Author: marylowd

German Chocolate Cake in a Cup

Me: I should really focus more on my writing…

Also me: puts lure on coffee shop PokéStop

The story-telling part of my brain is acting like a dog who I’ve put on a leash but doesn’t want to go on a walk… just lying there on the floor, pretending to have no feet and insisting that if I want it to write stories, I’ll have to drag it.

‪T.K., Truggster, and Kermit urge me to add words to my blank page, but instead, I stubbornly go buy another drink because this place has one called “German chocolate cake in a cup,” and I must try it.‬

Update: it is A-MA-ZING.

There is soooooo much sugar in this German-chocolate-cake-in-a-cup drink. Sooooooo much.

Stomach: why are you putting this much sugar in me? oof
Brain: we will bathe in the brilliance of sugary goodness forever! feed us sugar and you can write again!

Me, working on a story that makes no sense: “Wait, wait, no, stop, what if there was an octopus… that… used to be eight mice????”

‪I am told that letting me buy a giant inflatable narwhal on this much of a sugar high would be like letting someone get a tattoo while drunk. But giant inflatable rainbow-and-sparkle blue narwhals are waaaay less permanent.‬

So, I came down from the sugar high of the German-chocolate-cake-in-a-cup drink… but there was still a third of it left… and it was mine… so… I mean… I had to drink it… And now I’m flying again. I do not know how they cram that much sugar into one drink.‬

The Promise of New Heffe

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Exploring New Places, July 2018

“Her people had lived in borrowed, rented corners of human space stations for Jeaunia’s entire adult life. Finally, they would have a world of their own.”

The evacuation of Heffe VIII occurred when Jeaunia was only a pup.  Her memories of waiting in the long lines on the hot spaceport tarmac were dim.  She did remember playing games with her cousins on the crowded flight to Crossroads Station afterward, and she thought she could remember the view of the swollen Heffen sun through the spaceship’s rear windows.  She couldn’t be sure, though.  The bloody smear of red giant sunlight in her memories could have been a fabrication.  She had been very young. Continue reading “The Promise of New Heffe”

Shreddy and the Silver Egg

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Tales from the Guild: Music to Your Ears, September 2014

“…he, of course, would not care for the baby that hatched from this egg. No, he would eat it!”

There is nothing better than a patch of early evening sunlight, especially with the quiet strains of an opera playing on the Red-Haired Woman’s television in the other room.  There is nothing worse than watching an uncouth dog, lolling unappreciatively, in the single square of sun left on the kitchen floor, insensible to both the golden warmth and the soft singing in the distance.

Continue reading “Shreddy and the Silver Egg”

House Dreams

‪I never dream about my house. I dream weird new houses, which made sense when it looked like we’d have to sell this house and move away. But this morning, I think my brain tried to dream about my house. The result was a strange hybrid of the bones of the house I grew up in, set on the hill where I live now, with all of the furniture stripped away and stolen. Continue reading “House Dreams”

Chestnut Wish

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Typerwriter Emergencies, December 2017

“Once these precious moments that were tearing her apart had all passed… then she would miss these days. Every older otter told her so…”

Olea started screaming first, whiskers quivering with rage.  She was an otter and should have enjoyed tumbling and playing all day.  But she was also an adult, and Shaun was a toddler.  No force on Earth or in space could keep pace with a toddler otter — except for another toddler otter, but Shaun was a rare litter of one.  No sibling playmates.

All Olea wanted was to flop down, drape her long spine over the couch, and watch some TV show with fast-talking cats and dogs in suits throwing quips at each other.  But as soon as she grabbed the remote, Shaun pointed at the TV and chirped in his high-pitched squeak, “Cho-bolos!” over and over — whatever that meant.  Why couldn’t the doggarned kid learn to speak?  Humans hadn’t uplifted otters a hundred years ago so they could chirp nonsense words.  Language.  It was the whole point of being uplifted. Continue reading “Chestnut Wish”