I have encountered more image descriptions on Mastodon in 24 hours than I have in Twitter in a couple of years. Seriously. I'm not exaggerating. As a blind person, this means a lot to me. If you read this and you describe your images, thank you so, so, so much on behalf of all of us. If you don't, now you know you'll be helping random Internet strangers make sense of your posts by typing in a few more words than usual.
#Microfiction #FirstDraft I sat down on the couch, and opened up my book to the page my bookmark was on, page 115. I read, and some time passed. The bell in the old grandfather clock rang, marking the beginning of the next hour. Then my cat Laura jumped on my belly, and I started petting her as I normally do. Only Laura's been dead for two years... I put my book down so I could see her, and there she was. She was all white, with pink around her eyes, just like I remembered her. She was purring from me petting her. For a moment, I didn't understand what was happening. I thought I was dreaming, or I'd finally lost it. I shook my head and blinked, and then slapped myself across the face, *hard*. Laura twitched at the sound, tensed up, and put her ears back for a moment before relaxing again. She was still there... purring, though getting a little bit bored now that I'd stopped petting her. She must have heard a sound in the next room, my bedroom, or smelled something, because her head turned to look at my door... then she got off the couch and scampered over there. She went in my room... and I sat there... on the couch, with my book on my chest, opened to page 201... I got up, as quietly and slowly as possible, and put the book down on the couch. I took my first step to the door of my room, down the hallway... and then the next... and the next... until I got to the door. I looked inside the room. I couldn't *see* Laura, so I started looking around... under the bed, in the closet, under the chair, under my dresser... but nothing. She's gone... what was that...? I didn't know. Maybe I fell asleep for a moment and dreamed I saw Laura? Or maybe she really was there, I couldn't say for sure. I didn't remember falling asleep at all. @lydiaconwell@mas.to @strawberryfieldsforever@koyu.space @DavidBlue@mastodon.social
