Word for Word: Appease

I’m in a writers’ group that meets on Zoom, though before the pandemic we met in person. Every week, we do a writing prompt: someone gives a page number, and our organizer picks a word from a huge dictionary. We write for five minutes. In this example, the word is: appease, appeased, appeasing.

A hazy gray and orange sky thanks to wildfire weather, September 8, 2020

The priestess stood near the edge of the cliff and gazed upon the roiling wilderness fires. Disciples dragged Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnel, Greg Abbott, and Ron DeSantis toward the cliff’s edge. Two disciples at a time gave each fascist politician a shove, so they plunged over the cliff and into the crackling and smoking fires.

The fire deity was appeased, the priestess knew. Within twenty-four hours the wilderness fires were quenched in a downpour of much-needed rain.

Where I’ve been published this year:

• My poem “Bonsai Tree” in the webzine Grim & Gilded, September 2022 issue.

Special Issue One - Grim & Gilded - A Literary Journal

• My story “Theater Patron” in Kaleidoscope — A Queer Anthology, published by Cloaked Press. Proceeds for the latter go to The Trevor Project.