by Catherine Maven Copyright © 1989 Once upon a time in a small village was born a baby girl. At first, she seemed like a normal baby, even happier and more easy-going than most babies. The trouble really didn't begin until the little girl learned to talk. While up until that time she had appeared to be a normal child, and perhaps even intelligent, once she learned the question "Why?" she seemed to lose touch with reality and retreat into her own world. For there were no other questions that she ever asked once she'd learned to ask "Why?"   And while it was amusing at the beginning, as it is when all children start asking that question, it soon became apparent that there was something seriously wrong with this little girl. People soon forgot her real name and began calling her Why. She began to be treated as the Village Fool, and that she appeared to be. Her parents were in despair. For because she never asked the question "What?...

The Six by Catherine Maven Copyright © 2008             It is a jolly scene, for a dungeon.   The Six stand side by side in front of the elongated hearth, each with his or her own cooking pot, laughing and stealing ingredients from one another's store to add to their own pots.   Even in the dim light of the fire, you would not consider them a pretty sight.   With matted and bedraggled hair, brown sackcloth garments worn to threadbare, and feet and legs encrusted with dirt, the sparkle in their eyes is paradoxical. They are prisoners in this underground room, if one may use so nice a term.   More like a cave, some thirty feet in circumference, but without egress to the outside world, if you discount the narrow shafts for the air vent and chimney flue.   There is no furniture, either, save the sleeping pallets that line one wall.   The room is lit from some invisible source, and is in light and ...

Dandelion in a Ditch (A Fable) by Catherine Maven 1996 (Edited May 2018) Once upon a time, there was a dandelion growing in a ditch, surrounded on all sides by dozens of her cousin-dandelions.   Warmed by sunshine, or tickled by rain, the dandelion was perfectly content.   But then, in the course of one short day, everything changed.   Ten people walked by the ditch that day, and although Dandelion usually paid no attention to these transient beings, on this particular day she found herself forced to listen. The first person who walked by stooped low enough to smell and stroke the dandelion.   The d andelion was unused to such personal attention, but it felt good.   The person said, "Oh, Dandelion!   You are my favourite spring flower!"   Dandelion was amazed and pleased.   While a moment before, she had been just herself in a ditch, she now knew herself to be someone's favourite flower.   She pulled her stalk a little str...

Mini-story I wrote in 2003 (just found in an old notebook):   Finding a Heart: When the young substitute teacher came into the class, most of the young teens settled down, but one kid, whose smile was a challenge, remained where he was, sitting on the teacher's desk, playing with the stapler. He had splayed the stapler and was clicking staples out, one by one. The school was in a bad neighbourhood, but the teacher came from the 'hood. He knew these kids, watched their eyes tracking from the gangsta to him and back, waiting, almost without breathing, to see how he’d react. The sub wrote his name on the board, giving himself a minute to think while listening to the clack, clack, clack of the stapler. When he’d written his name, he came slowly around the desk to half-sit beside the kid, ignoring the rest of the class, though he was very conscious of every eye that was on him, eyes dark with frustration and  despair. Waiting   for him to conquer or sub...