Butterfly

There are two things that sunlight does well. The first is to illuminate the world, revealing all the wonders of the verse. The other is to rend anything that it touches to ribbons of poisonous death.

Man thought that they were the nonpareil on Earth for a long time. It wasn’t until The Great Desolation when mankind was driven from the surface, deep into the long dark.

Skylights were invented that diffuse the sun’s power through mile long shafts, where the corrosive energy was captured and used to power the Hive’s cells.

It was Luna’s birthday. She was playing in the arboretum. A magical room where massive trees were grown in the shelter of an underground cavern. It was one of the only rooms in the Hive that received large amounts of sunlight.

Luna wasn’t supposed to go near the sun.

A splash of blue caught Luna’s eyes. It flicked from the branches of the oak she was hiding in into a patch of sunlight near the ground. With the agility of a cave squirrel Luna found herself millimeters from the sunlight, as close to the sapphire blue wings as she could get.

It’s like they blinked a welcome to her color starved eyes. She wanted to hold it, feel if it’s wings were as velvety as they looked. Just a little touch couldn’t hurt.

She reached for the butterfly's wings and screamed as the sun ripped her skin apart.

At What Cost

He opened the door to see her bruised, soaking wet and covered in glitter. . .

A broad smile lit her face, “A pixie swarm! I’ve been through a pixie swarm!” She threw up her arms and danced circles in the doorway.

He grew pale, leaned against the wall and slid to the floor.

“Didn’t you hear me? I’ve seen the pixies!” she giggled, “There were thousands of them. At first there were only a few. Look! One clipped me in the shoulder.” she pointed to a darkening bruise covered in silver glitter. “But then it was like a dam broke and I was being pelted, There wasn’t a sherrick of cover so I hid in the gutter, but it only partially covered me.” She sighed in happiness and shivered, multi hued glitter raining to the floor.

He hadn’t moved. He stared off into the distance a look of utter despair.

“It will be alright,” she crooned as she reached to him.

He flinched away, “Don’t!” he gasped. His skin visibly crawled.

“You don’t believe wives tales do you?” Her smile grew broad and she laughed. “Pixie dust isn’t poisonous. Does it look like my skin is melting away?” She turned in the light, which caught on the millions of tiny facets.

He shook his head dumbly.  

“I’ll be famous,” she looked down at herself, “I have proof of pixies.”

“But how will we get it out of the carpet?” he moaned. 

Grooms

“I have invented a new type of mushroom that tastes like a grape!” exclaimed Professor Singh.

“Why?!”

“Eww”

“What?”

“Are you serious!”

“How?!”

He smiled, “All valid questions, and I will answer you with another. Why not?”

“Well it sounds disgusting for one thing,” his red-headed assistant quipped.

Singh sighed, “Lindsey, are you a culinary expert?”

“No, my best attempt at cooking usually fails in me making microwaved burritos.”

“Exactly,” he picked up a bunch of grapes that can best be described as a mesmerism of colors. Some were a deep concord purple, while others a startling shade of orange, with every range of color in between. “This is a Grooms. Each individual “grape” is in fact a moist den for growing micro pockets of edible fungi. In order to achieve this marvel of science I have dedicated the last 15 years of study to creating this species.”

“15 years? That’s like,” The football player had to pause for a second, “almost four bachelor's degrees.”

“More like the time it takes to train a heart surgeon,” whispered the Filipino girl sitting behind him.

“Precisely,” continued Singh, “I’ve created a bonsai mushroom plant using the basis of the grape structural model. The biggest dilemma I have at this point is that all of the mushrooms have a slight hint of grape flavor to their original essence.

That is why for today’s lesson, I give this challenge to you. Remove the grape.”

On this beautiful day

On this beautiful day, Mimi tended her rose garden.

Mimi believed in the philosophy that to dress beautifully, made you feel beautiful. She applied this not only to herself but also to her roses. She wore brightly tailored dresses that while feminine were also useful when gardening. She spend hours a day tending the flower beds: pulling weeds, adding fertilizer, placing bark and cultivating a garden that her entire neighborhood enjoyed.

Mimi always smiled at her neighbors. Often stunning bouquets would appear on their doorsteps, ones they knew Mimi had made. Mimi believed that everyone should feel appreciated and went out of her way to let her neighbors know what they meant to her.  

On this auspicious night, Mimi tended her rose garden.

It took a lot of work to keep roses beautiful. Mostly it took a lot of bodies to keep a rose garden the size of Mimi’s looking fresh. Bodies were not hard for Mimi to come by. When ever her neighbors adopted an annoying pet. Mimi helped them run way. If there were suspicious men driving through the neighborhood, Mimi showed them where to go. Once, a teenager got their arm stuck in the drain. Mimi helped get the teenager free.

Mimi’s wood chipper received its fair share of use, both during the day and every once in awhile at night. Once her neighbor complained about the noise. No one did again.

Mini’s neighbors were so jejune.