More skunky goodness

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Lovely morning today, out with my special someone!

First stop was @misfitbeautyclub to get a trim and visit with @mickeyatmisfit (happy belated birthday!) and shop cat Pepito – see pic 3 for kitty goodness. After getting my hairs cut, we sallied forth to @breadcraft , where we got some lovely pastries, including this kouign-amann (pic 1- pastry featuring layers of laminated dough with butter and caramelized sugar) which I highly recommend if you have a sweet or butter craving.

Happily, there were a few items in the @artomat machine, including a tiny #ButtonItUp bouquet of buttons and beads on copper wire and cork from @reboopie (pic 2), which I find to be adorable.

Not bad for a quick jaunt from ten to noon on a Thursday!

Not shown here, my stellar haircut, the yummy scrambled egg and cheese pastry, or the tiny flag banner also grabbed at art-o-mat.

Best part of the morning was spending it with a loved one and breathing fresh Roanoke air. It’s nice to enjoy a little time out and about in the world.

#roanokeva #haircutday #pepito #breakfast

The shrieking mouther is a grotesque fusion of aberration and plant life. It possesses a bulbous, fleshy mushroom cap dripping with caustic green slime. The main stalk is riddled with multiple glaring red eyes and several drooling, distorted mouths filled with sharp teeth. Leafy appendages and thick, creeping roots allow it to slowly drag itself across cavern floors.

The Shrieking Mouther

Medium aberration, neutral evil

Armor Class: 10
Hit Points: 52 (8d8 + 16)
Speed: 10 ft.

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
10 (+0)	8 (-1)	14 (+2)	3 (-4)	10 (+0)	6 (-2)

Condition Immunities: prone
Senses: darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 10
Languages: none
Challenge: 3 (700 XP)

Traits

• Aberrant Root System: The ground in a 10 foot radius around the shrieking mouther is doughy and covered in acidic slime. This area is difficult terrain.
• False Appearance: While the creature remains motionless, it is indistinguishable from an ordinary, albeit deeply unsettling, giant mushroom.
• Gibbering Shriek: When a bright light or a creature is within 30 feet of it, the creature begins to wail, shriek, and babble incoherently from its many mouths. The noise can be heard up to 300 feet away. Each creature that starts its turn within 20 feet of the mouther and can hear it must succeed on a DC 10 Wisdom saving throw. On a failure, the creature cannot take reactions until the start of its next turn and rolls a d8 to determine what it does during its turn. On a 1 to 4, the creature does nothing. On a 5 or 6, the creature takes no action or bonus action and uses all its movement to move in a randomly determined direction. On a 7 or 8, the creature makes a melee attack against a randomly determined creature within its reach or does nothing if it cannot make such an attack.

Actions

• Multiattack: The shrieking mouther makes two Bite attacks.
• Bite: Melee Weapon Attack: +2 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 10 (3d6) piercing damage. If the target is Medium or smaller, it must succeed on a DC 10 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone.
• Acidic Spore Spit: Ranged Weapon Attack: +2 to hit, range 15 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (2d6) acid damage.

It ambushes prey by masquerading as a common subterranean fungus before erupting into a maddening chorus of screams, blinding its victims with noise before biting anything that comes too close.

3am in roanoke is when the city starts acting feral again

traffic finally dies down
tv glow leaks out of apartment windows
somebody’s dog barks at nothing for twenty straight minutes

and that’s when the skunk shows up

Flying V

slow as a snail walking toward bad news

tiny feet across cracked pavement
tail up like it owns the whole block
moving through the dark with absolute confidence

you catch it first by sound

rustling near the trash cans
plastic shifting
the little pause before something decides whether you’re a threat or just another exhausted human standing outside too late

everybody freezes during a skunk encounter

doesn’t matter how tough they act normally

suddenly it’s diplomacy

slow movements
careful breathing
silent negotiations happening under a flickering porch light

the skunk sniffs the air
keeps moving
completely unbothered by
politics
text messages left unanswered

meanwhile you’re standing there barefoot at 3am
holding a drink you forgot you made
thinking about how weird it is
that wild things still wander through the city like this

through alleys
through backyards
past chain link fences and broken lawn chairs

like roanoke never fully stopped being woods

the skunk disappears eventually

under somebody’s porch
behind the hedges
back into whatever hidden route nocturnal creatures use to cross the valley

and the night closes back up around it

quiet again

except for that memory lingering
and the strange feeling
that you just got visited by something older than the city itself

you don’t notice the first firefly right away

you think it’s a reflection
a cigarette ember
some glitch in your tired eyes

then another one blinks

then ten more

and suddenly the dark is alive again

fireflies
coming back like they always do
quietly
without announcement
without asking if the city still deserves them

yards start flickering at dusk
empty lots glowing at the edges
tree lines pulsing soft green behind apartment buildings and chain link fences

kids still chase them
even now

cupping tiny lights in their hands
holding summer for exactly three seconds before letting it go again

and adults pretend not to stare too long
pretend it doesn’t pull something old out of them

memories of wet grass
screen doors slamming
voices calling from porches when it got too dark to stay out

roanoke changes every year

buildings disappear
stores close
roads get wider
people leave

but the fireflies keep showing up anyway

drifting over backyards in northwest
floating near creek beds
blinking slow out by the mountains where the city finally gives up and turns back into woods

little living signals in the heat

proof that some things still return

for a few weeks
the whole valley softens at night

people walk slower
windows stay open later
everybody lingering outside a little longer than they planned to

just to watch tiny lights
appear
vanish
appear again

like the dark itself is breathing

#thegleest #roanokeva #fireflies #warmnights

the flower garden on mill mountain feels almost fake at first

like somebody cut a postcard out
and tucked it into the woods above roanoke

you drive up all those turns
guardrails and trees and sudden drop-offs
expecting fog
expecting silence

then suddenly

color everywhere

Mill Mountain Park
blooming like the city needed proof it could still be soft sometimes

kids running too close to the edges
people taking engagement photos
older couples sitting quietly on benches like they’ve been coming there for years

and around all of it

the mountain breathing slow

bees drifting from flower to flower
wind carrying that damp green smell that only exists up there
the overlook just beyond it all
holding the whole valley open in front of you

from down below
roanoke can feel hard-edged

sirens
traffic
empty storefronts
arguments leaking through apartment walls

but up here
everything spreads out enough to forgive itself for a minute

you can see the roads curling through the city
tiny cars moving like veins
neighborhoods stacked against the hills
people living whole lives you’ll never know about

and right in the middle of all that

flowers

carefully planted
carefully kept alive
coming back every year whether people deserve it or not

that’s the strange part

how much effort goes into beauty
that most people only stop and look at for five minutes

then they leave

back down the mountain
back into noise
back into whatever waits for them below

but the garden stays

quietly exploding into color
over and over again

above the city

like a secret
everybody already knows

#thegleest #roanokeva #millmountain #flowergarden #virginiaviews

Seed 570307080547

Day 20,915

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before the breweries
before the murals
before downtown started trying to explain itself

there was Roanoke City Market

still there too

sitting in the middle of the city like an old heartbeat
steady even when everything around it changes names

people forget how long it’s been going

farm trucks rolling in before sunrise
wood crates thudding onto pavement
cold hands counting cash before the banks were even open

back when roanoke smelled more like rail dust and produce
than coffee shops and candles

city market saw all of it

workers grabbing breakfast before shifts
kids getting dragged around half awake
old men talking weather like it was scripture

there were years it felt rougher
years the paint peeled
years people said downtown was dead

but the market stayed open anyway

that’s the thing about places like this

they outlive predictions

under those awnings
you can still feel pieces of every version of the city stacked together

farmers
street preachers
punks
office workers
people downtown on purpose
people downtown because they got nowhere else to be

music bouncing off brick walls
someone selling flowers two feet from someone yelling about god
someone buying peaches while sirens pass behind them

roanoke condensed into one stretch of pavement

and at night
after the tents close
after the crowds thin out

the place changes again

lights reflecting off wet brick
empty tables chained together
wind moving through like it remembers every decade at once

city market doesn’t pretend to be clean history

it’s worn-in history

still breathing
still loud
still feeding people

same as always

i swear it changes after midnight

not the road itself
the road remembers exactly what it is

it’s the space around it that shifts

the mountains pull closer
the fog settles in the valleys like something breathing in its sleep
tractor trailers drift past like steel ghosts carrying things nobody asks about

if you’ve driven it long enough
you know the feeling

that stretch where your radio turns to static for no reason
the exit you don’t remember passing before
the headlights behind you that disappear the second you look directly at them

there are towns along 81 that feel borrowed
little pockets of light clinging to the dark
gas stations humming under flickering signs
diners full of people who stop talking when you walk in

i stopped once around 3am
somewhere between nowhere and somewhere worse

the clerk looked exhausted in the ancient kind of way
like he’d been standing behind that counter since the highway was dirt

he told me not to drive sleepy through the mountains

then quieter

“some things use the road too.”

outside
the fog had crossed all four lanes

and for one second
i could see a shape walking inside it
keeping pace with traffic

too tall
too thin
not trying to cross

just traveling

Watching “The Prisoner” (chimes of Big Ben), I got this:

Turns out they were talking about Jacob Epstein, the sculptor, of course.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Epstein

Maybe tonight will be a skunky night?

the smoke showed up before the sirens did

it moved low through  like it knew the streets
like it had been here before

fire doesn’t always start with heat
sometimes it starts with a name said wrong
or a door opened when it shouldn’t have been

they said it was an accident
they always do

but the flames climbed too deliberately
hugged the walls like they were remembering them
skipped what they didn’t want
took what they did

i watched from the edge of the lot
where the gravel turns to weeds

there was something in it
not inside the fire
but inside the shape of it

like a body trying to stand up

the hoses screamed
the men shouted
the sky turned that sick orange that doesn’t belong to sunset

and still
it lingered

not hungry anymore
just present

if you smell smoke tonight
check your shadows too

some fires don’t burn out
they just learn the map of you