You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Community’ category.
Only three directions matter: Above, Deeper, and the slightly curved Goodness that extends forever in two dimensions neither Above nor Deeper. Above is the direction of peril but also of food. Deeper is oblivion and loss. Some have been retrieved from the Deep, but only as food. Goodness is home, the warm thin blanket between two extremes. As you know, our situation is cyclical and currently critical. We’ve let you measure our food stock, heft it, smell it, thump it for edibility. You know how much the group requires, so you know there’s not enough, not nearly. Sacrifices inevitably follow. Most of us will not survive, you yourself may not survive except as food, not even if we fast, find more, swallow slowly, waste none, lose nothing. We delay reproducing in such seasons of course. How would we raise an infant now? On regurgitant, surely, but regurgitated what? You’re too young to understand the seasons, but between Famine and Plenty, this is the time that tests our community. Take heart. We will not all perish, and that’s all the love we need in the Goodness. When forays Above produce too little, our soldiers take their chances pressing against the frontiers of the perilous unfamiliar to skirmish with dangerous prey. They don’t expect to be welcomed back should they present a threat. As much as we prize soldiers, we can’t afford to coddle individuals returning wounded, trailing scent, leading others to our tunnels. You’ve been trained to seal the entrances against such volunteers. Naturally, your body will resonate with their pleas, just as it vibrates in the presence of food, or rain, or a passage toward Above, but they would shake off your vibrations if you were the threat, because sacrifice is love, and because it points toward the Good.
Original Copyright © January 27, 2007
Revised Copyright © January 30, 2026
I had been seeing her, always at the same place, always muttering to the same or similar ducks, for weeks before I ventured to speak to her. If I had not had crackers in my pocket I would never have begun our little commerce with an offer of food, but as I stretched my hand across the impossible gulf between us there they were, each a simple orange square, pierced by fork points, twinned with another by a swipe of peanut glue, six such pairs arranged in three ranks of two files each, edge to edge, back to indistinguishable lightly salted back, girdled in cellophane. They had been meant for the dogs, who watched in alarm. Think I can’t get crackers? she asked me. Thinks I can’t get crackers! Not bothering to unwrap them then, I dispensed the packet to the dogs, who tumbled over one another and crushed the crackers to crumbs. Her crew and she have burglarized my home repeatedly since, and so haphazardly I no longer lock it for fear they’ll shatter the rest of the windows as thanks. She leads them in, as she first led them to my door, and if asked why, I suspect her explanation would involve the offer of food. We curl together now, at night, the dogs and I, sometimes in bed, more often beneath it, and huddle head to tail or paw to head or hand and listen for the door. I’ve moved their bowls upstairs. They’re hungry and unwell but rarely vicious, she and those she brings. Whatever made me think I could give a little, without offering all, I regret having thought, but I’m happy when everyone gets a little something, and that the dogs and I have a bed and a home where visitors feel welcome.
Copyright ©1997
Very Short Novels 
Thank you so much, anhinga, but I wouldn't want to try it without the other 199. —David
Why, thank you, brother. It's wonderful to see you here. :) —David
All you need is 100 words to make an emotional impact. Touching.
Brilliant, brother. Just simply brilliant.
This Very Short Novel has a strong resemblance to Simple Lessons of War from almost 20 years ago, but is…