The Great Jelly Flood

By: Stella Loverich

Everything was going so well until I was accosted by a purple giraffe. Not only was it strange, but it inspired old memories to resurface… old memories of grape jelly.

It had all started one morning, when grape jelly started leaking out of the hole in the roof. A scenario worthy of Cloudy and a Chance of Meatballs, you might think. Not so. In fact, it was more like Bartholomew and the Oobleck.

I woke up one morning and looked at the roof. The cramped tin shack I lived in did not leave much room for luxury. In fact, I had never even tasted jelly. So it was a shock when it happened. At first, when a drop landed on my dog, Jellyfish, I was quick to celebrate. Jelly! Sweetness, a bit sickly, but still. Until, however, the jelly started to grow. 

Slowly expanding into a jiggling mass, the jam got bigger and bigger until it encased Jellyfish like a cage. Trapped inside, she couldn’t even stand, and it was starting to eat away at her like acid. I was stunned, frozen, conscience poking at my brain. 

Jellyfish was barking, trying to get past the numb shell that encased my brain. Rose? Hello? I need help!!!!!

I soon came back to my senses and sprang into action. Grabbing a rusty nail, I stabbed the jelly encasing Jellyfish. It wiggled--jiggled--and burst! Jellyfish was freed, but something was strange--the jelly had forever stained her a deep violet. She was never the same again.

It was only a matter of time before a drop landed on me. I knew I had to do something. But the gelatinous substance would be sure to have already consumed the outside of my house. What could I do? I could only stand in horror as it fell from the sky and covered everything I loved…

“Could the Great Jelly Flood resurface again? Only time will tell. One of the most significant heroes, Rose Mustard, valiantly fought but was still consumed. It took everything we loved nearly a decade ago, and we cannot let it strike again. 

Now, here’s the weather forecast for today…”

I switch off the TV.

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Some Dust, a Goldfish, and a Scheduled Lifetime

By: Stella Loverich

Anne had become accustomed to the expression “eat my dust,” after a running career, but had never seen a maid jam her head in the vacuum cleaner before. “Wasn’t in the job description,” she had remarked, her hair disheveled and grimy, “but tasty nonetheless.”

After all, Anne York was the type of person to have particularly delicious dust.

From champion runner to the first self-made trillionaire, she had been only twenty-three years old and great.

After a traumatic childhood growing up in Canada, she completed her rags-to-riches story and earned a fortune in sports. Anne then moved on to the industry, earning billions in the stock market and more from her company, TrueTime, which manufactured clocks. As her fame grew, Anne retired at twenty-five and spent her days in leisure, lounging around in Hawaii and handcrafting timepieces.

However, as her clock-making hobby became an obsession, and Anne grew older, she started to turn a bit mad. 

Her company wasn’t about building clocks anymore. It was about never missing a second. It was about counting down until death, about keeping track of everything so that when the time came, she would know exactly when it would come, down to the millisecond. 

Anne moved to the top of an Alp soon after that, becoming reclusive and secretive. The private jet never returned.

Nobody ever saw her again but her goldfish, and some say Goldie was the only thing she ever loved. Some say her goldfish poisoned her. Some say she became immortal. Some say she never existed at all. Some say she remained a hermit until she died. And some say that she took on another identity and lives to this day in New Mexico with a Goldie, laying low. Whatever happened to her, we’ll never know. 

We can only be sure of one thing: her dust really was the best thing I’ve ever tasted.