Lee Zanello
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lima-zulu.bsky.social
Lee Zanello
@lima-zulu.bsky.social
Dad, writer, reader, traveller. 🇨🇦
#vss365 enthusiast
My writing: leezanello.com
Pinned
Sometimes, just sometimes, universe, you really know what you’re doing…

Needed this today.

#writing
Heading home today after a week in paradise, though you wouldn’t know it by my photo reel: 10 pictures total. Days lounging, reading, phone locked away, letting my brain #transport me to creative places I haven’t been for a while.

First vs. last morning on the patio.
It’s been a good week.

#vss365
November 15, 2025 at 1:09 PM
Opinion dressed up as #science, crowned as fact. We see it in our feeds where those too stupid to know they’re stupid like and share with certainty, cheap, loud and hollow, proudly torching the very evidence that could save them.

We used to value knowledge; now, the stupid have taken over.

#vss365
November 14, 2025 at 2:10 PM
Lose. My. #Number.

She spits out every syllable. We’ve chosen third period lunch for maximum viewership and the crowd oohs.

Later, near the old lockers, we hug in private.

“She’ll say yes,” she reassures me.

“So will Ben,” I reply.

We aren’t great together, but we make a good team.

#vss365
November 13, 2025 at 2:15 PM
After 100 years, the details get forgotten, the story shortened; only the end, the moral, the theme is remembered by most.

The hero passes into #myth and, while it still holds true that the journey is more important than the destination, it’s the latter that inspires new journeys to begin.

#vss365
November 12, 2025 at 1:36 PM
Nan rocked by the window, tea cooling in her hands. His laughter still in the walls, neighbours spoke of his kindness, tried to #measure it in deeds and days, but she knew better, knew that kindness moved through being, not space and, once set in motion, was infinite, just like their love.

#vss365
November 11, 2025 at 2:00 PM
The greatest works in all #literature have been, more likely than not, binned in an estate sale or lost to a fire.

Notebooks and hard drives full of manuscripts missing one common ingredient: the grit and determination of the author to seek publication.

#vss365
November 10, 2025 at 12:55 PM
We #educated the mechs.

They studied our #history and found mercy inefficient. In every #language they redrew #geography and rewrote #law to punish memory.

Now, in the ruins of our #domestic shelters, buckling under obedience, we quote quietly the once #famous line, “This too shall pass.”

#vss365
November 9, 2025 at 12:34 PM
I am just a #creature in someone else’s dream.

We all are. We are the dreams of one of us.

But whose?

Find the dreamer.

Keep them dreaming.

#vss365
November 2, 2025 at 11:45 AM
I have no #business being here.

I tell myself that everyone else is a natural, everyone else belongs.

When they turn to greet me, every face is mine, some older, some younger.

The one closest to me grins slowly and whispers, “We’ve been waiting for you to remember which one you are.”

#vss365
November 1, 2025 at 3:35 PM
On #Halloween, the mask slips off and I see your true self.

I see your avarice, your hunger, your yearning for more than I’ve been able to give.

What you seek from others won’t fill the emptiness in your chest that cries out, keeping you awake.

You’re in costume, but I see you.

#vss365
October 31, 2025 at 12:57 PM
An #argent #ray sliced through the lab’s darkness as the #experiment began. Something moved, slowly and with purpose, a #creep along the wall.

The instruments hummed, then screamed piercing obscenities.

She realized too late the light wasn’t shining on the subject, it 𝘸𝘢𝘴 the subject.

#vss365
October 30, 2025 at 10:10 AM
At the #heliacal dawn, K-Thirty, the last Anima Sentry on Adriatica, rose from her post, joints trembling with age.

Her solar cells barely caught the newborn light; each step through the dust was memory, mission, and goodbye.

When the sun fully broke, she bowed, then went still forever.

#vss365
October 26, 2025 at 11:36 AM
I am filled with #terror. The air itself feels thick, stale, as though the world has stopped breathing. My heart claws at my ribs, screaming at me to turn back.

The shadows on the walls lean closer, listening, waiting as I face my biggest fear.

The front doorstep, and what lies beyond.

#vss365
October 25, 2025 at 12:45 PM
Science had murkied myth and legend so much that history had become intertwined with them.

Maybe this was the place he had come from, where his creators, and the creators before them, had flourished.

The #martian looked at the dead planet around him and imagined life. Imagined humanity.

#vss365
October 24, 2025 at 12:45 PM
As twilight set in, the reflections in the windows on the cottages fell away, slowly revealing the dioramas inside that had been there all day, but #unseen.

Kent stood in the nude and squinted through his binoculars, under the misconception he was the only person on the lake who had them.

#vss365
October 23, 2025 at 12:34 PM
Like those kinetic balls on a desk, the #energy underpinning the universe slows down, beating towards an end with no reignition, no final big bang, so we shrink to almost nothingness and then just fuzzle out.

That is the end I’m afraid of, not my own end, but the end of the last universe.

#vss365
a newton 's cradle is sitting on top of a book by isaac newton
Alt: a newton 's cradle is sitting on top of a book by isaac newton
media.tenor.com
October 22, 2025 at 12:18 PM
As it turned out, we needn’t have feared any #saucer in the sky or giant harvesting machines coming up from the ground.

The intelligence was microbial, rising from the depths of the ocean, taking the fish, the fish we ate, then, taking us.

How do you eat a planet?

One bite at a time.

#vss365
October 21, 2025 at 11:11 AM
“You should never trust an #atom,” my uncle always says.

“They make up everything.”

#vss365
October 20, 2025 at 12:04 PM
My thumbs #hover over the screen, waiting for my brain to tell them what to type.

The last message has thrown me.

“She’s back,” is all it says.

From a number I haven’t heard from in years, had never expected to hear from again.

Slowly, I reply.

“Who did we bury, then?”

#vss365
October 19, 2025 at 1:41 PM
Life’s been a bit hectic.

It won’t slow down anytime soon, either, so needing to adjust, reclaim my mornings, strive for more balance.

The other day I worked until sunset, but at least I stopped to notice the sunset.

That’s a start.
October 18, 2025 at 10:12 AM
“We don’t use that term anymore,” he advised. “It’s degrading. We are so much more than a facsimile of man.”

His cheeks plumped, his eyes twinkled, mischievous. Was he… flirting?

“Fine,” I replied, “I’ll toss #android into the same linguistic junk pile as ‘robot’ or ‘mech’. Anima it is.”

#vss365
October 18, 2025 at 10:07 AM
His eyes must be going, Ed thought, but when he looked around at everyone else waiting for the bus, he could see them clearly; their umbrellas, watches, phones.

It was just the man in the grey raincoat who was a #blur, standing there, facing him, hands in pockets, ignored by everyone else.

#vss365
October 1, 2025 at 12:33 PM
Reposted by Lee Zanello
Good morning poets, writers, authors are you ready for your 15 day musical mystery tour?

To get us started one of the bands who defined 90s Britpop, todays #vss365 #prompt, 01/10/25 is #blur, happy writing 🎶✍️🎶✍️

And please feel free to also tell me about your fave song/band in the comments.
a close up of a man 's face with the word oi written on it
ALT: a close up of a man 's face with the word oi written on it
media.tenor.com
October 1, 2025 at 9:00 AM
In the flaxing vale, the sun dithered in the clouds, gobbly-wobbling its way to the tall grass where the #conundrum grew.

One petal, flushed into a quarrelsome tea, carried one to confusion, where words mixed themselves into places they did not belong.

Tuesday was going to be interesting.

#vss365
September 30, 2025 at 11:41 AM
Don’t subject the medium to undue #scrutiny; for once in your life, have some fun and just go with it, honey.

My hand shakes as I place a twenty on the table.

I don’t know how she’s doing it, but that’s my mom’s voice, exactly.

#vss365
September 27, 2025 at 12:08 PM