I once overheard a teacher tell his students that to succeed in life all a person needed was a single clear focus. At that same time, I also had a friend who could talk like a duck. Somehow these two threads ran together for the quacky and quirky short story below.

She jiggled in blue-striped pajamas before the bathroom mirror. She looked a fright, a witch, a hag. Her eyes were packed in red, her hair a ratted ball, and her face sallow and lifeless and above all old! She stuck out her tongue. Of course, it was caked! She put a cold hand to her throat and said, “La, la, la…” The sounds croaked out. Oh she was sick! How could she possibly, possibly sing?

A comet is not a matchstick hissing through the night and a galaxy is not a scoop of sugar tossed against the sky.

“The Keeper of Dragonflies” is the initial work in my online short story collection of the same name.