The Bathtub Mermaid

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  Wander

One by one, they step into the starlit desert. Their glow grows brighter as they move away, pale lights bobbing like will-o’-wisps across the dunes. She watches until they’re only a constellation of tiny sparks at the edge of sight.

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  Ember/Spark

The circle widens, ripples spreading, and the two species drift into a shared rhythm — some with hands, some with arms, all with joy. In their mingled glow, something ancient rises, older than language or gravity: the understanding that warmth is not bound to flame, and family not bound to form.

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 Frost.

“It’s the longest night,” he says. “Not for sorrow — for balance. The dark gives the light a place to return to. Winter holds the world still, just long enough for hope to gather its breath.”

Mark, the Encaffeinated One

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 Snowglobe.

The lights above them pulse, soft as breathing. She remembers that first storm — the fear of the power failing, the scramble to secure the greenhouse domes, the way they’d worked side by side in the cold until dawn. That was when it began, really: not the flirtation or the laughter, but the quiet respect that came from surviving something together.

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 orbit.

Below her, ribbons of green and violet curl across the poles, shimmering like breath against the night. It’s not the first aurora she’s seen from orbit, but this one feels different — brighter, alive. She thinks of the Christmas lights her father used to hang along the eaves of their house, blinking patterns that never quite synced. He’d laugh every year and say, “Perfection’s overrated, sweetheart. Just make it shine.”

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 hearth.

Outside, the church bells strike midnight — exactly on time.

Inside the café, the world softens around the edges. The espresso machine has gone quiet, its metal belly releasing one last sigh of steam. She wipes down the counter in slow, practiced circles. When she finishes, she pours herself a small mug from what remains in the pot — lukewarm, but still comforting — and brings it with her as she turns.

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 “clock.”

Time, for her, is elastic. Sometimes it stretches, gossamer-thin, like taffy pulled too far, and she can walk its length to touch the moment when her mother bent to kiss her scraped knee, or the instant she first realized she’d fallen in love. Other times it snaps tight and whips her forward, years ahead, where she sees a conversation that hasn’t happened yet, the face of a friend she hasn’t met.

Melissa A. Bartell

Transcript: Clock 

This is how it ends. This is how it always ends.

Mirror, Mirror runs throughout October on Tales from the Tub. Subscribe so you don’t miss a reflection.

Melissa A. Bartell

Transcript: Mirror Mirror: Day Thirty-One

In Phoenix, a teenager learns that some countdowns don’t end with midnight—they end when the mirror says so.

Mirror, Mirror runs throughout October on Tales from the Tub. Subscribe so you don’t miss a reflection.

Nuchtchas

Transcript: Mirror Mirror: Day Twenty-Seven

An enigmatic oval wooden mirror reflecting a foggy forest on an asphalt road in fantasy style

In a late-night New York newsroom, a journalist discovers his reflection has a byline—and it’s writing his secrets.

Mirror, Mirror runs throughout October on Tales from the Tub. Subscribe so you don’t miss a reflection.

Clay Robeson 

Transcript: Mirror Mirror: Day Twenty-Nine