grateful for shadows

https://subspacewagon.systems/grateful-for-shadows/

@poetry
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#WordWeavers 2026.04.07 —Look around and describe an object as if it were a mysterious item (no name, no idea of it's purpose).

It was spherical, nearly perfectly geometrically so. Not a ball for throwing, though very colorful if now quite dirty and dusty. Not geometrical like a foosball or a paddleball, and bigger than both, which probably stopped the children from mischief. Hollow, they discovered shaking it with the excuse to knock off leaves. Maybe made of wood or shellacked paper, then painted? Lines circled it, and boys figured out those squiggles were words because the eldest 5 years 2 months and had been given an alphabet slate. The lines went vertically and horizontally; they remind Tomeas of the segments of an orange cut into two halves, but presented on the exterior. Much of the outside was blue. The rest was painted like mud spread randomly lengths and widths across the surface, sometimes green, sometimes yellow or brown, sometimes, but only at either end, white. The gaggle (typically as pleasant as a murder of crows) should have been out foraging, but they goggled at it for minutes, then wisely decided not to play with it but to call their parents over to where the hill had caved in, revealing all sort of wonders beside what they almost mistook for an overlarge toy.

[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.04.07 —Do you combine poetic fragments and prose paragraphs in your work?

So rarely as to be non-existent. I once included a lyric. Once. And it was supposed to be funny because the protagonist had to act goofy. Does that count?

[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]

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#ScribesAndMakers ∆ 2026.04.08 — Victuals?

Wherever story intersects a meal, ya betcha! Bolt (a day angel with wings) has arrived looking for a friend at an up-and-rising victual​ists' red popup tent restaurant. This #excerpt is from the current chapter.

…[l]ots of chatting feathers and friends merrily eating, their plates ringing when struck with flatware, swinging big glasses of amber-red sudsy beer. Still hot inside, despite the cooling miracle, the popup smelled of sweat, beer, grilled food, and sweat. Happy people with food, in other words. Mid-tent, grill illuminated by multi-color directional sprites, three day angels threw down crimped saffron dumplings, brown noodles, blocks of fermented tofu, and knots of cabbage-shred, beside what might be mackerel or pickled river-pike to the grill that got spiked to what dish demanded it. A fledgling rushed over with a slopping pot of batter. The sizzling competed mightily against the din and shouting, but failed to even place. The clatter of the wood handled spatulas did compete, tossing, splatting, and chopping musically, definitely with rhythm. A red-feathered man (the owner's bother) squirted their signature black smoked-oil and then spicy orange sauce from bladders, fanning the food with his wings for the twin women victualists, raising clouds of delicious grey-brown steam.

[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]

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photographer chef cooking
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https://storykeepr.com/rm/ggQUHQAn
Meet the cursed Obsidian Shadow Pack...

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https://storykeepr.com/tl/tcw
Pain has been a part of my life for as far back as I can remember...

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#PennedPossibilities 978

[Bolt:] Realistic? That chafes in a sensitive spot. There's no chance that the syndicate is going to forget the blackmail they have on me. My goal of winning freedom to live a normal life without looking over my shoulder ain't possible. My goals, as they always have, really, boil down to what flying, friends, and fun I can manage to have.

First, I'll fly faster, farther, and more fearlessly than anyone else, while I still can. I'll continue to train hard. This day angel has feathers on her wings for a reason!

I've worked to stay away from civilians because the mob knows who I know. Not fair. It's dangerous. I'm poison by association. But, having run into a bunch of people recently who seem determined—they insist, imagine that!—I'm not against working to ensure they learn nothing about my work, and that they refrain from telling me their weaknesses, or certainly not remembering them! I realized I don't like loneliness, so I'm making excuses… Anyway! My second goal will be to protect these new friends—I can't (maybe won't) push away—from harm. My friend Blue became a praetorian recently; nobody's messing with him, anymore. He's kinda strait-laced; he ain't gonna accept how I've had to be misbehaving these last dozen years, so, no, he's not my ticket out.

Since high school, I've found men a definite close second to flying, and when I can do both? As with Blue? Bliss. The Bureau of Human Trafficking gives every woman a genetic registry book (and men a card with only a number). My third goal is to collect at least a dozen half-dozen† IDs! I'm over half-way there now at age 30. I even jot down names to remember better.

I guess I need to make a fourth goal, or to combine a fourth with the third. I must never bear a child. Imagine me bearing one, beholden to the syndicate, raising her in the mob? [Shudders.]

=-=-=-=-=
† Their numbering system is in dozens, counting the palm as well as the fingers and toes.

[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]

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My latest at I Like How You Think:

https://ilikehowyouthink.com/posts/fredrik-backman-eric-barker-and-arthur-schopenhauer-walk-into-a-bar

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