Come On, Shake Salt Shakers, Baby, Compost Conga

Anthropomorphic Me

I believe having a voice is important.

That would include making note of the mutterings of objects, animals and nature, often lost in translation.

My first recollection of assigning human characteristics to those with none was probably around ten years old.

Ten is the age where kids begin viewing the world through their own eyes, often not seeing eye to eye with adults. The pre-teen revolution.

My emerging voice was often met with a warning from my parents -not one more word- followed by many extra words that sequestered both me and my smart talk in a door slammed closed bedroom for some ungodly period of time.

I’d haul out my hunt and peck typewriter and gave the gift of being heard to woodsy animals and a family of mallards. I recall this particular story solely because of grammar. So many quotation marks around the back and forth dialog, many exclamation marks as well!!!

The trend for me to take on the larger than life continues. In “Hurry”, the power of hurricanes, the anxiety of will our home make it through the storm is channeled into an age-old story and every parent’s nightmare. A lost child. One minute standing beside you, the next minute gone.

“Hurry” was published by Fictive Dream as a Flash Fiction February story 2/3/2020. Read the story here and also, a bit more background at Shared Madness here.

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Photo by Toni Reed on Unsplash

“Come On, Shake Salt Shakers, Baby, Compost Conga” is also a wild Fictive Dream / Flash Fiction February slew of voices, published 2/14/2021. A neighbor decided an unkempt a la naturelle compost pile was a good addition to his native landscape.

The flies, not so good. Sitting summer outside on the patio proved the equivalent of standing in a cow pasture. Worse really. More like wallowing about on a cattle ranch.

Once I began writing, the story flew like a baby hurricane.

So fun to write. Read “Come On, Shake Salt Shakers, Baby, Compost Conga” here.

Thank you, editor Laura Black and artist Claudia McGill.

Flash Fiction February is in full swing here.

And then, there’s the diva inspiration for “Come On, Shake Salt Shakers, Baby, Compost Conga” - Gloria Estefan.

Thanks for reading.

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