Dare to Travel Down the Rabbit Hole or Catch at Shooting Stars
Welcome to The Cat's Cradle: Stories & More.
You may be wondering how you got here.
Did you click a button out of curiosity? Or did a witch enchant you somewhere between then and now?
The means don’t matter. You’re here now.
The Cat’s Cradle will never turn away the adventurous of spirit.
Do words fascinate you as if they’re spells long lost from a far different age? Do stories sing to you out of the ether sometimes, only to disappear as if they’re mirages fading with the rising of the sun?
You might find such balms and remedies here. What are we trying to heal? That heart of yours, run stagnant in your chest, as you ponder the world around you that seems far too cruel to care about what you say or what you do.
Walk through enough lives with your head down, and you’ll soon find your footsteps disappear like tracks in snow slowly building up in a field on a midwinter’s day.
But the stories here may just read you real at long last—if you only give them the chance.
Who are you?
You can call me Jillian. You’re here reading my words, so I figure that’s enough to put us on a first-name basis. You don’t know me yet, and that’s okay. I’m just a humble purveyor of stories, dealing my wares out in the digital marketplace and hoping to find a place to nest those words I cherish the most.
I’d be honored if you let me share them with you, whatever form they may take.
What kind of writing are we talking about?
I’m a storyteller, and that role takes on many guises. In the real world—beyond dreams and fancies—I’ve worn different writing hats: creative nonfiction, flash fiction, and playwriting to name a few. I also dabble in the occasional poem, though I have a long way to go before I can call myself a poet.
My muse, though I love her dearly, coaxes me most to the realm of short fiction ranging anywhere from a thousand to two thousand words. I like the challenge of trying to make a story soar beyond its boundaries of a stricter word count.
There were also novels in the past—but they still hate that I speak their names. It’s probably not best to test that wound just yet. They’re still a little hurt that I’ve abandoned them to a place where they’ll likely never be read. Some things just aren’t meant to be.
But, yes, if you love short fiction paired with the occasional essay, then perhaps you should take a seat and get comfortable.
Can we get an idea of what you write before we commit to the journey?
I’m a tradeswoman of poems, essays, and short fiction over on the platform Medium. There you can read any of my past works—the good to the cringeworthy—to see what you may be signing up for over here.
Keep in mind that the platform is free for only 3 stories a month; for unlimited access, you’d need to become a member for $5/month. If that interests you, you can always sign up with my referral link (yes, I do get a percentage back each month as long as you remain a member).
But if you’d rather stay here to keep me company, that’s fine too.
But why should I stay?
Do stories of all kinds thrill you? Do you bask in the warmth of escapism and glee that comes with diving into a world where your own life takes a backseat for a little while?
I’m here to help offer an escape from the drudgery of life.
If my stories speak to you—murmur sweet nothings in your ear, trace the rhythm of your beating heart—then I’ll know I’ve done something good in this oft-thankless world of ours.
A writer craves to be read, and these words of mine are waiting to find places to call home.
Then where will we go from here?
The saying goes that all journeys begin with a single step. But here we’ll begin with a story—a short one, for brevity’s sake, to give you an idea of what you may find on your next jaunt through this maze of stories waiting to be told.
There were three things a girl shouldn’t carry, according to Mama: an unblessed knife, a fallen feather picked up off the ground on a whim, and any fruit blooming out of season on a vine. My sister and I knew these things, as easy as if we’d made the rules ourselves, but there were days we wished we could forget the logistics of a world like ours. Enchantments lurked around every corner. The scarecrow in the field could wink at you with its remaining button eye before its straw-filled body shook awake. The fox from the edge of the forest could speak in words too real and heavy to be denied. And girls could pick up crow feathers only to find a dark shadow looming outside their bedroom windows by nightfall. That was the kind of world Lynn and I knew. But we could be dangerous too: we just had to make sure our knives were blessed by Mama’s prayers before we walked out of the house each morning.
Are you intrigued? Good. I had hoped you would be.
Let’s start the journey together and see what happens when we cross to the other side.
Next stop? A story worth reading at least once.
I followed you here from Medium. Looking forward to reading you 👍🤩