I’m doing things a little bit different this time around. Usually I do a book review every other month, but honestly, this book I’m reading right now is slow going. Ugh. I’ll get through it; it’s just taking quite a bit longer to get through because it’s not all that interesting yet even a quarter of the way through. I’ll power through, though. Because I’m a completionist. I’m also a masochist.
Anywayyyy…
You may remember a while back when I shared the first chapter of the novel I was working on. At the time, I entered it into a contest on Booksie. I didn’t win, but I did get a few nice messages about it.
Fast forward. I’m in the final stages of editing before I figure out how to write a book proposal and send it off to some agents and hope one of them bites. Things are moving along quite a bit faster than they did in the beginning, and it’s only going to move faster since I now have time set aside five days a week to write (thanks to my new job). I’m excited. And I’m terrified. But mostly excited.
Point? I want you to be excited with me.
I present to you the first chapter of Zemblanity (formerly Death in a Sundress). Then, come back around in another few weeks to get chapter two. I’ll keep the trend going until I get to chapter five.
Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next installment and future writing news from yours truly!
Without further adieu, here’s the first chapter of Zemblanity.
***
Chapter One
She would ask. She was ready to move those little lips, too plump for her hollow face, in rhythm with buzzing vocal chords. She could visualize each and every word down to the font. But she could smell the whiskey from the other side of the room, and her question died on the exhale. Bothering him over something as stupid as a question about homework was akin to digging her own grave. When it came to her father, if the booze was out, most things were better left unsaid.
She turned to go back to her room, and her heel snagged a splinter from the unfinished hardwood.
Crack!
Her foot, blissfully unaware of what two inches of wood lodged between skin cells felt like moments before, now felt full to the brim. Her moan was hushed, almost muted by the echo of neglected wood separating. It rippled the silence of the house, a drop in an ocean of quiet. Tears burned and spilled over, eyelashes catching the ones they could, hugging them tight.
And then, a rustling from the darkened living room, a sound of papers and old food wrappers being crumpled and stomped. She could feel the bruises forming without him even laying a finger on her. The skin had a way of remembering.
Before the inevitable blow, her eyes squeezed shut, almost as if not looking took the power out of the sting of pain or the bitter taste of blood.
If I can’t see you, you can’t see me. If I can’t see you, you can’t touch me.
She stumbled under the initial strike. Her legs struggled to regain their footing enough to keep her upright. Allyson knew better than to fall. If her legs gave, there would be no escape from whatever heavy steps and kicks that were sure to follow.
He thrust his fist into the mess of black hair at the base of a poorly woven braid, forcing her to face him. Fingers spread, his hand was easily as big—if not bigger—than her twelve-year-old face. Even after years of priming, she could not stop herself from flinching, wincing, and, ultimately betraying her better judgment, crying out. Against her better judgment, she screamed.
Allyson did not hate her father. Far from it. Roger Alexander was all she knew. He was more than hurt to her. Hugs and kisses and bedtime stories were not a foreign concept to her. They’d watch television together on the couch while eating overcooked frozen dinners. Sometimes there was a comedy, and they’d laugh, both of them, just like what she supposed normal families did. Other times there would be a show where people got hurt and it was supposed to be funny. He would laugh, and she would smile and pretend it tickled her in the same way, it she didn’t like the joke.
Most of the time when she heard the glass bottles and aluminum cans echo through the empty hall, she stayed in her room. It was easier that way. Out of sight, out of mind. An unspoken rule of the house.
No, she did not hate her father. In her own way, she supposed she loved him, just as she supposed he loved her.
It was funny, she thought. Funny in a twisted, fucked up way. The situation was not new. If she was being honest with herself, she should be used to the whole thing by now. The pain always numbed after the white-hot stinging, and occasionally, she could find bliss in the sparse moments of feigned unconsciousness. It was funny because she knew she should just lay there unmoving and he’d stop, but she couldn’t bring herself to let down her guard just yet.
Sometimes she thought she might be a masochist. Or was it a sadist? She could never remember the difference.
Sometimes he’d make her waffles with extra syrup after he slept off the whiskey. Never was there talk at the wobbly kitchen table about the beatings, and for that, Allyson was thankful. It made it easier to believe that nothing happened when neither of them acknowledged why her lip was split and her eye was swollen. She never dwelled on whether or not he remembered hitting her. The pain was bad enough, but the shame was somehow worse.
Roger struck once, twice, thrice, altering between the side of her face near her eye and her mouth. Each time his hand was open. In terms of beatings, she would have preferred his fist kiss her mouth with its dull, splintering ache than the sharp, screaming pain of those spread fingers.
Her tears fell, hot and thick, heavy thuds to the floor. Through squinted eyes she watched as they burned small holes in the floor as if they were not tears at all, but acid. The smoky wisps that remained in the air were satisfying.
Take that, floor!
If anything deserved to be damaged, it was it in all its unfinished glory.
Allyson didn’t notice the flesh falling from her cheeks in small flakes at first, or the way her tears tore into her skin to create river beds under her eyes. If there was pain, it didn’t register over the feel of her cheeks swelling from the contact of flesh against flesh. She did not notice the way the holes in the floorboards grew outward in web-like tendrils.
The room grew unbearably loud with screams that were not her own. Her father took a step back and held the palm of the previously offending hand, moaning through gritted, crooked teeth. She watched wide-eyed, not comprehending, face hot and throbbing.
“You bitch you little bitch what did you do to Daddy what did you do to me what did you—“
And then silence.
Allyson learned several things that night. For one, there was such a thing as overloading the senses. The nerve endings under her broken skin shut down from the force of his anger. She was deaf from the screams of both her and her father. Or maybe it wasn’t any sort of audio stimuli that stole her hearing away. Perhaps it was her eyes getting overwhelmed causing time and space to collide and morph into something that couldn’t be. Perhaps it all stemmed from the hooked blade emerging from her father’s unshaven throat.
She really couldn’t be certain.
It was as if she were watching a movie in slow motion. Her father’s fingers twitched one by one as he tried to grasp the hook in his burned, bloodied hands. His mouth opened and closed uselessly, reminding her of her classroom’s pet fish. Allyson didn’t think any air was getting through. She opened her own mouth to say something, but her voice wouldn’t work. They mirrored each other for what seemed like an eternity.
The hall swallowed what little light normally pierced through the blinds in the adjoining rooms. Was it so late already? Staring into that darkness made her mouth dry, her throat tight. She thought she saw something behind him.
This is it, she thought. This is when the hero runs to a different part of the house and grabs a weapon to defend themselves.
But her legs were rooted to the spot. Her body felt like cement. Her appendages were nothing but for show.
There was a light switch within reach, but something—be it intuition, if you believed in that sort of thing, or otherwise—told her it was a bad idea, as if whispered from the cracked walls. It was foreign; a different language altogether. She did not know the words, but she did understand the intent. In the darkness, it’s less dangerous.
Here we are now, but that’s enough entertainment for one night, thank you very much.
Her eyes had trouble adjusting to the empty black, but little by little, shapes came into play. Toxic, neon green eyes peered at her from behind a veil of thick black hair that was parted strategically as if not to obstruct its vision. Its wide, smiling mouth, while predatory, did not feel threatening. It would not attack her. If it wanted, she would be dead already.
Anxiety wavered to disassociation. She smiled back at the creature. It, in turn, smiled wider than before, the skin stretched around its mouth like it wasn’t skin at all, but instead made from black powdered latex gloves. It formed around the bone structure too tight, too thin.
Allyson felt nothing. Her father’s thrashings subsided little by little, until his body hung limp from the throat down. His eyes didn’t see her anymore. The hook retreated back into his throat and disappeared, leaving nothing but a large bleeding cavern in its place. Roger’s feet held him for a fraction of a second before his dead knees gave way to the full weight of his corpse. He fell forward with a dull thud, and Allyson kept standing.
She wondered if he got a splinter on the way down.
The creature crouched before her. Its nine eyes were missing the pupils, and no pupils meant she couldn’t tell which direction it was looking. Maybe nowhere. Maybe everywhere. All seeing. All knowing. It reminded her of a spider. Her father’s murderer stood unmoving, then turned its attentions back to its prey.
The knife-like appendages complimented the sword-hook that had previously been in her father’s throat to create a gross interpretation of a human hand. From the hole in his neck, the hooked thumb cut with ease to the groin, blood spilling on the unfinished flooring, the wood soaking it in greedily.
Allyson did not lose her footing, even when her father’s insides slopped to the side. The creature’s jaw unhinged, displaying impossibly long teeth proudly before diving in, claiming only organs and leaving skin and bone relatively untouched.
This is fine, she thought. Everything would be alright enough, okay enough, because nothing was as bad as living with an alcoholic father for the rest of her life.
No more bruises to explain to teachers or classmates or Zaque. No more picking up a twelve-pack for Daddy after school. No, this is fine, for the best, really, a jolly good opportunity.
Allyson almost had herself convinced of all this and more when the creature gazed at her once again with its bloodied grin. And like that, the spell was broken. She screamed, as loud and as hard as any normal child would, with no idea that it would be the last bit of normalcy she would ever experience.
The creature crawled back to the hole from whence it came. The flooring closed up as if nothing ever happened, leaving only a few tiny holes from her acidic tears to remind her.
***
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Let’s be real with each other. How many of us have screamed at the homeless? “Get a job!” “Get off my property!” “I’m calling the police!” I’d say there’s probably a good chunk of us who have. To an extent, it’s your right to. It’s your right to protect what is yours, and if someone pushes, no one would blame you for pushing back. How many of us have ignored the homeless? They sit out there day after day with their signs and you just look right through them. There’s most likely an even bigger chunk of us in that category. I’m part of the latter, myself. It’s easy for me to look through people in general. I’m intimidated by almost every person I meet, so that’s a normal occurrence for me. I won’t use that as an excuse, though. I won’t lie and say that the emotions that go through me when I walk by a nicely dressed stranger are the same as when I walk past someone begging for money. The homeless seem more threatening to me. Their willingness to ask for assistance strikes me as odd, outside the normal realm of human interaction. They will talk to anyone with little regard for how that person will react or what they will think of them.
And, honestly, I think that says more about me as a person than about them. I think it says more about all of us.
Does society shun the homeless because they are an eyesore to the better off? Or do they shun them because they are living better off than the rest of us?
Hear me out.
There’s a freedom associated with living on the streets. Who here hasn’t thought a time or two about running away from our job or family or responsibilities to just go do what we want when we want? You tell me no, and I’ll call you a liar. Think about it for a minute. True honest to god freedom. What does that look like for you? For me, it would be a lot of traveling to places I’ve never been, reading anything and everything I could get my hands on, and writing, simply for the joy of writing. It sounds appealing, and it’d be so simple to do. Just drive.
Just gimme something to read and some food and I’ll be golden
So then, if it’s all good and well, what stops us from taking the leap?
I think the things that stop me are the same things that stop a lot of us. I hate having a mortgage, but I love having a roof over my head with heating and air available to me whenever I want it (in exchange for a higher electric bill, naturally). I hate having a 9-5, but I love the steady income every two weeks. Knowing when my next meal will be and having the luxury to be picky is something I can’t imagine life without. I have dogs that need spoiled, a wedding to plan, and, while I normally don’t think of myself as high maintenance or materialistic, there are things out there that I look forward to buying or viewing or consuming.
Letting go of responsibility and throwing caution to the wind sounds lovely, but I’m just too damn comfortable.
I never really thought about homelessness and what all is involved with it until I read the book Those Who Wander: America’s Lost Street Kids by Vivian Ho. In it, Ho takes a critical look at the homeless, street kids in particular, and seeks to offer insight as to why some choose to live on the streets, and why others can’t get off them no matter how hard they try. She interviews street kids of all ages and creeds and walks of life, from the wanted to the unwanted, the sane to the mentally ill, the criminals, the innocents, and everyone in between. Ho takes her work to the next level by interacting with them in their own environment, whether it be taking a walk with one street kid in the park, or attending a convention of sorts with dozens upon dozens of homeless people on the beaches of California. The one thing they all have in common is a sense of community. Street kids, for the most part, look out for their own. It is truly a fascinating read that I would recommend to anyone interested in sociology or curious about the people who hold up signs.
I’m honestly not doing this book justice. I think the biggest takeaway from Those Who Wander is this: Don’t be so quick to judge. You never know the other person’s story.
That, and, maybe be a little nicer to your fellow man. It costs absolutely nothing to be kind.
If I had to rate this, I’d give it a 10/10. Vivian Ho writes in such a way that gives an unbiased look at the homeless youth’s way of life, and I am here for it. After reading every chapter, I’d put the book down for a moment to absorb what I just read. She tells their stories so carefully, no details spared, and she includes her own previous biases and how the people she met morphed her to understand where they were coming from. This book is absolutely incredible.
Alright, void I scream into, you know the drill. Your turn. Tell me about a time you helped someone less fortunate than yourself. Gimme some feel-goods.
So, as you all probably know, I got engaged to my guy of eleven years over the holidays. And, if you know me personally, you know that I’ve been waiting for that moment for the past seven of those eleven. I’ve had a lot of time to plan things out, and now that it’s happened, I couldn’t be more unprepared. You see, the thing is, when you spend a good chunk of your life planning, you get too many ideas, then you end up in my situation. Absolutely no idea where to go from here.
I did know one thing I wanted to do for sure right from the beginning, though. Two words: Bridesmaid Proposal. When I first found the idea on Pinterest, I thought it was just about the cutest thing, and knew right away it was something I wanted to do. Small problem with that, though. Everything I found was super cutesy and nice for normal bride-to-be’s to give to their buddies.
I don’t know if you’ve caught on by now on this, and I don’t want to alarm you, but I’m not exactly what you would call normal.
So, the challenge: find a way to ask a small handful of girls to help a sister out when the sister is dark and a touch eccentric?
I started my journey in Hobby Lobby: a store not necessarily up to the task of fulfilling my gothic needs. I had my sister join me in this adventure, a woman whom I love dearly even though she thinks I’m a little weird. We wandered around for the extent of her lunch hour while trying to figure out just how we’re going to do this. We picked up a lot of things, and ended up putting everything back. Reason: I’m bad at coming up with ideas under pressure. Who was putting me under pressure? Myself. Naturally. I’m an anxious mess 99% of the time.
I spent the next several weeks browsing Amazon and Pinterest trying to figure out my life. I’d take screenshots and send them to my sister, anything from box setup to creepy little ditties, and she would likewise tell me it was cute or reject my brilliant ideas in the most brutal way possible. I always take her advice with a grain of salt, though, because she’s normal and I’m my own person. Grown independent woman don’t need no normie.
Ultimately, I did what I wanted anyway. I work like that. I have to face rejection to really know what it is I want. Otherwise I do what other people want just to make the process easier. Eh, not one of my best traits. Follower and all that nonsense.
Anyway, that’s not the point. You didn’t come here to hear about my shitty decision making skills. You came here to see my sick ass bridesmaid proposal boxes!
First thing I did was decide on a theme. I am having my wedding in the fall, and I want it to be dark but not cheesy. Gothic romance. Think Phantom of the Opera. The Andrew Lloyd Webber one. Classy shit (said in the most unclassy way possible). I want Halloween, but not Halloween. Light Halloween.
I settled on buying little stress dolls on Amazon that look like voodoo dolls. They are absolutely adorable and I would recommend them to anyone who wants a cute, inexpensive gift. Plus, they smell like cookies. They feel nice in your hand. They are just all-around a great little gift. Just a little touch of fun for an otherwise super serious proposal. Or something like that. 😉
So. Damn. Cute.
Nextly, I knew I wanted to add something in there a little bit more…I don’t know…nice? I wanted to give my girls something they could keep that wasn’t just a cheap novelty item. Here, Hobby Lobby was exactly what I needed. I took a stroll through there, intending on just getting a box and some filler, and lo and behold, they had some of their fall decor out.
Sick ass pumpkins!
And my ring…is a hat!
I found some baby ones that were a hollow scrolly fancy type, and called it a win. Then I snagged a few fold up boxes and shredded filler paper (the stuff my sister picked out, no less), and some scrapbooking paper and got the hell out of there. I never much cared for shopping before, but I care for it even less now that the rona has taken over. Pandemics suck.
I knew I wanted to ask them in a unique way, and nothing on Pinterest or elsewhere on the wide wide world of the interwebs satisfied me. I had to turn to the one thing that never let me down. My one ace. Alright, I’ll cut the bullshit; I had to figure it out on my own. I ended up taking inspiration from Phantom of the Opera and my own mother who used to take existing songs and write alternative lyrics for them for plays. I spun Notes into a proposal. Why Notes? Because I have a thing with my best friend and the word ‘publicity.’ I couldn’t miss out on an opportunity for the inside joke. Originally, I was going to use it just for hers, but the thing as a whole really came out nicely, inside joke aside, so I used it for the other two as well.
Look at all that cool stuff!!
I added a card for them to take a selfie with for their answer, an information card for what little parts I do know such as the date and the overall theme I’m shooting for, and a couple quotes from Stephen King that I really like. Threw it all together, and off in the mail they went!
Off they go!
By now, they all have received their respective boxes. I’ve gotten one answer back with the selfie, one just a text (poor sport, what can I say?), and one I’m still waiting on a definite answer. All of them seemed to really like the contents inside at very least. I sent pictures of them all to my mom and my sister, and they both said the same thing: It’s cute, and it’s very you. I take that as a compliment, and therefore, a win.
So, that’s it. That’s as far in the wedding thing as I’ve gotten so far, and there’s a lot of time to figure it out, but just because it’s not for a couple years doesn’t mean that I can slack off. There’s a lot left to do. So. Much. Planning.
Hey, void. You look cute today. Also, did you ever do a bridesmaid proposal? Or, if you haven’t gotten married, what do you think of them? Obviously, I think they are adorable. My sister thought they were a little out of the ordinary. What say you?
Fiction, I feel, is a lifesaver in this day and age. So many crazy and horrible things are happening out there that it’s nice to get away into something that may very well be equally crazy and horrible, but it’s fake, so no one is getting hurt.
Normally, horror is my go-to. The profane soothes my soul. This time, I opted for something a little bit different.
Elevation, by Stephen King, is a baby novel that is just about as feel-good and bittersweet as you can get. It’s about a man, Scott Carey, who is losing weight at a rapid pace for no definable reason. He doesn’t look like he’s losing weight. He looks the same as he always has. But if he steps on the scale, he weighs 180. If he steps on the scale naked, he weighs 180. If he steps on the scale with fifty pound weights, you guessed it, a whopping 180. It doesn’t matter how much or how little he has on him, he always weighs the same. And the weight is only climbing down.
Along the way, he confides in his old family doctor the phenomena, moreso to have someone to confide in than to get answers as to why. Truth is, he doesn’t want to know why, and he knows if word gets out, he’ll just be another marvel of medical science that will guarantee his last moments will be spent hooked up to wires inside some facility and studied like a lab rat.
He also slowly builds a relationship with his neighbors, Deidre and Missy, the only married lesbian couple in town. Basically, Castle Rock is super conservative (something I know and have experienced all too well), and the rest of the town looks down on them. They don’t trust his intentions at first after he brings pictures of their dogs shitting in his yard to their doorstep, but eventually everyone comes around, if things are a little strained at the word go.
The more weight he loses, the less attached to gravity he becomes. In fact, he’s worried he’s about to lose touch altogether and just start floating.
Leaving gravity on read? Ghosting gravity? Ghosting gravity.
This book was a curious mix of Thinner, also by Stephen King, and Pop Art, written by his son, Joe Hill. I think it was good, but not his best work. I got more emotional over Pop Art, I think. I was more at the edge of my seat over Thinner (but I don’t think he was going for a thriller story, so I don’t judge too harsh on that). The only part that made me feel anything was when Scott had to give away his cat. Other than that, it was just a nice little story, and a nice little break from the real world terrors that are happening out there.
One part that got me that I still think about doesn’t even have to do much with the content of the book itself and more to do with someone else’s review on a Stephen King group on Facebook. They said essentially they didn’t like it because they thought it was too political. And I just don’t see that? There is a drop of Trump at the beginning to set the scene and the main character’s stance, and that’s it. Unless they meant Deidre and Missy being married? I hope that’s not what they meant, because I think that says more about them than about the book, but there’s that. I dunno, man. People be cray.
Rating wise? I’ll give it like a 5/10. It wasn’t terrible. But it wasn’t great, either. I feel like the shorter the story, the bigger the punch in the heart, and this one left me wanting.
And because I like to scream questions out to the void that often go unanswered: Do you like your stories longer or shorter? I think for me, it varies, but I’d rather read a good story that spans hundreds upon hundreds of pages. I like getting lost and staying lost, because goodbyes suck.
Something’s coming. Something that’s been in the works for several months. Oh, void, do I have something for you.
It’s a little love project called Itsy Bitsy. The idea was given to me one day from my dad while we were walking around the mall with my mom. All I did was fill in the empty spaces in between. It was meant to be a short story, but it turned out that the spider had a little bit more to say than a few thousand words, so the short story became a small novella.
This week, instead of a book review, I’m giving you a sneak peek not only of the first several pages, but of the cover. It would mean the world to me if you dropped a line to tell me what you thought. Full disclosure: I’m typing the draft up up on an iPad, and it likes to autocorrect my typos into words that are not even close to what I was going for. I think I got them all, but if I missed any, let me know!
The story is about a man who has a weird connection with a spider. It’s lighthearted in the most unsettling of ways, with ridiculous overreactions on the man’s part and a frigid demeanor on the spider’s part. I really hope you enjoy it.
So, without further word vomit, here is the beginning of Itsy Bitsy:::
There wasn’t a bump yet, but the area all around was warm to the touch. For a week he let his perfectly manicured fingernails grow out just long enough to graze the skin; it was easier to hide than when he snuck his fork under the table to dig into his arm. He wanted to believe it was an allergic reaction to laundry detergent or fabric softener, just a rash, but deep down he knew better. It was a bug bite. A bug bite, and it probably happened while he was asleep in the safety of his own bed. He used the term “probably” loosely; he knew it was from the middle of the night because it wasn’t there before he went to bed but it sure as hell was the next morning.
The idea of an insect in his bed, though… He shuddered at the very thought. Bugs were dirty, nasty little bastards, and he would just die before he admitted one had infiltrated his domain, despite all the safeguards in place. Bugs thrived in dirty, nasty places, like the garbage dumpsters in the alley or the slummy apartments on the north side of the city. They didn’t belong in nice, clean neighborhoods with nice, clean people.
But there wasn’t a bump yet, so he could keep telling himself it was a rash or the beginnings of some disease.
Frederick would rather believe it was cancer than a bug bite.
He tried everything he could to get his mind off it. If he stopped thinking about it, he would stop scratching it, and it would heal faster. So he kept to his routine, even though his forearm screamed in protest. He went to the gym and did two rounds on the machines, keeping his hoodie on over his Under Armor, even though he was smoldering underneath the heavy cotton, all to hide the scratch marks that were getting worse and worse every passing day. There wasn’t a bump yet on his skin, but the marks made him look unstable, uncontrolled. People would think he had a nervous tic. Or worse, he had crank bugs. He wasn’t sure on the specifics of that, but knowledge of such things was beneath him.
Frederick went to his white collar job where he sat happily in his cubicle and made phone call after phone call to maintain second place on the boards. He wouldn’t dream of taking the lead, and that wasn’t to say that he wasn’t capable. As a matter of fact, he considered himself to be the most capable out of anyone there. But, as it was, first place just so happened to belong to someone special. They hadn’t come out officially yet. But they had gotten coffee a couple of times in the past week, and the last office Christmas party found them both in the janitors closet for a thrill. He thought the chase would end there, that he’d get bored or she’d regret the drunken escapade, but a week later they exchanged numbers.
He wore a light colored polyester blend with buttons on the cuffs, even though the humidity alone had him swimming through the air. The material should have felt soft to the touch, but instead it was like sandpaper made with ground up razor blades against his skin. He was more than ready to peel the shirt away from his body and throw it in disgust to the floor after work in the safety of his own home. The patch that might be a raging disease (but was probably just a weird bug bite) was all his sin, and the cool, naked air was salvation.
When he stripped the fabric away, his quest to dig into his forearm took pause. He normally sported a nice, bronze tan; not too light to look pasty, and not too dark to cause those deep wrinkles he dreaded with every passing year. Now, his arm was a deep, dark reddish purple. Somewhere between burgundy and mauve, a color he recognized but couldn’t name off hand. Given time, he was sure he could come up with it.
It looked infected, but he ignored it. He wouldn’t go to the doctor because they would talk amongst their doctor friends and nurses and HIPPA or no, word would get around that Frederick’s arm was full of puss, and he would be a laughingstock around town. It itched, though, so he dug in, then pulled the offending hand back and moan, hushed behind his tight lips, and knelt to the nice, plush carpeting of his luxury apartment. It cushioned his knees, then cushioned his side when he toppled over. Like a blanket of cotton. Like a hug from a cloud.
Pain begged him to scream, but he clenched his teeth against it. What would the neighbors think if they heard him? What would they think if they came in to help and saw him doubled over on the floor?
Drugs. They’d tell their friends, and those friends would tell their friends, et cetra et cetra, until the whole neighborhood knew, the whole city, the whole state.
He’d rather die from pain than live with the shame of a blatant lie.
“Oh, but you’re being ridiculous, don’t you think?”
No, he didn’t think that at all. The world got by on slander. Anything to get ahead. One negative opinion could wreck his entire life, drive him to the ground.
“Dramatic. I knew you would be dramatic the first time I laid eyes on you.”
Frederick opened his eyes without realizing they were closed or remembering when exactly he closed them. He lived alone in his apartment, and yet he could have sworn he heard a voice.
The pain in his arm lessened and lessened to a mere whisper of what it once was. He took a breath, held it in, and released, again and again, until he found the willpower to stand. He tiptoed through the apartment, inspecting the off-white carpet and deep blue walls, searching for signs of life or a break-in. Living room. Kitchen. Bedroom. Bathroom. Balcony. Honestly it took almost no time at all, seeing as the only door between him and an intruder in the studio was the one to the bathroom, but he checked it all out anyway. But nothing. No one there sharing his space with him. No sign of anyone but himself.
Still, he could not shake the feeling of being watched.
As the night wore on, the nervousness wore off, and the pain in his arm turned up. He wasn’t about to scratch it again. He learned his lesson well enough. Instead, when the pain created a fine bead of sweat on his skin, he got up from his place on the crème colored suede couch and went straight to the kitchen, to the fridge, to the top door that was the freezer, and pulled out a small handful of ice. It clattered on the marble countertop, and he picked a piece back up. Using the corner of the ice block, he tested it against his arm, then pulled away faster than the rash had a chance to register. In less than a second, he felt the repercussions, and was glad he didn’t wait for his nerves to catch up. While his arm throbbed, he grabbed a dish towel and piled the ice in the center before wrapping it up and placing the makeshift pack on his arm, shielding himself from direct touch. It still hurt, but not nearly as bad, and it was better than the burning sensation he felt otherwise.
He held it tight in that same spot, staring blankly into the kitchen sink. It was clean; free of hard water stains or rust or lime that plagued other’s sinks. It didn’t emit any odd smells that were off putting. If anything, it smelled like freshly squeezed lemons. Delicious.
He stayed there for a while. He wouldn’t say that he blacked out per say, but he definitely wasn’t aware. When he came to, his knees were buckled and he held onto the countertop with his elbows to keep him upright. He bent his legs and the numb feeling became prickly all at once. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to flex his toes until the blood worked its way through again.
The towel was wet and warm, and the ice was nonexistent. The ache in his arm was both sharp and muted, like a mother disciplining her child while she took an important phone call. He just needed some rest, he was sure of it. Exhaustion got the better of him; that was all. Come morning, his tired nerves would realize the pain he thought he felt wasn’t all bad, and in fact, it was getting better. Come morning, the heated bruising would have yellowed and the pain would have died off almost completely. Not all the way, because he needed a reminder it happened. If it was completely gone, he’d be crazy for sure. Never mind all that, though. He could go back to his everyday life like nothing happened at all.
“Keep telling yourself that, pal.”
Frederick ignored the voice and went straight to his bedroom, side stepping the privacy divider directly in front of his king sized bed. As much as he loved his studio apartment, he liked having the illusion of separate rooms.
Sleep came and went, and come morning, he felt groggy. His sheets felt wet. For a brief moment, his heart dropped. Not to his stomach, for he was still lying down, but dropped directly on top of his spine. He felt heavy, ashamed even, for that brief moment, he truly believed that he, Frederick Messerschmidt, wet the bed. People could say all the wanted about the matter, everyone could claim that everyone does it every once in a while, that they’ll have a dream that they are awake and they are in the bathroom, but their body doesn’t know the difference, and then it happens. People could say that, but it didn’t make it correct. It didn’t happen to people like himself. That was simply unacceptable.
A quick feel around revealed that it was not pee, but sweat that coated his body and sheets. Just as vile, but not as bad. He must have had a fever from that weird rash, but now he sweat the sickness out and it was all up from here.
“Me, me, me. That’s all I’m hearing right now.”
Or perhaps he was still sick after all. He should call in to work and get the day off. As much as he didn’t want it, a doctor’s visit was probably necessary. He supposed he would rather them talk about his arm than be toted away to the loony bin for schizophrenia.
“Sick. Yeah, you’re sick, alright. Just not how you think.”
That feeling of being watched again…
“Hoo-boy. Look down, buddy.”
Frederick’s head sung to the side, staring at the floor. He crawled on his elbows to the edge, peeking little by little, not sure of what he would find but definitely sure he wasn’t going to like it.
“Hey. Hey! Did I say look at the floor? Behind you.”
Goose flesh raised on the back of his neck. Who was in bed with him? Why hadn’t he noticed them before? He turned, his insides feeling like pudding sloshing from one side to the other with a gelatinous thud. He turned, expecting some undead thing to stare back at him. Not a real undead thing, of course, but someone in a mask, intent on scaring him. Or maybe someone wearing a different sort of mask intent on robbing him. He prided himself on being realistic in all situations. They couldn’t rob him of that!
Frederick turned and saw nothing there, nothing at all. Nothing but a black mark on the other pillow. His eyes scanned back and forth, looking at the bed, the wall, the window, and nothing was there. He needed to get to the doctor, and soon. Auditory hallucinations were no laughing matter, and damn if other people knew about it.
His eyes fell on the black mark. Every time he started to look away, they would stray right back, as if his pupils were being pulled by magnets. It seemed to be moving, but he could be imagining it, he supposed. He was hearing voices, so why not see things move? Again and again it shook, first on one side, and then again on the other, almost as if it were waving at him. Waving one spindly leg after another after another.
Wait.
No.
Frederick opened his mouth to scream, but his voice was lost in a wave of panic. He jumped out of the bed, moving to grab the poison from under the kitchen sink. He’d be damned if he was going to squish it. He heard once that other ones could smell if their brother or sister was squished, and would come to its aid. There was no way in hell he was going to chance it just being an old wives tale.
Just as soon as he made it past his divider, however, the pain in his arm came back to life tenfold, a hundredfold, more, until he was writhing on the floor in complete and utter agony.
“Don’t be rash, buddy. We wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt, would we?”
The stinging sensation eased, but Frederick stayed still on the carpet all the same. That hug from a cloud felt a little bit much right now. Suffocating, even. He needed air.
“Relax. It’s a lot to take in, I know. Get yourself a drink, friend. Have a seat on the couch. Relax. Gather yourself.”
Hallucination or not—
“And stop calling me a hallucination. It’s insulting to both of us at this point. Do it again and I’ll make sure you don’t make it to the kitchen. Now. Get up. Before I have to do it for you.”
Frederick rolled to his side and up to his knees, crawling to the kitchen tile, finding relief in the cool way it shocked his skin. He didn’t notice how thirsty he was before, but touching the tile really drove it home. His tongue was dry. He was half tempted to press it against the floor to ease the hurt, but he still had his dignity.
Little by little, he got up to his knees, then in slow, exaggerated movements, he put one foot under him, then the other, slowly rising to his full height. He grabbed a glass from the cabinet and filled it to the brim with tap water. His throat moved in the same slow motion to swallow the tepid drink until it was gone, then went back for more. When he was done, he felt sick from all the water in his belly.
Now, to deal with the thing in the bedroom.
Frederick didn’t so much walk as creep from the kitchen to the bed, straining his neck, willing it to elongate as if he weren’t a human at all, but a turtle. He knew deep down he wasn’t dreaming or hallucination or crazy, and that made the entire situation worse if anything. Either this was the most elaborate prank ever pulled off, and any minute now a full crew of cameramen and directors would materialize from the walls to congratulate him on being a good sport; or this was real.
“Hey, buddy. Feeling better?”
Frederick nodded at the spot on the pillow, mouth gaping dumbly. This couldn’t be real, and yet, it was. As much as he hated to admit it, he was listening and responding to a spider the size of a pea.
“Glad to hear it. Really, I am.”
He nodded again, not knowing what else to do or say.
“Why don’t you have a seat, friend.”
It didn’t sound like a request at all.
“Let’s have ourselves a little interview, eh? Some Q and A. Get to know each other before getting down to business.”
Frederick nodded again and hesitated, closing and opening his mouth a couple times before making slow and deliberate movements toward the bed. He sat at the far corner of it, as far away as possible from the arachnid.
“Before we start, how about you close that goddamn mouth before I send a couple of my buddies to crawl around in it.”
Obediently, he clenched his jaw and pursed his lips tight.
“Listen, I get it. The situation is a little, well, it’s weird, right? You’re not supposed to be able to hear me speak. You’re supposed to be so caught up in that mammoth of a head of yours with empty thoughts and all that nonsense. That’s what you’re thinking, right?”
He nodded again, eyes wide, not daring to blink.
“And that’s how things usually work with you people. So caught up with yourselves that it’s impossible for the rest of the world to get through to you.”
At this point, Frederick felt like a bobble head.
“Okay, so what happened is, well, you see…”
The spider trailed off, and Frederick watched with revulsion while it waved its legs in the air, as if it could grasp what it was trying to say.
“Huh. How do I put this? Let me first off say that your home is immaculate. It’s clean and cozy and warm. Everything a guy like me wants and needs in a permanent residence. So I’ve been living here with you for a little while, and when I say a little while, I mean a few months, right? And while I’m living here, I notice some things about my roommate. Some things about you, pal.”
Frederick swallowed the saliva bubbling in his mouth, trying his hardest not to vomit the water he just drank. A few months? Months?!
“First off, you live alone. I like that. You don’t bring other people over, you don’t have pets, nothing to disturb my beauty sleep. Next off, you’re a bit of what my friends like to call a clean freak. Yeah, sure, less hiding places, but also virtually no competition. I’m the king of this mountain, ya see? That, and this whole minimalistic hippie lifestyle you got going on makes it great for me, because I can see where you are no matter where I am.”
Hippie?! Frederick was refined. His decor practically oozed class. He had dinnerware that was worth more than the cost of the apartment. If there was one thing he wasn’t, it was a dirty hippie.
“And hell, you’re a working man. I can respect that. Long days at the office means more time to myself to run my own little business without having to worry about your sorry ass coming to fuck up my day. All good things! It’s all gold, buddy!”
Despite everything, Frederick’s lips trembled to a smile, keeping his mouth closed tight all the while.
“All good. Almost. Because I gotta say, I watch you a lot. I mean, a lot. And there’s a few things I see, and I says to myself, I says ‘Ooo, buddy, that’s not so good.’ Because, you see, for every point that I like, there’s about ten more that I don’t like. And that’s what brings us here.”
Frederick kept his nervous smile, widened it even. It felt fake and plastic but it hurt his cheeks so it felt real. His mind was whirling enough as it was.
“I bit you, and that comes with some pros for me and some cons for you, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. It took a minute for it to set in but I think we can both agree that the test was a success.”
Did he mean the sudden bout of pain earlier?
“You know it. So we have a situation. Nothing we can’t work out as long as we at real civil-like. The ways I sees it, this can go one of two ways. On one hand,” he held out one spindly leg to his side,” we can help each other out a little bit. Have ourselves a little business partnership. And on the other hand, well,” another leg spread out, noticeably shorter than the other seven, “we can sever our ties for good. You’ll never see me again, or speak of me for that matter. You’ll never see or speak of anyone else, either, because you, my metrosexual friend, will be food for the worms. So to speak.”
Just like that, his plastic smile fell, his jaw went slack, and his lips parted for a split second before he realized his mouth was susceptible to infiltration.
“It’s a simple choice, really. You wanna live or you wanna die? I can go either way, really. I barely know you yet. Not too attached. If not you, then there’s always someone else. Everyone’s replaceable in the end.”
Frederick couldn’t remember how to speak. He couldn’t remember how to do anything but twitch and gesture wildly with his hands in pure bewilderment, and the latter didn’t seem like the best idea at the moment.
“Come on, pal. I ain’t got all day. You got me in a good mood, but my patience is runnin’ a little bit thin. This here is an exclusive offer. I don’t give anyone the option of their fate on a normal basis. I usually decide these here things myself.”
The spider tapped its legs like one would drum their finger on a table. One little tick after another they went in succession, an air of annoyance mixed with the self satisfaction that only comes with showing off.
“Tick tock, my friend.”
“I, I-I-I want to, to, uh, to live,” Frederick stuttered. He’d never stumbled over his words in his life, but given the circumstances, he wasn’t too hard on himself. “I would choose life. Please. Mister, um, m-m-mister..?” Had the spider told him a name? He couldn’t remember, but he didn’t want to admit to it either way, lest he make the creature angry enough to call his friends and do lord knows what to him before ultimately making him bite the big one.
The silence between them was thick with humidity and ill-intent, too thick to cut with the proverbial knife. Frederick tried to swallow, but his throat kept locking up halfway through and he silently choked on his own saliva.
A voice, booming from all directions, a deep bass sound that reverberated against his internal organs, surrounding him. Laughter, deep and menacing, filled the room. He didn’t realize where it originated from until he spotted the spider wiping at its many eyes. The tone didn’t match the easy going, yet vaguely threatening, Jersey accent he had used before, but sure enough, the sound came from the many-legged fiend.
“Hooboy, buddy,” he sighed, slapping a leg or two against the bedding below him. “You are a treat. Keep that up, and we will get along fine. You can call me Jethro, by the way.”
“Jethro?”
It sounded so normal, so human.
“D-di-did I s-s-st-stutter?” The spider looked up at him for what seemed like an eternity before rolling on his back and howling with that same eerie laughter. “I’m just playin’ with you. Oh, man. You are just too much fun.” It took several moments for him to regain control of himself to speak once more. “Alright, so you choose to live. I was hoping you would. Not that I couldn’t get another one just like you, but, ya know, the whole thing would be a bit of an inconvenience for me. If I killed you, I’d have to find myself a new place to call home, and I just finished unpacking as is. If you play nice by the rules, this operation could be permanent. That wouldn’t just help me, either. It’d help you, too. Help you to keep on living like nothing ever happened. I mean, for the most part.
Frederick nodded vigorously in response.
“Good boy. Now, listen close, because these are the important things. The rules. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not a stiff. I hate rules as much as the next guy, but at the end of the day, if there were no rules, there’d be nothing to break. What’s the fun in that?”
There was a beat of silence, and for a panicked moment, Frederick thought he was meant to answer what he assumed was rhetorical. Before he could make a noise, however, the spider continued.
“So, these rules act as a guide to, hmm, let’s call it friendly cohabitation. Here’s how this works. We keep dong like we’ve been doing. You’ll still go to work and the grocery store and wherever else you go on a normal day, and I’ll keep post here. Make sure nothing funny comes along. You follow so far?”
Frederick swallowed the frothy saliva gathering in his mouth and nodded.
“Good. Now, this should be obvious, but if you try to pull a fast one on me, I’ll make sure you regret it. No poison. No shoe. No ass wipe over your nasty meaty hand. You’ll get rid of the poison under your sink. You’ll get rid of it by the end of the day. And if you try to use it between now and then, I’ll pump so much pain into you you’ll be begging to die. Besides, that stuff doesn’t work anyway. All that will happen is I’ll get pissed off. I think I’m being fair.
“Respect. Respect is a big thing. You show me the respect I deserve, I won’t make it painful for you. Any backtalk will lead to you getting on first name basis with the floor. Don’t rub me the wrong way, and we’ll get along fine.
“Now, on good days, nothing changes. On good days, we don’t even gotta see each other. That sounds nice, right?”
He nodded again. That did sound nice.
“Every once in a while, there’s gunna be bad days. I don’t want them. You definitely don’t want them. But it is what it is. On bad days, you’re gunna see me. And you’re gunna do me a favor.”
There was a silence that Frederick thought would drag out forever, and it begged to be filled.
“What’s the, uh, the favor?”
More silence followed, save for the potter patter of the little spider legs tapping on the sheets.
“Ya know, I don’t think I wanna spoil the surprise. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. How’s that sound, buddy?”
“Uh, yeah. Yeah, that sounds good.”
The spider, Jethro, considered him closely, and leaned his tiny body into the bedding. For one terrifying moment, Frederick thought he would spring on him, but he instead relaxed his legs flat, one spindly extension by one.
“Good boy. I thought you’d agree with me. Now, let’s say you get up and get yourself cleaned up. I know you don’t have work today, but I’m gunna have myself a little business meeting and would rather you get lost. How about you go out and get yourself something pretty.”
Frederick didn’t need to be told twice. The last thing he wanted was to stick around while nasty eight-legged things crawled around his belongings. He changed clothes, his hand still shaking, and pulled his hair, still greasy with sweat, into an elastic, not bothering to style the bangs that hung in his eyes. He was already out the door when he realized he forgot to brush his teeth or put on deodorant, but he wasn’t about to walk back the way he came. Right now he needed distance, and he knew the perfect place to do that.
And that’s it, void! I hope you enjoyed the story so far, and I would love if you gave the whole thing some love when it’s ready for the world. I’m planning on having it ready for Kindle by the end of the month, and am even going to look into a paperback version on Amazon.
I’ll leave you here to think about what you’ve done, and remember, feedback helps feed authors.
:::UPDATE::: Itsy Bitsy is now live! You can find it here. 🙂
Have you ever lived in a haunted house? Would you know if you did? Do you believe in ghosts? It doesn’t matter. They don’t really care.
This time around, it was a true story about a true haunting you’ve probably heard of even if you aren’t into the stuff. It happens to be the inspiration behind the A-lister horror movie, The Conjuring. That’s right. The clap-clap ghost.
At least that’s how I remember the movie.
Since then, it’s been the subject for paranormal investigators, including Ghost Adventures doing a special on the house and the haunting within its four walls. I’m talking about the book House of Darkness, House of Light, written through the eyes of Andrea Perron, one of the sisters who lived through the haunting and saw firsthand its effect on her friends and family members. It’s the first of three in the series, and if the other two are anything like the first, I’ll likely read them in the future.
So a quick little spoiler-free rundown of what to expect if you decide to take this on (which I hope you do): There is a family with so many girls that I honestly had trouble keeping track of which one was which (but names confuse me anyway and I have a hard time of keeping track of characters when there’s more than one or two so that’s my own shortcomings). They have some issues where they live, so they move, if a little bit unwillingly at first by all parties. A nice old man holds the house of their dreams for them, and things seem too good to be true.
And then, out of nowhere, flies. So. Many. Flies. Things move, sometimes when no one is there to witness, other times in front of an audience. Whispers in the room when the house is empty. Figures standing in the shadows. You know, your general haunted house rigmarole.
What sets this book apart from the rest is the way it’s written. I have a soft spot for prose written like poetry, and that’s what this is. There is so much description that it makes me feel like I’m there with the family experience every movement and every sound for better or worse. Also, I feel like personal experience hauntings are a dime a dozen, but there are a very small handful that have had such a huge impact on not only paranormal investigations, but on the entertainment industry of today. There’s ghost stories. And then there’s hauntings. You feel me?
Spooky scary spooky scary – Photo by Ryan Miguel Capili on Pexels.com
My only complaint about the book is there was no ghost clap-clap ghost, and my spooky little heart wants to believe that the clap-clap ghost exists and isn’t just a cheap (albeit good) scare for the silver screen. Granted, there’s more to the story that I haven’t touched yet. The clap-clap ghost could be real still. Or I could just be remembering the movie wrong. If I am, hey, Hollywood, wanna make a movie about spooky clapping? 😉
If I had to rate it, I’d give this baby a straight up 9/10. So much more good than bad in this one.
And now, I turn to you, void. This time, I have an unrelated question. Do you prefer these book reviews to be short and sweet like this one? Or would you rather me go more indepth like past reviews? I’m genuinely curious. I’ve been doing this for a year, and I still don’t really know what I’m doing. Thoughts? Questions? Complaints? Want me to shut up? Get in the comments below, or send me an email. Let’s be friends! Or enemies. Or frienemies!
Planning out a wedding is a lot to take on, yo. I used to be so sure of what I wanted. And then as soon as I got engaged, it’s like my mind was wiped clean and I don’t even remember how to do words good to talk about what want. What. Want. Who am I marrying? What day is it?? When am I??? Sheesh.
So then, here’s a roundabout update as to where I’m at on that.
I’m a planner-person. As in I like planners. A lot. Too much, one might say. It’s normal for me to have three separate ones for three separate things that could easily be combined into one but damnit, there are too many cute ones that come out every year and it’s so hard to choose.
But that’s not the point.
The point is I wanted a wedding planner. But the harsh reality is that I couldn’t find one that I liked. Every single one I picked up wasn’t me. They all had inspiration pages that would appeal to the average bride, I’m sure, but let’s face it: I’m not average. I am one of the ones who is kinda into the whole black dress thing. Those planners didn’t scream alternative. They screamed nice and expensive or cute and country and nothing at all inbetween.
No thanks.
So, void, I did what I do best. I gave up my search (even though I had it narrowed down to about three that I could try to make work) and decided that if you want it done right, you have to do it yourself.
It’s like pastel goth.
I started making my own planner in this cute notebook I got from Barnes and Noble a while back. Now, I haven’t gotten far in it due to moving and cleaning and getting caught back up with writing, but I have a general plan of how it’s going to play out. And that’s half the battle, I think. That and getting the lettering right… Seriously, how do people make interesting handwriting look so easy??
Fancyyyyy
Like this, for instance. Wanna know how I decided to do the little frilly lines? This book right here:
Hell to the yeah
Nothing like a good butchering to get your inspiration on.
I’ll check in every once in a while when something interesting pops up. Wish me luck.
Sleazy deals. Vicious murders. Sharp clothing. Crime bosses and the high life. Who doesn’t love a good mafia story?
Philip Carlo had the privilege of interviewing the notorious Richard Kuklinski—The Ice Man—before his death in early 2006. He compiled the man’s story into a book that has since been made into a movie by the name of The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer.
Richard goes into detail of not only the atrocious murders he committed both for the mafia and for his own kicks, but also delves deep into the life he led before he was a house name in the underground. The reader gets a good look at the man behind the killings and a glimpse into the disturbing way the mind of a sociopath works.
The book talks about his home life growing up and the hardships he faced between an almost absent mother and a mean drunk of a father, pointing out where in the mess of childhood trauma his life took a turn and led him down the path of cool hatred and hot tantrums. He recalls his first kill as a young boy and the satisfaction he received from getting away with it, and his fondness for bloodshed by any means necessary only grew.
Richard was enthralled with crime and indeed almost all the reading he willingly did was books and magazines about just that. He was interested in the different ways people committed heinous acts and what they did wrong that ultimately got them caught.
Does that sound familiar, void? 😉
That’s right, I see you, you serial-killer-in-the-making – Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com
As he grew older, he met his wife, Barbara, and started a family with her with the intention of turning his life around. But every time he tried, he’d get an itch that an honest day of work couldn’t scratch. He couldn’t keep up with bills and Barbara’s expensive tastes on his daytime salary, not to mention his excessive gambling tended to get him into trouble.
What better place to turn than to the people who pay you the big bucks to do what you love?
And, fuck, he was damn good at what he did. He experimented and perfected all sorts of different ways to kill people, whether the method be knives or guns, rats or his own fists. But poison, oh, poison was something on a whole other level. Chemicals were one of his favorite toys, and his love for them would eventually lead to his demise.
I’m not going to spoil it for you. There is a TON of information in these 400 pages to digest, and it’s worth every minute. Some chapters are rougher than others just for the sheer brutality, but it’s a fascinating read, and definitely something every true crime buff should pick up.
If I had to rate it, I’d give it a 9/10. The only reason for this is some points about Richard’s life they repeat over the course of several chapters. Certain ideas that the author wanted to really drive home, like the fact his family never had any idea about what he was doing, could have gotten away with being mentioned once or twice instead of repeating basically the same paragraph again and again and again. However, if I were just casually reading it here and there (you know, instead of shoving my face in it all at once), I would have appreciated the reminders, so I don’t judge it too harshly on that point. All in all, it was a damn good read and if the mafia piques your interest like it does mine, you’re going to love it.
Alright, void I scream endlessly into: Who is your favorite true crime villain? I gotta say, before all this it was John Wayne Gacy. But after reading this book, I don’t know. I think Richard Kuklinski is a close second. His mind is horrifying and I am here for it.
Welp, the boxes are unpacked (mostly) and the house is clean (kind of). I’m sitting in an office that is workable. For years I’ve wanted an office with a door—a dream that seemed unachievable in the apartment dining-area-turned-office corner I spent five years. Now, friends, my lovely void, I have TWO. Two doors. One leads to the living room where living and naps (mostly naps) happen. The other leads to the kitchen for sneaky snacking. For all this house’s quirks and horrendous disasters that we are discovering almost daily, it’s worth it. It’s worth it for these two doors. Fight me.
Seriously, we don’t – Photo by Markus Spiske on Pexels.com
Just kidding.
But seriously. Life has been busy and it isn’t slowing down any time soon. But as things are ever evolving as we get used to this new normal, I’m finding time to make time for what really makes me happy: this. Well, not so much this as in blogging, but writing. And by new normal, I don’t just mean being a new home owner. This corona biz has everything a little bit crazy. My job is listed as “essential,” which is both a blessing and a curse. On the bright side, I still have a job. In case you didn’t know what my daytime looks like, it’s usually a lot of Walmart eyeballs and phone calls. But that one is only open for four short hours every day, so that means that I get shoved out into the store I thought I had escaped from five years ago and help out where they need me. Another bright side: overtime. Overtime is a cursed word in the corporate world, but when so many people don’t come in because they are sick or they are afraid of getting sick, well, maybe it just isn’t so bad after all.
But Manda, the collective void asks, why is it a curse? Well, friends, I work in the Midwest, where the gun-toting Bud-chugging meth-using populace watches tornados from their front porch and get fucked up on Saturday to repent on Sunday and judge anyone who doesn’t conform to their lifestyle when they show up to work on Monday. It’s not really that bad. But it feels like it during a pandemic.
Is this the new Not Today Satan because I’m here for it – Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com
“Fuck six feet apart, fuck face masks, and fuck the democrats!”
If these people were the picketing type, that would be their chant. Unoriginal and asinine. Perfect combination for the majority of the Midwestern type in which I reside amongst.
Sometimes I think that I don’t fit in. 😉
Rant aside, the whole essential employee whatnots is bad because by the end of my shifts I’m exhausted and the mere thought of doing anything but watch mindless television is panic-inducing.
But, my dear void, that was BEFORE I got the office up and running and in working order. It’s my happy place. In this chair, at this desk, is where I thrive, and I’m so ready for it. Not only for the story writing and blogging and whatnot, but for writing quick little articles on Textbroker for some extra spending cash. Lord knows I need it now more than ever. So there’s that.
And now, a little update, because if I tell you, I’m more likely to follow through with it. I want to work on a few things on this page. You know, the layout, the theme, organizing, linking the things that help me sell stories better, all that shit. I still want to do book reviews, but I might do them on a once a month basis instead of biweekly. For the other post, I think I want to show off things I’m working on, whether it be story-wise or house-wise or wedding-wise or fuck, just life-wise. That way, you get my awesome shitty opinions on books AND get to see the person BEHIND that shitty opinion. All the fun shit. J
That’s enough from me for now. How about you? What have you been doing lately? Pick up any new hobbies? Or are you “essential” like yours truly?
Hey all! Just wanted to pop in and let you all know that I am up to my eyeballs in moving. So until life calms down and the boxes are unpacked, I’m going on a mini hiatus likely until the middle of April.
Stay tuned! I have some more books to review, experiences to relive with you, and stories to tell. I’ll be back before you know it.
Manda Kay Writes 