My dear friend Mary Turzillo prompted me in the last write-a-thon for “A cat falls in love with a chat bot.” This story, Kitten Lorelei ❤ CherryBerry24, was the result. Not since Zombie Hitler have I written something so marvelously silly. Drawing loosely on my early days as an online chat addict and not-so-loosely on that one time I put a box on my computer tower to keep the cat from pressing buttons and she got stuck between the box and the computer. (Ah! Cat ownership!)
I saw a call for submissions to a wee flash contest – with no pay prize, mind you – and decided that 4 rejections from paying markets (thanks, Clarkesworld! Why do you hate beer?*) was enough for this completely daft story. I feel a little guilty for giving up on Kitten Lorelei. But I wouldn’t feel that way if it hadn’t won, sooo… there ya go.
The story is online here: https://especbooks.wordpress.com/2016/05/06/winner-lets-get-catty/
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*My Clarion class has a bet that the first person to sell to Clarkesworld will buy the rest of the class beer. No beer yet. Hence: Clarkesworld hates beer.
