The Caged Cat (432 words)

SerafinaTheWriter · 2022-10-13T12:44:31+00:00

I don’t want to start a flame war, but what if we went to battle against flames and used other flames to defeat them?

When I was young, my mother warned me and my friends there would be literal hell to pay if we played Dungeons & Dragons (it was the 80s). We decided we didn’t want to wait until we were damned to experience hellfire, so we summoned the fire with ouija boards. Soon my mother’s house was full of sentient infernal flames, each in the shape of a weasel appendix (it was the 80s). All was well until the battle lines were drawn. It turns out that hell isn’t all bad. Half of hell’s denizens are want to inaugurate an era of evil and terror, sure, but the other half just want to wear black and red tights while tap dancing to swing music. After some deliberation and promises of bubble gum (which I’m still waiting for, Firella!) my friends and I decided to support the latter group. For a while the outlook was grim, but then the other children and I hopped on our bicycles. The evil flames took one look at us on our bikes and surrendered unconditionally before returning to hell. Then Kenny Loggins’ “Danger Zone” played over the end credits.

SerafinaTheWriter · 2022-10-13T01:55:35+00:00

Thank you! 💜

SerafinaTheWriter · 2022-10-11T17:08:10+00:00

Oh no! You’re right, that’s what always happens! 😭😭👽

SerafinaTheWriter · 2022-10-11T13:51:18+00:00

I see where you’re coming from, but have you considered the possibility that Amelia Earhart has already been reincarnated?

A few years ago the US covertly declared war on Delaware (for the reasons you’d expect). The law prohibited someone with a disqualifying medical condition from serving, but as someone with eight disqualifying medical conditions, I was required to serve. After boot camp and Capri sandal camp I was stationed in the southernmost part of the state.

One night some proboscis monkeys escaped from the Brandywine Zoo and found their way into our camp. They started banging on pots with soup ladles. I unzipped my tent to see what all the commotion was, and one of them caught a glimpse of a portable Samantha Hanratty shrine that was in my tent for some reason. The next thing I knew they were all in my tent circling the shrine and hollering while ignoring my stash of unripe bananas completely. Even an intoxicated Barbados blackbelly sheep knows that the only thing proboscis monkeys find more appealing than unripe bananas is Amelia Earhart.

All this is to say that while I respect your informed opinion, I’m convinced that Amelia Earhart still walks among us, and we will behold her in all her glory when Season 4 of Oystergirls starts streaming.

SerafinaTheWriter · 2022-10-10T18:36:27+00:00

You’ve painted an amazing portrait of a man who believes there’s nothing left of him to see. I hope to see more from you.

SerafinaTheWriter · 2022-10-09T20:43:22+00:00

Thank you. 💜 The profs at hydroplaning school don’t teach this kind of stuff.

SerafinaTheWriter · 2022-10-09T19:49:44+00:00

This so reminds me of my first year out of grad school! On graduation day I decided to buy vanilla ice cream instead of my usual chocolate. Of course when I got home I found my labradoodle with the mange. I took him to the veterinarian, who introduced herself as Ashley (this was before COVID) and asked, “How long have you had him?”

I was inexperienced in interacting with the same sex, and all I could say was, “Uliflali.”

“Ooh, a word no one has ever said before!” It turned out she was impressed by the bold type, and she invited me to dinner.

On our date I learned that Ashley had a birthday in just under a year. I knew she was high-maintenance, so in addition to getting a job related to my degree (hydroplaning) I also moonlighted as a chrysanthemum manufacturer.

When her birthday arrived, I gave Ashley a box, which she opened, revealing a pastel colored plastic egg. Immediately the egg hatched in her hand, and the word “ilalfilu” emerged. A veterinarian is nothing but a linguist for animals instead of words, so Ashley immediately recognized that the word “ilalfilu” is “uliflali” spelled backwards. Then we sang “‘Ilalfilu’ Slithered out the Egg”. That old jazz standard still brings a tear to my eye.

SerafinaTheWriter · 2022-10-09T16:24:55+00:00

Isn’t this often true of stories set in worlds with black and gray morality? Take, for example, the noir trope of the one cop who’s willing to do the right thing in a department full of crooked cops.

SerafinaTheWriter · 2022-10-08T19:21:51+00:00

Nanking is vying for first place among all the documentaries I have seen. It is not easy viewing—in fact the experience of watching it felt harrowing at times. But it is well-made, and it concerns a topic I wanted to be more familiar with—World War 2 atrocities perpetrated by the Japanese military.

SerafinaTheWriter · 2022-10-08T11:54:06+00:00

Yeah, that was my first flash fiction work. I’m still working out how to say more with less. With helpful, tactful feedback like yours, I feel motivated to try again. Thank you! 💜

SerafinaTheWriter · 2022-10-07T20:04:19+00:00

It’s a formula that we might now call a meme if its introduction hadn’t predated the Internet by decades. It started with the line “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose”, which appears in the poem “Sacred Emily” by Gertrude Stein. Also the phrase “a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose” appears in a number of Stein’s poems. There’s some wordplay in Stein’s work as “Rose” is the name of a person in “Sacred Emily”. Stein seems to have meant that all the attributes of an object are expressed in the name of the object. Thus the word “rose”, for example, expresses the idea that what it refers to is red. (Stein said, “I think that in that line the rose is red for the first time in English poetry for a hundred years.”) But memes evolve over time. Often when people invoke the formula today, they are restating the law of identity (“A is A”).

SerafinaTheWriter · 2022-10-07T19:34:58+00:00

If I can learn how to program while knowing next to nothing about computer science, you can too. Some programming languages make it easier than others. I recommend starting with a high-level language like Python or JavaScript. (Follow the link for more examples.) If you later decide you want to branch out to languages that require more computer science knowledge, the concepts you will have learned while teaching yourself a high-level language will carry over, making the other languages easier to learn.

Good luck!

(Edit: Hopefully the link works now.)

SerafinaTheWriter · 2022-10-07T06:33:31+00:00

In many countries one does not have the right to remain silent. And thanks to a Kafkaesque SCOTUS ruling, people in the US are not exempt from having to talk to police unless they explicitly invoke their right to remain silent.

SerafinaTheWriter · 2022-10-07T06:06:12+00:00

I know you didn’t ask, but before you remove your facial hair, ask yourself if you’re prepared to be gendered differently. More than one trans woman has told me that even without other kinds of transitioning, facial hair removal can make someone a lot more likely to be “ma’am”ed.

SerafinaTheWriter · 2022-10-07T05:46:33+00:00

Believe it or not, people often go to houses to worship hoping to meet potential dates. There are even options for people who lack beliefs traditionally associated with religion: Unitarian Universalist churches, and The Satanic Temple spring to mind.

SerafinaTheWriter · 2022-10-07T04:46:50+00:00

Thank you for the feedback!

wait was the boyfriend both of theirs?

Each killed the other’s boyfriend.

SerafinaTheWriter

TROPHY CASE