never felt so small. #hbp242

Who knew when lives would go back to normal. Meanwhile, evenings the widow and widower shared dinner time as if a couple. No jury duty deliberation was ever mentioned; holding hands and looking into each other’s eyes, sharing family tales and hopes and dreams became their getaway life. #hbp141

“My whole world just collapsed,” he said, his eyes betraying lost bewilderment, explaining an unexpected highway bridge falling beneath him. I patted him on the shoulder in solidarity. “I know that feeling. I lost the best job ever. Never saw it coming. Then 911 hit, a week later. Whoosh!” #hbp140

The old farmer tipped his frayed Ford cap back on his grayed scalp and scratched his noggin for ideas why his neighbor’s corn might suddenly have died. “Wouldn’t know, Don. You’re the one playing around with genetic seed and all. You’re so smart; mebbee give the old seed a try again.” #hbp139

From mighty oaks does the erstwhile trebuchet grow. From thence the evil despot or the greedy lord falls and a simple acorn tumbles into the hole, and here we go again. #hbp138

He really cheapened the real estate with this tacky move. My God, how tacky and weedy. One expects broken windows and patchy lawns in the weeks ahead.

Neighbor on the roof tanning sees me climb up the downspout. “Why you on da roof?” He yells. “Locked out of my apartment. So I drove the mini-van under the downspout to climb up here. Going over the other side to go down the fire escape, in my window.” “Oh…I have a skeleton key, ya know.” #hbp137

Lou’s rival for the hand of Ms Trudy was a skywriter and Lou was ready for a sassy last word from he who was known as the local “Bard of the Sky,” but not this. A large O for a face, two x’s for eyes, a lower curve for a sad face, and a large L on the forehead for Loser. “Wysocki” ID’d Lou. #hbp136

Mrs. Kitty Wompas, star reporter for the neighborhood news and gossip rag. Tap, tap, tap. No answer at the window where she can clearly see you, she moves to the door. Bang, bang, bang. Still no answer. Ever in quest of her truth of your personal story, she moves next door. “Have you heard…” #hbp135

Demons in the desert. In the Sahara the Tuareg call them djinn, a menace a cow lick like Two-Shot McCoy wouldn’t want to bring back to the Old West—but he did. He wasted two wishes on whiskey and wild women. The third on a saddle with all the trimmings, which became flashy Christmas lights. #hbp131

Some neighbors have hobbies. Lenny next door was obsessed with his yard. Every spring he surveyed it for signs of rot or disease, holes or high places. His lawn must run smooth as an ice rink with green grass, not a blade out of synch. One night I snuck in and snipped one blade. He found it! #hbp130

Nail technician by day, torture technician by night. An ulterior motive forced her to keep her urban salon open after hours to make more persuasive use of bamboo shoots in the dark arts and relay the results to early risers who frequented her shoppe after sunrise. Very lucrative, the arts. #hbp129

Cement makes a quicker sticker upper but Joe the pizza delivery biker found the next best thing on a wrong turn down the river becoming stuck in the mud on his Flyer. His delivery was late so the fee he ate and returned to the shop with mud on his face. Now he pedals ices on the lakeshore. #hbp128

The young tech slid around the well polished research floor, caught his footing as he rounded the academic wing, and abruptly entered the busy dean of Biology’s office. “Sir…it’s conclusive…a hidden message encoded in the DNA of all life on Earth: Don’t consume the tide pools—Tide pods!” #hbp126

Autumn. Morning as dew lingers and sun bleeds as through a sheer veil. A single middle aged man walks the ceiling of the world quietly nursing a cigarette with the right hand, waiting to use a camera with the left. Then in the valley below, a jet fighter flies through, unnoticed snap…snap.

Short, hump-backed Thorid always carried a small rumpled bag tied at his waist. Fellow travelers might notice him absently reach into the assortment of unsorted magic beads and toss one at the foot of some straggler in the path, who then perked up and continued on. It was an act of penance. #hbp122

If only Republicans didn’t have their own version of woke—sensitive to being “woke”. Call it #RepublicanWoke

It takes genius, manufacturing contraband in an abandoned factory. Making the science work with inadequate tools. Adapting to the wrong shapes. Overcoming bad smells and goofy tastes. Take my friend there making ripoff M&Ms from a long abandoned plastic molder using outdated pellets… #hbp119

Well, doesn’t this sound all kinds of easily plausible?