59yo woman from a little town in New Jersey. Medical editor by day. Love animals and all things creepy. Inside my brain you’ll find dinosaurs, haunted houses, spaceships, dancing skeletons, and fudge sundaes. She/her.
59yo woman from a little town in New Jersey. Medical editor by day. Love animals and all things creepy. Inside my brain you’ll find dinosaurs, haunted houses, spaceships, dancing skeletons, and fudge sundaes. She/her.
I don’t understand what people see in her.
She’s not pretty, like me. With my long blonde hair that I twist into coquettish braids. My deep blue eyes. Fabulous curves that I show off in beautiful dresses.
My sister, Hildegard. She is ugly. A wart on her chin with little hairs that grow out of it. An eye missing from when the raiders invaded the village when we were toddlers. They almost killed her but got distracted by my cries. If the Dark Lady hadn’t intervened … but that’s another story.
Hildegard loves everyone. As we’ve rebuilt the village over the years, she has given all of her inheritance to these little people. She lives on acorns and water. She only uses her magic for healing.
And she attracts all good things to her…including Roberto. She thinks he is a dear friend but he loves her. Not me. I am the one he should be in love with. It’s all so wrong.
I inherited a little magic, too. The Dark Lady says she can help me grow it into a powerful force of nature. Of course I’d only use it for good…most of the time. I’m going to see the Dark Lady today and start fixing all that’s wrong.
Always the same master, but different faces, different ways that they talk.
It can make a robot dog crazy if he thinks too hard about it.
Time is relative, I was told, and I’m a good dog so I don’t complain.
I do not know who I miss the most. The scarf man, for sure. Always praising me. Had room in his pockets for jelly babies and my biscuits.
One after the other. The celery on jacket. The silly clothed one after that. For a long time I was kept in a corner of the Tardis while no one used me. That was a sad time.
I miss the human the most. Sarah Jane. I would do anything for her. She did not regenerate like the Doctor does. She just went away and hasn’t come back.
I would have followed that dame to the end of the world if it meant I could save her.
In the end I wished I’d never met her.
Just a down on my luck private eye, taking any job that would pay enough for a bottle of scotch and a night’s rent.
Then Sheila came into my office and gave me an assignment that would lead me across the world. Find this Golden Cup, she said, and showed me a snapshot. Find the cup and bring it back to me. She said with the commission I’d never have to work again.
After a year of false leads, injuries, double-crosses, I had the golden cup. I was on the way back to New York on an ocean liner, when the ship was wrecked. I washed up on the beach with the cup secured inside my coat.
I ran up the stairs of her mansion, a dirty, muddy, sea-salted old man now, and crashed my way in.
Sheila looked so pretty in her dress and heels and perfect makeup, sitting quietly by the fire.
She smiled at me. “Mike! You’ve come back.”
“I have the cup,” I gasped.
“A little worse for wear,” she said. “But I no longer need you, or the cup. My interests have moved elsewhere.”
She paid me, though. Enough to pay off my debts and start over. I sold the cup for a pretty penny, too.
Sometimes things just work themselves out even if they don’t make sense.
I just cannot get myself to feel creative these past few days. People say to me “stop obsessing over news” but I’m honestly not obsessing. What many Americans fail to understand is that our democracy is sliding into authoritarianism; if the Constitution is not followed then we are all in danger.
I am seeing some positives and I appreciate the work that the Democrats are doing. But I’m afraid it won’t be enough. Do I give in to despair? No, never. Am I feeling sad that I have to live through a time like this? Yes.
Hooman is bad. Dis is how I knows. Today I gets no fud. Cat gets fud but not me. Took drinky bowl away. Den I gets car ride which I likes but we stop at the bad place where I gets ouchies. The nice hooman ladiez smile n give me pets but I knows better. Then I gets poked and prodded by hooman they call doctrr something. Sticky poke in my leg. Another sticky poke. More hed pets then back into car. Might be hooman doing other bad who knows.
But we gets home & hooman gives me fud & treetz n loves and I curl up in my bed & hooman sez I love you Boo. Don’t know what dat meenz but I am thinking maybe hooman not so bad after all. Cat though, I think he still pretty evil.
January is frikkin cold Wawa coffee keeps me bold.
February, the month of love, yo Still gonna be some snow.
March, wet and windy, but snow Sometimes gives a low blow.
April showers drop the wooder On them flowers so pretty like sugar.
In May the sun will shine Soon the Jersey shore will be divine.
In June the Phillies will run the bases As we watch from the stands, the sun in our faces.
July brings the heat But walking down a Shore can’t be beat.
August the sun is still bright But Back to school sales are in sight!
September the pumpkins appear And there’s a cool breeze coming near
October, the best month with spooky lore My birthday, and witches and ghosts at the door!
November can be cold, gray and dull But at the Thanksgiving table our hearts are quite full!
December, a month of gifts and good food Will end the year in a festive mood.
It’s so great being rich enough to survive the apocalypse.
I knew it was coming so I had the top engineers build me a bubble.
Nothing must get in or out, I told them. Just oxygen. Sunlight. That sort of thing.
But I forgot one thing.
When they sealed me in there was no way to open it.
The apocalypse never came so here I am. Stuck in this bubble til I die.
It can get tiring being a bouncer here at the Spaceport Lounge but the hours weren’t bad. Just the mornings. Every customer is in on a different sleep schedule so you could have drunks and druggies fighting at the bar any time of day or night, or whatever you called it a hundred light-years from Earth.
Slade stepped over the knocked-out bodies of the miners and headed back to his pad to sleep until the next shift.
“Oh no,” he said, seeing the stocky form of his boss standing at his door.
“I got a better job for ya,” the old man said.
“I need my sleep,” I grouched.
“It’s good money, big guy,” he said.
“I’m listening.”
The gang was all there: Stewart, Falecia, Pete, Brianna. Wearing swimsuits, flip flops, sunglasses.
Didn’t give a damn about the monsters of the deep.
It was advertised as “performance art.” A gaggle of 20-year-old rich kids flouting the rules and having a beach party, like folks used to do a hundred years ago.
They would die, of course. It would be a one-time-only performance.
Crowds formed behind the fences as the troupe marched in. The performers had all taken meds for any anxiety so they were ready for some free-wheeling fun.
This was what the world looked like at one time, they knew. And what the world had lost, by nuking the planet and turning ocean creatures into the monstrous life forms they had become.
The young dazed actors cavorted on the sand, playing volleyball, eating ham sandwiches, splashing in the surf, until the monsters got them all one by one.
Soon the sounds of partying were silenced and a few flip flops and swim trunks floated out to sea in the soft waves.
The onlookers turned away from the fence and made their way home.
