#vss365 Iron-rimmed wooden wheels clattered over cobblestone, a harsh cacophony sounding the arrival of the rag & #bone man. The man was rags & bones himself, & those who came to trade were shabby & skeletal too. Hunger gnawed them, & sometimes all they had to offer him was themselves & despair.
February 9, 2026 at 2:39 PM
#vss365 Awakening from an eternal sleep, she put on a #lambent robe & adorned herself in light as if it were a gown. She took threads of starshine & wove them into her black hair, & brushed glowing nebula dust onto her eyelids & lips, making them dazzle against her dark skin. A star among the gods.
February 5, 2026 at 5:13 PM
#vss365 A hush of #souls gathered in a tomb waiting for their guide to the river Styx. No one said a word. The bereaved had placed a coin in the mouths of the dead. Now, they were busy holding on to a physical coin with nonphysical teeth—coinage for the ferryman to take them across the Styx.
February 2, 2026 at 5:43 PM
#vss365 As the sun withdrew its light from the parlor, the #shadows emerged. First, they gathered in the corners furthest from the windows. Then, emboldened by the setting sun, they slid into the room, occupying the spaces behind & under furniture until they filled the whole house with eerie gloom.
February 1, 2026 at 3:54 PM
#vss365 Sekhmet rose from the desert with her enticements. Her #soothing songs summoned travelers to an endless sleep beneath the rise and fall of the dunes. She was a curse to desert mariners. We hoisted sail to catch a hot desert wind & soared high on the breeze, hoping to outrun her seduction.
January 31, 2026 at 6:45 PM
#vss365 Tibetan throat singers ascended the Namtso slopes to reach the sacred lake. Gathered around the shoreline, the singers #thrummed as one, their guttural hum amplified by the lake. The vibration dissolved molecular bonds, and Creation was undone. Out of the chaos, a new beginning would come.
January 30, 2026 at 6:50 PM
Reposted by MostlyPaul
When the #quiver was empty, the dagger blunt, his sword arm undone, he mounted an orphaned horse and took the mountain road that led away from the dying. From the heights he surveyed the field where his life was extinguished. He continued upwards forever grateful, forever chastened, forever.
#vss365
#vss365
January 28, 2026 at 8:59 AM
#vss365 A dark angel in a tree passed a traveler a #slip of paper, which was mottled, frayed, and stained. It conveyed a decorative, illegible, handwritten script. What the traveler could not read was spoken by the slip in a voice as thin as a whisper and as dry and brittle as old parchment itself.
January 25, 2026 at 1:11 AM
#vss365 #Unmoored from school, we mounted our Q bikes & engaged the Mercury Drive that blasted us out of the Spreed System. With the solar wind in our hair and starshine on our backs, we zipped by Rigel and ‘Geuse and arrived at the Nyx stream, where we spent our day fishing for quantum Razorbacks.
January 22, 2026 at 8:22 PM
#vss365 A girafant of long neck& snout stood by a #bend full of doubt. What lies around the curve, she thought,& did she have the nerve, she thought, to extend neck& trunk? She pondered the extension& likely prehension to touch the Unknowns. For it might be pleasing,or lead to a bout of cougheezing.
January 21, 2026 at 3:26 PM
#vss365 A girafant of long neck& snout stood by a #bend full of doubt. What lies around the curve, she thought,& did she have the nerve, she thought, to extend neck& trunk? She pondered the extension& likely prehension to touch the Unknowns. For it might be pleasing,or lead to a bout of cougheezing.
#vss365 A race of tapered beings arrived in narrow cylinders. They were harmless. There were no reports of violence or threats, but They had a habit of #looming. They approached quietly from behind, stood close, and loomed over one's shoulder. They were intimidating and made one feel uneasy.
January 20, 2026 at 10:28 PM
#vss365 Relegated to tea rooms &public transport, #murmur Bludbug pressed Nite Terrors for more suitable work. His disembodied mumblings among old ladies sipping tea at the Gotta Havva Cuppa had so unnerved the ladies that they now took tea elsewhere. Bludbug wanted a gig under a bed or in a closet
January 18, 2026 at 10:56 PM
#vss365 A wide-eyed corpse sat on the #stoop of a brownstone. Brownstone residents and neighbors passed by him on their way to work and home. No one paid him any attention. The corpse's lifeless eyes reflected the passing of pedestrians and vehicles. As in life, so in death, the world passed him by.
January 13, 2026 at 9:08 PM
#vss365 A wide-eyed corpse sat on the #stoop of a brownstone. Brownstone residents and neighbors passed by him on their way to work and home. No one paid him any attention. The corpse's lifeless eyes reflected the passing of pedestrians and vehicles. As in life, so in death, the world passed him by.
#vss365 "Dont turn. Don't move, McShade. I have a gun pointing directly at you."
"You the #spook that's been trailling me?"
"Yes. MI6 always gets their man."
"The gun won't do you any good."
"Why?"
""Unlike you l'm a real spook."
McShade turned to face the agent, smiled, and disappeared.
"You the #spook that's been trailling me?"
"Yes. MI6 always gets their man."
"The gun won't do you any good."
"Why?"
""Unlike you l'm a real spook."
McShade turned to face the agent, smiled, and disappeared.
January 6, 2026 at 8:44 PM
#vss365 A hole in the #sole of my shoe let in rainwater, & my toes were now squishing in a wet sock. I stopped at the Fancy A Cuppa for hot tea & an Eccles cake, but mostly to remove the soaked sock. I draped my damp footwear over a radiator to dry it quickly, which vexxed the other cafe patrons.
December 30, 2025 at 12:47 AM
#vss365 Olympus Mons thundered, & the red soil heaved, & #Mar's gave up her dead. Warriors of long, long ago assembled on the vast Martian plain of Utopia Planitia: warlords dry of bone & powdery skin, their parched lungs rasping on the planet's thin air. Armed with heat-rays & broad-bladed Øx.
December 28, 2025 at 7:44 PM
#vss365 In a huff, #Saturn rolled up its rings like an itamae rolls sushi. “It was supposed to be my breakout role,” Saturn quipped, “not you, you gassball giant.”
Jupiter shrugged. “Kubrick had special effects issues. Your rings are high maintenance. Whereas I a simple planet, am easily generated.”
Jupiter shrugged. “Kubrick had special effects issues. Your rings are high maintenance. Whereas I a simple planet, am easily generated.”
December 22, 2025 at 8:52 PM
#vss365 A lifetime of #regrets had piled up like a multiple car crash on the Grapevine between Bakersfield and L.A. There wasn't much she could do about the concertina of chaos, except to do a slow drive-by and look thoughtfully over the missed or sabotaged opportunities that comprised her life.
December 18, 2025 at 10:01 PM
#vss365 A collective #memory lived on in the minds of the marsh people. A memory that skulked in their dreams like it once skulked in the cordgrass. Like the brine monsters of St. John’s apocalypse, the memory left its watery home with a mouth full of teeth & blood, & a lust for meat torn from bone.
December 16, 2025 at 4:51 PM
#vss365 A collective #memory lived on in the minds of the marsh people. A memory that skulked in their dreams like it once skulked in the cordgrass. Like the brine monsters of St. John’s apocalypse, the memory left its watery home with a mouth full of teeth & blood, & a lust for meat torn from bone.
#vss365 The fish-woman wore a felt-fish-head hat & sold seafood from a cart. The hat with a gaping mouth & glass bead eyes gave it a harrowing look, & children hid behind their mother's skirts for safety. Her textured fish-leather scale clothes shimmered. Some said she was #boho selkie or a mermaid.
December 15, 2025 at 6:21 PM
#vss365 The fish-woman wore a felt-fish-head hat & sold seafood from a cart. The hat with a gaping mouth & glass bead eyes gave it a harrowing look, & children hid behind their mother's skirts for safety. Her textured fish-leather scale clothes shimmered. Some said she was #boho selkie or a mermaid.
#vss365 We scurried home when we heard the booming call of the bitterns, warning us of the creeping fog. We lit candles & oil lamps to ward off the mist. Outside, the fog shroud turned unlit buildings into phantasms, & people caught unawares into mist-wraiths, forever lost to the #monotonous brume.
December 14, 2025 at 8:55 PM
#vss365 We scurried home when we heard the booming call of the bitterns, warning us of the creeping fog. We lit candles & oil lamps to ward off the mist. Outside, the fog shroud turned unlit buildings into phantasms, & people caught unawares into mist-wraiths, forever lost to the #monotonous brume.
#vss365 Pursued by a dragon, a woman with her newborn fled on a great winged eagle into the bleak emptiness of an ancient silence, where an uncompromising blue sky cast the slick gray stone & withered trees into grotesque forms. In this cheerless valley, she would raise the dragon's #successor.
December 12, 2025 at 6:58 PM
#vss365 Pursued by a dragon, a woman with her newborn fled on a great winged eagle into the bleak emptiness of an ancient silence, where an uncompromising blue sky cast the slick gray stone & withered trees into grotesque forms. In this cheerless valley, she would raise the dragon's #successor.
#vss365 Martha Stewart's eggnog, heavy on the alcohol and highly flammable, failed all fire codes. After a few of Firestorm staff members combusted during the Christmas office party, management put the eggnog on its #illicit list. Survivors of the party say the eggnog's prohibition "is a good thing.
December 12, 2025 at 3:12 AM
#vss365 Martha Stewart's eggnog, heavy on the alcohol and highly flammable, failed all fire codes. After a few of Firestorm staff members combusted during the Christmas office party, management put the eggnog on its #illicit list. Survivors of the party say the eggnog's prohibition "is a good thing.
#vss365 Christmas be a #bewitching time. The Elf on the Shelf be a judgmental bastard.
December 10, 2025 at 3:32 PM
#vss365 Christmas be a #bewitching time. The Elf on the Shelf be a judgmental bastard.
Reposted by MostlyPaul
Imagine a modern writer throwing a character on stage to recite a long #soliloquy as a way of revealing his innermost thoughts and motivations.😱 "Show, don't tell!" the critics would scream. I guess William Shakespeare's English teacher never taught him about lazy writing.
#vss365
#writersofbluesky
#vss365
#writersofbluesky
December 8, 2025 at 3:32 PM
Imagine a modern writer throwing a character on stage to recite a long #soliloquy as a way of revealing his innermost thoughts and motivations.😱 "Show, don't tell!" the critics would scream. I guess William Shakespeare's English teacher never taught him about lazy writing.
#vss365
#writersofbluesky
#vss365
#writersofbluesky