Illustrated Microstories

Over the past few years, I’ve been occasionally pairing artwork with words. Sometimes it is just a short caption, other times a short story, or -  as in the example above - just a couple of paragraphs that pretend to be part of a story.

Many of these pairings are a result of creative prompts from Jill Badonsky’s group “Underground Highway to Creative Results,” while others just happen organically.

In any case, I’ve posted a number of these little illustrated bits of wordage under the category “Microstories.”  You can read the older ones below in earlier posts.

Enjoy!

My Mirror Image

Sometimes my mirror image does exactly what I do,
But other times she goes away and lives a different life or two.

Once she was an operator if you dialed number eight,
Another time a waitress who couldn’t keep her orders straight.

Last week she was an astronaut who landed on the moon.
Yesterday a zookeeper feeding a baboon.

I wouldn’t mind her doing so much while I’m standing still,
But every time she buys something she sticks me with the bill.

A Dog Barked

Somewhere a dog barked and I suddenly found

the spool of black thread
that rolled under the bed.

And the turquoise car I could never afford
And the fork that got stuck in the carving board.

I know I’ve seen that banana before
And, hey, there’s my book from when I was four.

Oh dear, there’s that present I had meant to give
And, look, the key from where I used to live!

A grape popsicle I once lost in the street
Is back from the dead and still just as sweet.

The chicken’s perplexing, but sure fun to draw.
Of course, there’s a cupcake but the inside is raw.

But the best thing of all from this barking surprise
Is that one damn lone sock that disappears as it dries!

Fire Escape

Hot, humid summer
Gritty, city streets
A stark fire escape, the only chance for relief.
I almost didn’t paint the one thing that would quench my thirst
and set my soul on fire.

The Room of Resentment

Your lino is shabby and never truly clean. Three earlier layers of flooring show through your cracks and missing tiles, while you’ve become the mouthpiece for the pattern underneath.

Your unfinished alcove mocks us daily. I guess we should have asked you what surprises we might find when we replaced the broken, antique, Chambers oven.

The biggest betrayal of all was the way you embraced his love of cooking and whispered in his ear, “Ask her to go. It’s the only way she can help. I’m not big enough for the both of you.”

I used to have dreams for fixing you up, returning you to your mid-century roots. But, it’s been easier to ignore you for a while now.

But, that’s about to change. The Keurig is still my friend and we’re staging a coup. The cats, the dining room chairs, and all the vegetarian cookbooks are with us, and at midnight we cook.

Coffee

The revelation that is coffee never gets old.
The sting of that first sip in the morning becomes a zing when hot sauce is added to the mix.
And don’t underestimate the importance of the mug it is served in.
A sacred vessel, it must be the exact right size and shape
to retain heat and usher the aroma toward sleepy nostrils.
Today my coffee is a robust blend of inspiration and audacity,
with bright notes of joy and an earthy undertone of satisfaction.

October 2002

That October when a madman was picking off random people
No one saw anything coming, until, “Pop!” Another one dead.
We were all on edge, the old, the young, the hip, the square - any of us targets.
Feeling exposed under the suburban sky, I would serpentine my way home from the Metro.
Harder to shoot you if you don’t walk a straight line.
A bizarre commute - heart pounding, lungs working like bellows, careening across the sidewalk. Whatever you do, get home in one piece.

Sing a Song of Sneezles (An Imaginary Cough Syrup-induced CD)

Sing a Song of Sneezles: Questionable Lullabies for Drippy Noses

Featuring:

1. Sneezles and Wheezles
2. Achoo! That Got My Shoe!
3. Mommy’s Got a Migraine, Hurry Up and Hide
4. Who Ya Gonna Call? Snotbusters!
5. Gimme That Board, Gonna Sand It With My Nose
6. Breathing, I Hardly Knew Ya
7. Don’t Confuse Your Cough With Your Coffee
8. Sailing Along on a Thousand Cups of Tea
9. Oh, to Breathe Again
10. Ain’t a Sore Throat Great? You’re Like a Fire-Breathing Dragon! 

And Bonus Track:
Codeine, I Love You to the Moon and ...Zzzzz

December

Dead leaves scrape in the wind,
Early sunsets, a night owl’s dream.
Cold, dark mornings beg for candles. (Who am I kidding? I’m never up that Early.)
Menorahs twinkling and latkes frying.
Better buy your gifts online;
Even after all these years you can’t compete with Olympic-medal Christmas shoppers.
Revel in the holiday madness, as January’s bland buffet of un-specialness will be here soon enough.

Black Friday

Black Friday gives way to silver Saturday,
eclipsed by a golden Sunday and
dumped unceremoniously into grey Monday.
Tuesday will likely be white.
I wish I hadn’t spent all my colors last Wednesday.

Kale is the Key to My Heart

Tea mug is always clean, 

Hot sauce never runs out, 

All my bagel needs are met. 

No diamonds, but should I desire 

Kale at midnight, you would 

Shop your heart out for me.

Good Advice

Dear ViviLulu,
My wife and I spent all of our money on our new house and now we can only afford to buy one piece of furniture. My wife thinks it should be a bed so we have a comfortable place to sleep. But, I’m lobbying for a sofa - I figure we can always sleep on the floor. Which one should we buy.
 ~ Accidental Minimalist

Dear Accidental,
You should buy neither. Spend your money on a pool table - you can use it as a bed, a dining table, and when you’re stuck in your empty, expensive house, you’ll have something to entertain yourselves with. So good luck and rack ‘em up!

~ ViviLulu

Word Pool Wordplay

Remember that time we jumped into the word pool without any warning? Just a couple of nouns without any modifiers on, participles dangling in the breeze. The verbs flew into a rage and the adverbs were VERY upset, but no one cursed as loud as the interjections. It was chaos except for Calm and Judgement, silently treading water in the deep end, who quickly conferred and called out, “We sentence you to run on forever.”

Cap’n Blackbird

“Aye, aye Cap’n Blackbird!”

Ah, words I love to ‘ear. Always affirms me career choice. But, some days me ‘eart just ain’t in this lootin’ business. Been thinkin’ I might just turn the ‘ole operation over to me cousin, Brendan, the crow. Now ‘e really loves ‘im some shiny objects.

Don’t Let the Colors Overlap

“Don’t let the colors overlap, whatever you do.”

Chaya looked up from her painting. Her daughter, Mimi, a precocious 5 year old, was standing quietly at the side of her desk issuing this directive.

“Mimi, I have to overlap the colors. I can’t make the painting without that happening - it won’t look nice.”

“Please, Mommy, don’t overlap the colors. It will be bad.”

“What have you been watching on TV? Some Halloween nonsense? It will be fine. I paint like this all the time. Colors smudge and smear and mix and definitely overlap. Go play now and I’ll call you when it’s time to help me cook dinner.”

Chaya smiled to herself as she watched her serious daughter reluctantly leave the studio. She picked up her brush again, loaded it with cobalt blue paint, and after hesitating for only a split second, laid down a bold smear of blue, partially covering the alizarin crimson she had put down before being interrupted.

As she cleaned her brush, she felt a wave of nausea and a rushing sound in her ears. For a split second the room seemed to go dark. As Chaya blinked her eyes back into focus she looked around, panicking at her growing disorientation.

Where was she? This wasn’t her studio or even her house. It didn’t look like anywhere. Chaya couldn’t make out any discernible objects. She appeared to be in a ditch in some post-apocalyptic landscape, red to the east and blue to the west. 

“Meeeeeeee-meeeeeee!” Chaya screamed.

The fog that seemed to engulf her suddenly parted and her daughter, oversized like a giant, appeared above her.

“I told you not to overlap the colors, Mommy. I don’t know how you’re going to get out of that painting now.”

Crow Punnery

I stepped off the telephone wire and flew over to Charlie’s recycling bin for cawffee and a chat. Pretty soon it got too crowded and we couldn’t hear ourselves over the cacawphony. Just as I was about to leave, Pete thought he saw something shiny and everyone followed him, cawght up in the excitement. Ah, peace and quiet. It’s only 11:30, but I’m cawlling it lunchtime. I could murder a half-eaten
sandwich about now.

Remember That Time

Remember that time I threw your red shoes out the window?

You were so angry with me. You yelled and cried until I told you a chicken had wandered up and put them on. You pulled a chair up to the window, pressing your little nose against the glass, craning your neck to see it.

Finally, I pretended I could see the chicken catching a cab at the end of the street, and for some reason you were ok with that.

Coming Home

I can travel through space
in a single breath

Eyes following the visible stars
to a place of stillness

Wide open, finally out of the house
No luggage, only a quest for kitsch and coffee
in a roadside diner

Following a roadmap of battered pathways
to the logical end of homesickness

Breathe again and snap back
to my heart-home.