cat

I Thought it was the Cat

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

(reading time: 5 minutes)

I Thought it was the Cat

by

Blaine Arcade

Demoted for a raise. Strange I know, but it’s the only way to put it. They wanted me out of the building after the ‘softball incident’. I won’t go into detail about it other than to say they’re all sore losers.

It was mutual. I get an extra five K a year and I use it to pay the price of being near all our distribution centers on the East coast. Being equidistant from three truck stops in the middle of nowhere puts you, you guessed it, in the forgotten rusty storage shed of nowhere’s overgrown backyard.

No partner. Had one, but they also didn’t care for my gloating after the softball incident. So when I got there, town called Cracklebranch, my roommates were a pair of suitcases. Got a tiny house on the cheap. Couldn’t hear anything at night. No crickets. No birds in the morning either. Continue reading →

Twitch Stream Story: Scattered Pointillism

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

Prompt: A prequel story for Blurry the sketched fat cat (a character from our Minesweeper Fiction activities).

The cathedral was empty, except for Mildred, her canvas, and her paints. She wanted it to be a conversation of sorts, but the painting wasn’t talking. She sat in the darkness for over an hour staring at it, hoping to unravel some of its secrets. The work was a classic; she had to train at the nearby school for five years just to gain access to it. Continue reading →

Twitch Stream Story: Burn that Frog out

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

Prompt: A bee with majestic knees and a cat that wears only pajamas fight crime together.

The cat was taking the sort of nap that only cats can take, in the heights of a tree, shaded by its branches. The tree was one of the only ones around, for the cat and the tree lived in Headspace: a place mostly empty. What wasn’t empty was the small opening between two buttons on the cat’s pajamas. Out of that opening flew a beautiful bee with extraordinary knees. Continue reading →

Minesweeper Fiction: Session 6

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

Author’s Note: This was written live on stream, with the tone being determined by the numbers under minesweeper tiles.  The audience could bid tokens earned in stream to reveal random tiles.  A mine hit results in the death of all characters, unless they are temporarily saved by a lump sum of tokens.  If characters make it to the end of the stream, they survive to be seen another day.  Join us at twitch.tv/blainearcade if you wish to participate.

1-peace    2-alert    3-escalation    4-action    5-tragedy    6-world-changing

A world lies in ruin, its debris drifting on a bottomless sea. Its remaining people, from all places and periods, have one chance of survival. One world will take them, but they must make the journey on their own. Between the two lies the minefield: a vast varied expanse of debris both magical and scientific. Salvation is on the other side.

Three figures emerge from the fog of their sputtering world: Rudas the useless satyr, Mr. 32 the moralistic fridge, and Blurry the sketched fat cat. They see the minefield before them, knowing little, and walk forward. Continue reading →