A new story every month. Next: 4/15/2024. Support Thomm on Patreon
March 15, 2024
The French have a saying that, in every relationship, there is one who kisses and one who offers their cheek to be kissed. Someone always loves more than the other, in plainer words.
We talk a good game about balance, but balance happens maybe twice a year. Our sins and graces, the grudges we ought to have let go, the tiny miracles that animate us; the ledger of our lives rarely zeroes out. Though sometimes, when we barely expect it, when we have thrown caution to the wind and decided that we won't look at the bottom line before signing our name, everything works out to the penny.
February 04, 2024
Emily Fleur began her well-rehearsed presentation by asking if the audience in this packed pub realizes Patty, the nickname for the star of the precedent-setting 1967 Patterson-Gimlin footage, was female. As it had pendulous breasts and Bigfoots are not a subject on which I am unversed, I nodded. I might have been in small company tonight. There is an air of Girl Power to this question, something Fleur herself exemplifies. The Bigfoot art for her organization's website and printed materials keep the breasts intact, which one sees almost nowhere else in the cryptozoological world. What does it mean that the archetype of our most famous cryptid is widely misgendered? (Sorry, Nessie. You are too geographically locked for widespread appeal. Mothman? What bridge collapses have you warned us about lately?)
February 15, 2024
A not insubstantial portion of my writing accouterments were gifts, things I would not have bought for myself and which I am, therefore, too guilty not to incorporate into my regular writing practice. Otherwise, aren't I being ungrateful?
Outside this, I have bought myself things that might, if one squints one's eyes, look like the necessities of the craft but are impractically pretty and, though functional, may be meant to be admired and not used often.
Keep reading...
January 15, 2024
Davan James Magill's father had told him to bring it back better than he found it. DJ had taken the car only a few times, during none of which was it worse for it, simply not conspicuously better. He could gas it up and maybe hand wash it, though more as an act of brattiness than filial piety. Look, Father. I have reduced myself to the status of an automatic carwash. What a good child I am.
The tires thumped over something seconds after he took his eyes off the road to check a text. DJ pulled over when he processed what he had done in this distracted fiddling.
November 15, 2023
"So, you went to Julliard."
Robinson Raymond looked across the clear desk from the man holding the tablet, on which he meant Robinson to presume his resume was displayed. His was not a broad resume containing varied feats and jobs, and his degrees were exclusively in a rightly considered all-but-dead field. Robinson had focused all his energy on this and had yet to regret this choice entirely, but it was getting closer every day that his ends grew farther from ever meeting.
The tablet emitted no light, giving the illusion that it was blank, a glorified empty clipboard. The desk shimmered with a quick, subdued glow whenever the interviewer's shadow obscured, likely something to do with monofilaments, carbon nanotubes, or piezoelectric crystals. Robinson knew the words but barely comprehended what they meant and couldn't be sure any applied to this.
Oct 31, 2023
It has been a while since I so immediately fell in love with an artist that I am sure I contributed at least a hundred plays of his songs within a few weeks.
Ratwyfe is clever and sardonic, delving into such depths as gender dysphoria and mental health with such a light, playful hand that one can almost miss the meaning until humming later – and you will find yourself singing them under your breath. He has the soul and craft of someone who has been recording for a decade, so it is even more infuriating that he is only twenty years old.
It was a challenge to interview him because no one else had. There was nothing to go off but internet remnants. No one else had the sense to interrogate this talented musical goblin making some of the best music about tarot-based heartache, lesbians failing to kiss, and Mothman – granted, not the broadest genre, but he is the top of it.
So, where did the name "Ratwyfe" come from?
my username before ratwyfe went through MANY evolutions. when i lived in guam, i went by cracker princess (i grew up the only white-looking kid ((i’m actually filipino)) in most of my classes), but when i moved to pennsylvania i decided that i was definitely not the whitest person i knew. for a second, i was cendriliana (the root of which being the french word for ashes, gag), but..... nah. i started dating a girl with a rat-based username, so rat wife — the y was because “ratwife” was taken — was born. when we broke up, i took the rat in the divorce. i don’t know if she ever solidly settled on a username after that, hahah. hope she’s doing alright.
May 01, 2023
Marlena moved with threatening purpose toward the campus security guard, a mountain lion about to pounce on an unwary fawn. She could almost not blame Frederick for racing a few steps ahead to intercede before she could wreak preemptive vengeance on the student aide.
He stopped before Marlena, laying his hand on her hip like that would hold her in place. It was presumptuous and possessive but also effective. She halted at once, pressing against his hand but not breaking from it. Her subconscious reminded her of the familiarity of this gesture, and then her cheeks scalded when her mind put context to why.
She could absolve herself from inclining her hip an inch further into his hand. If he were halting her this way, she did not, as it were, wish to stop her momentum.
He leaned against the wall, equal parts a charm offensive and blocking Marlena from engaging.
Oct 09, 2023
Dramatis Personae and The Mongoose