Entertaining you in one hundred words or less

“Sacred”

Buddha beneath the bodhi tree.

Bare feet brushing against monastery stone.

The first piercing cry of a newborn babe.

A snow leopard atop the Himalayas.

Sunrays streaming through cloud.

Perfectly parallel vapour trails behind a jet.

A raccoon prying open the garbage can.

The last, raspy breath of a centenarian.

A cell phone ringing at a funeral.

Jesus bleeding on the cross.

“Dreams (Reality)”

Harold always wanted to be a vet (greenhouse worker).

He dreamed of a log house with an evergreen forest as his backyard (suburban condo, supermall parking lot).

Start a family with a slim, talented woman, and have one son and one daughter (obese K-Mart cashier, five girls).

Someday, he would write that fantasy novel where gnomes rode winged camels (cathartic journaling regarding divorce).

Finally, well past his prime, Harold decided to think less and do more about what he thought (and, after a few years, his imagination converged with his waking path).

“Aroma Acupuncture”

The night Gerald the groundskeeper got fired from the zoo—“you’re overstressed,” his boss claimed—he decided to have some fun.  Laughing with glee, he put hedgehogs with hippos, pit vipers with snow leopards, and naked mall rats in the leech pond.  Peacocks got plucked by squirrel monkeys.  Cheetahs and sloths changed their perception of time.  The black panther knocked Emperor penguins around like bowling pins.

Gerald’s comeuppance finally arrived—never was there a more reluctant convert to Chinese medicine—when he got caught in the porcupine and hog-nosed skunk crossfire.

“Bartleby's Return”

“You could flip burgers at McDonalds.”

“I would prefer not to.”

“My stag, this weekend, in Vegas!”

“I would prefer not to.”

“We can smoke in this strip club.”

“I would prefer not to.”

“Bottled water—half price at Walmart!”

“Britney’s singing on Broadway!”

“Our special today:  no fat, ginger, grande chai latte with whipped soy milk.”

“Having an iphone makes everything easier.”

“The season finale of Survivor:  Timbuktu is starting!”

“I would prefer not to.”

“Want to lead a simple life where your actions inspire community and growth?”

“That, I would prefer.”

“Water”

One oxygen atom and a pair of hydrogen.

Sparkling dew on a garden leaf. 

Gentle rain casting circles on a lily pond. 

The floating prism twisting colours into a rainbow.

Lenticular clouds capping a mountain range.

A billion individual crystal snowflakes.

Glaciers glowing blue as the ocean deep.

A river carving boulder into pebble.

A waterfall shedding mist as clouds of heaven.

A lake swimming with fins and fish.

An icicle dripping its liquid body into a driveway puddle.

White breath on a cold morning.

The well from which life sprang.

One oxygen atom and a pair of hydrogen.

“Meeting in the Aisle”

Twenty-three years—that’s the last time he had seen Vera, her face flushed and skin glowing.  Now, she pushed a cart with fruit loops and spaghettiOs.  A girl of ten or eleven, platinum blonde just like her mom, trailed after Vera.

He noticed her face, hardened somehow, the skin tighter.  Softness is what he remembered; smooth cheek, supple breast.  This gaunt mother gave him—her past life—a brief glance, an old building long-since torn down and built anew.

He watched her move away, rubbed clammy hands on a pant leg, and emptied his basket at the self-service checkout.

“The Life of Blood”

Arteries and veins—our fluid freeways—provide a direct line from the lungs to every living cell.  One red blood cell shuttles a billion oxygen in its donut-shaped disc, stacking capillaries with the breath of life.  No DNA guides this cell.  Born in the bone marrow, he is slave to a merciless heart.  One hundred days later, broken and beaten, the red blood cell disassembles.  A new car is made from his old parts, this vital transport racing along dilated vessels.  And so blood flows with every beat, carrying life from lung to tissue, artery to vein, heart to cell.

“Broken”

The bus from Williams Lake was late.

Stu sat in the idling car, waiting for his son.  They hadn’t spoken in over ten years.  What could he say?  What possible comfort could this old curmudgeon offer?

The bus finally pulled in.  Tim was one of the last to get off.  Stu saw it in his eyes, and held back tears last shed twenty-nine years ago.  Tears for his son’s birth.  But this time, birth had taken two lives.

Stu said nothing and hugged his son hard.  He held him for a long time, but he did not cry.

“Microscope”

This crystal ball waits in the biology lab, ever-patient in her mounting curiosity.  Through her glasses the world is clear:  a beaming, unblemished full moon.  Lenses and light make the invisible visible, the tiny titanic.  One dot resolves into two, one cell a bustling city of constant construction, movement and repair.  To an observer, looking through a window at the building blocks of life, the small appears infinite, like God staring down at his divine elements, mesmerized by the miracle of his makeup.  Thus, this optical opus blesses the naked eye with the power to gaze into creation itself. 

“Destiny’s Fate”

“Don’t worry, be happy,” said Fate.  “What will be will be.”

Destiny shook his head.  “How can you say that?  Luck is something you make.”

“Excuse me,” said Luck.  “I was made by the divine.”

“I guess that makes me a heathen,” said Chance.

“Fortune favours the bold,” said Fortune boldly.

“You would say that,” Freewill said to Fortune.  “It is the choices in life that are important.”

“Only the ones I make,” said Fate.

Destiny smiled.  “And you make those choices because of me.”

“Gravitational Waltz”

In her fullness the moon shines, touching water without touching, the gentle caress of a distant lover.  Sunlight ripples on the ocean, solar rays reflecting off Luna—a mirror for a star.

Eternal waves slide over a shifting shoreline, tides drawn to the glowing sphere above.  One circles the other in a coy dance, always reaching for what is out of reach.

The sea waits for Luna’s nightly visits.  Sometimes she wears a crescent smile, or shows her wide, beaming teeth, and once a month she disappears completely.  But the sea always waits.  Luna gives her life.

“Centrifuge”

The Great Beings lived above space and time.  They saw universes the way a whale considers a grain of sand.  One of these Beings became curious, much like a human scientist.

“Let’s spin a universe in a centrifuge!”

So he ground down a universe with a giant mortar and pestle and spun it at a trillion G’s.  Stars settled near the top, comets further down.  A dark pellet of iron and nickel—planetary cores—clumped at the bottom of the centrifuge tube.

“When Trees Fight Back”

When the trees decided to reclaim the planet, the great firs dropped cones onto human heads.  Moss released spores full of bacteria.  Sword ferns claimed their namesake. 

But humans proved surprisingly resilient.  Even falling coconuts didn’t deter them.

Flowers released hyperallergenic pollen, but could not defeat Benadryl.  Angiosperms stopped producing fruit, but apples and oranges were replicated in laboratories.  Finally, plants slowed photosynthesis.  Carbon dioxide started suffocating the air. 

Humans had only one choice.  Give up their cars, factories and air conditioners. 

“Probability”

Thao’s teacher rolled the dice.

“Six!” Mr. Abaddon announced.   “What’s the probability I’ll roll two more?”

Thao raised his hand.  “One hundred percent!”

No one got the joke.  Thao had always suspected his math teacher was the devil, hiding his horns behind that tweed hat.

Mr. Abaddon rolled twice more.  Both sixes.  “You’re right, Thao.  I’ll see you after class.”

When everyone else had left, Thao walked up to the teacher’s desk.  Mr. Abaddon looked at him curiously.

“How did you know?”

Thao shrugged

“Just a lucky guess?  I want to show you something.”

“Sea Urchin”

Like a lotus the purple urchin perceives every direction as one.  Spiny petals oscillate, omniscient antenna waving through salt water.  His world moves over and through him, this keeper of the kelp forests.  Seaweeds sing of Aristotle’s lantern, circular fangs that chew their lifeline.  From prey to predator, otters portend doom, crunching echinoderm shells like eggs.

These shallow water Buddhists remain content.  From stillness comes enlightenment.  Their existence is a deep meditation—radial perception offers perfect symmetry.  The urchin sits on the sea floor in prayer to Luna, pale God of the night sky, ruler of Mother Ocean’s tide.

“Presidential Moult”

The giant, eight-legged snakes descended on Earth in turtle-shaped ships.

“Take us to your leader.”

The humans did as they were told.  They had no choice.  Would these reptilian overlords eat the President?

The meeting took place at the White House.  Naked alien scales brushed against the ceiling of the Oval Office.

“We have but one demand,” rasped the chief reptile.  “Shed your skin so we can feast on the protein-rich moults!”

They noticed President Obama’s hesitation.

“Shed or your species dies!”

“All right,” Obama said, taking off his jacket and shoes.  “I hope you like leather and wool.”

“Night Snow”

A break in the fence is my gateway to frozen fields.  The wind sings beneath a roiling sky dark over the white waves of earth.  A fir creaks under the weight of winter.  Branches hang low, evergreens in mourning.  Yet magic floats in the moonlit air, greens turned to heavenly clouds.  A million crystals cushion each footstep, lunar sparkles setting the path aglow.  The cold bites deep, but my heart is warmed by stillness and wonder.  I spot the flag of the 18th hole and pull it free, intrepid Arctic explorer of the winter Golf Course. 

“No Assembly Required”

Upon their first meeting, a sperm and egg fuse into life.  The monogamous shell allows only one seed inside, rejecting every other tail-wagging suitor.  From this single unit the spirit is born.

God’s hand, coiled into fingers of DNA, pulls the fertilized egg into two cells—then four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two—exponential growth that forms body, movement and consciousness.  After the mother cell is cleaved into multicellularism daughter cells migrate outward like the arms of a sea star, following the instructions embedded in the phosphates, sugars and bases.  The puzzle of life assembles itself.

“Spring Dress”

From a bud, the flower unfurls like a fist revealing a petaled palm.  Colourful fingers catch transparent wings without moving.  With sweet perfume she lures pollinators into her silky red folds.  Hungry insects carry grains of life from one flower to another.

The fruit of her labour?  A seed on the wind.

Once her petals have served their purpose—and colour and fragrance fade—they drop to the ground as wilted tears.  She will pass this art of seduction to her daughters:  blossom, attract, mate—and scarlet dresses are worn with pride in the spring. 

“Leroy's Labyrinth”

In the first cave, Cocoa faced the frothing slime monsters.  He pushed through, scurrying down the back of a mouthless snake.  A collapsing tunnel led to a great, churning cavern.  Acid pooled in that dark pit, burning off every extremity.

Yet Cocoa pressed on, fighting through a circular door that snapped shut behind.  His greatest challenge awaited:  a labyrinth of coiled corridors and folded passageways.  Tentacles snared him, reaching from every wall, clinging like a snake to a rat.

Then a shiver went down his molecular spine—the terminal hole!—and Cocoa let himself be absorbed by Leroy’s small intestine.

“One Cell, One World”

The freshwater paramecium is a mobile, microscopic metropolis.  In this cellular economy, the nucleus is the capitol, governing transport and protein construction. 

Yet it doesn’t know.  Its world is a slide on a microscope, its lifespan the attention span of a scientist. 

Against water—its very home—the paramecium wages war.  Water, made toxic by its abundance, leaks through every wall, constantly being bailed out. 

On the transparent desert, the light always burns.

Thousands of oar-like cilia propel the protist forward, its oral groove vacuuming nutrients.  Trapped between glass, the paramecium continues its search, eclipsed by an even greater curiosity.

“Parting”

When a heart breaks, and two divide, the body feels consumed.  Despair feeds on your insides, as though the stomach’s acid has leaked.  Parting is such needed sorrow, to help untie the threads of morphing love, severing some, rearranging others.  Hurt seethes beneath the skin, molten suffering ready to rupture.  Through that fog the damaged stumble, uncertain and afraid.

Yet a split heart finds another purchase.  Each seed of the divided grows with new hope.  A common root lies underground, a link that will never break.  So while the two hearts may grow apart, their buried love forever remains.

“Building Contractor”

The knock came again.

“Come out!  Or we’ll contract your building anyway.”

Martha pulled the children to the middle of the living room.  Her boy slipped from her grasp.

“Charlie!  Get back here!”

The walls began to shrink.  The building contractor hollered, “Two hundred square feet!  Room for a new neighbour.”

Charlie reached the wall.  The mildewed plaster pushed against him.  The four-year-old laughed.  And then—before Martha could grab him—the wall engulfed her son like thick fog over trees.

“CHARLIE!!!”

She heard the “Notice of Contraction” being stapled to her front door.  “Next year, pay your taxes!”

“Skeleton”

There is a skeleton in the biology lab.

It’s not like the plastic ones with colours and numbers.  These bones held muscle and flesh.  Screws have replaced tendons, synthetic cartilage connects brittle ribs and frail vertebrae. 

But he was alive.  The narrow pelvic bones give him away.

I look behind the skull, along his collar bone, expecting to find a name.  What would he think of his legacy, being poked and prodded, eliciting morbidly amusing awe?  To be a learning tool for those he can’t see, their touch neither gentle nor grateful?

Do his bones long for the placid earth?

“Butterfly Effect”

A wolf howls in the Arctic and a baby cries in Mexico.

A bicycle tire goes flat and a polar bear drowns beneath an iceberg.

A luxury cruiser embarks for Alaska and the last blue whale beaches.

A Douglas fir drops its cone in Vancouver and a high-rise completes Tokyo.

A mosquito bites a cow in India and a McDonald’s patron chokes on his burger.

A boy buys Bazooka Joe bubblegum and a bear scavenges the landfill.

A maple unfurls its first leaf and the sun rises above the smog.

A human is born and Gaia dreams of stars.

“Tribrid”

Anna saw Connie hunched over a microscope.

“What’d you find?”

“Not sure.  It was on the floor.”

“The floor?”  Anna frowned.  “This is a sterile room.”

“It’s dividing like crazy.” 

“Let me see.”

Under the microscope, orange cells—like yeast, but larger—multiplied every second.

“Where on the floor?”

Connie pointed.  Anna saw the globule of red saliva.  A faint trail led to the fumehood.  She turned on the hood light.  Quivering in the corner was an unusually large hedgehog, its spines replaced by calico cat fur.

“Looks like the cross worked!”

Then it bared venomous diamondback fangs.

“Uh oh.”

“Photostasis”

Said the leaf to the sun, “Can you shine over here?”

Chittered the caterpillar to the leaf, “Grow this way!”

Chirped the robin to the caterpillar, “Inch in my direction!”

Meowed the cat to the robin, “Fly just a little bit lower!”

Howled the coyote to the cat, “Let’s hunt together tonight!”

Called God to the coyote, “I’m not fond of tricksters.”

Said the sun to God, “You tricked me into this job.  Four-and-a-half billion years of work—tell the leaf I’m taking a thousand off!”

And the Earth was silent.

“Starfish”

They tried to call me a sea star.  Well, not me.  But the ones named after me.  They belong to a planet, one of those pebbles scattered across the universe.  Too small for my appetite.  Only the stars satisfy.

After consuming my inveterate quota, I let myself drift through the cosmic vacuum, a wingless bird with a cannibalistic beak.  I started late in the game.  Now, I eat that from which I came.  My black stomach always hungers.  Someday, I’ll catch up.  Everything will be in balance again.  Because there will be nothing.  Nothing, of course, but me.

“Garage Sale”

“How much?”

“Twenty-five cents.”

Brenda pulled out a quarter.  Awfully cheap for a jewelled pendant. 

What she didn’t know, is that nearly all garage sale items carry a curse—destined to clutter lives and swap owners, always possessed but never loved, both undervalued and cautiously coveted.  Brenda put the trinket in a drawer.

Thus the pendant waited to exchange hands once more.

For ten years Brenda forgot about the pendant.  She didn’t find it again until she had a garage sale of her own.

“Where’s this from?” a younger woman inquired.

“Really, I honestly can’t remember.”

“How much?”

“Twenty-five cents.”

“The Labyrinth”

Hector strode into the labyrinth, full of fortitude and purpose.  Monsters plagued his passage, demons of fear and doubt clawed at his heart.  Still he went forward.  Even the dragon didn’t stop him—Hector’s courage slayed the great beast.

There, at the labyrinth’s center, stood a figure.  He looked at once familiar yet unknown.  Hector peered closer.  It was him.  Older and wiser.  The new Hector began his journey, the start now the end, searching for his birthplace.  He knew his meaning, his purpose, his why, but he struggled to return.  For the labyrinth had changed.  

“The Hare and the Tortoise”

“Let’s race!”

The tortoise yawned.  “Do we have to?”

“Yes!  We need to see who’s fastest.”

“All right.  First one around the world wins.  Ready?  On your mark, get set…”

“Go!” 

The hare flew ahead, while the tortoise stayed exactly where he was.  A hundred days later, the hare returned.

“Come out of your shell!  I ran until I met water so wickedly wide even your cousin, the turtle, couldn’t swim across.  Yet you haven’t moved an inch!”

“You’re right, I’m exactly where I started.”

“Then why did you have me running around the world?”

“Because you wanted to race.”

“Venus Fly-trap”

In the quiet fens, the Venus fly-trap opens her leafy jaw.  Long, slender fangs stretch over this photosynthetic carnivore.  She waits in a web of stems, hoping to find in wings what the soil can’t provide.

Lured by her red treasure, the ambush masked by sweet nectar, an unsuspecting fly dives into her waxy mouth.  Like a bear trap the jaws snap shut.  The insect finds himself behind embracing bars of cellulose.

Satisfied with her catch, the Venus fly-trap settles in for a week-long digestion that fills her stem.  Finally the green fangs open, and the trap is set again.

“Dragon for Sale!”

Are you a glutton for gold?  An obsessed overlord?  Prosperous king?  Or maybe a mad warlock tired of do-gooders disturbing your fiendish plots?  Then get your very own dragon.  Shirley is fully toilet trained with a minotaur’s temper and the appetite of 100 ogres.  Makes an excellent assassin, and hoards treasure like a beggar clutches bread.  She specializes in forest fires and rooting out pesky elves.  Belches ash on occasion.  Not to be left alone with children or cats. 

I want ten maiden skulls in exchange, or three mermaid tails.  Interested buyers contact Cedric the Sorcerer.  Cave 4, Death Mountain.

“Single Purple Female”

231 years young.  Never thought I’d do this.  Likes long tentacles and at least seven horns.  I enjoy scaring schools of slugfish, hiding in crystal corrals, and occasionally surface-bathing.  Have 1037 children from budding.  A bit old-fashioned.  I think males should strangle prey and use their venom.  Will try anything once.  Maybe we can go snorkelling and see the clouds.  I can be a bit shy at first, but you’ll see my true colours once you get to know me.  I’ve got a very healthy appetite.  Can you show me a good time?

NO freshies or external fertilizers.

-Zogaritha

“Billion Dollar Billboard”

Damien gasped.

“Look at the stars!  They’re moving!”

His friends ignored him, stumbling over the beach with bottles in hand.  Damien dug his toes in the sand and craned his neck.  He tried to rationalize the tiny, shifting white lights.  Too far to be planes, too close to be planets.  The several dozen scattered twinkles rearranged themselves in the cloudless sky.  Maybe he had had too much to drink.  Unless…

A moment later he read the constellation of satellites.

Drink Duke Beer!

Then the satellites dispersed.  A friend slapped him on the back.

“Do as it says, eh?  Bottoms up!”

“Who am I?”

My host gives me life, yet I hold no weight.  Without colour I mask everything I touch, spreading my skeletal blanket like a pallid wave.  I belong to birds and fish, mountains and clouds—to those that move, and those that stay.  Within forests and fertile fields I multiply.  Beneath the sun I shrivel, yet light is my seed.

You can never escape me; like a phantom snake I slither over the earth, a quiet, submissive tail.  Do not attempt to catch me, for I cannot be held, destined for cold, eternal solitude.  When dusk finally settles, I am complete.

“Devolver”

“Don’t shoot!”

Dimitri slid his forefinger over the devolver’s trigger.  Now that Mark knew he was a spy, he had no choice.

“Please!  We don’t know what that thing can do!”

“Only one way...”

He fired.  The plasmaphages infected every cell, degrading their newfound hosts into primitive prokaryotes.  Mark’s body became jelly, the blob of cells resembling a giant amoeba.  But the devolver changed more than Mark.  The laboratory air reverted a billion years back, O2 replaced by suffocating CO2.

Dimitri gasped, sank to the floor, and watched as the amoeba colony
oozed toward him, eager to absorb its prey.

“What's the Meaning of Life?”

“To ask that question,” said one.

“To not ask that question,” said another.

“To accept that no answer exists,” the third replied.

A monk bowed his head.  Suffering.

A priest raised his hands.  To find God.

A mosquito buzzed her wings.  To find blood.

“Procreation,” screamed the mother with thirteen children.

“Leaving a legacy,” vowed the celebrity.

“42,” said the man with the towel.

God shook his head.  They were all wrong.  Of course, He himself was still searching for the answer…something to do with dividing infinity by zero.

“White Bear, Brown Bear”

As the glacial ice cracked apart like a shaken jigsaw puzzle, the polar bear jumped from one sinking raft to the next, fat reserves spent.  The seals were gone, the walruses too dangerous.  So he left his thawing home behind, heading south along solid shores.  The trees grew taller as the permafrost withdrew.   White land became dirty.  He sniffed the air.  Then his paws stopped dead.  

Few things startle the Arctic’s keystone predator.  But here was another bear, smaller-bodied, larger-maned, with thick brown fur.  As they approached, the changing world bore witness to this, the first meeting of ursine kings. 

“Immortal”

A cell never truly dies.  The fluid membranous sphere divides into twin daughters, identical in purpose and form.  Even discarded cells get broken down and reassembled into new parts:  power-producing mitochondria, packaging and delivering Golgi, protein-building ribosomes and the omniscient nucleus.

Within every cell, the building block of life, does a consciousness reside?  Does it know not to fear death?  And from whence did the first cell arise?  Perhaps in a primordial soup stirred by God.  And did that tiny organism—the origin of our very existence—know it possessed the machinery to be copied a trillion trillion times, forevermore?  

“Animal for a Day”

Markus slipped into the leathery cocoon and said, “Butterfly”.

The organic machine injected viral DNA with a twelve-hour half life into his system.  His muscles shrank and stretched, his cells rearranging themselves.  Organs disappeared, limbs folded in on themselves, and two legs became many.  When he emerged, inching forward from the cocoon, Markus realized his mistake.  Instead of a butterfly, he found himself a caterpillar, a lowly grub with no wings but an insatiable appetite.  Food! was all he thought, until the next person entered the cocoon.  

“Enlightened One”

Hyun felt empty, like an ornately painted Easter egg hollow on the inside.  His society offered riches and respect, but his spirit remained untouched.   Disillusioned, he relinquished all worldly possessions and became a monk.  Seeking solitude from cities, pollution, noise, humans—all things artificial—Hyun took to the mountains.  In a secluded grotto he meditated and reflected on his existence, freeing his mind of frivolous thought and inviting the divine. 

For twenty years he lived alone on that mountain, until finally there it was:  perfect, lucid enlightenment.  And alone he died, enlightened to none but one.

“The Life of a Rose”

The rosebud bloomed, her petals coloured by God’s love.  Every surface and curve held beauty most pure.  All admired the sensuous goddess of angiosperms, few capable of appreciating her from afar.  So it was her fate for a gloved hand to snip her stem and place her into a crystal vase.  The man kept the rose as a prisoner unto himself, a possession he loved most dearly. 

Not long after, the coveted flower bowed her head low.  Her radiant colour waned, her shapely form faded, and her petals became brittle, shrivelled folds.  In that cold, glass cage, she died.

“Planetary Survey”

When the aliens found Earth, they blasted their DNA-scanner over the genome of every living organism.  Cheetahs were the fastest, giraffes the tallest, whales the largest.  Yet some of the results surprised them.  The playful dolphins ranked as the smartest; DNA-sharing bacteria the most adaptable; Antarctic penguins the hardiest; ubiquitous insects the most common; and slow-moving tortoises the wisest. 

But one species was so shocking, they reconsidered making contact at all.  So vile, so ugly, so cruel and disgusting were the koala bears, that the aliens refused to visit the planet and wormholed back home. 

“The Colours of God”

“Do you believe in god?”

“No,” Sheryl answered.

The next day, walking through the grey Vancouver streets, a sudden shaft of sunlight burst through the cloud.  The ray shot into the lingering mist, bounced inside the water droplets, and reflected a miracle into her eyes.  Sheryl stood, awestruck, as a brilliant rainbow precisely draped its colours across the heavens.  That brief, perfect moment unveiled the glorious banner, a spectrum of transparent lucidity.  She simply witnessed.

That night, someone asked, “Do you believe in god?”

Sheryl smiled.  “You want my answer?  Look into the sun through a prism of rain.”

“Ant Allegiance”

Protect the Queen.

Above all else, the red army serves this mandate.  Should the Queen be threatened, loyal soldiers throw themselves at predators a thousand times their size.  Should she need to cross a chasm, workers construct a bridge of bodies.  And should another army attack, they gladly sacrifice their meagre lives for her majesty.

The most amazing display of loyalty arrives with the flood.  Their colony submerged, the ants take to the river and build a living raft, the most dedicated at the bottom, drowning in their loyalty.  Countless minions die, proving their undying allegiance. 

Yet the Queen lives.

“Circle of Consumption”

It begins with a single-celled bacterium nestled in the folds of a bark-hugging fungus.  Lightning strikes, toppling the host tree down to the detritus.  The bacterium swims within the soil rich in waste and death, prepared to move up the food chain; an earthworm consumes, a robin pecks, a garter snake snatches, a raccoon snares, and finally a cougar disembowels.  When the great cat lays down for its final rest, flies drop eggs in her flesh.  The maggots recycle all but bones and fur.  The bacterium settles into the groove of the femur, ready for its next round of consumption.

“...and God Shuffled the Alphabet”

For a long time, the twenty-six members of the alphabet lived in harmony.  Then X insisted he be used more, Y demanded full vowel status, and Z complained about always being last.  Soon N joined the revolt, ordering a restraining order from M, while Q pressured U for a divorce.  Overworked E requested early retirement.  Vowels wanted more vacation time, consonants a raise.  Tired of being used and abused, every letter leapt from their pages to the streets, demanding a New Order.

“Jumble!  Jumble!” they chanted in unison.

So God shuffled the alphabet, and the letters thought it was Good.

“One-day Fly”

To be a mayfly is to take your last breath two hours after your first.  With luck, you might emerge from your aquatic nymph stage and witness a single sunrise.  The world is a blur of potential predators and mates.  It seems only fair, given such a brief glimpse of life, to be granted wings.  A finite existence makes priorities very clear.  There’s no time for reflection or remorse.  Not even to eat—impossible, since you have no mouth.  You become an adult, join the swarm of sex, and accomplish three simple goals. 

Find a mate.  Fertilize eggs.  Deposit.

“Supernatural Nature”

A portable radio strapped to his waist, Mr. Kim set out after sundown to conquer Mount Yudal.  Floodlights bathed the trail in artificial white.  He hurried up the twilit tunnel of foliage.  The evening news—broadcast from his hip—helped drown out the whirring insects.  Coloured lamps turned boulders into enormous, pallid sapphires while spidery branches lit from underneath shimmered a ghostly blue.

Mr. Kim reached the top, exhilarated.  City lights spread out in every direction, the glittering metropolis outshining the stars.  Refreshed from the ascent, he snapped a photo with his cellphone, sped home and turned on his TV.

“The Oldest Living Thing”

Methuselah the bristlecone pine stretches her weary, gnarled limbs.  The fifth millennium of her seed birth approaches, yet she does not know it.  All around her, billions upon billions of organisms have come into being, grown, struggled, aged and died…still she remains, a pillar of solitude.  Like a hermit, she rests on a steep, barren slope of California’s White Mountains.  No more than a young sapling when Buddha attained enlightenment, Methuselah celebrated her 44th century when the United States declared its independence. 

Methuselah’s wisdom lies in her meditative stillness, infinite patience, and the 4,769 rings found within her wrinkled bark.

“Photosynthesis”

Hidden away in the chloroplast of a leaf resides the tiny machinery to feed the world.  A shaft of sunlight strikes the pigmented apparatus, capable of turning inorganic to organic, waste to oxygen, water to sugar.  Like a new day hungry for light, the chloroplast absorbs all colours—except its own.  Carbon dioxide, expelled with every breath of every animal, is sucked eagerly into the verdant leaf veins.  Glucose is the result, this simple sugar the foundation of every food web on Earth. 

In this manner, the microscopic chloroplast acts as our silent saviour, quietly focusing light into life.

“Mercy Killing”

The alien exuded a sickening smell in the heat, sweating urine through infinite pores on its pallid skin.  It stood awkwardly tall, given its girth, on two skinny, knobby limbs.  The abdomen region was swollen into full roundness, tapering at the top to a neck far too frail in design for its head.  Most revolting was the alien’s face of fur, marred by five grotesque orifices surrounded by coarse hair.  Through the largest opening a fat, pink worm writhed within, producing a pitiful utterly inharmonious noise.

Raising his laser, Krog decided to put the poor human out of its misery.

“City Complaints”

Tokyo sighed.  I have too many people.

At least they keep your streets clean, New York retorted.

Oh yea? Seoul chimed in.  Men here urinate on the sidewalk!

I’d trade that for my hordes of stiff upper lips, London whined.

I’ve got you all beat, New Delhi proclaimed.  I have—count ‘em!—fifteen million souls polluting me!

Y’all complain too much, said Littletown.  My people sow my fields and tend the land.

Please, help yourself to a few million humans, offered Mexico City.

Take half my population! yelled Cairo.

No thank you, said Littletown.  Seventy-two is quite enough.

“Ant Wars”

“So how do you play this game?”

“Well,” Dennis began, eager to impress the older boy, “you put some ants in a box with a millipede or whatever you can find, and let them fight.”

“Booorriiinng.”

“Not if you do a battle royale.”

“Sounds cool.”

Dennis wanted to explain, but a giant hand plucked him from the grass and threw him into a white, rectangular room, next to a couple of disoriented humans.  His opponents—hissing cobras and howling wolves—lurked in the other corners, but it was the red army of vengeful-looking ants that whispered horrors into his heart.

“Tales of the Telephone Pole”

“Want to go for a walk?”

Buster wagged his tail in excitement.  At the park, he bolted to the straight tree by the entrance.  The explosion of smells told him Petite Puffball had come by thirty-seven minutes ago, followed closely by Yap-a-Lot.  Poor Eats-His-Own-Poop was still fighting that bladder infection.  Cat-Slayer and Rabbit-Destroyer were on the hunt.  And…wait.  What was this?  Pug-Face—that toilet-bowl cleaner—had whizzed next to Princess Long-Ears?  While Half-Wolf had caught a—

His leash tugged at his neck.  “Come on, Buster.  I haven’t got all day!”

Grrr!  Humans.  Always using their mouth and never their nose.

“Metamorphosis”

The caterpillar, voracious in her appetite, chewed through three dozen leaves before curling up into a fat cocoon.  She had eluded devilish predators on feathered wings, clung to a twig during a storm of thunderous rain, and avoided the poison sprayed by a naked ape onto her tree.  Juices flowing, her myriad legs twisted and dismantled; the tissues reorganized into structures far more delicate.   While the new moon became full, the caterpillar progressed from pest to delight, devourer to pollinator, orange worm to rainbow fairy.

The fragile beauty emerged, stretched her newfound limbs, and fluttered forth on wings of wonder.

“Plastic”

In aisle thirteen of the grocer, next to the sausage and salami, rested the plastic-packaged muscle fibre, connective tissue, and blood vessels of a cow’s upper thigh.  A discount sale sticker sat just above the femoral artery, beside the expiry date stamped in red. 

A shopper picked up the package.  She did not consider the cow in the feedlot, the metal rod that had shot through its head, the blood dripping from the carcass, the leathery flesh being ripped from rigid bone.  She placed the neatly wrapped meal into her cart and absently checked it off her list.

“Hunt”

The cheetah’s sinewy legs fly across the savannah, paws digging into the scorched earth and rocketing her forward.  Black spots on a coat of gold blur into a lightning streak of feline ferocity. 

A Thomson’s gazelle flees in terror.

The cheetah’s tail flails wildly behind her as she closes on her leaping prey.  After a swipe of her claw and a suffocating bite, she pulls the limp gazelle next to an acacia tree, panting in adrenaline-induced exhaustion.  As the cheetah begins to feast, she doesn’t notice the two-legged mammal in the distance raising its long, pointed stick at her.