Author
M.K. Hutchins
http://www.mkhutchins.blogspot.com/
Shattered Petals of Celadon
Everyone has a heart box. Some boxes have mitred corners with beautifully contrasting splines. Some are dovetailed. Some have simple butt joints nailed from the outside. It doesn’t really matter. What grows inside them does. A curved seashell of curiosity. A hard scrap of…
This is How the Rain Falls
This is how the rain falls. A splatter, like a single tear. Then a soft mist, like ocean spray. Then fat, ferocious missiles that burst and self-destruct on the slick sidewalk. Other people don't seem to mind the rain. They shrug on jackets and carry umbrellas, and when the rain…
Shod In Memories
Why the fairy wanted my patchwork slippers, or how she could even tell I'd been sewing them by the light of the ashes at night, I might never know. When she offered to trade me a magnificent gown in a nutshell, a fairy gown that would only last four hours, I told her no. My…
Seeds of the Soul Flowers
Babies born without souls didn't live long. Amma's great-grandson, with only half a soul, didn't look like he'd do much better. "Is there nothing you can do, Amma-mer?" Vette asked, cradling the child against her chest. Amma couldn't answer that, yet. "Let me hold him." Vette…
The Eternal Army
I'm always the first pulled from the blessed Elysian Fields, leaving behind the peace and comfort of the afterlife to wear a mortal body again. Well, the semblance of one, pulled from whatever dust or rocks are handy. My own body rotted away millennia ago. I could smell a hint…
Words of Creation
I joined the temple as a very young girl. By the time I was eight, I'd mastered writing. I joined the ranks of the novice priestesses, vowing to never speak again. Words have power. With words, the gods created the universe. Ordinary people tossed syllables and sentences around…
Genie From the Gym
First Wish: I wasn't stupid. Someone had abandoned that lamp in the gym locker room for a reason. I thought about just wishing to lose weight, but the genie might vaporize my arm or something to meet that requirement. So I wished that I could lose weight. Overnight, chocolate…
Necromancer, 79th Infantry Division
The smoke in the speakeasy swirls between me and my date. She's dolled up with lipstick and a swell hat, but she'd be pretty without all that. "You work as a court stenographer, right?" I ask, nervously fidgeting with my drink. We sit near the back, where the piano-man hammers…
Water Lilies
Prints made Monet's work look flat. Inside the museum, the thick paint shimmered with roundness and ripples. Inside the painting, I was drowning. I floundered, spluttering, but I couldn't find the picture frame, let alone the dry museum floor. A single-span bridge of greenish…
Canvas
Silence is the canvas. That's what my sister always said, right before singing a broom to life to do the cleaning. When her baby cried, the broom always fell over. No more canvas, no more spell. My uncle chuckled and said that canvas was the canvas, right before he painted a…