You landwalkers call our mostly aquatic planet Earth. Your record-keeping is similarly questionable. Therefore I bring you this lecture series, introducing you to some of Aquatopia’s more notable creations.

Today, let’s talk about the Burrobrock and Camelocant

This pair makes the same argument for stubbornness from two opposite directions. One needs no water at all. The other needed almost none to begin with. Judge for yourselves which of them made the wiser bargain.

#audio #short #humor #amphigory #daryaaban

You landwalkers call our mostly aquatic planet Earth. Your record-keeping is similarly questionable. This month, I am introducing you to some of the creatures you seem to have misplaced.

Today, let’s talk about the Aukiris — Aukiris frigidorum. Some centuries ago, a colony of auks looked at the sky, looked at the water, and made a decision the rest of us have been quietly admiring ever since. The wings did not disappear. They simply retired from flying and took up a more practical line of work.

#audio #short #humor #amphigory #daryaaban

So, MeMe del Mare is taking a well-deserved vacation and doing some field research for the Aquatopia Amphigory of Lost Creatures. In her place, Professor Darya Aban of Atlantis University, curator of the Amphigory, will be stepping in to introduce us to some of the remarkable creatures in the collection. I can’t wait for you to meet her. In about 12-15 hours.  #audio #unscripted #lifeupdate #short

#audio #short #humor #mermaidminute

Eggs. Bunnies. Chocolate logistics that raise more questions than answers.

Meanwhile, under the sea, we’re imagining bioluminescent egg hunts, judgmental eels, and a holiday that glows instead of melts.

Celebrate however you like—just maybe don’t drop the plastic grass overboard.

#MermaidMinute #monologues #EasterVibes #OceanLife #KeepSwimmingAndResist

Three stories. Two guest readers. One mermaid, back from a very long bath.

The Bathtub Mermaid returns with ‘Salt Logic,’ ‘Caffeine Theology,’ and ‘Fifteen Minutes to Showtime’ — flash fiction about oceans that apologize, coffee as religion, and the fifteen minutes before everything changes. Featuring readers Paul Maki and Jack Mangan.

The ocean started apologizing on a Wednesday. I was halfway through reheating yesterday’s chowder when the first buoy pinged.

Welcome to the Dog Days of Advent. I made a list of prompts, and wrote a bite-sized story for each one. They don’t live in the same universe, but they’re all a little off-kilter from what you might expect from holiday fare. And if you pay attention, you’ll notice that the last line of each story becomes the first line of the next. Today’s prompt is Midnight. 

Jean—called Grandma Love by strangers more often than family—felt that familiar tilt in the air. The almost-midnight tilt. Midnight wasn’t a time so much as a mood, a soft doorway between one thing and the next. She’d always been good with doorways.

Melissa A. Bartell

Welcome to the Dog Days of Advent. I made a list of prompts, and wrote a bite-sized story for each one. They don’t live in the same universe, but they’re all a little off-kilter from what you might expect from holiday fare. And if you pay attention, you’ll notice that the last line of each story becomes the first line of the next. Today’s prompt is Sled. 

She set the sled down.  Ran her glove over the wooden slats.  Felt her heartbeat double-tap behind her ribs.

Then she climbed on.

The world tipped. Not dangerously.  Not wrong.  Just… sideways enough.

Melissa A. Bartell

Welcome to the Dog Days of Advent. I made a list of prompts, and wrote a bite-sized story for each one. They don’t live in the same universe, but they’re all a little off-kilter from what you might expect from holiday fare. And if you pay attention, you’ll notice that the last line of each story becomes the first line of the next. Today’s prompts are Gift and Train. 

It was finished. Actually finished. She and Trisha had built it with their own four hands, two questionable YouTube tutorials, and one bottle of wine.

Melissa A. Bartell

Welcome to the Dog Days of Advent. I made a list of prompts, and wrote a bite-sized story for each one. They don’t live in the same universe, but they’re all a little off-kilter from what you might expect from holiday fare. And if you pay attention, you’ll notice that the last line of each story becomes the first line of the next. Today’s prompts are Ritual, Thread, and Magic. 

Across the Coalition of Aligned Worlds, she could imagine this same carol rising in a hundred places at once: sung in English, Centauran Creole, SolCommon, Vulhari, SynthCant. Sung in domed colonies, hydroponic farm chapels, mining outpost rec halls, starship sanctuaries. Sung by people who had never stepped on Earth, yet carried its stories like inherited starlight.

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Melissa A. Bartell

Welcome to the Dog Days of Advent. I made a list of prompts, and wrote a bite-sized story for each one. They don’t live in the same universe, but they’re all a little off-kilter from what you might expect from holiday fare. And if you pay attention, you’ll notice that the last line of each story becomes the first line of the next. Today’s prompt is  Candle.

No one there was particularly observant. A few weren’t Jewish at all. But Hanukkah had a way of widening the doorway. Light was light, after all, and the station nights were long.

Melissa A. Bartell