Teeny Tiny Tales #4
The year turns towards introspection. 11.13.24 through 11.19.24
I've always been interested in writing, but time is a precious commodity. I found that writing these little stories to be both pleasurable and stimulating to my aging brain. I've decided to write a microfiction piece every day and post all of them here: The few I think are good, the embarrassingly silly, and the indifferent. I hope my efforts might inspire others to let their creativity out to play.
If you're interested in trying out microfiction, check out
’s Substack (link below). He's created an amazing community where you'll find a lot of wonderful stories and supportive, friendly writers.See you next week!
Teeny Tiny Tales #1 - Teeny Tiny Tales #2 - Teeny Tiny Tales #3
November 13, 2024
Microdosing - 100 mg of the Untold
Don contemplated his future. Flunked out of another school, he was at a loose end.
Satan appeared. "Young rogue, I have a proposition. Would you sell your soul for riches untold?"
Don knew a mark when he saw one and agreed readily, eagerly signing the contract.
The devil laughed, "Greedy fool, there are no riches. They are untold, there are none. You've sold your soul for nothing."
Don leered. "That's okay, I have no soul."
The Father of Lies hesitated, then stuck out his hand. As they shook, he said, "Donnie, my boy, we will have a great future together."
November 14, 2024
Microdosing - 90 mg of a Blur
I sat in the cab, riding home from my father's funeral. I still couldn't believe he was gone, as I stared out at the sharp, cruel moon floating above the intricate trees and crisp fields. Everything was so sharply focused, it hurt. I took off my glasses to open my mind to the past. The years of my childhood flooded back, when the moon was still a friendly, fluffy blur floating over cotton candy trees amidst the soft fog of fields... back to the time when Dad was still alive.
November 15, 2024
Microdosing - 80 mg of a Loop
My caterpillars had escaped! I had to find them pronto before Dad got home. I frantically searched the living room, and began finding crysalises all over the place - they'd decided to pupate outside of their enclosure. I finally found the last fugitive, hanging from a silken loop on the back of Dad's Lazy Boy. I covered the enclosure just as Dad walked into the kitchen.
Ten days later, I woke up to a house full of fluttering swallowtail butterflies. Oops...
November 16, 2024
Microdosing - 60 mg of Betrayal
After Fido's heart failed, the vet made a house call.
"There is no hope. If you don't intervene, he will suffer."
I cuddled him, as he looked up at me, his brown eyes full of trust. As he felt the needle, his eyes filled with confused betrayal as he died. It was the right decision, but I'll never forgive myself.
November 17, 2024
Personal Microdosing - 100 mg of Resilience
There's an old hemlock tree at the edge of the woods, which was once over 100 feet tall. A lightning bolt truncated it to 20 feet a couple of summers ago, yet it preservers, a living symbol of resilience.
The pond out back is beginning to freeze over. The frogs and newts are deeply buried in the mud, hibernating, but even in the middle of January, I can see backswimmers and whirligigs gliding gracefully beneath the ice while the predators sleep.
Winter is not kind, but nature provides us with the power and resiliency to live until spring finally returns.
November 18, 2024
Personal Microdosing - 100 mg of Stone
.jpg#mw-jump-to-license){kind=link}
There was once a young man, who married a young woman. They lived happily, until his wife received word that that her father was deathly ill. She rushed to her home village to tend him. The husband sat on a mountaintop, tending the fire that would guide his love home; but the disease killed her, too.
He waited for her return, as many days, weeks, months passed, until he became one with the mountain, becoming the great Stone Face. Years, decades, eons passed, yet still he waited.
Finally, her spirit returned. Stone Face crumbled away as the two lovers reunited.
This is a retelling of an old Abenacki myth, which describes the origins of "The Old Man of the Mountain" of New Hampshire. Stone Face collapsed in May, 2003.
November 19, 2024
Microdosing - 100 mg of Euphoria
“How can you be happy with renal cancer?”
She smiled gently. “Every morning, my little dog greets me exuberantly. The crows laugh raucously, the roosters crow cheerfully, and the donkeys bray like Wookies, singing joyfully. I smell coffee, baking bread, the scent of wood smoke in the wind. My husband knows just where to rub my aching back. There's so much to see and smell and taste and feel and do. Life makes me happy.”
And then, with a wink, “The fact that I have a spare kidney, so I can go on enjoying this life, makes me positively euphoric.”
Your leaner micro fictions are good, robust and unsentimental. The nature one with spring at the end of it is a good story.