Tag Archives: Short-short

Signal red buoy on blue water

Salt Logic

by

The ocean started apologizing on a Wednesday.

I was halfway through reheating yesterday’s chowder when the first buoy pinged. It wasn’t unusual — equipment hiccups, rogue currents, barnacle interference. What caught my attention was the rhythm: dot-dot-dot, dash-dash-dash, dot-dash-dot….

Morse.

Old habits die hard. I still keep a code sheet taped to the fridge, a souvenir from my early NOAA days, before satellites made men like me mostly decorative. The message spelled SORRY.

I muttered, “For what?” and the microwave dinged as if answering.

Retirement had been my idea, though my department head called it “strategic downsizing.” I consult part-time now, checking data feeds from buoys scattered along the Maine coast. The system runs itself, mostly, but I like to think it appreciates a human witness.

The next morning, another ping. SORRY AGAIN.

I sent a diagnostic request, assuming a frequency overlap from the Coast Guard channel. The server replied clean: no interference detected.

By Friday, the pings had multiplied. They weren’t random; they were conversational. The pattern came from several decommissioned buoys — units I’d deployed twenty years ago. They hadn’t transmitted in over a decade.

 

Signal red buoy on blue water

The messages shifted tone:
PLEASE. LISTEN.

I poured coffee, black and briny as the sea air, and said to the empty kitchen, “I’m listening.”

I told myself it had to be a prank. Some ham-radio hobbyist with too much time and a flair for the dramatic. I posted on a forum, casual-like, asking if anyone else’s coastal feeds were acting up. The silence that followed felt like an answer.

That night the fog came in heavy, thick enough to muffle the world. I opened the window a crack to hear the buoys calling — long tones drifting over the water.

I TOOK TOO MUCH, they said.
I DON’T KNOW HOW TO GIVE BACK.

I laughed then, a short bark that startled me. “You and me both.”

The fog swallowed the sound.

I drove down to the pier the next day, checking the harbor sensors manually. The air smelled like kelp and gasoline. Fishermen nodded as I passed — men who measured time in tides, not hours.

One of them called out, “You seeing the glow out by Bartlett Reef?”

“Bioluminescence,” I said automatically.

He spat into the water. “Funny. Glows in daylight, too.”

I didn’t answer.

The coordinates lined up with one of the old buoys. The one that had first said sorry.

Back home, I replayed the data. The signal wasn’t simple Morse anymore. It carried harmonics — layers of tone outside normal acoustic range. When I slowed it down, the pattern formed something like a heartbeat.

I should have been excited. Instead I felt tired, the kind of tired that gets behind your ribs and hums.

My ex-wife once said I had two emotions: analysis and avoidance. She wasn’t wrong. But curiosity’s a hell of a drug. I packed my field recorder, rented a dinghy, and headed out before dawn.

The water was calm, deceptive as a mirror. The buoy loomed ahead, orange paint faded to rust, solar light still blinking. I cut the motor and drifted close. The sea was strangely warm — not tropical, but body-temperature.

I tapped the buoy casing. “You wanted me here. Now what?”

The speaker crackled once, then settled into a low hum. Not mechanical. Musical.

Phosphorescence bloomed around the hull, not blue but green-white, swirling in time with the hum. It wasn’t random light. It was pattern — waveforms writ in motion.

For a moment, the ocean looked back at me.

No eyes, no face, just the sense of being regarded — gently, curiously. Like I was a specimen it didn’t quite understand.

Then, through the water, the vibration changed. Words formed not in sound but pressure, a resonance inside my chest.

YOU LISTENED.

I dropped the recorder. It hit the deck with a clatter.

When I came to — yes, came to, because at some point I’d apparently fainted like a Victorian lady — the sky had gone orange-gray. The buoy was silent. My watch said I’d lost forty minutes. The sea looked normal again, except for the faint shimmer beneath the surface, like heat mirage.

I told myself I’d hallucinated. Dehydration, low blood sugar, wishful thinking. I was a scientist, damn it. The ocean doesn’t apologize, and it doesn’t talk back.

Still, I logged the data. Frequency unknown. Amplitude variable. Subjective response: awe, mild panic, gratitude.

The next day I found the recorder washed up on the beach below my house. It was bone-dry, which shouldn’t have been possible. When I played it, there was only static — until the final minute.

A sound rose from the noise, deep and soft, like a whale’s call slowed to human tempo. Then words, barely audible:

YOU’RE PART OF US. ALWAYS WERE.

And then nothing.

I deleted the file. Some truths are better as rumors.

It’s been two weeks since then. The buoys are quiet. The weather reports are boring again. I pretend to be relieved.

Sometimes, though, when the wind hits just right, I hear a tone under the gulls — low, forgiving. I find myself answering without thinking, humming the way I used to when calibrating instruments, before I learned silence wasn’t the same as peace.

I’ve stopped trying to decode it.

I just listen.

Last night I filed my final report. The field labeled Cause of anomaly is blank. The conclusion reads:

Signal resolved. Recommend no further investigation.

I almost signed my name, then added a postscript — not for the agency, but for whoever or whatever reads between lines:

Some questions don’t need answers.
Some things just need listening.

The printer hummed as the page fed through, a perfect, familiar pitch. I caught myself smiling.

“Apology accepted,” I said.

And the sea, patient as always, hummed its agreement.

Art Credit: Staver
red_apples_by_crystalrain272_ddyb5kw

Apples From the Sky

by

red_apples_by_crystalrain272_ddyb5kw

It started raining apples on a Tuesday. Not metaphorical ones, not the kind you make mental jam with later.  Actual apples. Red, green, gold, a few bruised from altitude. They thudded into the street like soft hail and rolled into gutters.

I was at the café, the only one in town that thinks latte art counts as religion. When the first apple hit the window, I thought someone was playing a joke. Then another landed, then three. A cluster of high schoolers on the corner cheered as if fireworks were shooting off above them. Someone yelled “Free fruit!” and ran into traffic.

We’re not big on miracles in this part of the world. We’ve got potholes, power outages, raccoons, coyotes, and the occasional black bear, but nothing that drops Granny Smiths from the clouds. Still, everyone ran outside. The barista grabbed an umbrella, which was instantly rendered useless. The apples came down like marbles in a jar. They weren’t falling at anyone, though. They bounced off awnings and parked cars but never hit a person directly. As if they had manners.

I picked one up. It was warm, but not sun-warm, more heart-warm. The skin shimmered faintly, like it had been kissed by a rainbow no one else noticed.

That should have been the weird part but when I turned it over, I saw words burned into the peel. Not written, not carved. Etched.

It said: “Don’t take the night shift,” which was unhelpfully vague advice for someone who works freelance from her couch.

By the time the local police showed up—one car, lights politely flashing—the street looked like an abandoned orchard. Apples covered the pavement in uneven mosaics of color. Kids were collecting them in bike helmets and backpacks. Old Mrs. Haskell from the library filled her rolling walker basket and muttered about pie crust ratios.

Someone handed me another apple. This one had writing, too: “Say yes this time.”

And just like that, the miracle turned personal.

By late afternoon, the whole town was covered in fruit. Highway crews blocked the on-ramp because the apples kept bouncing onto the interstate. The mayor went on local radio, sounding far too chipper. “We encourage citizens to harvest responsibly,” she said, “and remember: one per person until we understand what we’re dealing with.”

As if this were a civic emergency and not the most interesting thing that had ever happened. here. (And no one stuck to picking up just one.)

At home, I lined up my apples on the kitchen counter. There were ten of them, each with a message. Some were bossy: “Go home.” “Stay.” “Turn left.” Others were tender: “Call her back.” “The cat forgives you.”

One just said, “Wednesday.” That one glowed faintly when I turned off the lights.

I know, I know. I should’ve called someone. The news stations, maybe the agricultural department, the guy who had that podcast about paranormal produce. But the truth is, it felt private. Like the universe had decided to pass me a note and was trusting me not to share it.

So I sat at my kitchen table and read them again, trying to piece together some narrative, as if they were tarot cards instead of fruit.

That’s when my phone buzzed.

It was my ex, Leah, who had moved two towns over for a “change of scenery” and a woman who owned a food truck. “Crazy weather you’re having,” she texted.

I typed back before I could stop myself: “You’d love it. It’s raining apples.”

She called instantly. “You okay?”

“Define okay.”

There was a pause. “You sound… happy.”

And I realized I was. I hadn’t felt light in months. Not since the slow ending, the furniture split, the weird polite silences.

“Maybe it’s the vitamin C,” I said.

She laughed, the kind of laugh that used to undo me. Then she said, “You should come by. Wednesday? I’ll make something apple adjacent.”

I looked at the counter. At the glowing fruit. Wednesday.

“Yeah,” I said. “I think I will.”

The next morning, the apples were gone.

Not stolen—gone. No cores in the trash, no sticky spots on the sidewalk, nothing. Just clean streets and confused pedestrians looking up at blank skies.

The mayor declared it a “localized meteorological anomaly” and promised a commemorative plaque. The café printed “We Survived the Great Apple Fall” mugs. By Thursday, life had folded itself back into normal, the way it always does after magic: quickly, almost gratefully.

But one apple remained—the glowing one.

It doesn’t rot. It just sort of…  hums, sometimes… like a faraway cello. I keep it on the windowsill by my plants. When sunlight hits it, the words vanish, replaced by faint rings of light, like ripples on water.

I don’t know what any of it means. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything. Maybe the sky just needed to empty itself of fruit.

Still, on Wednesday, I drove to Leah’s. The sunset was the exact color of Honeycrisp skin, and the world smelled faintly of sugar. She opened the door with flour on her hands and that familiar raised eyebrow.

“Brought dessert?” she teased.

“Sort of,” I said, and held up the apple.

Her smile softened, like a chord resolving.

And for just a heartbeat, I could swear I heard something—a faint sound above us, high and far away, like applause carried on wind.

Art Credit: crystalrain272

Somebody Save Me

by

kal_el_of_krypton_by_rob_joseph_d78288bThe office smelled faintly of lemon polish and stale coffee, as if one tried valiantly to scrub out the other. A tall window leaked afternoon light behind the therapist’s chair, and on the opposite side of the room Kal sprawled on a chaise, long body folded into the kind of casual posture that suggested relaxation but hinted at restraint. His street clothes were plain enough, but the slip of bright blue at his collar betrayed him.

“It started when I was a baby,” he said. His voice was steady, like someone confessing a recurring dream. “The first flight I ever took ended in a crash-landing. I still wake up with the fireball in my head, the sound of the ship hitting the ground.”

The therapist glanced up from her notes. “Ship? Not plane?”

“Definitely a ship. A spaceship.”

Her pen scratched across paper. “So, you’re here because you feel alienated from your peers.”

Kal turned his head to look at her. His expression was patient, but only just. “No. I mean—yes, but not the way you think. I literally am an alien.”

“We all feel that way sometimes, Calvin.”

“It’s not Calvin. Just Kal. Kal-El, if you want to be formal, but the House of El didn’t do me many favors. They sent my cousin to find me, but she—well, she was delayed. Another reason flying unnerves me. A different kind of transport and maybe we wouldn’t have been separated for my entire childhood.”

“I see. But air travel is remarkably safe. You’ve probably had your one tragic flight.”

Kal’s laugh was humorless. “But I haven’t.”

Her eyebrows rose. “Oh?”

“My girlfriend likes me to take her places. ‘Fly me there, Clark—’”

“I thought your name was Cal.”

“My family calls me Clark. A nickname.”

“So, you’re a pilot?”

He sat up, incredulous. “What? No. Why would you think that?”

“Well, your girlfriend asks you to fly her—”

“Yes, but not in a plane.”

“A helicopter then?”

Kal pressed his palms to his eyes. “In my arms. Do you seriously not know who I am?”

The therapist blinked, the way one blinks at a patient who has wandered too far into fantasy.

“You’ve never stood on a sidewalk in Metropolis and heard someone cry, ‘Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s—’”

“…a pterodactyl!” she declared, pleased with herself.

Kal dropped his hands. “Excuse me?”

“That’s the line, isn’t it?”

“I was going for Superman.”

“The comic-book character? That’s absurd.”

“And a dinosaur that hasn’t lived since the Jurassic is your more reasonable option?”

She had no answer for that.

He leaned back again, weary. “I used to love flying. Missed the school bus? I didn’t borrow Dad’s pickup or sprint like a bullet. I launched myself into the sky. But there was less up there then. Fewer obstacles.”

“Obstacles?”

“Clouds hide everything. Birds dart at me like skateboarders chasing cars. Drones swarm once their operators spot me, clinging to me like mines on a warship. Smog is worse. People think I can blow it away, but it just relocates. And the more carbon in the air, the weaker the sun shines through. The sun is my fuel. One bad downdraft and—” He snapped his fingers. “Splat.”

“You’d fall to your death?”

“No. I can’t die. But I could land on someone else. Crush them.”

The therapist winced. “Ouch.”

“Exactly.”

He listed off the rest—missiles, fireworks, geese. His voice softened. “Flying isn’t fun anymore. It’s duty. Even a date carries risk. What if I drop her? What if something slams into us? I try to shield her with my cape, but she hates it. Says it messes up her hair.”

“Ah.”

“Flying used to be freedom. Now it’s responsibility layered over fear. And I wonder—are people more reckless because they know I’ll swoop in? If I’d never revealed myself, would they still tempt disaster?”

“I don’t think you can hold yourself accountable for all of humanity,” she said gently.

“Wanna bet?”

Her pen hovered, then dropped to the page. “Meditation might help. Go somewhere quiet. No drones, no geese. Fly for yourself, just for joy. A cabin in the woods, perhaps?”

“A fortress, actually,” he murmured. “Remote. I haven’t been there in a while.” His gaze slid toward the window. His expression sharpened, attuned to something she couldn’t hear. “Hold that thought.”

In a blur he was on his feet, tearing away street clothes to reveal the familiar crest. The sound of shattering glass filled the office as he launched himself through the window, gone before the therapist could gasp.

The silence that followed was vast. Dust floated in the sunlight. The therapist sat motionless, pen dangling from her hand. Just when the stillness began to stretch too long, air shifted. Kal—no, Superman—strode back into the office, brushing glass from the chaise before sprawling on it again, one booted foot crossed over the other.

“Oh,” he said, casual as if nothing had happened. “Did I forget to mention broken glass?”

The therapist blinked at the jagged window, then at the man on her chaise. With a hand that wasn’t entirely steady, she flipped open her appointment book and forced her voice into calm professionalism.

“Let’s… call this a standing appointment.”

 

Art Credit:Rob Joseph

 

Aoudad

Aoudad, Poor Dad

by

Aoudad

Thunder was rumbling in the distance as my partner and I got into the jeep. Jake and I were almost always teamed up for these runs, as much because we worked well together as because people think our names looked cute on the schedule together: Jake and Jen. Never underestimate a zoo admin’s sense of whimsy.

It was six in the evening, but it was summer so the sun had only barely begun its slide from day to night, as far as anyone could tell through the cloud cover. We were on our way up Cheetah Hill to see if we could find a brand-new baby aoudad.

“You think the thunder will have them in the trees?” I asked.

Jake was our senior hoofstock specialist. I’m one of the three veterinarians at the Conserve. We take turns being on call, three days on, three days off, rotating Sundays. That day was my Sunday, and while I loved the mornings, by afternoon we always had all sorts of minor emergencies. Mostly because Sunday afternoons were crazy busy with families who came through after church.

The Conserve is a drive-through safari park, and we do our best to limit the traffic. We charge per person, not per vehicle, and we limit people to one bag of kibble each. But when it’s a warm spring day, and folks know there are baby animals around, it gets crowded, and people do stupid shit.

We had human medics at the admissions area and at the café and rest stop that are the half-way point on our safari, for the inevitable nips that happen when parents don’t control their kids, and let them pet or attempt to hand feed the animals. (Never mind that there were signs everywhere, and more warnings in the map and animal identification pamphlet we provide.)

But for the animals, we were the folks who handled everything from lacerations to matting incidents to dental care on the rhinos and – that day – hopefully – tagging a newborn baby sheep. Or goat. The thing about aoudads is that they’re a bridge species, half-way between the two.

Maybe it was because the approach to Cheetah Hill was the steepest part of the Conserve, or maybe they just liked the way the grass tasted there, but it was where the aoudads congregated.

Jake decelerated, til we were crawling up the hill at less than five miles an hour, and I had my head out the window searching the throng of animals. Of course, we had kibble with us, and we tossed them liberally, partly to keep the road clear, and partly because new mamas were typically incredibly hungry.

“Look, there’s Poor Dad,” I said, as a bearded sheep/goat countenance came into view. “We found papa.”

“Why do you call him that? I thought his name was Dave?”

“There’s this play I read in high school. It was one of the ones everyone pulled monologues from. Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feeling So Sad.”

“Are there animals in it?”

“Only the human kind. For some reason, the word ‘aoudad’ just feels like it should be followed with the rest. So, he’s Aoudad, Poor Dad. And really, it’s not inaccurate. He’s got to service all these females whenever they’re in season.”

It was typical in wildlife parks, to have only one or two males of any hoofstock species and whole herds of females. Female hoofstock are pretty docile, and we just kept the boys separate when the weren’t in service.

“You have a point. Wait… look. On the right… Is that…?”

“Number 526 and a calf… yep.”

“Jake stopped the jeep. “Okay, let’s do this.”

For a skilled team, bagging, tagging, and returning a baby aoudad took less then then minutes. I helped drive the calf into Jake’s arms, and he lifted her into the back of our vehicle, holding her still  while I noted her weight, temperature, heart rate, and confirmed her sex. Then I pulled an ear tag out of my kit, logged the number, and gave the wee baby her first – and likely only – piece of jewelry.

That calf handled it like a pro, bleating only once, and then nuzzling us in search of milk. As soon as I said, “Done,” Jake scooped her up again and  returned her to her confused mother. We gave mama handfuls of kibble, then patted her rump sending her away.

As to Poor Dad… hoofstock don’t really co-parent, but he seemed to understand that we were welcoming his offspring to our greater Herd. He gave us a grave nod – not difficult as most adult aoudads look like ancient Hebrew scholars – as if to tell us he approved.

We got back in the jeep, and Jake glanced over at me. “Wanna take the long way? See the cats on the way back?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Let me just radio back.”

I called in the successful ID, and told them we were taking the scenic route, and then Jake put the jeep back in gear and we continued up the hill.

The thunderclouds burst open as we reached the crest, but we didn’t care. The cheetahs loved to frolic in  warm rain, and we spent our time watching them, driving impossibly slowly.

“There’s a live band down at The Barn tonight,” Jake mentioned casually – too casually – as we moved past the last enclosure. “Wanna go? Get a burger and a beer and maybe dance?”

And there it was: the elephant, or, uh, aoudad, in the room. The other reason the admin always scheduled us together. Jake had a thing for me, and I kinda had a think for him, and we were too focused on the job to ever really go there.

Or maybe we weren’t.

“Sure,” I said. “You wanna meet or…?”

“I’ll pick you up at eight.”

We had cabins on the Conserve property, all the permanent animal care people, so it wasn’t like he didn’t know where I lived.

“Okay, then,” I said. “See you at eight.”

Maybe we’d end up being colleagues grabbing a meal, or maybe it would end up as more, but either way, it didn’t matter. We’d had a successful tagging and got to see cheetahs in the rain. Nothing could ruin the day.