Thistle Quill: 2013

Saturday, August 31, 2013

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Burdock - Arctium minus

Burdock, aka cockle burr.

Arctium minus

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Starting Date: Friday, August 2, 2013
Open to all forum members, even after it starts!

This month's prompt:
Child of the devil
Whether the devil be literal, figurative, or Cruella. As always, can be prose, poetry, play, fiction, nonfiction.

Instructions:
Simply post your blog's URL in this thread to join. I'll let you know in this thread when it's your turn. Once your turn comes up, you have two days to complete a blog post using the prompt. When you are finished, please add a link to your post on the thread.

If you signed up but find yourself unable to participate or need to be moved around in the schedule, please PM me or post in the thread. If you fail to post on your blog and on the thread within two days, I'll bump you down to the end of the line on the third day; you'll get a second chance at the end of the month.

Each post should be less than 1000 words if possible. Read and comment on other participants' posts if you possibly can--they'll be doing the same for you! Please include a list of all participants' blogs (not necessarily their actual posts for the month) in your blog post.

Participants and posts:
orion_mk3 - http://nonexistentbooks.wordpress.com (link to post)
ishtar'sgate - http://chickenscratchbc.blogspot.ca/ (link to post)
BDavidHughes - http://bdavidhughes.com/ (link to post)
areteus - http://lurkingmusings.wordpress.com/ (link to post)
Ralph Pines - http://ralfast.wordpress.com/ (link to post)
articshark - http://www.drslaten.com/blog (link to post)
pyrosama - http://matrix-hole.blogspot.com/ (link to post)
Anarchic Q - http://anarchicq.com/ (link to post)
meowzbark - http://www.lizzylessard.com/ (link to post)

milkweed - http://www.thistlequill.blogspot.com/ (link to post) [after 8/15]

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Ramones Transformation - A Bug Story

Starting Date: Saturday June 1, 2013
Open to all forum members, even after it starts!

This month's prompt:
BugsYep. Bugs. Simple and easy. Prose, poetry, play. Fiction, nonfiction. It's all good, all bugs.

Instructions:
Simply post your blog's URL in this thread to join. I'll let you know in this thread when it's your turn. Once your turn comes up, you have two days to complete a blog post using the prompt. When you are finished, please add a link to your post on the thread.

Each post should be less than 1000 words if possible. Read and comment on other participants' posts if you possibly can--they'll be doing the same for you! Please include a list of all participants' blogs (not necessarily their actual posts for the month) in your blog post.

*****************

Light streamed through the tree canopy onto the woodland floor dancing as the leaves swayed in the gentle breeze, mist still hanging in the morning air.

Lost deep in thought a loud growl disturbed Abigail’s dinner. A quick look around the woods, revealed a wolf greedily eating a monarch butterfly, its golden yellow wings protruding from the wolf’s mouth.

“Stop” she yelled,

“Sezs who?” He asked.

“Look at the wings!” She yelled.

“Why?” He asked.

“Just spit it out!”

Obligingly he spit the butterfly from his mouth, a glittering stream of nanobots made their way up the saliva dribbling from his mouth and raced down his throat causing him to gag.

“What the hell was that?” Asking as he recoiled in horror.

“Nanobots” she replied using a leg from her male lover to clean her mandibles.

Gasping Ramone began puking his vertebrae into a bloodied pool upon the woodland floor.

“What is happening to me?” he asked weakly.

“You ate the golden monarch” she replied. Still fixated on her lover’s leg she debated if she should take it home with her or not?

“Help me” he gasped

“It’s too late now” she retorted.

Ramone lay on the woodland floor twitching as the bones and muscles in his body turned to mush; a deep sleep fell over him. Life carried on in the woods as if nothing unusual had happened, the only true witnesses to the event was Abigail and the now deceased golden monarch.

His once long sleek tail and thick fur had sloughed off onto the ground beneath him; while he slept the nanobots converted his former wolf body into the chrysalis of a monarch butterfly. Barely aware of his surroundings Ramone realized that he was hanging upside down from somewhere up high.

“HELP!!!” Ramone screamed for what felt like an eternity, screams went unnoticed by the other occupants of the woods. This had to be a trap of some sort, the beta males hated him, or so he believed but who would do this to him?

Exhausted from screaming Ramone slipped back into a deep sleep. The nanobots continued their work as he slept hanging from an oak branch.

“Ramone, Is that you?” Abigail asked creeping closer to the strange blob.

The creature did not respond; it hung there lifeless emitting a soft pinging sound. Abigail turned back to the remains of her latest lover, kicking his head aside as she made her way towards the top of the tree.

There she sat waiting, for what she didn’t know but the horror show that was occurring in the lower recesses of the oak tree was mesmerizing. She wondered if this was how her lovers felt, right before she snapped off their heads.

In his dream state thoughts went through his mind. He was proud of his status as a wolf in the woodland kingdom. He would watch Abigail be pursued by lovers, courting day and night, then the mating, a heated fury that ended with the poor son of a bitch losing his head! That wasn’t Ramones style. No, he preferred to court the ladies, woo them with fresh kill, defending them from the other less scrupulous wolves. He was a veritable ladies man, protecting them at all costs from the dangers of the woods.

And now this… what did he do to deserve this?

Nausea set in as he swung in the breeze, he hated heights they always made him dizzy though he never let on about this with the ladies, and worse than hating heights he hated being upside down!

The soft pinging sound continued inside of his head as he fell into a deep sleep.

As he slept the nanobots continued to transform Ramone from his former wolf glory into a monarch butterfly.

The transformation from wolf to chrysalis took two weeks to complete; if all went according to plan he would be a force to be reckoned with in the woodland.

The hum of the woodland increased as the blue green chrysalis began changing color. At first it started to turn brown, rumors abounded that the creature within the chrysalis had died.

Abigail grew tired of the rumors and retreated to her spot high up in the oak tree, a spot that allowed her to blend in with the surrounding foliage, out of harm’s way. The last thing she wanted was to end up as dinner, especially a grackles dinner. She hated grackle’s they were loud, dirty, and unpredictable.

Her greatest joy was watching the squirrel kill the grackles. She would never have believed it had she not seen it with her own eyes.

She had to admit she got an immense satisfaction from the squirrel’s killing efficiency. Her mates knew that the end was near, but the grackle, no the grackle never once suspected its own demise. She wiped the drool from her mandible. The very thought of the squirrel killing a grackle caused a desire deep within herself to find a mate and quick, before the desire passed.

Her trance was broken by the noise coming from the branches below her, the woodland suddenly sprung to life as the creatures gathered at the bottom of the oak tree.

Movement within the chrysalis was causing a loud ruckus.

“It’s alive!” someone shrieked.

The once blue green color had changed to orange and black. The nanobots shimmered as they moved even faster over Ramones newly transformed body.

Claustrophobia created a strong desire to tear at his body, and tear he did. Breaking free of the clear chrysalis he inhaled deeply, blood pulsed upwards in his body causing his newly formed wings to unfurl. The metamorphosis was complete, all he had to do was open his wings and fly.

A gasp rose up from the woodland floor as its residents gazed upon the monarch’s beauty.

The bonds of the chrysalis had broken and the soft pinging giving way to a heartbeat, Ramone stretched his wings and soared upon the wind.

************************

Three modified grackles landed on a branch, not far from Abigail’s hiding place. They had been modified with a special gene in hopes of eradicating their numbers from the land, but alas all did not go as planned. Instead super grackles were born with the ability to think for themselves and with control over the very nanobots that were designed to kill them.

A plan was hatched by the grackles to not only kill the squirrel his cold callous ways disturbed many in the woodland, but to also kill Abigail.

A victim of her own genetic predisposition she killed her lovers in order to mate. Many in the woodland found her sexual arousal over the grackle deaths unacceptable. She had to go.

Ramone was there guy, he would protect them all, but not in his wolf state. He was changed into a monarch butterfly, a majestic being, his size allowing him to dispatch the squirrel and Abigail.