Call Me Les
Bio
Aspiring etymologist and hopeless addict of children's fiction.
If I can't liberally overuse adverbs and alliteration, I'm out!
Website: lesleyleatherdale.ca
#elbowsup
~&~
She/Her
Stories (98)
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The Ballads of Trees. Top Story - March 2024.
~*~ Between Here and There lay a mixed-woods forest. Of an age unknown, its existence was wedged between sandy fields of tobacco, deer filled plains and a sheer drop into a meandering river with which it battled daily to hold its ground.
By Call Me Lesabout a month ago in Fiction
The Fruits of Labour
The breeze blowing in from the sea chilled her skin. Slipping out of her bed, Marissa closed the shutters and draped her naked body in a soft woollen shawl. She glanced back at him: sound asleep, at peace with the prospects of sunshine and mornings, his bronze skin glowed against the white linen. She bit her lip, then turned away and headed for the garden.
By Call Me Les4 months ago in Fiction
Ariadne and the Minotaur: Psychopathy Runs in Families
There are many ways to die in a labyrinth, but it is a misconception that the greatest danger is the risk of disorientation followed by starvation. Caves often contain food and water—provided you're not picky about what's on the menu. Better still, artificial labyrinths do not shape-shift; they have a set pattern, and if you know their secret, you can thread the correct course easily enough. Neither are traps, pits, accidents, nor monsters the most likely cause of death. No. Be it an artfully devised maze or naturally formed cavern—what you must respect if you want to make it out alive from the underground is distance: Every step you take into the labyrinth is one you'll have to take back out again. Lose track of your steps and you just might lose track of yourself.
By Call Me Les4 months ago in Fiction
Denouement Aboard the Disoriented Express
The droning buzz of indiscernible conversation awakens me; it filters into my mind like bees searching for their hive, spreading throughout my body until it reaches my heart and nestles there. I gasp, open my eyes and my heart beats for the first time. From the shadows, I take in my surroundings.
By Call Me Les4 months ago in Fiction
Mission: ALESIA
Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say — unless you’re a tardigrade. Sarah’s travel mug and its laughable quote were a tribute to her best joke of the semester. You needed humour on your side when teaching Earth Science topics like cleavage and hardness to freshmen, and the young professor had a knack for making her students laugh with her instead of at her. The mug had been a heartwarming surprise in her university mailbox two days after final exams.
By Call Me Les4 months ago in Fiction
The Colours of Bees. Top Story - November 2024.
The river ran backwards on the day the Queen vanished. Neither came as a surprise to Moira. It had been a strong moon that month, and the powerful tidal surge that had backwashed the mighty Liriope River had swept over the valley like a hungry serpent, consuming without conscience the totality of lives in its path.
By Call Me Les4 months ago in Fiction
The Swallowed One and the Goblin Tree. Top Story - October 2024. Content Warning.
There was only one rule: "Don't open the door." Or so read the warning above the little bronze door at the foot of a fire blackened oak. It was written in a script so perverse that when moonlight set it aglow, even the Gods averted their eyes and the damned shivered and kept clear.
By Call Me Les4 months ago in Horror
It's Canadian Clam Soup, Not Chowder?
It's not often my mom and I take time to cook together anymore; not like when I was a child still living under her roof, learning tidbits here and there, helping with simple tasks and flipping through the pages of her scrapbook-style recipe collection with fascination. But thanks to Vocal, here we are!
By Call Me Les8 months ago in Feast
Surviving a Trade War
Well fellow Vocaltites in Canada and the USA, everything that was already expensive is about to get a whole lot worse next week. It's hard reading the news everyday and knowing that it's the innocent people caught up in the political drama on both sides of the border who will quite literally be "paying the price" while the powers that be clash as titans.
By Call Me Les10 months ago in Motivation
Community Verification. Top Story - February 2025.
Dear Vocal Fam, In light of DK Shepherd's article on the pervasiveness of AI infiltrating our community, I have been brainstorming ways we can turn this problem around and I think the simplest solution might actually have a silver lining! First a quote to show you in a brief snapshot of what was discovered:
By Call Me Les11 months ago in Writers
That Cameo Girl. Honorable Mention in Legends Rewritten Challenge. Top Story - February 2025.
Only the foolish or desperate dare to wander alone in the woods for it is the skyless domain of creatures who have evolved across eons to prey upon the lost, weak and wounded.
By Call Me Les11 months ago in Fiction
