Zella stood next to Penny as she docked Zephyr onto the other ship. Zella’s long hair kept getting in Penny’s face until finally Penny just shoved Zella aside playing it off as needing to switch a switch. In truth, the switch she switched did absolutely nothing at all. It was a purely decorative switch, but it kept Penny from inhaling Zella’s hair.
“What is this ship?” asked Zella. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“It’s a cruise ship from bout two hundred cycles ago. They stopped making them when the elite class began preferring family ships instead of cruises for any upper class family.”
“What is a cruise ship doing all the way out here in the unplotted territory?”
“That’s a good question. My guess would be the ship ran out of life support and drifted. I doubt anyone has been here since there was life on board.”
“What do you suppose happened to everyone on board?”
Penny just looked at Zella before leaving the cockpit.
“I’m sorry I asked,” she whispered to herself, sadness flooding her veins.
Zella followed Penny to the portal between ships. Penny was strapping guns and equipment to her body. Zella took the hint and followed suit. As they prepared Penny laid out the plan, “The computer indicates there is enough oxygen on board to last 30 minutes, any longer and we’ll pass out. Remember to breathe shallow breaths, hold it if possible. We’ll split up. I’ll find the control room and see what I can learn there, you go to the engine room. I want to know what happened to this ship!”
“And the people on it,” Zella replied.
Penny nodded and creaked the door open between Zephyr and the giant cruis eship. They came to a staircase, nodded to one another and split off. Penny climbed up, while Zella clamored down. As Zella came down the stairs, she found herself in a magnificent hallway, one that could be a ballroom, or a concert hall. Chandeliers lined the ceiling and painting the walls. The floor had a beautiful marble tile which echoed as Zella’s boots walked down them.
There at the end of the giant hallway was the most horrible sight Zella had ever seen. Bodies were piled up, semi-preserved in the minimal oxygen zone. Each decomposing face screamed. Men, women, children, babies. Each were dressed in different stations. It looked like every person from the entire ship had convened at the end of this room. They had died climbing over each other to open a door. Zella tried carefully moving the bodies out of the way of the door not looking at the scared faces of the victims. Her eyes caught on a name tag “Lt. Rain.” She stared in silence. Her grandmother’s great-uncle had gone missing and never heard from again, presumed dead. Zella removed the body from the others and stared into the face of her great-great-great-uncle. His eyes were wide, his mouth open in a silent scream. His right hand was clutched over his heart, holding something. Grateful she was wearing gloves, Zella pried open his discolored fingers. She removed the object, a locket, and opened it to see a portrait of him young, smiling, alive and with what was most likely his wife. They looked happy and fresh. Zella slipped the locket around her neck, the locket close to her own heart. Wiping a tear from her eye for her lost family member, Zella moved to the door these souls had desperately tried to open. With a creak and a whiff of dust, the door opened to a dark room with a spotlight shining down from the ceiling onto a table with an old wooden box. It was so small, what could all those people have wanted with such a small box? Wondered Zella. There were some markings on the box and a metal clasp. Zella couldn’t make out the markings, but it looked like some form of Archaic Greek, possibly Mycenaean. Zella felt her curiosity growing. She unlocked the clasp before she fully comprehended the risk of what could happen. Then again, few things have turned out badly just from opening a box.
Zella opened the box, finding nothing within, but a load bang startled her causing her to drop the box. Bang. It was like thunder. Bang bang. Deep drums from the outer reaches. Bang bang BANG! It was coming closer; the walls were shaking. BANG BANG BANG BANG!
Silence.
Zella dared not breathe. She slowly drew her gun and pointed it at the door. She closed the box and tucked it under her arm. She walked back into the hallway, her guard up. The bodies were still in the same arrangement, but something felt wrong. I twas too quiet, too still, like the silence before an explosion of bombs. Zella held the box tighter as she stepped over her uncle.
She screamed! The explosion of sound from her scream was like an avalanche in the dead room. Her uncle’s arm had clamped around her leg as he lifted his rotting body off the floor. Zella kicked the dead man hard, causing him to release her leg. She ran a few steps before turning around to see every single body creaking and rising from the floor. Heads were off kilter and legs didn’t walk properly. It was an abominable sight. They began approaching Zella, arms extended outward forever reaching for her. Needless to say, she ran, firing behind her as she fled.
She ran back up the stairs to the portal, the sound of cracking dry bones quickly following. “Penny, we need to go now, now, NOW!”
She heard Penny come down the stairs, “What? What is it? We still have five minutes of air, and I still can’t figure out why this ship ended up out here.”
“I can’t tell you that. Let’s move!”
Penny reached the landing where Zella was, “Really? Why?”
Zella pointed at the army of dead people climbing up the stairs, snarling with rotting tongues and reaching forward with skeletal fingers. “We should run.”
Penny nodded and they ran back toward Zephyr, the dead not far behind. As they reached the door, Zella threw the box at them, “Have your precious box.”
The dead clamored over each other to get to the box as Penny shut the portal and ran to the cockpit. Meanwhile Zella looked through the window at those long forgotten. Their bodies resumed their original deadness over the box, the last of which was her uncle who stared longingly at Zella before he too fell.
Zella joined Penny at the cockpit, “Burn it, Pen.”
Penny looked a moment at Zella in surprise before switching a switch which jettisoned a bomb onto the lost cruise ship. As
Zella watched the ship explode into smithereens, fingering the locket.
Penny interjected her thoughts, “Right, now tell me what the hell just happened?”
Zella simply smiled, “Have you ever heard of Pandora’s box?”
THE END
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Pinfrock, Smalls, and Pinfrock
The paper made a resounding thwap as it penetrated against the screen door. Jerry Pinfrock opened the door of his 1970’s trailer, parked in an abandoned lot in Newark, New Jersey. He was a portly man of 42 or 43, yellow marks on his white tee-shirt from who knows what, a growing bald patch on the top of his head, and short stubby legs that made him somewhat duck-footed. He might have seemed comical if not for the scowl glued to his face. As it was, that scowl made him notoriously standoffish. A cigarette which had long since been smoked protruded from his lips as he bent down to pick up the newspaper. He went back inside his trailer, his feet making a rustling sound on the orange shag carpet. In the background, the noise of a shower could be heard.
The cigarette dropped from his lips in an overly dramatic display of disbelief. His scowl deepened and he shouted, “Honey, you aren't going to believe this!”
“What? I cen't heah ya, babe, Oim in the showah,” came a hoarse voice with a thick New Jersey accent.
Jerry rolled his eyes, “No shit honey. But those assholes next door stole our front page again. How am I supposed to know what's going on in the world without my front page?”
“Why don't you try the television?”
“That's not the point Harriet! It's about my dignity.” Jerry puffed out his chest, making him even portlier.
“Well fine then, no need to git awll snahky. Why don't you go over thire and give thim a piece of your moind?”
“Maybe I will.”
“Fine then, go, see what I cere!
“Would you shut your trap already, I'm leaving.” Jerry threw on his $2 flipflops, lit another cigarette, and made sure to slam the screen door as he exited. He walked across the lot to an ugly brown shack on the other side. He pounded on the door with his rounded fists. The door creaked open just enough to let a sliver of light into the house, but not enough that Jerry could see into the room beyond.
A brown eye attached to a portion of a brown face peaked into the light from behind the door, “What is it Pinfrock?” asked a shaking voice.
“I want the meaning of all this,” he responded, the cigarette shaking ash everywhere as he held up the paper.
The mysterious person replied, “Now? Right now, you want to know where your front page is, at a time like this?”
“Sure, why not? Now is as good a time as any.”
“We shouldn't talk anymore out in the open like this. I'll get your damn page.” The door shut, Jerry stood outside scowling at the door with his rapidly disintegrating cigarette between his lips for a few minutes. The door creaked open and a shuddering brown hand shoved the piece of off-white paper into Jerry's chest before skittering back behind the door to slam once more.
“Asshole,” scowled Jerry before opening the paper. The headlines read, “RUN FOR YOUR LIVES: INVASION FROM OUTER SPACE.”
-------------
Genevieve Smalls posed for the camera, her long legs spidered outward in the designer heels she was modelling. Being a leg model had its perks such as money and strange leg product endorsements, but mostly it was enjoyable because of the poses. Genevieve got a (pardon the pun) kick out of it. Flashing her unearthly legs for bright lights and admiring cameras was a feeling like nothing else. Today’s photo shoot was for Nair, and Genevieve modelled her lengthy legs for the camera, careful not to display anything above the waist.
Genevieve finished the shoot, grabbed her paycheck from the directer, and headed out on the streets of New York City, a place she had always dreamed of living. However, being out on the streets was hard for Genevieve as she attracted a lot of stares. Not at her legs like she was used to (she was careful to cover up her most valuable asset) but at her face. It was an unusual face, to be sure, but nothing like those back home. Today’s stares were no different.
“Mommy look at that!” A little boy shouted up at Genevieve, pointing at her face.
The mother quickly hushed her child and began apologizing to Genevieve, “I’m so sorry, my son is terribly rude, I’ve been trying to teach him more about your kind, but he doesn’t understand.”
“What do you mean, ‘my kind?’” Genevieve crossed her arms and stared down at the woman with seething hatred at her prejudices.
The frumpy mother, realizing her mistake, became flushed and spoke with a stuttering tongue, “I just meant, well you know, how you aren’t, umm, from around here?”
“And what exactly have you been teaching your son?”
“Umm, that ever since your kind came here things have been different, not bad of course, just different. And my family has had to make some, well, some adjustments. You understand don’t you?”
“Then you had better also teach him that pointing and staring is rude. He should learn that we are here to stay and that we mean to blend in with the melting pot which America is famous for. ‘My kind,’ as you call them, is just trying to get through life, same as you.”
“Of course. I’m sorry.”
Genevieve harrumphed and walked away. She loved making earthlings feel uncomfortable.
------------
Harriet Pinfrock got out of the shower, and wrapped an old, somewhat moldy bathrobe around her body. Perhaps once considered pretty, now cigarettes and too much makeup clouded her appearances. Her hair was colored some strange shade of blonde that was only natural on certain breeds of camels. Looking around the trailer for her husband, she realized he must have gone to the neighbors to get his front page back. She slipped on matching moldy slippers and opened the door.
“Babee, wheah ah you?”
She walked onto the open lot toward the brown shack but instead of seeing a brown shack, there was a huge, shiny, metallic ship. Next to it stood her husband, reading the headlines of the paper, seeming not to have noticed the alien ship right next him. Part of the metal began extending outward, like some kind of door opening, and out through the door came a tall, long legged, human like creature. Human in every way except for the face. The creature noticed Harriet and came forward.
“Excuse me,” it said very properly and most likely female, “can you tell me how to get to New York from here? Someone didn’t want to stop for directions.”
Harriet gaped, “Oh! Moiy! Gawd!”
THE END
The cigarette dropped from his lips in an overly dramatic display of disbelief. His scowl deepened and he shouted, “Honey, you aren't going to believe this!”
“What? I cen't heah ya, babe, Oim in the showah,” came a hoarse voice with a thick New Jersey accent.
Jerry rolled his eyes, “No shit honey. But those assholes next door stole our front page again. How am I supposed to know what's going on in the world without my front page?”
“Why don't you try the television?”
“That's not the point Harriet! It's about my dignity.” Jerry puffed out his chest, making him even portlier.
“Well fine then, no need to git awll snahky. Why don't you go over thire and give thim a piece of your moind?”
“Maybe I will.”
“Fine then, go, see what I cere!
“Would you shut your trap already, I'm leaving.” Jerry threw on his $2 flipflops, lit another cigarette, and made sure to slam the screen door as he exited. He walked across the lot to an ugly brown shack on the other side. He pounded on the door with his rounded fists. The door creaked open just enough to let a sliver of light into the house, but not enough that Jerry could see into the room beyond.
A brown eye attached to a portion of a brown face peaked into the light from behind the door, “What is it Pinfrock?” asked a shaking voice.
“I want the meaning of all this,” he responded, the cigarette shaking ash everywhere as he held up the paper.
The mysterious person replied, “Now? Right now, you want to know where your front page is, at a time like this?”
“Sure, why not? Now is as good a time as any.”
“We shouldn't talk anymore out in the open like this. I'll get your damn page.” The door shut, Jerry stood outside scowling at the door with his rapidly disintegrating cigarette between his lips for a few minutes. The door creaked open and a shuddering brown hand shoved the piece of off-white paper into Jerry's chest before skittering back behind the door to slam once more.
“Asshole,” scowled Jerry before opening the paper. The headlines read, “RUN FOR YOUR LIVES: INVASION FROM OUTER SPACE.”
-------------
Genevieve Smalls posed for the camera, her long legs spidered outward in the designer heels she was modelling. Being a leg model had its perks such as money and strange leg product endorsements, but mostly it was enjoyable because of the poses. Genevieve got a (pardon the pun) kick out of it. Flashing her unearthly legs for bright lights and admiring cameras was a feeling like nothing else. Today’s photo shoot was for Nair, and Genevieve modelled her lengthy legs for the camera, careful not to display anything above the waist.
Genevieve finished the shoot, grabbed her paycheck from the directer, and headed out on the streets of New York City, a place she had always dreamed of living. However, being out on the streets was hard for Genevieve as she attracted a lot of stares. Not at her legs like she was used to (she was careful to cover up her most valuable asset) but at her face. It was an unusual face, to be sure, but nothing like those back home. Today’s stares were no different.
“Mommy look at that!” A little boy shouted up at Genevieve, pointing at her face.
The mother quickly hushed her child and began apologizing to Genevieve, “I’m so sorry, my son is terribly rude, I’ve been trying to teach him more about your kind, but he doesn’t understand.”
“What do you mean, ‘my kind?’” Genevieve crossed her arms and stared down at the woman with seething hatred at her prejudices.
The frumpy mother, realizing her mistake, became flushed and spoke with a stuttering tongue, “I just meant, well you know, how you aren’t, umm, from around here?”
“And what exactly have you been teaching your son?”
“Umm, that ever since your kind came here things have been different, not bad of course, just different. And my family has had to make some, well, some adjustments. You understand don’t you?”
“Then you had better also teach him that pointing and staring is rude. He should learn that we are here to stay and that we mean to blend in with the melting pot which America is famous for. ‘My kind,’ as you call them, is just trying to get through life, same as you.”
“Of course. I’m sorry.”
Genevieve harrumphed and walked away. She loved making earthlings feel uncomfortable.
------------
Harriet Pinfrock got out of the shower, and wrapped an old, somewhat moldy bathrobe around her body. Perhaps once considered pretty, now cigarettes and too much makeup clouded her appearances. Her hair was colored some strange shade of blonde that was only natural on certain breeds of camels. Looking around the trailer for her husband, she realized he must have gone to the neighbors to get his front page back. She slipped on matching moldy slippers and opened the door.
“Babee, wheah ah you?”
She walked onto the open lot toward the brown shack but instead of seeing a brown shack, there was a huge, shiny, metallic ship. Next to it stood her husband, reading the headlines of the paper, seeming not to have noticed the alien ship right next him. Part of the metal began extending outward, like some kind of door opening, and out through the door came a tall, long legged, human like creature. Human in every way except for the face. The creature noticed Harriet and came forward.
“Excuse me,” it said very properly and most likely female, “can you tell me how to get to New York from here? Someone didn’t want to stop for directions.”
Harriet gaped, “Oh! Moiy! Gawd!”
THE END
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
English Fog
The fog swirled around the trees like a snake constricting its prey. It contracted further until trees along the graveled path became haunting specters screaming to be noticed. It was quiet. The kind of quiet where every creature prays not to be caught in the blast of an impending explosion. A pond lay off the side of the path with a thick film of mud coating the top. Dead twigs with skeletons of leaves extended out of the water with phantom arms pleading to be removed before the water took away all that was left of their lives, but it was far too late for them. A bright moon shone overhead indicating the coming of twilight as the fog fingered its way around the edges of the disc, hoping to grope at the ethereal life the moon contained.
Bathed in soft moonlight, a woman in her mid-forties appeared on the pebbled pathway, a tourist to this eerie English fog. She hurried past the pond and the twigs whose watery arms pleaded to her. Just beyond the pond, a light shone through the fog, not soft like the moon, but with the harshness of a doctor’s light beaming on a recently conscious patient. The source of the light was a bright porch-lamp connected to an otherwise perfect English cottage. The tourist rushed along the path, removing herself from the soft stage light of the moon to the medical lamp of the cabin. With trembling hands she knocked on the door. She had been running from the fog for hours, away from the English medical center where she had been admitted to. The fog whispered to her that she was lost, that she was going to die if she stayed out much longer. A deadness answered her knock, not even an echo on the inside of the cottage. Fearing she was still alone in this foreign night, the tourist turned to leave and continue on her frantic search for human life and an escape from the grips of the swirling fog. A creak in the door indicated to her that she was not alone after all. Turning slowly back toward the door, the tourist spoke in the hurried American voice only New Yorkers are familiar with, “Excuse me, I don’t mean to bother you. I’m terribly lost.”
The second figure, the owner of the cottage, was a small woman no older than ninety, but no younger than eighty. She wore large glasses magnifying her beady black eyes, and a woolen shawl draped over her fragile form. “You poor dear, you must be scared half to death. A fog like this one comes only once every three or four years. Come in, why don’t you? I’ll make you a nice pot of tea and help you find your way again,” she said in a voice that reminded the tourist of the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz.
Being from New York and naturally suspicious (suspicion only heightened by the coiling of the fog around her ankles) the tourist shook her head, “I don’t know if I have time for some tea. Please if you could just direct me toward the nearest town, I would be very grateful. I’m trying to find a way to get back into the city.”
The old woman clicked her tongue, “You Americans are always in such a hurry. I’m betting you’re coming from the facility up the room, they probably wouldn’t like you running around this Witch’s Fog alone, now would they?”
A shiver not related to the cold ran down the tourist’s spine, “Witch’s Fog? Why is it called that?”
Laughing throatily, the old woman explained, “Because this is when the witches come out to prey on innocent victims. Come in, come in already.”
Uncertain, but with the cold billowing around her torso, the tourist entered the cottage whose warmth rushed through her core easing some of her doubts about this old woman who lived on the edge of a skeletal pond in the midst an English Witch’s Fog. The warmth from a roaring fire held her close as though she and it were old friends who had just been reacquainted after years apart. She accepted the old woman’s offering to sit nearer to the fire in a cozy rocking chair draped with crocheted blankets. All around the cottage were various tea cozies and china sets, along with yarn, needles, and a quilted mattress over a small bed. The tourist settled in, trying to calm her pounding heart, erasing the images in her head of doctors reaching into her brain with scalpels and sharp needles. No pictures met the tourist’s eyes except an old photograph of a handsome young man in a military uniform.
“I see you’ve noticed my Nicky. Nicholas Roger William Hamstead was his full name, but he’ll always be my Nicky.” The old woman handed the tourist a steaming cup of tea.
“Was he your son?” The tourist asked curious, but skeptical.
The old woman laughed her throaty laugh once more, “No my dear, he was my husband. That picture was taken two days after we married, and a month before he died. It was love at first sight. I was a nurse during the war and he was a soldier. He came in with PTSD, and my kindness cured him.”
The tourist gulped, a vision again passed through her head of hospitals and her heart beat quickened, “I’m so sorry. Was he killed in battle?”
The old woman stared inquisitively at her, “In battle? Of course not my child. I killed him. Drowned him in the pond just there.”
Fear poisoning her veins, the tourist stopped sipping her tea mid-gulp. Icicles ran through her and she found she could no longer move her body. Fear had paralyzed her completely. The tourist was unsure of whether or not the old woman was joking. Her heart quickened until it thundered in her ears like bombs exploding.
“What? What do you mean?” She whispered through paralyzed lips. Images of witches, death, and murderous old ladies in cottages during a dense fog joined those from the medical center.
The old woman grinned showing pointed yellow teeth, “Oh I’m simply teasing my dear. You facility patients are too easy to scare. Weren’t you listening out there? This is a Witch’s Fog, which happens every three or four years when a witch needs a new victim. I haven’t had company in such a long time, and I never get to talk to people such as yourself.”
So you tell me that you murdered your own husband? The tourist thought to herself, still too paranoid to move. Should she run? Flee back into that night of shadows and howls? To the doctors experimenting on her her brain? The prospect of going back into the fog drained the remaining blood from her face. She looked around the cottage again for that comfort she felt when she first walked in. She saw a pentacle hanging over the window, red and black candles on the kitchen counter with their wax dripping down into blood-like pools. A large rack of knives hung up over the stove all sharp looking, and one was missing! The prospect of staying with this old woman, who might be a witch, made her choke on a blood-curdling scream.
“I do not think anyone is going to miss you will they, Teresa Smith of Soho? A lousy secretary fired after at most a year of every job you have ever worked at. You have never married, your only family is a sister who never calls, and all that awaits you at home is a dead goldfish. I think your misery will feed me for quite a long time. Not to mention the reason you came here in the first place. Why exactly would you be in a mental institution? I wonder.”
With wide unblinking eyes, Teresa Smith, a tourist from Soho, New York stood stunned at the old woman’s words, uncomprehending at her knowledge. She shook her head slightly, trying to clear it. She was unsure of whether or not the woman had actually said that, or if she imagined it all. “What did you just say?”
The old woman cocked her head, her eyes concerned, “I said that I never get much company around here and its nice to have a house guest from America to tell me about the world. Would you like some treacle tart?”
Teresa wondered if she was going mad. Closing her eyes and breathing deeply, she attempted to collect herself. However, when she opened them she saw the old woman driving her
small leathery hand into a knitting satchel to extract a long athame, the knife missing from the rack. Her black eyes had turned yellow and long like a snake’s, and her grey hair curled around her face just like the fog had curled around Teresa’s ankles. Teresa gasped and blinked hard. The image returned to normal. Knitting needles and yarn were all the old woman held.
She leaned forward, putting one hand on Teresa’s arm, “Are you well, my child? You seem perturbed.”
Teresa’s breathing had become inconsistent, and she found it difficult to consume the air inside the warm cottage. The fog had completely blanketed the windows. Teresa attempted to move, to perhaps run back into that fog. She did not know which was worse, the doctors experimenting on her troubled mind, or this woman who might be a witch. She tried to put her tea down, to stand up, but her limbs were frozen.
She turned her wide eyes to the old woman who smirked. “I’ve poisoned you, my dear child. You are paralyzed.”
Teresa closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind. Was this real? Was this another hallucination? Opening her eyes Teresa watched unmoving as the old woman ripped her stomach open the witch’s athame, her own blood pouring over the black handle. Unable to scream, Teresa choked, staring into the old woman’s caring eyes as she held her knitting.
Two miles away, the alarm sounded at South Hampton’s Home for the Mentally Insane. An escaped patient suffering from delusions, schizophrenia, and multiple personality disorder. She is a danger to herself and others, and must be found at all costs. The orderlies ran past the pond of dead twigs, under the full moon, through the rapidly dissipating fog. They ran along the path until they found her. Teresa Smith sat on a tree stump, her hand gripped on a black knife she had plunged into her own stomach, her eyes wide and forever terrified. The last tendril of fog caressed her frozen cheek as it rolled away.
The End
Note: An athame is a ceremonial dagger with a double-edged blade and a black handle used for magical ceremonies.
Bathed in soft moonlight, a woman in her mid-forties appeared on the pebbled pathway, a tourist to this eerie English fog. She hurried past the pond and the twigs whose watery arms pleaded to her. Just beyond the pond, a light shone through the fog, not soft like the moon, but with the harshness of a doctor’s light beaming on a recently conscious patient. The source of the light was a bright porch-lamp connected to an otherwise perfect English cottage. The tourist rushed along the path, removing herself from the soft stage light of the moon to the medical lamp of the cabin. With trembling hands she knocked on the door. She had been running from the fog for hours, away from the English medical center where she had been admitted to. The fog whispered to her that she was lost, that she was going to die if she stayed out much longer. A deadness answered her knock, not even an echo on the inside of the cottage. Fearing she was still alone in this foreign night, the tourist turned to leave and continue on her frantic search for human life and an escape from the grips of the swirling fog. A creak in the door indicated to her that she was not alone after all. Turning slowly back toward the door, the tourist spoke in the hurried American voice only New Yorkers are familiar with, “Excuse me, I don’t mean to bother you. I’m terribly lost.”
The second figure, the owner of the cottage, was a small woman no older than ninety, but no younger than eighty. She wore large glasses magnifying her beady black eyes, and a woolen shawl draped over her fragile form. “You poor dear, you must be scared half to death. A fog like this one comes only once every three or four years. Come in, why don’t you? I’ll make you a nice pot of tea and help you find your way again,” she said in a voice that reminded the tourist of the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz.
Being from New York and naturally suspicious (suspicion only heightened by the coiling of the fog around her ankles) the tourist shook her head, “I don’t know if I have time for some tea. Please if you could just direct me toward the nearest town, I would be very grateful. I’m trying to find a way to get back into the city.”
The old woman clicked her tongue, “You Americans are always in such a hurry. I’m betting you’re coming from the facility up the room, they probably wouldn’t like you running around this Witch’s Fog alone, now would they?”
A shiver not related to the cold ran down the tourist’s spine, “Witch’s Fog? Why is it called that?”
Laughing throatily, the old woman explained, “Because this is when the witches come out to prey on innocent victims. Come in, come in already.”
Uncertain, but with the cold billowing around her torso, the tourist entered the cottage whose warmth rushed through her core easing some of her doubts about this old woman who lived on the edge of a skeletal pond in the midst an English Witch’s Fog. The warmth from a roaring fire held her close as though she and it were old friends who had just been reacquainted after years apart. She accepted the old woman’s offering to sit nearer to the fire in a cozy rocking chair draped with crocheted blankets. All around the cottage were various tea cozies and china sets, along with yarn, needles, and a quilted mattress over a small bed. The tourist settled in, trying to calm her pounding heart, erasing the images in her head of doctors reaching into her brain with scalpels and sharp needles. No pictures met the tourist’s eyes except an old photograph of a handsome young man in a military uniform.
“I see you’ve noticed my Nicky. Nicholas Roger William Hamstead was his full name, but he’ll always be my Nicky.” The old woman handed the tourist a steaming cup of tea.
“Was he your son?” The tourist asked curious, but skeptical.
The old woman laughed her throaty laugh once more, “No my dear, he was my husband. That picture was taken two days after we married, and a month before he died. It was love at first sight. I was a nurse during the war and he was a soldier. He came in with PTSD, and my kindness cured him.”
The tourist gulped, a vision again passed through her head of hospitals and her heart beat quickened, “I’m so sorry. Was he killed in battle?”
The old woman stared inquisitively at her, “In battle? Of course not my child. I killed him. Drowned him in the pond just there.”
Fear poisoning her veins, the tourist stopped sipping her tea mid-gulp. Icicles ran through her and she found she could no longer move her body. Fear had paralyzed her completely. The tourist was unsure of whether or not the old woman was joking. Her heart quickened until it thundered in her ears like bombs exploding.
“What? What do you mean?” She whispered through paralyzed lips. Images of witches, death, and murderous old ladies in cottages during a dense fog joined those from the medical center.
The old woman grinned showing pointed yellow teeth, “Oh I’m simply teasing my dear. You facility patients are too easy to scare. Weren’t you listening out there? This is a Witch’s Fog, which happens every three or four years when a witch needs a new victim. I haven’t had company in such a long time, and I never get to talk to people such as yourself.”
So you tell me that you murdered your own husband? The tourist thought to herself, still too paranoid to move. Should she run? Flee back into that night of shadows and howls? To the doctors experimenting on her her brain? The prospect of going back into the fog drained the remaining blood from her face. She looked around the cottage again for that comfort she felt when she first walked in. She saw a pentacle hanging over the window, red and black candles on the kitchen counter with their wax dripping down into blood-like pools. A large rack of knives hung up over the stove all sharp looking, and one was missing! The prospect of staying with this old woman, who might be a witch, made her choke on a blood-curdling scream.
“I do not think anyone is going to miss you will they, Teresa Smith of Soho? A lousy secretary fired after at most a year of every job you have ever worked at. You have never married, your only family is a sister who never calls, and all that awaits you at home is a dead goldfish. I think your misery will feed me for quite a long time. Not to mention the reason you came here in the first place. Why exactly would you be in a mental institution? I wonder.”
With wide unblinking eyes, Teresa Smith, a tourist from Soho, New York stood stunned at the old woman’s words, uncomprehending at her knowledge. She shook her head slightly, trying to clear it. She was unsure of whether or not the woman had actually said that, or if she imagined it all. “What did you just say?”
The old woman cocked her head, her eyes concerned, “I said that I never get much company around here and its nice to have a house guest from America to tell me about the world. Would you like some treacle tart?”
Teresa wondered if she was going mad. Closing her eyes and breathing deeply, she attempted to collect herself. However, when she opened them she saw the old woman driving her
small leathery hand into a knitting satchel to extract a long athame, the knife missing from the rack. Her black eyes had turned yellow and long like a snake’s, and her grey hair curled around her face just like the fog had curled around Teresa’s ankles. Teresa gasped and blinked hard. The image returned to normal. Knitting needles and yarn were all the old woman held.
She leaned forward, putting one hand on Teresa’s arm, “Are you well, my child? You seem perturbed.”
Teresa’s breathing had become inconsistent, and she found it difficult to consume the air inside the warm cottage. The fog had completely blanketed the windows. Teresa attempted to move, to perhaps run back into that fog. She did not know which was worse, the doctors experimenting on her troubled mind, or this woman who might be a witch. She tried to put her tea down, to stand up, but her limbs were frozen.
She turned her wide eyes to the old woman who smirked. “I’ve poisoned you, my dear child. You are paralyzed.”
Teresa closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind. Was this real? Was this another hallucination? Opening her eyes Teresa watched unmoving as the old woman ripped her stomach open the witch’s athame, her own blood pouring over the black handle. Unable to scream, Teresa choked, staring into the old woman’s caring eyes as she held her knitting.
Two miles away, the alarm sounded at South Hampton’s Home for the Mentally Insane. An escaped patient suffering from delusions, schizophrenia, and multiple personality disorder. She is a danger to herself and others, and must be found at all costs. The orderlies ran past the pond of dead twigs, under the full moon, through the rapidly dissipating fog. They ran along the path until they found her. Teresa Smith sat on a tree stump, her hand gripped on a black knife she had plunged into her own stomach, her eyes wide and forever terrified. The last tendril of fog caressed her frozen cheek as it rolled away.
The End
Note: An athame is a ceremonial dagger with a double-edged blade and a black handle used for magical ceremonies.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Vortexes of Luck: An Unusual Love Story
Every single day there are little pockets of luck that exist in fabrics of time. They ripple in and out of locations constantly fluctuating and moving, like a seam that has been cut in a sheet drying on a line during a hot summer afternoon and if you walk through the seam you are filled with warmth and good luck. These pockets make it possible for you to find a good parking space, or run into an old friend on the street or inside Target. The pockets of luck, if you are lucky enough to find them will provide you with that good feeling all day no matter how you slept the night before. If you find that pocket it will make you feel like a king for an entire day, even if it was just because you got a green light instead of a red at the crucial intersection that dictates whether or not you are tardy to an important meeting. These vortexes of luck are like waves crashing on the surf, and if you ride them right, they will take you all the way into shore with a rush of exhilaration and excitement.
However, if you miss the moment, and you stand on your board at the inopportune time, the waves will crash you on the rocks below to smithereens and your board will be smashed like a china doll thrown against a wall. Imagine now that no matter when you stand on your board as you see the vortex of luck opening, the wave always wrecks you. You find the perfect parking spot, but someone sneaks in just as you flick on your turn signal. It’s not fair, but they do it anyway, it does not matter if you were there first. You always get the red lights, and at that intersection it taunts you turning yellow and then to red instantly so you have to slam on your breaks to keep from hitting the elderly pedestrians that showed up out of nowhere. No matter when you go to Target, you always run into people you hate, like those people who made fun of you in high school whose names you can’t quite remember but whose laughter echoes in your ears nonetheless. If you always miss these precious pockets you are forever doomed to feel like the fool instead of the king.
Such is my lot in life. I am the surfer crashed against the rocks, the almost killer of old ladies because of red lights, the forever taunted by forgotten foes, the one who parks as far away from the location as possible. I have never once in my entire life experienced a vortex of luck. It is as though I can see these vortexes wherever I am, and then I see someone else victoriously go through them. While they walk through the slit in the sheet, I’m forced to sew it back up so I can use it to warm myself on the cold winter nights. I can’t, of course, actually see the vortexes, that is a power no man has, I just see other people get the parking spot that should be mine, run the yellow light that would have made me on time, run into their old high school crush in Target and spend a long happy life together.
Can you imagine what it is like to always have bad luck? I bet you think it sucks, but that I must be exaggerating. I’m not.
I was born on Friday the 13th, and on my 13th birthday my parents through me out of the house for being so unlucky (they were very superstitious). I was born with an outtie, instead of an innie. I never had many close friends due to the fact that my body odor is reminiscent of a skunk run over by a manure truck. I have never had a girlfriend, most likely due to the same problem. You see, I am allergic to all deodorants, I try them anyway only to break out in hideous hives that pus. In the end I must suffer, stinky and unlucky. I was always very intelligent but maintained an interest in insects of all things. An etymologist is not the sexiest profession either, not even to other etymologists. I tried to be a professor, but I was so late to my interview that they gave the job to someone else. In the end, I work for a nonprofit organization that studies new species of insects found in remote tropical locations. My boss thought I would be the best candidate for the solo job in the tropics of Borneo where the only other people are natives who think I am the god of feces because of the stench I emote.
Never having any luck can have its upsides too, believe it or not. I can work in solitude on my project which helps me focus on the micro-species I find crawling in my pants every night. I am also trying, in vain, to develop a deodorant which repels my particular brand of B.O. My home is a tree house with a very leaky roof and my food often spoils, so that is not on the plus side, but what is, is that I kind of love it here. I like the sound of the rain on the thick leaves outside, I like the bugs I find everywhere, and to be perfectly honest, I like the way I smell. It is unique and defining and it is a part of who I am. That being said, it would be nice to have some company every now and then, maybe from someone of the female variety.
One unlucky Tuesday, I was studying a particularly brutal fire ant who had found its way up my trousers to that special area which burned especially horrid. It was hot and muggy, my least favorite. I had not eaten all day because the same fire ants had worked their way into my pantry. I was the stinkiest I think I have ever been, because there was never any chance to bathe except when it rained and for the past week or two it had threatened to rain, but without a drop of precipitation. All in all, the day started out as any other day in my smelly life.
I was examining the fire ant’s armor and the bites on my special area when I saw her. She came walked under the canopy where my tree house was with wild unruly brown hair, more of a non-color than brown. She looked completely bewildered, her bug eyes shifting from one tall tree to the next. Her clothes were muddy and she appeared to have a few scrapes. She swatted unsuccessfully at a few mosquitoes. She was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Then again, it had been many months since I had even laid eyes on a woman.
I called down to her in my much unused voice, which made it crack like a teenage boy’s, “Hello down there. Can I help you find your way?” The ‘down’ came out in a high pitched squeak.
Hearing a voice from above startled the young woman and she screamed so loud all the birds in the area took to the sky. Recovering herself, she replied,”Hello, I’m sorry I screamed, you surprised me. Yes I am horribly lost. My GPS does not seem to be working properly. I am a tropical biologist sent to work with Keith Minor, the etymologist. Tell me, do you know where he might be. My name is Jane Jones.”
I laughed, “Sure I do. I am Dr. Minor, but please call me Keith. Pleasure to meet you Dr. Jones. I didn’t know I was meant to work with anyone else, then again I only use my satellite telephone every three months.”
Jane began climbing the ladder up to my tree house, “Oh well, yes. And call me Jane. When I began working for your organization, they told me I would better serve them here in Borneo with you. They seemed to laugh at me as a matter of fact. Though I am used to it. I’m afraid I have something rather important to tell you.”
She arrived at the house. “What is that?” I asked as I helped her into the tattered home.
“I stink,” She replied matter of factly.
She truly did. She smelled like moldy strawberries mixed with rotting lettuce. “I stink too, but I think you smell beautifully.”
She blushed and smiled, uncertain of what to say. Obviously no one had ever told her she smelled nice. “I like the way you smell too.”
We shared a look and I knew that for the first time in my life I had found a vortex of luck. I had met the woman of my dreams. She stank, she had no luck with her hair, she had zero sense of direction, her name was ordinary, and she was utterly and completely perfect. It did not matter if neither of us ever found a pocket of luck ever again, because the one that brought us together was enough to keep us happy through all the unlucky times.
However, if you miss the moment, and you stand on your board at the inopportune time, the waves will crash you on the rocks below to smithereens and your board will be smashed like a china doll thrown against a wall. Imagine now that no matter when you stand on your board as you see the vortex of luck opening, the wave always wrecks you. You find the perfect parking spot, but someone sneaks in just as you flick on your turn signal. It’s not fair, but they do it anyway, it does not matter if you were there first. You always get the red lights, and at that intersection it taunts you turning yellow and then to red instantly so you have to slam on your breaks to keep from hitting the elderly pedestrians that showed up out of nowhere. No matter when you go to Target, you always run into people you hate, like those people who made fun of you in high school whose names you can’t quite remember but whose laughter echoes in your ears nonetheless. If you always miss these precious pockets you are forever doomed to feel like the fool instead of the king.
Such is my lot in life. I am the surfer crashed against the rocks, the almost killer of old ladies because of red lights, the forever taunted by forgotten foes, the one who parks as far away from the location as possible. I have never once in my entire life experienced a vortex of luck. It is as though I can see these vortexes wherever I am, and then I see someone else victoriously go through them. While they walk through the slit in the sheet, I’m forced to sew it back up so I can use it to warm myself on the cold winter nights. I can’t, of course, actually see the vortexes, that is a power no man has, I just see other people get the parking spot that should be mine, run the yellow light that would have made me on time, run into their old high school crush in Target and spend a long happy life together.
Can you imagine what it is like to always have bad luck? I bet you think it sucks, but that I must be exaggerating. I’m not.
I was born on Friday the 13th, and on my 13th birthday my parents through me out of the house for being so unlucky (they were very superstitious). I was born with an outtie, instead of an innie. I never had many close friends due to the fact that my body odor is reminiscent of a skunk run over by a manure truck. I have never had a girlfriend, most likely due to the same problem. You see, I am allergic to all deodorants, I try them anyway only to break out in hideous hives that pus. In the end I must suffer, stinky and unlucky. I was always very intelligent but maintained an interest in insects of all things. An etymologist is not the sexiest profession either, not even to other etymologists. I tried to be a professor, but I was so late to my interview that they gave the job to someone else. In the end, I work for a nonprofit organization that studies new species of insects found in remote tropical locations. My boss thought I would be the best candidate for the solo job in the tropics of Borneo where the only other people are natives who think I am the god of feces because of the stench I emote.
Never having any luck can have its upsides too, believe it or not. I can work in solitude on my project which helps me focus on the micro-species I find crawling in my pants every night. I am also trying, in vain, to develop a deodorant which repels my particular brand of B.O. My home is a tree house with a very leaky roof and my food often spoils, so that is not on the plus side, but what is, is that I kind of love it here. I like the sound of the rain on the thick leaves outside, I like the bugs I find everywhere, and to be perfectly honest, I like the way I smell. It is unique and defining and it is a part of who I am. That being said, it would be nice to have some company every now and then, maybe from someone of the female variety.
One unlucky Tuesday, I was studying a particularly brutal fire ant who had found its way up my trousers to that special area which burned especially horrid. It was hot and muggy, my least favorite. I had not eaten all day because the same fire ants had worked their way into my pantry. I was the stinkiest I think I have ever been, because there was never any chance to bathe except when it rained and for the past week or two it had threatened to rain, but without a drop of precipitation. All in all, the day started out as any other day in my smelly life.
I was examining the fire ant’s armor and the bites on my special area when I saw her. She came walked under the canopy where my tree house was with wild unruly brown hair, more of a non-color than brown. She looked completely bewildered, her bug eyes shifting from one tall tree to the next. Her clothes were muddy and she appeared to have a few scrapes. She swatted unsuccessfully at a few mosquitoes. She was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Then again, it had been many months since I had even laid eyes on a woman.
I called down to her in my much unused voice, which made it crack like a teenage boy’s, “Hello down there. Can I help you find your way?” The ‘down’ came out in a high pitched squeak.
Hearing a voice from above startled the young woman and she screamed so loud all the birds in the area took to the sky. Recovering herself, she replied,”Hello, I’m sorry I screamed, you surprised me. Yes I am horribly lost. My GPS does not seem to be working properly. I am a tropical biologist sent to work with Keith Minor, the etymologist. Tell me, do you know where he might be. My name is Jane Jones.”
I laughed, “Sure I do. I am Dr. Minor, but please call me Keith. Pleasure to meet you Dr. Jones. I didn’t know I was meant to work with anyone else, then again I only use my satellite telephone every three months.”
Jane began climbing the ladder up to my tree house, “Oh well, yes. And call me Jane. When I began working for your organization, they told me I would better serve them here in Borneo with you. They seemed to laugh at me as a matter of fact. Though I am used to it. I’m afraid I have something rather important to tell you.”
She arrived at the house. “What is that?” I asked as I helped her into the tattered home.
“I stink,” She replied matter of factly.
She truly did. She smelled like moldy strawberries mixed with rotting lettuce. “I stink too, but I think you smell beautifully.”
She blushed and smiled, uncertain of what to say. Obviously no one had ever told her she smelled nice. “I like the way you smell too.”
We shared a look and I knew that for the first time in my life I had found a vortex of luck. I had met the woman of my dreams. She stank, she had no luck with her hair, she had zero sense of direction, her name was ordinary, and she was utterly and completely perfect. It did not matter if neither of us ever found a pocket of luck ever again, because the one that brought us together was enough to keep us happy through all the unlucky times.
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