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04/16/2026

My latest 20-minute writing exercise, with the prompt to frame it as a correspondence between two academics of dubious scholarship.

My Thesis: Ghosts are Cats

I have reached a conclusion I am ready to share with the scientific community. The afterlife is real for some of us. I have encountered ghosts, I have communed with them. I have learned to reach through the veil and touch their minds. And I have news: all ghosts are cats. I have not yet determined precisely why, but something about the way the feline brain is wired, something about their subjective experience, appears to lend itself to remaining on this plane long after their bodies have expired.

I look forward to hearing responses from my colleagues on this matter.

Luther K. Krackpot, PhD

My dear Doctor Krackpot:

Let me express my appreciation for the freedom with which you express your thesis, i.e., that ghosts are the earthly remainders of dead cats. This, of course, will require significantly more proof than your experience in communing with whatever you’re touching beyond the veil. Cats are, in a word, not interested in us when they’re alive, so why would they give a good f**k about us after they’re dead. The truth is, dogs may have family, but cats only have staff. Any why would they care about the maid when there are no more cans of Fancy Feast to be opened in the great beyond?

T.T. Grodie, PhD

Dear Doctor Grodie,

Thank you for your measured response to my paper. It is true, cats in life have been shown to give few f**ks for their bipedal caretakers. This was among my hesitancies in proffering this theory to begin with.

But I offer the following rejoinder: perhaps it is less that they give few f**ks, and more that they rejoice in f**king with us. Ergo, it is precisely their worldly f**kery that keeps them persisting in death to torment our days and our nights.

Luther K. Krackpot, PhD

My dear Doctor Krackpot:

Worldly f**kery is, in fact, the essence of cat culture. Witness their impulse to knock objects off countertops in reverse proportion to the cost of said object.

T.T. Grodie, PhD

04/16/2026

A recent 20-minute writing exercise with these prompts: High emotional avoidance/occupational/SciFi

“Are you done with that thing yet? We need to fire the maneuvering jets by 2300 hours and they won’t work if the valve isn’t clear.”

I ducked my head, tried not to hyperventilate, and mumbled something vaguely affirmative. Zog never really wanted an answer, just wanted to preserve the illusion he was the big “man” in charge.

“And don’t forget about recalibrating the system either.”

Another vaguely affirmative noise from me sent Zog spider-crawling down to the other side of the deck to annoy someone else. Why did the universe make Malthusians so damn annoying? It’s like they were bred to make others’ lives miserable. Of all the freighters in all the galaxy, why did I have to get stuck on this one? It wasn’t just their manners (or lack of them). Their coal-black eyes, roughly ovoid bodies, pipe cleaner legs, and off-center translator unit all contributed to their overall creepiness.

The only thing that was keeping me going was the idea that sometime later today, we’d be docking in low Earth orbit, and I could get off this crappy piece of space-borne junk.

With Zog out of eyesight and out of earshot, I slunk down the gangway to the habitation deck, grabbed my sea bag, and stuffed it next to the hatch that lead to the exit umbilical. Two more hours and I’d be gone and never coming back. Just before shift change, I slipped back to my duty station and tried to look like I’d been there for hours.

When the shift change bell chimed, I headed for the departure deck and thought back to two years ago, when I started this voyage of the damned. I really must have pi**ed somebody off during that damn bar crawl to wake up the next morning on board this freighter with no way home.

04/16/2026

My latest 20-minute writing exercise from my Thursday night writing group. Prompts: Lamp, gloves, Titanic.

Djinn

Samii hunkered down between the bunks in steerage and did his best to be as small as possible. Rightfully, he should have had his own bunk in the crew quarters, but two of the waiters who were originally scheduled to disembark at the first port of call changed their minds and stayed aboard. That meant Samii was forced to find space wherever he could down in steerage with the poorest passengers.

He clutched his few remaining possessions to his chest, including a tiny brass oil lamp with intricate inscriptions, a photo of his mother, and pair of her white gloves, now sadly grubby with age.

After his shift serving dinner, Samii staggered back to the patch of floor he’d occupied earlier and reclaimed his meager possessions. Eventually, he fell into a fitful sleep, which was broken sometime after midnight by a brain freezing metal scream from below and followed by panicked screams from all around him. He fought his way out into the hallway and toward the stairs, only to find the door to the next deck locked.

Samii sank down on the top step and wept. He wept for his mother and all that he had promised her from his wages from the White Star line. He wept for the wife he would never have, the children he would never sire, the life he would never live. As he sat, he began to mutter some half-remembered prayers from his childhood, praying for salvation, for a miracle, for his mother. And as he prayed, he rubbed the old lamp with his gloved hands.

For a long time, nothing happened. Then, as he kept praying, a faint wisp of v***r began to rise from the lamp, eventually forming into a cloudy image of a djinn.

“Who summons me?”

Sammi gulped in terror and kept silent.

“Just give me a command, O master.

Sammi gulped again and whispered tentatively. “Oh, great djinn, save me from drowning.”

The djinn snorted derisively and said, “That’s it? That’s all? No jewels, no money?”

“What good will jewels or money do me if I’m dead?”

“Very true. Well, close your eyes and hold your breath and I’ll have you out of here in no time.”

Sammi closed his eyes and when he opened them again, he was sitting in a lifeboat full of expensively dressed women.

He looked around him, awe-struck at his good fortune.

One of the women gave him a little shove and said, “Shove over a bit. Make room for Mrs. Brown.”

03/20/2026

Here's yet another 20-minute writing exercise created with The Bartender's Challenge prompt: Photosynthesis

“Mama, can I go outside yet?”

I leaned over the side of the playpen, picked her up, and settled her on my hip.

“You sure can, sweetie. We just need to get some shoes on you first and brush your hair.”

“Why do I have to wear shoes, Mama? I’d rather go barefoot.”

“Just to keep your feet clean, silly.”

Once I had her stuffed into a pair of Minnie Mouse sandals, she ran for the door and fairly burst into the backyard. She ran and spun and danced in the sunshine, enraptured with the possibilities of a suburban fenced backyard. I closed the screened door but kept the regular door open.

Not so long ago, she had been just an infant, too wobbly to be standing on her own. Now, she was sprouting up by the minute and running faster than I could catch her. This was my chance to catch a nap while she played outside in the sunshine, protected by a locked fence. I drifted off to sleep on the couch as her childish chatter faded.

In what seemed like seconds but was probably at least an hour, the babyish chatter was replaced by screams.

“Mama, mama, mama, what’s happening?”

I dashed to the screen door and the first thing I saw was a pair of Minnie Mouse sandals, discarded on the steps. In the far end of the yard, back by the garage, there was something . . . something monstrous, with its legs rooted into the soil like a 100-year-old oak. The something continued to make sounds that seemed less like language with every passing moment and more like the sound of the wind in the leaves.

I slumped onto the stairs and wept.

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