Excerpt from Patches of a Second-Hand Planet

Here’s a small except from one of the stories contained the book Patches of a Second-Hand Planet. If you’re intrigued, check out Cat Taylor’s interview with myself by clicking here!

The Pains of K Shawty Bell

K Shawty Bell had been born on a dirt submarine because her dad was the captain and her mom worked in the sonar department. Actually that was all the crew they had on the craft. They met many rocks, roots, worms, moles and danged souls, but none of them K Shawty ever knew long enough to really ever call friends.

Then in her tweens, K’s mom ran away (or dug away rather). The captain was heart broken and so set of to find the sonarologist of his dreams. But before he did, he surfaced the dirt sub outside a town named TJ and told K Shawty Bell to hang tight until he returned.

K Shawty Bell hung bout as tight as a young girl could and after a few days realized her parent’s reunion might take a chunk of time. And so she began to place roots in the town, eventually becoming a productive citizen and making some real friends. But in spite of the latter fact, the complexities of friendship was still a very new thing to K and she enviably hit a few chuckholes on that particular road.

And on one otherwise pleasant particular day, Shawty Bell hit several friendship holes.

Cousin Pikelz — a famous hand clapper and finger snapper — was in TJ Town for a concert and K Shawty went, having a grand front-row time! But when she was later telling her blind friend Bat Blindas about it, Bat sighed in a heavy way. “I would’ve loved to have attended. I wish you would’ve invited me.”

K frowned at her own thoughtlessness and felt an ill stirring in her chest.

Later Shawty Bell was walking towards the woods and saw an old man standing still. Te old man winced when K passed him, to which the girl asked if he was okay.

“You just stepped on my invisible hot steppin’ kitten and broke his back legs!” the old man sadly reported. “Now it’ll have to be in a wheelchair the rest of it’s life and never be able to hot step again.”

K never saw or heard the kitten but her chest got a little more queazy for the old man’s sorrow all the same.

Finally K Shawty went on to meet her friend Bluhg LufDef to go rotten tree punching. At seeing her friend’s protruding belly exclaimed, “Wowie, Bluhg! Either you’re pregnant with twin elephants with bum thyroids or you just ate a whole honey suckle glazed fried butter baby!” (To clarify, they don’t eat babies in K Bell’s town but do have a delicious desert that’s shaped and is the size of an 8 pound baby. It’s a longer story to explain but chalk it up to an historical incident involving a particular terrorizing baby eating Uh Oh Monster with an honeysuckle allergy.) But yeah, Bluhg LufDef had in fact just eaten a whole honeysuckle glazed fried butter baby and not only felt sick from the gluttony but weren’t none too proud of her belly pokin’ out about now. So at K Shawty Bell’s obvious observation, Bluhg burst out into tears and ran away.

At that point, K Shawty Bell could take no more of the horrible noxious feeling in her torso. And so the girl climbed up the Clifs of Doug and threw herself off.

And as she lay broken in a dropped ragdoll stance, an old bone hair goat came along whom daily roamed the cliffs bottoms replacing any broken bones he came across with the bones growing in his hair. He did as much for K Shawty Bell and asked, “Why the swan dive of death, my dear?”

“I disappointed many people today and I don’t know how to stop the terrible feeling that comes with it” the girl answered.

The bone goat nodded and ofered, “Well, you might try and ask them for their forgiveness”.

Well, as soon as her she got used to her new leg bones, K Shawty Bell ran of and did as much as the bone hair goat suggested. And everyone gladly forgave her and backed it up with hugs. (Even the invisible kitten reportedly purred for the girl, although K never heard it but became a believer when a blonde eyelashed jogger ran by and leapt over the
spot where the crippled kitten was supposedly runnin’ it’s kitty motor!)

Life was pretty smooth for a spell for K Shawty Bell and in time she made some new friends and acquaintances in addition to the old ones. But of course in time she hit some friendship turbulence with those folks too…

To read on, check out the whole book Patches of a Second-Hand Planet Vol. 1 available in paperback and Kindle form by clicking here!