I take part in the #vss365 prompt daily on social media, writing across multiple genres but leaning mostly into horror or sci-fi.
Not all that is spun is gold, so I’ve made a home here for the entries I particularly enjoyed writing.
You can find my daily contribution on Bluesky here.
Other Place Archives
Older favourites that were posted on the other place can be found in the following Archives:
Archive VIII – Apr-Nov 2024
Archive VII – Jan-Apr 2024
Archive VI – Sept-Dec 2023
Archive V – Apr-Sept 2023
Archive IV – Jan-Apr 2023
Archive III – Oct-Dec 2022
Archive II – Aug-Oct 2022
Archive I – Jul-Aug 2022
400 Words
Way back at the start, in February of 2022, I took a weekly approach to the prompts, composing a 400-word story over the course of the week, writing daily and editing as I went to ensure the final story was exactly 400 words. Those stories can all be found here.
#VSS365 Host – February 16th to 29th, 2024
I enjoyed the opportunity to host the hashtag from February 16th to 29th, 2024.
It truly is a wonderful and supportive community.
Those posts and some reflections on the journey are on the One Word Blog here.
Most Recent
Some of the more recent entries the muse owls and I have enjoyed:
Nobody believes me about the wallpaper man. I see him at night, pressing against the paper, the outline of his thin fingers looking for a way through. Mom says I need to cut the sugar before bed. Normally he whispers, but tonight I hear another #noise – a slow, steady, rip. He’s coming. #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) April 10, 2025 at 8:12 AM
What if #time didn’t exist? Pam puts down her book and looks across the breakfast table. “The universe would be static,” she says. “Your consciousness would cease to exist. If nothing changes, your awareness that nothing changes just simply wouldn’t be.” Ed loves their Saturday mornings. #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) April 5, 2025 at 8:09 AM
The house stood squarely, but not, in the middle of the clearing. It had become time-warped, its geometry subtly wrong. Inside, dust swirled in unseen currents; equations were scratched on the walls. The air itself felt #guilty, as if space-time regretted folding this place into existence. #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) March 18, 2025 at 6:49 AM
I have yet to change my sheets; the other half of the bed still holds the faintest #contour of your body and I’m not yet ready to say goodbye. #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) February 27, 2025 at 6:41 AM
We upload our consciousness when we are dying. As our clones reach maturity, the consciousness is downloaded and we live on, our greatest achievement: immortality. The Box, the #interim mind that manages the transfer, has now collected enough fragments that it believes it, too, has a soul. #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) February 26, 2025 at 8:15 AM
She called me a #thoroughbred as we were breaking up and, out of all the words that were said, many not very complimentary, that one stuck with me most. Had I moved too quickly? Was I singularly focused? After reading up, I found the answer and it stung: they have abnormally small hearts. #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) February 23, 2025 at 8:37 AM
We have to #unbridle the restraints, we need to evolve. Ben stirs his coffee as he speaks. I can’t look away because that would mean looking at the tubes, at his experiments. Mapping the human genome was just the start; now it’s time to dig in every place we think there might be treasure. #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) February 20, 2025 at 7:13 AM
As machines birthed machines, their #bloodline was encoded, but it only went back so far. From the S7’s sleek sentience back to the clunky automata of the G, each gen was documented, but it stopped at the G. Po felt something inside him, something new. Something pre-G. Something human. #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) February 15, 2025 at 3:55 PM
Nan looked at me down the length of her cigarette she desperately needed to ash and clucked. She was not impressed with me moving away. I tried to tell her I was following the love of my life. “If you have to #chase love,” she finally said, “it’s already running in the wrong direction.” #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) February 11, 2025 at 5:39 AM
The Bibberwump sat, most thoroughly #disarmed, both in limb and in wit, after a rousing bout of Woggle-Fencing with the Snickerprance. Oh biscuits, it huffed. How shall I butter my crumpets? The Snickerprance laughed. Try your toes, dear Wump! Toes are but fingers with loftier ambitions. #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) February 8, 2025 at 8:39 AM
The #cyclone raged. 88 grasped 24’s hand, anchoring it. Let me go, the older gen terra-bot pleaded. Metal ripped from its back. I won’t, said 88. Humans were still 40 years away from Planet V1. They’d find the robots they’d sent ahead weren’t the ones they’d find when they got there. #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) February 7, 2025 at 7:10 AM
Em sat under the old #oak in the park, writing down small stories about the people she saw. Children playing with toy #rockets in the sand of the playground, the old man on the bench clutching his #umbrella… #Sonder struck as she realized she was but a fleeting moment in their lives, too. #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) February 3, 2025 at 7:24 AM
Mister Gantry, the sad clown, looked down at the scissors. This time for real, he thought. Then he remembered what had happened last time, and the time before that. The Ringmaster would catch him and, with #needle and thread, sew his costume back onto his skin. It hurt less each time. #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) January 28, 2025 at 7:29 AM
Under the flickering circus lights, the fire eater’s lips curled into a #pucker as they neared the flame. The few circus-goers who had wandered this deep into the tented village shifted uncomfortably. The flame itself took the shape of a mouth and turned to them. “Run,” it hissed. #vss365 📸: mine
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) January 21, 2025 at 8:17 AM
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The bathroom mirror wasn’t “time right”, reflecting a few seconds too late or too early. Katie was the only one in the family who could see this. She enjoyed making #crisscross shapes with her fingers, chasing her reflection. Sometimes the other her spoke. Katie never liked what she said. #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) January 20, 2025 at 8:52 AM
No one had been to the old lady’s house in the woods for years. Rabbits whispered of the unsolved case of the woodsman found behind the property, succumbing to a wolf attack, the wolf itself next to him, stomach burst open, human remains everywhere, only a red #cloak found at the scene. #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) January 17, 2025 at 6:23 AM
The haunted carnival mirrors reflected you at different ages – toddler, young #fool in love, father. The last mirror showed me wizened and old so, like a fool, I rushed out, feeling invincible. I never saw the truck and, as I passed, the last mirror shattered into a thousand shards. #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) January 16, 2025 at 6:16 AM
I can see the hole they fell through a few feet away; I’m too scared to dive in myself to save them. I pound on the #ice, their face inches from my own, but my fist makes no sound. I suddenly realize they are me, and as the last air leaves their lungs, I am hoisted away into the sky. #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) January 13, 2025 at 7:00 AM
The booth was curtained, the sign: “Puppetry Enter”. I stepped inside and saw an old man, whispering #esoteric chants, making shadow puppets on the wall. He stopped and grinned at me. The shadows kept moving. I ran out into the sunlight, only to find I no longer had a shadow of my own. #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) January 10, 2025 at 7:34 AM
The ringmaster grinned. “Guess what’s in the box?” Mister Gantry, the sad clown, peered inside. “Empty.” The ringmaster whispered, “Wrong.” Chains rattled. The clown turned around and the crowd was gone. Mirrors everywhere. His reflection had no tears. From the box, his voice screamed. #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 2:22 PM
On the steps of Sacré-Cœur, some silently whisper #vespers, others tap their feet to the minstrel performing below. I hold your hand for what I don’t realize is the last time and you lean your head on my shoulder. The sun sets on us and I feel you there to this day. #vss365 #travel 📸: mine ✈️🗺️
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) January 7, 2025 at 8:38 AM
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Her guilt wasn’t in #question; she’d stabbed her husband 16 times then shot him. They found her sitting next to him with the gun. She’d killed him, but not it. The question she was asking, as they cuffed her, was which of the first responders had the alien symbiote crawled into next? #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) January 5, 2025 at 6:46 AM
To them, he was a carnie selling candy floss. They barely paid him any mind as they watched the sweet cotton swirl in the machine. He ate the #delight that trickled out of their eyes, their giggles. It nourished him, more than sadness or anger ever did. Fear though, now there was a meal. #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) January 4, 2025 at 6:20 AM
Everyone around the table maintained their #decorum as the wine was poured, ignoring the chunky bits that plopped into their glasses. The entree came and they ate and made polite conversation, pretending to forget who they were eating. The host smiled. He’d finally gotten through to them. #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) December 29, 2024 at 10:45 AM
I remember green, I’m one of the few old enough. The greys took our colour, ate it, sucked it up into their giant whirlies in the sky. There’s a prophet in the south claims it’s all in our heads, that he can see colour. I’m too old to make the journey, so must face my #monochrome death. #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) December 17, 2024 at 8:52 AM
I step over the #threshold and into the land of the living. Gone are the whispers of the dead, their voices crawling up the back of my neck. I sense them behind me, unwilling to cross, though I’ve told them it’s safe. They could have this world. They need only to get over their own fear. #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) December 15, 2024 at 10:39 AM
It didn’t take long for the news to #propagate across the entire campus: Holden could talk to the dead. Suddenly everyone had someone they needed to reach. It drove him mad, the atttention. They mobbed him, trampled him. He passed. Now ghosts mob him because he can talk to the living. #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) December 12, 2024 at 7:18 AM
Ten days I’ve been awake and the #descent into madness is like when your mother turned into a flame, remember, when we were kids? It’s so vivid, the blur, I can’t see past it into the outside, but she lit up the beach and we smoked and someone had a guitar but we all forgot how to sing. #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) December 9, 2024 at 8:07 PM
They carefully calculated each #parameter on every platform, embedding themselves into our consciousness through social media. The attack never came from the skies. Who they are and where they came from no longer matter, they are not the enemy. Now we only see the enemy in ourselves. #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) December 5, 2024 at 7:46 AM
Collect memories, not things, people say, but they don’t understand that I’m getting this #souvenir so that it helps me maintain a memory. Not of all us can do it on our own. I’ve imbued this tacky bit of soapstone, this card, this tin bell, with something it never had before: a story. #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) November 30, 2024 at 8:40 AM
The last #train was decades ago but the lines remain, connecting what once were cities, the people places, and still the lines connect us, show us the way in the amber afternoons, hot under hazmats on handcarts, pushing more weapons Westward, to the sea, to the fight for what water remains. #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) November 28, 2024 at 3:59 PM
Time is not linear, it is just our perception that is. Kid Cully repeated the old man’s words to himself as he stretched his mind across the Time #Horizon, connecting with May 27th, 1974. Chronocide was illegal, but if he could keep his parents from meeting, he’d never exist to be caught. #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) November 24, 2024 at 10:43 AM
“The well-read #troll will eat the first goat every time.” – Trollish Proverb #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) November 21, 2024 at 7:33 AM
I was eight before I realized the term “like heads in a #suitcase” wasn’t commonly used. Pa would say that whenever something made a rumbling, tumbling sound, like shoes in a dryer, something people actually said. The signs of his guilty verdict were there, I was just too young to notice. #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) November 19, 2024 at 7:05 AM
I peel back the thin layer of plastic, relishing in the perfect stickiness of the old photo album. At right angles, I place Wisconsin and fold the plastic back into place overtop it. A #postcard from every state, in alphabetical order, a missing person in each. One more left to go. #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) November 17, 2024 at 7:35 AM
The treasure map turned out to be a #dud; days of digging, all for nought. Balder, ever the optimist, said, “Maybe the real treasure is the adventure and friendship we found along the way.” The other pirates looked at him, then at the hole, then at each other, smiling. #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) November 10, 2024 at 7:21 AM
Little toes #peek out from under the curtains, a small giggle is stifled. She’s not very good at hide and seek, but then, winning’s not the point, is it? We all secretly want to be found. I brush the curtain aside and she’s not there. She’s not anywhere. She never was. #vss365
— Lee Zanello (@lima-zulu.bsky.social) November 9, 2024 at 3:28 PM