There’s a swallowtail at my window. He keeps coming back.

He demands food. He demands water. He demands attention.

I don’t have food. I don’t have water. I don’t have attention.

He calls and calls for me to follow. To help.

But I can’t can’t can’t. I c a n t.

Someone please make the swallowtail leave me alone.

Back to my miserable existence without beauty demanding from me....

The first time the vulture came to visit, Ella thought it a bit odd. The bird landed on the porch railing around 2pm and stayed there for about a half an hour, shoulders hunched and eyes half lidded. Ella snapped a photo of it on her phone, but it didn’t seem to notice, so she returned back to working on her laptop. When she looked up again, it was gone.

The next afternoon, the vulture came back,...

Every Morning Beth opened her window to look outside, wasn’t much too look at but her backyard and the woods, her room was in the back of her house. Beth has been through so much in her life and things weren’t going as well for her… but things were looking up and moving forward…. Every Morning she noticed this strange bird in her backyard…. It came to visit every morning…. At first she thought it ...

I am the greatest hunter in the world, and I've noticed some suspiciously tiger-like activity around my backyard, so I've decided to do something about it. I grabbed my hunting gear and set out into the jungle. As I was creeping around, I spotted it. I scoped in with my rifle, but the elusive tiger escaped me yet again. Darn it! I was having no luck today, so I decided to go in for lunch. My mom m...

The days of consistent rainbows have had their whimsical gleams towards our mood! Our garden of flowers and bird houses has grown since last summer, we’ve had time to expand the land. It was just a day planting in and trimmings, an ordinary day till she made her way towards us! A creature of colorful beauty. A horse with a horn, we know it as the unicorn! My friend and I stand by as we watch her g...

As a little boy I used to go out and play in the backyard. I loved building little ‘forts’ for the animals, around the tree, by the fence, and in the middle of the yard. For my 9th birthday, I got a little wooden house that I could build myself. Once I built it, I put it on a tree branch and tied string around it to make sure it stayed. I put some grass and acorns that I found in the house. I sat ...

One fateful Autumn afternoon, I saw a little worm in the garden. It wriggled around, digging through the soil. I thought it was helpless, so I placed a over ripened tomatoes I could not eat. Squirming inside, it chewed on the fruits soft flesh.

The next day, I saw over a dozen worms nibbling on the remains if the black tomato. I didn’t want anymore to arrive, so I covered up the group of worms.

...

He wouldn’t leave. Everyday the same fluffy, black kitten would come to her window. She would never hesitate to open it and welcome him in.

She was washing last nights dishes. Loud 80’s music played as she swayed from side to side. Her sweater sleeves were pulled up and her brown, curly hair pulled back. She used a spoon as a microphone and sang the lyrics as loud as she dared. She finally spott...

Lincoln turns towards the direction of the unsettled overgrown ryegrass. A white face of fur was staring at Lincoln, growling.

“Nice dog, good dog,” Lincoln starts to slowly back away. The dogs starts to creep closer revealing it’s full body.

Lincoln eyes widen, “You’re a big dog”.

Suddenly, another vicious looking dog lunges at from behind Lincoln- knocking him down.

“AHHHHHH!!!!,” Linc...

At first, I thought it was a hallucination. Human brains are capable of incredible things when pushed to the limit, and ten days stranded in the middle of the ocean would push anyone to the brink of sanity. I’d woken from a restless sleep under the blistering sun to see a seagull perched on the end of my raft. I blinked and unconsciously picked at the peeling skin on my shoulder as I tried to figu...