Queen Hazel and Beloved Beverly – Part II

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Queen Hazel and Beloved Beverly. If you’d prefer, you can return Part I or skip ahead.

Beverly stared at the raccoon — the talking raccoon — trying to figure out if this was a dream.  She’d had very life-like dreams before.  Usually, they were about finding her calico cat who’d gone missing a few years ago, or else all of her teeth crumbled inside her mouth, while she tried valiantly to keep them from falling out.  Those two dreams had happened to her so many times she’d learned to recognize she was dreaming if Patches came home, and she tried to simply enjoy it until she woke up.  Same thing if her teeth started crumbling, except less happy… she simply had to wait it out, and when she woke up, her teeth would be fine. Continue reading “Queen Hazel and Beloved Beverly – Part II”

Queen Hazel and Beloved Beverly – Part I

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Queen Hazel and Beloved Beverly. If you’d prefer to read in e-book or hard cover form, learn more here, or you can skip ahead to Part II.

Some moments in your life feel sewed together; a strand of consciousness pulls tight, and the memory of a single moment — unimportant yet somehow never-to-be-forgotten — surfaces in your mind.

When Beverly lay on the floor, hands clasped behind her head, the pose always brought her back to a moment from her childhood when she’d lain in the same position, staring up at the skylight in her best friend’s house, watching the clouds drift by. Continue reading “Queen Hazel and Beloved Beverly – Part I”

Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 30: Emily

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Otters In Space 3: Octopus Ascending.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“…it didn’t feel real when she saw a pair of feathered raptors look through the door, tentacles rising from their shoulders. If they were real, she should have been able to feel them in the motion of the water.”

Emily’s world had ended before.

A prismatic kaleidoscope of lives had hung around her.  Strings of seed pearls; each pearl an entire life waiting to unfold; an entire life she had created.

Before Emily had laid her eggs, she’d been a chef like she was now.  That was her first life.  And she’d shed it entirely, like a snake’s old skin, when she’d felt the urge to lay her eggs.  She’d retreated to a nursery cave — like the ones in Choir’s Deep, except Emily had lived in a much smaller octopus city, much deeper in the ocean.  Their ways were different.  More ceremonial, less metropolitan.  More bound by tradition, but it was a tradition Choir’s Deep octopi scorned. Continue reading “Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 30: Emily”

Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 29: Kipper

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Otters In Space 3: Octopus Ascending.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“You think because a cat shows up with a sword and says, ‘fight with me,’ that you’re suddenly going to start a revolution?”

Blackness.  Beautiful, soothing blackness.  Not the infinitely deep blackness of space, nor the red-green blackness behind closed eyes, but a swirling fractal cloud of blackness.  Watery blackness.  Ink.  Enough ink to be from a dozen octopuses.

When the water cleared, all the octopuses were gone.  Kipper doubted for a moment that she’d seen their yellow eyes at all.  Then she saw subtle crinkly curves in the gray metal walls.  It was like an optical illusion — if she focused her eyes just right, all the walls were covered with clinging camouflaged octopi.  If she let her eyes unfocus even a little, all she saw was plain metal walls. Continue reading “Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 29: Kipper”

Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 28: Kipper

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Otters In Space 3: Octopus Ascending.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“Half a dozen otters and, a moment later, Kipper fired their grappling guns into the darkness of space that yawned in front of the open airlock.”

Kipper was trying really hard to believe she could do anything.  More specifically, she was trying really hard to believe that she could swing a magnetic grappling hook across empty space, snare a passing raptor vessel, and successfully board it as the Jolly Barracuda passed it by.  Trugger had explained how it would work to her a hundred times.  She’d had weeks to get used to the idea — numb to it even — but now that she was wearing her spacesuit, standing in an open airlock and staring that empty space directly in the eye, she couldn’t believe she’d let herself get into this situation. Continue reading “Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 28: Kipper”

Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 27: Petra

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Otters In Space 3: Octopus Ascending.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“There are whole poems — whole books of psalms — that basically amount to the holy humans holding their hands out and saying, ‘STAY!’ to all of dog-kind before they left Earth.”

What does it look like when the world changes?  Does it have to be hundreds of cats, marching together, holding up banners that read, “Free Petra!” and singing folk songs?

Or is it just one dog?  Afraid to meet a cat’s eyes and mumbling, “The charges have been dropped, and the officer who assaulted you has had his badge taken.  He’s not a police officer anymore.  We’re sorry.” Continue reading “Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 27: Petra”

Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy

In some ways, I think I Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward shaped my beliefs even more than Star Trek, which is impressive as Star Trek is basically my heart and soul.

But Looking Backward paints a picture of a similar utopia while actually making sense and being thought through. Continue reading “Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy”

Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 26: Kipper

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Otters In Space 3: Octopus Ascending.  If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.

“Kipper felt the soft, probing of a tentacle wrap around her shoulder and the many kiss-like touches as another coiled around one of her paws.”

Octopuses keep their secrets.

But cats can keep secrets too.

Kipper kept and coveted the secret of Siamhalla’s missile armament, coddling it close to her heart, hoping it would be the salvation she needed.  Of course, the octopus brigade that escorted her and all her otters back to the Jolly Barracuda might not give her credit for saving Earth from the raptors if Siamhalla did it.  They might want to drag her back to their cartoon court and convict her of war crimes. Continue reading “Otters In Space 3 – Chapter 26: Kipper”

Engaging in the Name of Outreach (Or Not)

It would just be so incredibly cool if when people don’t understand a topic or really know anything about it, they would start by seeking out information with kindness and politeness instead of with cruelty, foisting assumptions at people, and general name calling.

Discussing the effects of AI was so much more fun before most of my little societies turned it into a purity issue where if you don’t express the Right and Correct beliefs you’re fair game for cruelty and name calling. Continue reading “Engaging in the Name of Outreach (Or Not)”