Michaeline Duskova

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Michaeline: The Year of the Tiger Will be a Big Year for Cats

I think I got all the words for this year’s story challenge, including two bonus words that Elizabeth excluded because they didn’t seem very friendly: sharp and fang. Old 2021 was a big year for cats for me — I went from two to 15 in my house, and my husband’s aunt is now keeping house with six (they often come to visit, since she’s next door and lets them out). It’s a little scary to think of a 20-year commitment for all 13 babies, but there’s so much love and happiness in my house now. I was born to be a cat lady!

Here’s wishing you all a wonderful 2022, and may your goals achieved increase like my cats! Now, on to the story.

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Betty’s 2021 had been one of the worst years she could recall. She lost a good friend, not to COVID, but to overcrowded hospitals that had to tell one more patient to just wait at home a little longer. Turned out that Anne couldn’t wait at home, after all. She’d died before the sun came up.

She’d lost a favorite aunt not to COVID, but to annoying conspiracy theories and right wing propaganda. She still loved Aunt Karen, but the way Betty’s blood pressure kept spiking every time Aunt Karen let loose a careless confidence such as Bill Gates was promoting climate change theories to sell computers to fund biological weapons . . . well, she didn’t talk to Aunt Karen at all these days. Betty just wasn’t fluent in bullshit.

Betty’s work, at least, was steady – even better than before the pandemic. She’d met some wonderful pet owners this last year, and her veterinary practice was satisfying. All in all, 2022 looked like it was going to be a great year. She stretched in her new daisy pajamas, enjoying the warm feeling of being in bed on New Year’s Day with no hangovers, no romantic regrets about the night before, and nothing to do for the rest of the day except feed herself and the cats. Continue reading →

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Michaeline: A Christmas Dream

Image via Wikimedia Commons

As I lay by the fire reading,

Eartha Kitt on my cell-phone singing

Of Christmas treasures Santa’d be bringing,

An orange tomcat on my lap kneading,

I let my eyes close.

Before my eyes was a gorgeous man,

Tall and handsome, wide of chest,

Firelight highlighting his golden breast.

I had to use my book as a fan

As he struck a pose.

At that moment my brain stuttered.

I let my fingers trail along that man so fine.

My fingertips took on a scented shine.

I realized that man was buttered.

Oh, my spirits rose!

As for the rest of my Christmas dream,

You’ll have to imagine it, dear pervs.

Them’s as dreams it, it deserves.

May 2022 be a sparkling stream

Of delightful prose.

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Day 18: A Christmas Ghost Story

Welcome the 8LW 25 Days of Stories. Hard to believe we’re up to day 18 already. I hope you have been enjoying reading the stories as much as we enjoyed writing them.

Today we’ve got a Christmas ghost story. It features (some if not all) of the following words: angel, ambivalent, blaze, baffling, zipper, estate, fiasco, honeymoon, blurt, eruption, collision, diamond, mysterious, grizzly, naked, and drunk.

So without further ado here, courtesy of 8L Michaeline, is today’s story.

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Unbeliever

A grizzled ghost from an old magazine looks at a young woman in a bed, possibly.

Stronger than death. (Image via Wikimedia Commons)

The first thing you should know about me is that I was a nuclear physicist. I didn’t believe in woo-woo, and I didn’t believe in goddamn ghosts. I believe in the laws of nature and mathematics. And, yeah, sure, my girlfriend told me about that baffling Hamlet and his “more things in your philosophy” quote. But ghosts aren’t real. I never believed.

The second thing you should know about me is that I was supposed to get married last Christmas to the most beautiful woman on the planet. Kind, smart, super-sexy and she loves me too. But I was hanging lights on our house (our first house) after a freak rainstorm, and the law of gravity ruled against me. What a fiasco. No wedding, no honeymoon, and she still wears my diamond and gets drunk every night while I continue to not exist. Believe me, it’s the last thing I wanted. Continue reading →

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Day 12: My Steampunk Christmas Story

Christmas postcard with Santa Claus and bag of toys in a basket suspended by greenery from an airship, with "Greetings to one and all - Merry Christmas." Color postcard, ca. 1916. Missouri History Museum Photographs and Prints Collections. N39376.

Christmas goes so well with an airship or two! (Image via Missouri History)

Welcome the 8LW 25 Days of Stories. We’re trading yesterday’s disillusioned travelers for a party on an airship (let’s hope that goes well). This “Christmas Week Short Story Challenge” — a holiday version of our Friday Writing Sprints — features (some if not all) of the following words: secret, story, diary, snowflake, diamond, snuggle, forest, catastrophe, plan, buffet, traffic, surprise, signature, memory, flamingo, and whisky.

So here, courtesy of 8L Michaeline, is today’s story.

My Steampunk Christmas Story

It was Christmas Eve, 1897, and Joey Lunardi had invited us all up for a party on his airship, but he was anxious, because he wanted the party to end so he could make it in time for midnight mass. The plan was to land in Central Park’s airstrip at 11 o’clock and we’d all get in electric taxis to the church. Best laid plans of mice and airmen, often go a-gley – in this case, the turning point was when the flamingos went missing at 10:35.

Claire LeMaire, star of stage, screen and Edison cylinders, had just won the diamond prize for guessing the most mystery dishes at the buffet. And Joey, he didn’t do anything small – it was a flawless 10-carat rock, hanging from a pretty hefty gold chain. Claire was waving the thing under the nose of her “patron”, Eddie the Rat, taunting him. “How come you never get me anything this nice, Eddie?” she said, while casting a flirtatious glance at Joey. Continue reading →

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Day 11: The Travelers

A Japanese transport plane flying over mountains

Even when things don’t work out right, take the next chance! Fly! (Image via Wikimedia Commons)

Welcome the 8LW 25 Days of Stories. Today we have internet relationships gone awry, a flight delay, and strangers on a plane.  Will it all work out?  You’ll have to continue reading to find out.

This “Christmas Week Short Story Challenge” entry features (some if not all) of the following words: snuggle, impress, mask, collapse, icicle, regret, famous, sneeze, scandalous, spark, impulse, and fantasy.

So here, courtesy of 8L Michaeline, is today’s story.

The Travelers

Kenji snuggled down under his airline-provided blanket, a mask over his nose to keep out the germs and to re-humidify the dry cabin air.

What a way to spend Christmas.

He’d tried to impress his American girlfriend by showing up on her doorstep on Christmas Eve, but his “girlfriend” turned out to be a 300-pound trucker with a wife and three kids. Kenji had collapsed in shock, and then the littlest one sneezed on him and spilled some apple juice on him, accidentally. Kenji regretted those hours on the internet, building up a fantasy future full of love and happiness, only to have his heart dashed to pieces and drowned in a toddler’s fluids. So, now, he was back on a plane – expensive first class, because the economy seats had all been full.

He’d be home by New Year’s Day, and have to explain to his mother why he was in debt up to his eyebrows, and still unmarried at the ripe old age of 31. He asked the stewardess for a bottle of wine, but was informed that no alcohol could be served until the plane was in the air and at cruising altitude.

Damn. Continue reading →

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Day 5: Bunny Blavatsky Arrives in New York

Welcome to the 8LW 25 Days of Stories.  Yesterday we learned how Bunny’s camera became magical and today we’ll be meeting Bunny Blavatsky herself, based on the rules from another “Christmas Week Short Story Challenge” — a holiday version of our Friday Writing Sprints — featuring a short story including any or all the following:  New York, Casanova, giraffe, heartbreak, horseback, love, poetry, celebration, faith, velvet, firecracker, and villain.  Extra kudos with sparkles for Christmas references.

So here, courtesy of 8L Michaeline, is today’s story.

1898 train advertisement with a young mother, her husband, children and a family come to meet them in a horse-drawn sleigh. Christmas Greetings is the banner.

Bunny was not quite so comfortable on the train. She could scarcely contain her excitement about moving to the big city. (I found this at The Old Design Shop. http://olddesignshop.com/2012/12/lake-shore-michigan-southern-railway-christmas-ad/)

Bunny Blavatsky Arrives in New York

I don’t recommend arriving in New York for the first time on Christmas Eve. The train is packed with holiday excursionists, the hansom cabs are taken, and there is no room in the inn, no matter how much money you have. And I didn’t have a lot.

And let’s not even talk about the ghosts.

Ah, Christmas Eve, when the veil between the world of the living and the dead is very thin, and the holidays wears everyone’s tempers even thinner. All of the love, the heartbreak, the celebration and the sheer life of the living draws them nearer.

I found a warm drugstore, and was sitting at the counter, slowly drinking my cup of hot coffee, wondering how I was to find a place to stay on Christmas Day, when a drugstore-casanova came in. Oh, he was ready to help me find a place to stay! Such a masher. The ghosts of three poor girls clung to him. They looked like immigrant girls who had caught some sort of consumption.

The poor dears were in love beyond the grave.

A rush of patrons flooded into the store, and a soprano voice from heaven commanded the masher to “Move on out, Dooley. You should be ashamed to break hearts tonight.”

She was a red-headed goddess, and I could see the traces of stage make-up around her eyes. She extended a hand. “Sarah Kelso. You look fresh off the boat!” Continue reading →

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Day 4: How Bunny’s Camera Became Magical

She saw through the veil, until a curse ripped it away and showed her the terrifying realness of the world. (via Wikimedia Commons)

Miss Cook lived well into her 80s, never looking a day older than she did that Christmas Eve in 1898. (via Wikimedia Commons)

Welcome to the 8LW 25 Days of Stories.  Today we’re continuing with another story, based on the rules from the first year of our annual “Christmas Week Short Story Challenge” — a holiday version of our Friday Writing Sprints — featuring a short story of no more than 500 words including ‘Derbyshire’ and at least three of the following:  Darcy, Rhinoceros, Woolly, Admire, Love, Mine, Villain, Volcano, Ghost.  Extra kudos for including more than three, and kudos with sparkles for Christmas references.

So here, courtesy of 8L Michaeline, is today’s story — a holiday ghost story.

The Return of Mr. Glossop

The music room was ready for the seance; the dearly departed Mr. Glossop’s prized rhinoceros head gazed phlegmatically over the scene below. Colonel Black firmly ignored the stuffed beast and gave his cameras a final check. With any luck, they would capture Mr. Glossop’s image, and the all-too-material Mrs. Glossop would fund his society for psychic research. The cameras were primed, and gelatin plates waited below for the cameras’ reloading. Black shivered. Snow was falling again.

Miss Cook drifted in, a cloud of white muslin shod in woolly slippers to ward off the drafts. “I see they have followed my directions perfectly.” She stepped lightly into the magic circle of thirteen chairs and wafted into the club chair at the head of the table.. Black saw her check the mechanism that would lift the table into the air.

“It’s Christmas Eve. You’ll hardly be needing that with the veil so thin,” Black scolded. He’d photographed her phantasms in Liverpool, and he admired her very real abilities. Continue reading →

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Michaeline: A Nebraska Ghost Story for Japanese Obon

Today is the middle day of Obon, a three-day Japanese holiday honoring the dead. Ghost stories are traditional, because this is often the hottest, stickiest time of year, and the chills you get from spooky thrills are said to feel cool and refreshing.

I live in Japan now, but I grew up in Nebraska, and went to school there. I lived in one of the oldest dorms of my university, but I was in the new wing, which was built in the 1950s. No ghosts there, but we heard about ghost stories in the halls right next door.

Black and white newspaper image of a three story dorm with basement.
The story goes that this was a going to be a haunted residence hall. (Image via NebNewspapers)

The one I remember in particular was told to me in a room that had been converted to a TV room. Every floor had a TV room, which seemed to be a regular room that had been converted to communal viewing.

Continue reading →
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Michaeline: Wolves, Past and Present

A friend of mine recently got pregnant, and told me she’s been having nightmares about wolves eating her baby and making her buy another child. It made me stop and think about wolves, and the power they have over our imaginations . . . largely a power that results from story.

Red Riding Hood comes closer to the Wolf disguised as Grandmother
When wolves were a common neighborhood terror. (Image via Wikimedia Commons)

I don’t think I’ve ever lived in an area where there were wolves; they were never an actual problem, but still, wolves loom large. They are themselves, but they are also a human-made metaphor for things that worry us greatly.

In “Little Red Riding Hood,” the wolf was a predator who ate little girls, as well as grandmothers. There was a moral to the story: don’t talk to strangers, or if you are sick in bed, don’t forget to lock the door.

The wolf as sexual predator was common in pop culture during the first half of the 20th century. Young women would call a problem male a “wolf.” Whistles at attractive young women were called “wolf whistles.” In cartoons, a male character when catching sight of a pretty girl would transform into a wolf . . . eyes bulging, two fingers in the mouth whistling.

Wolves didn’t have to be sexual predators, though. In “The Three Little Pigs,” the wolf was a force of nature . . . huffing and puffing houses down in an attempt to eat the pigs. In this story, the motive is spelled out: the wolf is hungry. So, it’s almost easy to sympathize with the wolf, but the moral of this story is that there are right ways and wrong ways to get a meal, and sliding down the chimney will land a wolf in hot water, not in front of the dining table.

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Michaeline: Saturday, Caturday

Sorry, my writing news is very boring, but the cat news continues to be quite exciting! We saw Millie’s kittens this week!

For regulars of the blog, you may remember that Mama Tabitha (aka Tabby Kate) had four kittens in Auntie Milk’s bathroom on April 16. Three tabbies, one black kitty. Don’t ask me about the sex of any of them; I can’t tell until puberty.

Mama Tabitha had three kittens in 2020 – Large Lars, Medium Millie and Chibi Momoko.

Mama Tabitha next to the screen, Daughter Chibi next to the reed curtain on the porch. In the window is a wind chime greeting card ringing gently in the wind. (E.M. Duskova)

Chibi suddenly got skinny in May, and then showed up at Auntie Milk’s house next door with one baby, an adorable striped thing on May 25. They took up residence in the upstairs landing. The kitten was quite stable on its feet and its eyes were open, so I’m guessing it was about one week old. (Mama Tabitha’s babies also opened their eyes early.)

I kept notes on Millie. She disappeared June first, and then showed up the next day very svelte. But we hadn’t seen her babies . . . the big question for six weeks was: Where are the babies?

Continue reading →