Free Short Story - changed every season (solstice and equinox) - Thanks for your interest!
A cute slice-of-life, because...who needs drama at Christmastime?
Christmas In False Key 2018
by Kathleen Spalding
Amph couldn’t believe his luck. Seeing Clyde resting in a soft pool of sand was a first. With only half his brain sleeping at a time, Clyde never held still. To make his discovery even better, Amph was wearing a shiny jingle shell wreath around his orange and white body. The Clown fish had been on his way to prank his friend Mae, but this was so much more challenging.
The custom of sneaking a wreath inside someone’s home without detection had started as a dare decades ago, when intrepid juveniles surreptitiously placed a dozen wreaths inside a Moray eel’s lair. Of course, they were in big trouble when their parents found out. The eel was old and blind, but still, they could have been killed! The following year the parents got ahead of the game and organized a new tradition. During the week of the winter solstice, juveniles could leave jingle shell wreaths in their friends’ homes. The ones who who could do so without being detected would be the winners.
Amph approached on Clyde’s sleeping side, flexing his tail slowly. Careful not to disturb the jingle shells, he settled the wreath beside Clyde’s closed eye. Amph was almost away, free and clear, when he heard his friend chatter behind him.
“Thanks, Amph.”
“Aw. How long did you know I was there?”
“A while. I heard jingle shells, and then they stopped rattling. I figured it was someone with a wreath.” The young dolphin stretched and turned upside down, floating with his tail pointing at the sky and his nose a few inches from Amph’s.
“Are you going to False Key tonight?” Amph asked. A ripple of excitement went through him. “Dad’s taking me. It’s my first time!”
A sigh from Clyde’s blowhole bubbled to the surface. “No.” The young dolphin’s fixed smile looked sad. Looking this way then that, he said quietly, “Another dead baby. My aunt’s. It was stillborn.”
“Oh, Clyde, I’m so sorry.” With hundreds of brothers and thousands of cousins scattered across the reef, Amph still felt sad when one was eaten. He couldn’t imagine how hard it must be on the dolphin family, whose females only bore one baby a year.
“She held it up to the water’s surface for two days. She wanted it to breath so bad. The whole time Dad got madder and madder. He blames the oil, and the humans who use it. If he came upon a human right now, I don’t know what he’d do. It’ll be a long time before he goes back to False Key, if ever.”
“I’m sorry, Clyde. That’s terrible. I wish I could wish you a Merry Christmas, but I know it won’t be this year. Is there anything I can do?”
“Yes.” Clyde let his body drift until he was horizontal. “If you see any humans, tell them to stop putting oil in our water. Dad’s sure that’s why so many babies die.”
“You bet, Clyde. I’ll tell them.”
“Thanks Amph.” Clyde settled back onto the soft sand. “And thanks for the wreath.” A hint of cheer crept into his permanent smile. “You know, humans call your kind Clown fish.”
“Clown fish. That’s weird.” Amph thought the moniker fit dolphins better, considering their acrobatic playfulness.
“Yeah. Humans are pretty weird.”
“Well, see you later.”
“Later.” Clyde waved his fin and closed his other eye.
***
A new wreath of jingle shells clinked softly as Amph swam toward his next friend’s home. Perhaps Mae would be asleep, too. She’d been working hard on her burrow, getting it ready for her eggs. Amph pushed the thought from his mind, knowing that when her eggs were laid, Mae would never leave them, not to play, not even to find food. It was the octopus way; Mae would die after the eggs hatched.
Seeing the depression beneath a looming staghorn coral, Amph crept up so slowly, he barely flexed his tail. This would be tricky.
A suckered tentacle grabbed him from behind. His panicked heart pounded.
“Gotcha!”
“Mae!” Amph relaxed. “I thought you’d be inside.”
“Ah. Thought I’d catch a quick snack.” Mae chuckled. “Don’t worry, I didn’t mean you.”
“Thanks. This is for you. Merry Christmas!” Amph wiggled and the shiny wreath jingled.
“Cool. It’s beautiful.” The octopus gently lifted the diminutive wreath and held it up to one eye.
“Are you coming to False Key tonight?” Amph squeaked.
Mae released him. “Yes. I’d love to look at all those stars again while the merpeople sing, and get Father Mulkay’s blessing.”
Amph swallowed hard, remembering someone in a similar situation saying last rites instead of blessing.
“Are you bringing sea lettuce to the feast?” Mae asked.
Amph looked at her, surprised. “Yes, how did you know?”
“It’s what I’m bringing, too. I thought about clams, or oysters on the half shell, but seeing as it’s Christmas...” Mae used two tentacles to shrug.
“Vegetarian night! Yay!” Amph swam a quick circle around his friend. “Are you going on the tree, too?”
“You know, I usually travel by myself, but I’m feeling a bit tired. I think I will come with you on the tree tonight.”
“Hooray! I’ll go tell Dad.”
“Okay, Amph. See you at the tree.”
***
At home, Amph swam impatiently among the anenomes, a basket of lettuce hanging from his mouth.
His father tugged a net of edible algea and looked up. “Get ready, Amph. Here it comes.”
The sea floor darkened as a triangular floatilla of palm fronds, coconuts and plastic passed over. They darted upward to its shelter, accompanied by all kinds of reef dwellers. Many brought floating decorations of their own. Some, thought Amph, looked like decorations themselves, including himself and his father. He looked around for Mae, but couldn’t see her.
The floatilla continued south, following the setting sun, gathering more travellers as it went. When the sun dissappeared, phosphorescent plankton lit the “tree’s” borders. Amph worried at their slow pace until a voice boomed from the rear.
“G’day, mates. Need a push?”
A crowd of fish rushed forward from the rear, speeding away from the approaching Great White shark.
“Aw, don’t be afraid, mates. It’s Christmas, after all. I’m off the meat, at least for tonight. Name’s Chuck, by the way.” The Great White pushed the rear of the floating tree-shaped conglomerate, and soon Amph and his dad had to hang on, unable to swim fast enough to keep up. Before long, a distant thunder grew closer.
“Reckon we’re close enough now,” Chuck called out. “See you lot on the shore!”
The Great White swam past so close and fast that Amph thought he might faint, although he was too small to be even a morsel for a shark. The floatilla bobbed; the calm sea turned into white-capped surf that rushed against the fabled shores of False Key island.
Sea creatures let go of their “tree” and floated, letting small waves carry them to the beach.
“Remember to be careful, Amph. You won’t float on land; if you lose your balance, you’ll fall.”
“Okay, Dad.” Amph had seen things drift to the ocean floor, but couldn’t imagine why that would be dangerous for a small fry like him.
And then he tumbled. And TUMBLED! He felt he was growing somehow, stretching and reaching for anything stable. And then he was there, sitting on the sand with seafoam all about, watching others transform before his eyes, their bodies growing or shrinking to become bipedal air-breathers. Amph briefly panicked when air, not water, flooded his lungs. Tropical breezes cooled his orange and white skin, and warm foam popped bubbles around him. He opened and closed his mouth and popped back.
“Amph! What do you think?”
He turned toward the female voice. “Mae?”
“One and the same.” She had teeth!
He reached an appendage to his own mouth and felt the hardness beneath his lips. Then he stared at his appendages and wiggled the thin bits at their ends. “Look, Mae. Tentacles!”
Mae laughed and held out her hand. “Those are called fingers. C’mon. Mass is first, then the picnic.”
Her eyes were closer together, and blue, in an entrancing face that moved on a slender stalk. Below, her body was round and taught. Her hand was warm and strong in his. When he stood, he came up to her shoulder. Giggling, they wobbled to stacks of towels and clothes, adjusting to gravity’s newfound strength, mesmerised by a bright, man-made star perched over an open structure of wood and palm fronds.
Behind them, the full moon rose and lit the way through the veil between worlds.
***
The story of Christ’s birth, which Father Mulkay had read eloquently, was the topic of conversation at the picnic.
“Virgin birth? Only having one kid is the miracle,” a human cuttlefish joked.
Amph and Mae raced by with the other kids, ignoring both conversation and feast. They’d acclimated to moving on land, and were eager to use their new bodies. A game of tag ensued in the moonlit churchyard.
Amph dodged “it”, but switched direction too fast. He slid down, and felt a sharp pain in his elbow. Warm blood trickled down his arm. As one, the predator shifters turned their flat eyes toward him. I AM the feast. I AM the feast! The thought clanged in his mind and he froze.
A large woman wearing a cape lumbered toward Amph, digging through her bag. “Don’t you worry, young man. This happens every year. I’ve got some bandaids in here... Hmm, let me see that elbow. Yup. That’s a good one.” She squirted some liquid onto Amph’s cut and covered it with soft cloth. The crowd exhaled, and drifted back to their conversations.
“Oh!” Mae said, clutching her bulging belly. “Oh!” Her eyes widened.
“Oh my goodness!” The large woman whipped her cape off and laid it under Mae’s feet. “Here, lay down.”
A small, wriggling bundle dropped from Mae’s body as she bent down, and then another, and another!
“Oh my lord, look at these babies!” The woman crooned at the three newborns squirming on her cloak.
Mae got on her hands and knees to gaze at them. A tear gleamed on her cheek. “I got to see you,” she whispered. Then she frowned. “They don’t look like they can take care of themselves. I’ll die now. What will happen to them?”
The older woman cleared her throat. “These are False Key babies. Get ‘em back to water, they’ll be your kind. Leave them here, they’ll be most like humans, but you ain’t gonna die, honey, because you were in human form when you gave birth.”
Mae looked at Amph and Amph looked at her in wonder, and in utter, selfish delight. Mae wouldn't die, as her kind always did after tending to their eggs until they hatched. His friend would live!
A song unlike any he'd heard before broke loose from the merfolk on the beach. Lilting, otherworldly harmonies pealed to the heavens, as they did every Christmas, proclaiming miracle birth and salvation. Who knows, Amph wondered, thinking of his friend Clyde and the dolphins' stillborn loss. Perhaps these three could bring miracles to the earth, too. Grow up among humans and show them how to clean up the world, and save us all.
The End
Christmas In False Key 2018
by Kathleen Spalding
Amph couldn’t believe his luck. Seeing Clyde resting in a soft pool of sand was a first. With only half his brain sleeping at a time, Clyde never held still. To make his discovery even better, Amph was wearing a shiny jingle shell wreath around his orange and white body. The Clown fish had been on his way to prank his friend Mae, but this was so much more challenging.
The custom of sneaking a wreath inside someone’s home without detection had started as a dare decades ago, when intrepid juveniles surreptitiously placed a dozen wreaths inside a Moray eel’s lair. Of course, they were in big trouble when their parents found out. The eel was old and blind, but still, they could have been killed! The following year the parents got ahead of the game and organized a new tradition. During the week of the winter solstice, juveniles could leave jingle shell wreaths in their friends’ homes. The ones who who could do so without being detected would be the winners.
Amph approached on Clyde’s sleeping side, flexing his tail slowly. Careful not to disturb the jingle shells, he settled the wreath beside Clyde’s closed eye. Amph was almost away, free and clear, when he heard his friend chatter behind him.
“Thanks, Amph.”
“Aw. How long did you know I was there?”
“A while. I heard jingle shells, and then they stopped rattling. I figured it was someone with a wreath.” The young dolphin stretched and turned upside down, floating with his tail pointing at the sky and his nose a few inches from Amph’s.
“Are you going to False Key tonight?” Amph asked. A ripple of excitement went through him. “Dad’s taking me. It’s my first time!”
A sigh from Clyde’s blowhole bubbled to the surface. “No.” The young dolphin’s fixed smile looked sad. Looking this way then that, he said quietly, “Another dead baby. My aunt’s. It was stillborn.”
“Oh, Clyde, I’m so sorry.” With hundreds of brothers and thousands of cousins scattered across the reef, Amph still felt sad when one was eaten. He couldn’t imagine how hard it must be on the dolphin family, whose females only bore one baby a year.
“She held it up to the water’s surface for two days. She wanted it to breath so bad. The whole time Dad got madder and madder. He blames the oil, and the humans who use it. If he came upon a human right now, I don’t know what he’d do. It’ll be a long time before he goes back to False Key, if ever.”
“I’m sorry, Clyde. That’s terrible. I wish I could wish you a Merry Christmas, but I know it won’t be this year. Is there anything I can do?”
“Yes.” Clyde let his body drift until he was horizontal. “If you see any humans, tell them to stop putting oil in our water. Dad’s sure that’s why so many babies die.”
“You bet, Clyde. I’ll tell them.”
“Thanks Amph.” Clyde settled back onto the soft sand. “And thanks for the wreath.” A hint of cheer crept into his permanent smile. “You know, humans call your kind Clown fish.”
“Clown fish. That’s weird.” Amph thought the moniker fit dolphins better, considering their acrobatic playfulness.
“Yeah. Humans are pretty weird.”
“Well, see you later.”
“Later.” Clyde waved his fin and closed his other eye.
***
A new wreath of jingle shells clinked softly as Amph swam toward his next friend’s home. Perhaps Mae would be asleep, too. She’d been working hard on her burrow, getting it ready for her eggs. Amph pushed the thought from his mind, knowing that when her eggs were laid, Mae would never leave them, not to play, not even to find food. It was the octopus way; Mae would die after the eggs hatched.
Seeing the depression beneath a looming staghorn coral, Amph crept up so slowly, he barely flexed his tail. This would be tricky.
A suckered tentacle grabbed him from behind. His panicked heart pounded.
“Gotcha!”
“Mae!” Amph relaxed. “I thought you’d be inside.”
“Ah. Thought I’d catch a quick snack.” Mae chuckled. “Don’t worry, I didn’t mean you.”
“Thanks. This is for you. Merry Christmas!” Amph wiggled and the shiny wreath jingled.
“Cool. It’s beautiful.” The octopus gently lifted the diminutive wreath and held it up to one eye.
“Are you coming to False Key tonight?” Amph squeaked.
Mae released him. “Yes. I’d love to look at all those stars again while the merpeople sing, and get Father Mulkay’s blessing.”
Amph swallowed hard, remembering someone in a similar situation saying last rites instead of blessing.
“Are you bringing sea lettuce to the feast?” Mae asked.
Amph looked at her, surprised. “Yes, how did you know?”
“It’s what I’m bringing, too. I thought about clams, or oysters on the half shell, but seeing as it’s Christmas...” Mae used two tentacles to shrug.
“Vegetarian night! Yay!” Amph swam a quick circle around his friend. “Are you going on the tree, too?”
“You know, I usually travel by myself, but I’m feeling a bit tired. I think I will come with you on the tree tonight.”
“Hooray! I’ll go tell Dad.”
“Okay, Amph. See you at the tree.”
***
At home, Amph swam impatiently among the anenomes, a basket of lettuce hanging from his mouth.
His father tugged a net of edible algea and looked up. “Get ready, Amph. Here it comes.”
The sea floor darkened as a triangular floatilla of palm fronds, coconuts and plastic passed over. They darted upward to its shelter, accompanied by all kinds of reef dwellers. Many brought floating decorations of their own. Some, thought Amph, looked like decorations themselves, including himself and his father. He looked around for Mae, but couldn’t see her.
The floatilla continued south, following the setting sun, gathering more travellers as it went. When the sun dissappeared, phosphorescent plankton lit the “tree’s” borders. Amph worried at their slow pace until a voice boomed from the rear.
“G’day, mates. Need a push?”
A crowd of fish rushed forward from the rear, speeding away from the approaching Great White shark.
“Aw, don’t be afraid, mates. It’s Christmas, after all. I’m off the meat, at least for tonight. Name’s Chuck, by the way.” The Great White pushed the rear of the floating tree-shaped conglomerate, and soon Amph and his dad had to hang on, unable to swim fast enough to keep up. Before long, a distant thunder grew closer.
“Reckon we’re close enough now,” Chuck called out. “See you lot on the shore!”
The Great White swam past so close and fast that Amph thought he might faint, although he was too small to be even a morsel for a shark. The floatilla bobbed; the calm sea turned into white-capped surf that rushed against the fabled shores of False Key island.
Sea creatures let go of their “tree” and floated, letting small waves carry them to the beach.
“Remember to be careful, Amph. You won’t float on land; if you lose your balance, you’ll fall.”
“Okay, Dad.” Amph had seen things drift to the ocean floor, but couldn’t imagine why that would be dangerous for a small fry like him.
And then he tumbled. And TUMBLED! He felt he was growing somehow, stretching and reaching for anything stable. And then he was there, sitting on the sand with seafoam all about, watching others transform before his eyes, their bodies growing or shrinking to become bipedal air-breathers. Amph briefly panicked when air, not water, flooded his lungs. Tropical breezes cooled his orange and white skin, and warm foam popped bubbles around him. He opened and closed his mouth and popped back.
“Amph! What do you think?”
He turned toward the female voice. “Mae?”
“One and the same.” She had teeth!
He reached an appendage to his own mouth and felt the hardness beneath his lips. Then he stared at his appendages and wiggled the thin bits at their ends. “Look, Mae. Tentacles!”
Mae laughed and held out her hand. “Those are called fingers. C’mon. Mass is first, then the picnic.”
Her eyes were closer together, and blue, in an entrancing face that moved on a slender stalk. Below, her body was round and taught. Her hand was warm and strong in his. When he stood, he came up to her shoulder. Giggling, they wobbled to stacks of towels and clothes, adjusting to gravity’s newfound strength, mesmerised by a bright, man-made star perched over an open structure of wood and palm fronds.
Behind them, the full moon rose and lit the way through the veil between worlds.
***
The story of Christ’s birth, which Father Mulkay had read eloquently, was the topic of conversation at the picnic.
“Virgin birth? Only having one kid is the miracle,” a human cuttlefish joked.
Amph and Mae raced by with the other kids, ignoring both conversation and feast. They’d acclimated to moving on land, and were eager to use their new bodies. A game of tag ensued in the moonlit churchyard.
Amph dodged “it”, but switched direction too fast. He slid down, and felt a sharp pain in his elbow. Warm blood trickled down his arm. As one, the predator shifters turned their flat eyes toward him. I AM the feast. I AM the feast! The thought clanged in his mind and he froze.
A large woman wearing a cape lumbered toward Amph, digging through her bag. “Don’t you worry, young man. This happens every year. I’ve got some bandaids in here... Hmm, let me see that elbow. Yup. That’s a good one.” She squirted some liquid onto Amph’s cut and covered it with soft cloth. The crowd exhaled, and drifted back to their conversations.
“Oh!” Mae said, clutching her bulging belly. “Oh!” Her eyes widened.
“Oh my goodness!” The large woman whipped her cape off and laid it under Mae’s feet. “Here, lay down.”
A small, wriggling bundle dropped from Mae’s body as she bent down, and then another, and another!
“Oh my lord, look at these babies!” The woman crooned at the three newborns squirming on her cloak.
Mae got on her hands and knees to gaze at them. A tear gleamed on her cheek. “I got to see you,” she whispered. Then she frowned. “They don’t look like they can take care of themselves. I’ll die now. What will happen to them?”
The older woman cleared her throat. “These are False Key babies. Get ‘em back to water, they’ll be your kind. Leave them here, they’ll be most like humans, but you ain’t gonna die, honey, because you were in human form when you gave birth.”
Mae looked at Amph and Amph looked at her in wonder, and in utter, selfish delight. Mae wouldn't die, as her kind always did after tending to their eggs until they hatched. His friend would live!
A song unlike any he'd heard before broke loose from the merfolk on the beach. Lilting, otherworldly harmonies pealed to the heavens, as they did every Christmas, proclaiming miracle birth and salvation. Who knows, Amph wondered, thinking of his friend Clyde and the dolphins' stillborn loss. Perhaps these three could bring miracles to the earth, too. Grow up among humans and show them how to clean up the world, and save us all.
The End
