trout - Belinda Casas

Last night I dreamt I was a copper and green speckled trout, swimming in a clear swiftly running mountain stream.

Not much of a narrative to that.

Often times when I dream, George Clooney is my janitor. He works in the building where I work and he gives me silent advice. Like, I’m about to say something stupid at a meeting and he’s mopping down the hall, he catches my eye and shakes his head ever so slightly “No.” So I keep my mouth shut.

In other dreams I’m at Disneyland and he’s sweeping up the park near Sleeping Beauty’s Castle. I’m trying to decide which land to go to next and he sweeps his way toward Fantasyland and blamo! I’m having a great spin on the teacups and George gives me a sly smile as he ambles away with his broom.

this was inspired by charissa's d'landia photo.

Question #58. Do you make friends easily? -Belinda Casas

Yes, but finding all the right ingredients for the recipe is getting harder and harder.

3 - 3 1/3 lbs of brain* (try to find a good firm but not too runny brain, a nice pink to light gray) If you are making animal friends reduce the brain size slightly but remember to increase the size of heart proportionally.

10 -12 oz. of heart, look for undamaged heart (very rare) but if heart is only slightly damaged this can usually be repaired by soaking it in the milk of human kindness for 13 new moons.

Bones, skin, teeth, nails ect. Have fun with this part! The more you mix and match ingredients the better. And don't forget to add fat.*

*If you are making friends in show biz skip this ingredient.

Slow cook at 98.6º for 9 months, voila!

the worth of gold -Belinda Casas

Lilith dreamed her father was alive. She was at a house with a courtyard, reminiscent of but nicer than her childhood home. She could hear but not see her mother, as if her mother hadn't been dead long enough to materialize.

Then Lilith's dream world popped into extreme 3-D, steeped in smell, taste and color.

Her father appeared in the doorway. He was no longer emaciated, the weight and color of an Egyptian mummy, with papery skin stretched from cheek to jowl. He was whole, plump and filled with calming strength.

Lilith gathered him into her arms expecting him to melt away but she felt his breath. He told her she was worth her weight in gold and in her heart she felt this to be true.

When she woke she was laughing and crying.

Why is Kat smiling? -Belinda Casas

Elena strolls down the 3rd Street Promenade with her friends, Steve and Kat, on a Sunday morning. They laugh at the crowds cued up outside the Apple Store, who wait, patient as monks, to purchase their new iPhones.

Kat’s an artist, she paints female erotica, acrylic on canvas in jewel tones. Steve’s an acupuncturist, compact and well muscled, he's a beautiful Asian man. Elena produces films.

Kat prowls, measuring the crowds with an artists eye, she casually discards the uninteresting. Elena stops to give an organ grinder’s monkey a dollar. He takes the bill, digs his teeth into her new black halter dress and tugs it to one side, exposing her softly rounded breasts.

Kat smiles, at last something worth painting.

question 34 - Belinda Casas

34. If you were a crayon, what color would you be?

If I were a crayon I would try not to be a color, so that I wouldn't get all used up, I would hide near the edge of the box and wish I were a refillable pen. I'd obsess about a horrible senseless death by being slowly ground into nothing as I was smeared across endless pages.

I had never taken a moment to look at the world from the point of view of a crayon. Question 34 took me by surprise. I had no idea I felt that passionately about waxy pigments.

It made me begin to think about other questions like If I were a cloud what kind of cloud would I be, nimbus, cumulus? And would it make any difference, I mean wouldn’t I just dissipate? Or precipitate?

Ah…I usually avoid the hard questions.

earth sea - Belinda Casas

The Belleds swam.
There was no day or night or stars or earth or sea.





As they swam they summoned voice and then song and song filled the nothingness. They sang harmony and summoned the light and the light divided the mass and the mass divided the dark and the dark framed and caressed the light and still the Belleds sang.

And stars and planets sprung whole and danced to their song. And the dance sparked life, seeded from the light and the dark and birthed by the whirling mass and creation was unleashed.

The Belleds song summoned water, water undulated and thrummed and summoned the Belleds to communion. And the Belleds sang leviathan and then entered the bodies of the masters and sang our watery world into existence.

Post Pan - Belinda Casas

The great god Pan was pissed. Through a woman's trickery, he'd been trapped in an onerous Panda ceramic since the 1960's. He'd plotted his revenge for over fifty years. The woman in question was long dead but he possessed the skills to drag her spirit back from whatever level of hell she currently occupied. His revenge would be savored, cold, sweet and eternal.

Jill laughed as she listened to the god's pathetic plans. She'd been tuned into Pan since she was a toddler. He terrified her then, the voice of her constant nightmares. But now she knew who she was, he no longer held sway over her thoughts. Grandmother had taught her well. The old gods have feet of clay. We call in our own luck, in this brave new world.

(please click on this link to see Charissa's Panda Surprise photo that inspired this story)