Tag: publish

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. 🙂