Oh, I do, too. It's just more on my mental "'70s hits" playlist than on my rock one.

Gifty?

Just a little one. I may actually get to the post office tomorrow, too.

Oh yeah, baby -- it's still Monday, and I've got the new drabble topic!

Challenge #93 (thank-yous for shitty gifts) is now closed.

Challenge #94 is one that was actually suggested by Connie many many months ago (I bookmarked it and then forgot about it, and then a few nights ago I was going through my bookmarks and found it): the view outside your bedroom window -- or contemplations on why you don't have a bedroom window.

"Restless" - the Patrick Ormand short backstory, for blind submission to the MWA anthology - is done.

Reader? Anyone? Please?

please don't let this suck

Drabble: the view outside your bedroom window

I woke to heat, an angry, shuddering blast of it through the screen. Nudging Stephen awake, I sat up, still half dreaming, and raised my face to the window.

Across the sleeping street in the dark gray hours before dawn, the small shop was a Technicolor shock of light. Flames licked across the face of the building, devouring its carefully lettered signs and scorching the once white brick. Another tongue of flame burst from the roof, reaching for the branches of the elm that shaded the parking lot.

Beneath the sheet, Stephen’s arm curled around me. We watched it burn.

Whoa. NICE, Amy.

Yeah. Way more dramatic than I would think from the topic.

True story. I made the dry cleaner's a little quainter than it was in real life, but it actually happened. Very spooky. Amazing that even across the street we could feel that heat.

Ooh, Amy. Nice intimate touch, there.

Here's mine. Not cohering so much, but actually written, so I'm counting that a plus.

Bedroom Window View

Having to push the Berchtesgaden gasthaus beds together was compensated for by fresh bread and coffee on the shoebox-sized balcony, gazing at our personal Alp.

On Thomas Mann Strasse, military housing with windows like dovecotes reflected our own across the school playground; construction cranes claimed the horizon all the time we lived there.

When we moved home, we could see Pilot Mountain from our window, on clear days, until we switched bedrooms so we could divide the large one for the kids. Our new room's high windows were full of the tops of pines, morning sun, rising moon, and starshine.

drabble

Koogie stopped purring. Shadow raised his head and stared at the window. Faint crunching of old leaves through the open window.

The crunching went past, paused before the next window, came back. Stopped.

My hand wrapped around Present's hilt before I thought. The top of a baseball cap appeared just above the window sill.

Three feet of steel slid silently out of the wooden scabbard. "FYI," I said in a normal voice. "I'm one of the weird people who play with swords in the front yard. You may have heard of us. There's nothing you want in here."

Koogie hissed and Shadow growled. The baseball cap crunched quickly away.

Present stayed naked and within reach the rest of the night.

Nice ones. Damn, this is a good topic.

Marin: Home from the Road

A September night in the hills.

Outside the window, there are trees: redwood, eucalyptus, manzanita with their spectacular peeling bark. Their roots start low, soaring like mythology. If tonight wasn't moonless, I'd see patterns as the night breeze moved them.

Things call out: owls, a hawk, a harsh scree-EE! and then scurrying, down in the garden. If I got out of bed, I'd see one of the cats, chasing some small warm food into deeper shadow.

I ignore all of it. It's your first night back, and I have my face buried against you. Tonight is about the view inside.