Procrastination

I can ring a doorbell easily. New things don't scare me. I'm happy meeting people. I'll happily try unfamiliar foods.

The tough thing for me is concentrated work. I procrastinate. It's not as simple as committing to pushing a button. It's pushing a button, then holding it down for two hours. Or at least that's how it seems. It's difficult to hold in my thoughts that beginning is the hardest part, because I can so easily find something else to do.

And beginnings are definitely the hardest. Once you get going, often times it flies by. Get into the thick of a paper and the words will keep coming. Facing that door, knowing that I could just go somewhere else instead of standing at it, waiting to pass through. That's hard. So I turn away. Too often, I turn away.

Even when I get started, a hiccup can bring it all to a halt. Struggling to comprehend a concept in German, or finding no leads on a bit of research I need can push me back to the beginning.

And if you read that, I'm glad you pushed on through.

Aurora

I've always wanted to see an aurora. Not to find my spirit animal etched in glowing lines across the night sky, or behold the magic of it. No, the facts are far more fascinating to me.

Auroras are the eddying solar winds washing across our planet's force field. Well, kinda. If you didn't know, our planet is magnetically active. The action of our iron core generates a magnetic sphere of influence around our planet, which diverts the particles and energy of solar winds. Otherwise we'd be dead, scoured off the face of our planet fairly quickly by radioactive "wind."

Auroras illustrate those solar winds' energies spectacularly. They can be seen where they are bent towards the atmosphere and lose their steam. You know how a meteor superheats and wears that flaming hat of "I'm gonna really fuck you up" when it's careening towards the Earth in movies? It's a similar principle, except with mostly pure energy being dampened and shed through our ionizing atmosphere.

I'd love to sit under it and visualize the stream of energy flying past. Makes you feel small.

Orange Mists

In fantasy worlds, weather can take a turn for the weird. Storms don't just get bigger, they get stranger too.

"At first we thought it a trick of the light. Dust or something kicked up by the wind. Hells, maybe it was, but it weren't no normal dust. Looked vibrant as a fruit and tasted musty. Gave you quite a cough and made you feel a strange kind of chill. Everyone lit up their fires and clutched em like they were life. Worse though, was the animals. I reckon it's cause they can't make their own fire."

Orange mist can be the result of supernatural phenomenon, alchemical explosions, or creeping curses. It causes light obscurement and lasts 2d4 days, or until it rains. While the mists persist, animals in the area must make a charisma save dc 15 or be drawn to sources of heat and exhibit a supernatural ability to detect it within 6 miles. They become hostile to all humanoids using fire and attempt to attack them, as well as gaining 1d4 temporary hit points each turn they spend in the mist.

Deer come stampeding out of the forest, wolves circle towns and rats boil up in the streets, clawing through windows. Settlements that do not utilize fire are safe.

A Pipe Runs Through It

The property was over an oil field but my father wouldn't give it up. When he passed, we had the responsibility of dividing it. Dickenson Ranch became another set of coordinates on a landman's county record listing. The rest of the kids and I didn't know how we'd pass the land off.

We decided to have one last adventure in those hills before the pumps and derricks sprouted across it. Sarah and Connor showed up, but our delinquent sister Martha never did. She was busy in Los Angeles doing god-knows-what and wasn't allowed across state lines.

We revisited King Mountain, the largest hill. I even found our scepter. SSCM was burned into the branch near the knot at the top. Connor and I put together a new throne of stones- what we used to call boulders. They'd been immovable. Sarah gathered the white flowers along the King's slopes for a crown.

We sat for a time, Connor and I with our spears and Sarah with her crown, talking about the old days. Martha wasn't here to be the Red Queen, so Connor became a defacto knight of the White Queen's realm. No sense in playing sides anymore. We were all on one, even Martha.


We scratched out initials into the throne and almost even took a picture, but decided against it.

Now pipes vein the hills. Maybe someday they'll serve as gates and bridges for future realms in those hills.

Jellyfish

It surfaced off starboard, rocking the small research vessel. Iridescent spots coated the bell.

"holy shit," Rick said whistling.
"I told ya I weren't shitting ya," Francois, the local fisherman, said.

This beast dwarfed the lion jelly. Medusozoa Leviathani. He had pictures, but they didn't do the creature justice. It looked like a bulge in the ocean sporting a colony of colorful plankton. The thing had to be at least a hundred feet across.

"And you say you're going in with it?" Francois laughed. "I wouldn't go near that even if I had a submarine."

Rick began suiting up while the crew took notes. Even while he pulled the diving suit on he couldn't take his eyes off the thing. The crew wondered aloud why it stayed surfaced so long. Then it hit him. Those spots across it were eyespots. It was watching them too.

"Watch it Rick! You want to stumble over the edge? We're not going in after you."

The spots along the thing were primitive, as with any jellyfish, but the sheer number of them put the things visual resolution well above even predatory hawks.

As Rick stepped into the water, the bell of the beast convulsed once, depressing and drawing water into the bowl to jet away. He barely got ahold of a tentacle before the jellyfish was moving. Water swirled around him and glassy tendrils like the branches of a weeping willow covered him.

Nearby the turbulent water from the jelly's actions could blast Rick off easily, and the waves of the tentacles brought him close each time the thing pulsed.

His thick gloves protected him while he took cuttings and placed them in sample pouches, marveling at the find. Where had this been?

Little Red

We all know the story of little red riding hood, but this last summer I heard a stranger tale. We were sitting around the fire, and as the storyteller relayed it, she gestured with an antler she'd found earlier in the underbrush.

The story was one of girls and red hoods and forests that at first appeared familiar. A child went to her grandmother's house in the woods. She was sent there by her parents after a string of terrible nightmares. They told her to listen to her grandmother's words. She journeyed over the river and through the- well you know.

Once she heard growling, and a snarling beast approached, but it stopped, cocked its head and sniffed. As if alerted by a scent of easier prey, it took off through the trees.

The little girl arrived at her grandmother's house and approached the well-etched door. Deep grooves crossed it and the frame it sat in. A strong door, thought the girl. One which kept the wolves at bay. It was ajar, so she pushed inside.

The room was dark and strewn with broken furniture and fur. On the floor near her scraps of cloth fluttered in the fresh breeze. She knelt and gingerly touched one. Calico, with lace. Her grandmother's dress, or one of them.

A wet slapping sound and a snap jolted her. The animal was still there. Then from the shadows a huge furred beast approached, far larger than the wolf on the road.

"Ah pup, you're just in time for dinner. The dreams have started, haven't they?"

As the little girl's eyes adjusted to the gloom she saw the ruined form of a stag behind the beast.

Banana Job

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