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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
My mother is coming down the stairs and my jaw drops.
“Close yer yap or the flies’ll get in,” she says.
I am speechless; all I can do is stare.
“What’re gobbin’ at? Yain’t gone stupid, have yeh?”
It’s her alright, sounding just like she did when she was alive.#vss365 #stare
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) October 16, 2022
The witch pushed aside the hair that whisped and branched across her face and where her eye should have been lay a worm, nestled in the socket, wriggling itself awake. The children heard the voice in their heads, not the witch’s, the worm’s.
“They’ll do,” it said.#vss365 #eye
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) October 12, 2022
Monica stared into the mirror and nobody stared back. Her reflection was there but the her – the very essence of who she was – was missing. It was like looking at a photo of a twin or clone; close but not quite right.
The lights flared and the reflection smiled.#vss365 #nobody
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) October 11, 2022
Horrified, Stav killed the spider, stepping on it as it crawled out of the bottom of his cast. The tickling on his leg had been more than the usual itch after all.
It was nothing, though, compared to what he would feel in three weeks, once its eggs had hatched.#vss365 #spider
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) October 8, 2022
With a look, little Fran could make your bones shiver to such a frequency they shattered inside your body, skin hanging loosely off sharded edges, organs punctured.
So far she had only done rats but the Haskins boy next door had been teasing her a lot lately…#vss365 #shiver
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) October 2, 2022
“You can verse him next.”
My ears cringe overhearing the kids playing video games. I don’t correct them on the usage of “vs.” because I don’t need another eye roll, nor will it change the way they speak.
This is the evolution of language and it has passed me by.#vss365 #verse
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) October 1, 2022
I’m 9 and my mother has a spell; the word so much easier than seizure or fit.
I see it coming as she slumps at the sink. I ease her to the floor, turn her head to the side and place my hand under it, as I’ve been taught.
I am alone and I can’t help the tears.#vss365 #spell
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) September 26, 2022
The night sky is hazel from the asteroid collisions just beyond the moon; moonlight reflecting on the dust, hiding the stars. We haven’t seen them in years.
Tonight, one appears for just a second, a cosmic wink, letting us know everything is still out there.#vss365 #wink
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) September 22, 2022
Her head on my stomach, our eyes to the sky; we are a T on the dock.
“Focus on the dark between the stars,” she says.
As I do, new stars appear in my periphery, only to vanish when I look at them directly.
“Sometimes a focus on the darkness reveals the light.”#vss365 #dark
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) September 15, 2022
This harvest moon lights up the lake tonight; the only thing moving is the mist, the ghost of water.
#vss365 #ghost pic.twitter.com/FWqnOQRr7f
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) September 10, 2022
After a long, stressful day yesterday we drove north for three hours, laughing and talking the whole way. We are excellent road trippers.
With cracked beers and smiles, we set up the tent in the shadows left by headlights.
The view this morning is our reward.#vss365 #north pic.twitter.com/JUjnEVWKZI
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) September 9, 2022
Fadeh was born in the umbra between earth and moon and fell to us on her twentieth birthday.
She would balter gleefully with the mountainfolk and drink from the sky.
Then, a year later, the umbra called her back, the rains stopped, and the colours went with her.#vss365 #umbra
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) September 4, 2022
I poke the ash and awaken a few embers; the last log added hours ago.
We’ve been talking all night, making each other laugh, absorbing the smoke into our skin, our hair.
She sits nearer to me now as we both navigate our way from friendship towards something more.#vss365 #ash
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) September 1, 2022
At 6, she could see feelings, but could only describe those within her ambit of experience.
Happy was orange with swirls, sad was dark grey and shaped like elephant ears. She hadn’t yet felt heartbreak so she wondered about the rose cloud always around her mama.#vss365 #ambit
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) August 31, 2022
His grandad had been a giant, a true one, from the Eastern hills. They said these things skipped a generation and now here he was, all shins and elbows, knocking the fancy teacups off the top shelves.
A lummox now, but not forever. He just needed a bigger place.#vss365 #lummox
— Lee Zanello (@_LimaZulu) August 28, 2022