Fables

Goat v Lamb Civil Poem War Day Five: A Special Episode

Hello Readers.

This week we have explored the poetic elements of the Goat v. Lamb Civil War of Saragun Springs. For four days both sides have tossed poetic crapbombs at each other. It has reached the point that I have decided to jump in with a possible solution. Call it a Feckless Fable and perhaps the key to World Peace. Or you can just call it Friday and head to the bar when the whistle blows.

(The fifth and final round of G v L will appear tomorrow)

Yours,

Leila

The Goat and Lamb of Paradise: A Feckless Fable

After the bombs dropped, God scrubbed further experiments with the human race. It had been the third Universe she had created just to watch people destroy. This was because: A.) Most of them were stupid; B.) Whole destruction is far easier to accomplish than achieving bliss.

On the fourth iteration of the Universe, God held back people and placed a Pygmy Goat and a Lamb in Eden IV, to see what would happen. But she had to return upon realizing that not much of anything would happen save for mindless grazing and sleeping unless the creatures could talk and think. So, God endowed them with the gift of gab and personalities. If it worked out then she would fill the garden with natural Goats and Lambs to allow for procreation. For the time being, both critters were as sexually potent as scarecrows. And although they ate plenty, they neither changed size nor had to use the bathroom. The last fact made the garden smell much better than it did when it was inhabited by people.

Soon God had to return again because although she had given both the ability to speak and think, she had inadvertently blessed them with different languages. To be fair, Universe creation is a tough gig and errors happen all the time. After endowing the Goat and Lamb with a basic, common ruminant tongue, God decided to hang around. She sat on a rock and waited for the next mistake to present itself.

“Hello, what’s your name?” The little Sheep asked upon meeting the Goat.

“Daisy,” said the Goat. “And yours?”

“Maisy! We rhyme! Say why don’t you and I dance in the clover and be happy forever and ever!”

“I was thinking the same thing!”

Then the pair began capering, frolicking and mincing in the clover throughout the meadow. There were glitter rainbows, lollipops and tiny hearts hanging in the air.

“Oh, Jesus H. Kee-ryste,” mumbled God, who reinvented liquor and fixed herself a Manhattan.

The Amoral: Life Without Spice is Way too Nice.

Coda:

I do hope that this mixed message provides a lesson for our combatants. Things are more interesting when one says down to another’s up. Friction, little ones, drives the world!

We will see when the poetry smackdown concludes tomorrow.

Leila

Amy and the Fabulous Felinespy: A Feckless Fable of the Fantasmagorical

We close another year in the Springs with a bit of a wild Feline party–Leila

Amy is a long haired, owl-eyed Calico who distrusts everything that doesn’t align with her worldview. Her son, Maxo, is a yearling Orange Tabby whose personality is closer to that of a Golden Retriever than that of a Cat.

You cannot fully appreciate Amy’s coat of many colors until you see her in the sun. Every known pattern and hue in Catdom is present and never repeated in Amy’s quilt-like fur; yet away from the window she comes off reddish brown. Maxo is a standard Orange Tabby, his color is comparable to that of a creamsicle. Amy is small, mostly fur; whereas Maxo (despite a diet large enough to sustain three cats) has yet to grow into his long, gangly frame. Imagine one of those once adorable child actors who hit puberty while the show was on hiatus and you will understand Maxo’s appearance. But since he has recently been “fixed,” the vet opined that healthy young Master Maxo should soon expand like a self inflating raft.

Mother and child share the same house with two humans, a pair of Roborovski Dwarf Hamsters named Lucrezia and Zippy, a tamed three-legged rescue Squirrel known as Trey, a smart aleck Parakeet whom the people call “Dotty” but “self identifies” as “Diamond Dixie,” as well as a recent addition “gifted” to the people by a friend: a Gecko who is under the false impression that she is a “Karma Chameleon”–call her Christine.

All animals can perceive and interact with human “Spirits” (Spirit being yet another case of persnickety “self identification” in defiance of common courtesy). Most humans lack the belief in their own senses to do the same. Although everything that lives eventually leaves a ghost (and that means everything, plants, microbes etc.), only human ghosts wander back into this reality. Not all or even most do that; mainly, it’s the annoying ones. Those who insist on being called a Spirit.

Although all animals see Spirits (whom rodents refer to as “Ghosties”–much to the chagrin of the lofty Spirit ego), some Spirits are attracted to certain species more so than others. Some even to the degree that they go to great lengths to be seen by one kind of animal only. Such is the case of the Fabulous Felinespy, a powerful yet essentially useless phantom who approaches Cats late at night in order to create mayhem in a sleeping household.

As you may have already guessed, Amy is not overly popular in a home that contains three rodents, one bird and a bite-sized lizard. Maxo is beloved by the others in the menagerie because of his eager to please personality. Amy grew up rough; abandoned at a young age she became a street cat until she was three. Amy is Unforgiven–in the sense that she has “killed everything that walks or crawls at one time or another”–but to be fair, she did it out of necessity. Now well fed, spayed, mostly humanized and somewhat spoiled, Amy, despite her unrepentant attitude, has given over the thug life. But it doesn’t mean she gives a yarked hairball about what others may think of her. Thus, Zippy, Lucrezia, Christine and Diamond Dixie refuse to have anything to do with her; and Amy is so embarrassed by Maxo’s supplicating eagerness to please that she avoids him at all cost, save for the occasional lecture. And yet Amy has an unlikely friend, Trey the three-legged squirrel.

“Will your ghostie come out tonight?” Trey asked Amy recently, a bit after midnight. Everyone else was abed, including that fanny-smooch boy of hers, all cozy with the piebald slave humans.

Amy sighed. She admired her fellow “hard case”—a creature who’d spent most of his life free–but there were times when Trey had all the mental acuity of a walnut. I guess you are what you eat, she thought.

Mammals, reptiles and amphibians do not “talk” in the common sense, but they do have a universal language of pantomime and facial expressions that get them across to each other. Their senses are so keenly honed that their form of communication (even between species) is superior to speech. Birds, however, have more spoken languages than do humans, one per species; but they also have something called “Commonbeak,” which allows wildly divergent Birds, such as Sparrows and Kingfishers, to have conversations. Squirrels and other tree dwelling varmints usually learn Commonbeak via osmosis, and serve to interpret what birds have to say to creatures who do not know it, like a Cat. Trey usually edits Diamond Dixie’s observations on Amy for the sake of tranquility.

Amy is a Cat of few words. She seldom miaows, purrs, hisses or chatters. But she gets herself across quite clearly with subtle gestures and her owlish eyes, which, like her coat, contain several colors but not one more than any other. She usually converses only with Trey; and although she says more to Maxo, those instances are more along the lines of a one-sided lecture than an exchange of ideas.

Although much has passed since Trey posed his question, Amy eventually nodded, “Yes, the Fabulous Felinespy will come tonight.”

Trey, who had lost his front right leg to a cruel human trap, and was rescued by the male slave, slapped his “knee” with his left, twitched his bushy tail, winked one eye twice and the other once. “Will I see the ghostie?”

“Umm, no, Trey,” Amy replied, with uncharacteristic patience, by briefly swishing her own bushy tail and issuing a series of blinks and slight tilts of her head. “She’s the Fabulous Felinespy, not a Sensational Squirrelspy.”

Trey shrugged, said goodnight and tri-podded off to his bed in the bookcase. Amy admired the way the guy could run and climb in such an altered physical state, and was glad they hadn’t met during hard times.

Amy felt no similar warmth for the goddamn bird. Fucking thing screeched from sun up until the female slave placed the cover over its cage at night. It would have been a pleasure in the old days. Amy had no feelings whatsoever about the little Hamsters–or Rats or whatever the hell they were supposed to be. And though she didn’t much care for the Lizard’s immature attitude, reptiles were chewy and hardly worth the bother.

Someone pushed open the bedroom door. Amy hoped that it was one of the piebald slaves coming out for a snack. But, no, it was Maxo. She had vainly wished that he’d sleep through the upcoming Fabulous Felinespy revelation, but, since Maxo was a Cat, that was an awfully tall wish.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Don’t embarrass me in front of the Fabulous Felinespy.”

“I won’t–”

“I mean it,” she said. “You do any of that disgusting friendly dog stuff I’ll prove that you aren’t too big to be buried up to your neck in the litter box.”

“Aw, Mom.”

“God damn it, you’re a Cat. We don’t take shit from anyone, especially other Cats–and yet there you go with that hangdog ‘Aw, Mom’ nonsense. Next you’ll be fetching or lifting your leg to pee…”

Amy ceased the lecture when an eerie green light suddenly shone in the room. It’s source was the female piebald slave’s Kindle, which lay on the coffee table. No, Kindles are neither known for producing eerie green lights nor forces strong enough to spontaneously flip open their covers; but unknown to the slaves, this particular device had been formatted as a doorway for the Fabulous Felinespy.

Now we run into a bit of trouble. Only Cats perceive the Fabulous Felinespy, so only Cats can describe one. Unfortunately, your author isn’t a Cat, and the Cats ain’t telling. Even a friendly and eager to please sort like Maxo is elusive on the subject. The best you get from him are laudatory 80’s YA adjectives inferred as nouns: “awesome,” “radical.”

But your author does know Catfooney when she sees it. And upon gaining “instruction” from the Fabulous Felinespy, Amy and Maxo proceeded to “craterize” the living room. Everything that had stood now lay, and all that had lain now stood. Maxo managed to take down the drapes and Amy raced about the room toppling everything she touched.

Fabulous Feline inspired acts of Catfoonery take somewhere between thirty and forty-five seconds to complete. That is usually how long it takes for the slaves to awaken and rush into the living room.

The crashing and thudding had also awakened the Lizard and the Mice-like whatever-they-ares in their glass enclosures, but none seemed to be all that concerned. Trey sat munching a walnut atop the too heavy to move (but mostly denuded) bookcase, as though he were at a ballgame. When the light came on, Maxo sat next to him, up there, doing his best to feign innocence.

Amy had somehow shinnied up the pole to the goddam Parakeet’s cage, knocked off the cover and was attempting to worry the door open. Whether you call her Dotty or Diamond Lil’ you knew that the Bird was awake due to the angry squawking she began as soon as she sensed Amy’s approach. The angry squawking was a robust string of Commonbeak expletives. Trey understood them, and he related such to Maxo, who tilted his head in amazement.

Although books and bric-a-brac all lay everywhere, the slaves weren’t overly excited by what had happened. For in this apartment the Fabulous Felinespy came around on average twice a week.

The male calmly detached Amy from the Bird’s cage. Any other creature would immediately feel her wrath upon such insolence, but Amy maybe had a thing for the guy, so she simply bit him for the sake of appearances (a nip, hardly enough to draw blood) and leapt from his arms.

After settling everyone down and recovering the cage, the female said something about going back to bed and that the mess would keep till morning. She called Maxo down (who incensed his mother by responding to his name) and carried him into the bedroom.

The male attempted to coax Amy into the bedroom as well, but she wouldn’t have any of it. “Have it your way, fiendette” he said, “just leave Dotty be, or you’ll have to sleep in the laundry room. Goodnight.”

The amazingly nocturnal Trey tripodded down from his spot on the bookcase and sat down beside Amy. “That’s sure some ghostie.”

Amy nodded. “Say, what was that shit the bird said about me?”

THE AMORAL: A CALICO CANNOT CHANGE HER SPOTS, STRIPES, POLKA DOTS, PLAIDS, OR PINSTRIPES.

Welcome to Saragun Springs Outro

(It seemed appropriate for me to end this collection of Saragun Springs Books with what song writers call an “outro.” In the next few months new stuff will be coming–again, fair warning–Leila)

Outro

I met the Boss at the spring at three AM. This happened “the other day”–the most useful time reference in all literature. You can say it ten years from now in either direction and it will still be its effectively vague bad self.

She was seated at the picnic table, and the stench bubble encapsulating the evil water glowed green in the Pinglight.

Three A.M. has its own truth; but it doesn’t translate well to daylight. Maybe it is the lingering last call in the voice, or steady hands that lose their firm dexterity after a night of uneasy sleep, which then flop like a docked Halibut until you mercifully push the Fish back into the 80 proof sea. In Saragun Springs we call that activity “Hook of the Halibut that docked you.”

“So, you finally finished a three week project in just under two years,” the Boss said.

“Art is infinite–it knows no time limit. The same can be said for unagented submissions sent to reputable publishers who actually pay for the work instead of soaking you for every nickel,” I said, as I sat on the other side of the table.

“How so?” Her voice had a Gordon’s edge to it, and “smelled” like a cross between tobacco and jumper berries. Since we have similar habits, I did not make mention of it.

“Well when you cast an unasked-for, non-touted opus into the structured world of, say, Knoff, you never see it again. It speeds on toward infinity.”

“Are you suggesting that the ‘pending’ notifications at Submittable aren’t as candid as they should be?”

“Not at all,” I said. “Hell, the apocalypse can honestly be categorized as pending–yet something tells me that we will hear about it long before we do Doubleday.”

She looked at me for a long time. “I guess it’s pretty hopeless.”

“Of course it is–everything worth a damn is hopeless. And you should let it get you down as long as you don’t stay down,” I said.

She thought about that, and I could tell that the fifty or sixty things wrong with my statement were running through her mind. She sighed. “I don’t want to end this book on a philosophical note–let’s lay down a story for the road and adjourn to the bar.”

“Now you’re getting the hang of hopelessness,” I said.

I knocked on the fourth wall, just the other day, and left a message you will be reading, about now.

“Hi reader, here’s a little something for the road. A little ode to the upside of being involved in a hopeless cause.”

Only a Jellyfish Would Live Forever

The Scenario: Part I

He crushed two pills between his teeth and swallowed. That made four in an hour. A stomach that wanted to stay alive would have objected; but for once there was consensus. He believed that two more similar doses within the next thirty minutes should punch his ticket to the Undiscovered Country. Perhaps such an important event as flirting with self destruction should come accompanied by an unfilched metaphor, but when in doubt go with Shakespeare–Besides he’d used up all the sparklers in his suicide note. It was a fine suicide note. Well written, streaked with effortless pathos and humor. It was the best thing he had ever written. “All show, no tell,” he’d said after lighting it on fire and watching it curl to black in the kitchen sink. “Best punched ticket ever.”

He repaired to the drawing room because ever since childhood he liked to think that better than “let’s go to the front room.” In happier times, when he had friends, he even said “Let’s repair to the drawing room,” often, too often. It was one of the small things that people disliked about him. He got it from the vividly colorful Hammer horror movies, which starred Cushing and Lee and ran endlessly on Saturday afternoons when he was a boy. Upon sitting down in the easy chair where someone would find him, he wondered for the first time in all those years if he had heard it wrong; maybe the actors had said something else other than repaired. Maybe he had got it wrong the same way that people who speak more than write put down “should of” instead of “should’ve” on the rare occasions in which they must write. For anyone else it might have been awfully late in the game for such a banal triviality–but as it had stated in his burned suicide note, “I’m not like other people.”

Although his head was getting fuzzy, he opened his phone and Googled “repaired.” He felt ignorant until he thought to Google “repair(ed) to the drawing room,” and found it proper. Then he Googled “Hazel Court”–a Kapow! “Eyes Up” British actress who appeared in Hammer’s version of Frankenstien, as well as some of Roger Corman’s Poe pictures. He wanted to see if Hazel Court was still alive. She wasn’t. He then immediately Googled “Barbara Steele,” another Kapow! “Eyes Up” sort of actress from the same era. She was alive. Although knowing that Barbara Steele was alive came as happy information, it didn’t gentle his grief for sudden loss of Hazel Court.

He opened Word and wrote: “Dear Someone: I refuse to live in a world without Hazel Court in it. Thus I have repaired to the Eternal Drawing Room. No offense to Barbara Steele.”

The trouble with attempting suicide via happy pills (which were the nature of the unnamed stubstance) is pausing too long during your deliberate overdose. This allows the pills time to show you the reason why people get addicted to them. He had come across such during his suicide research. He figured that Kurt Cobain used the shotgun soon after injecting enough heroin to drop a boy band because of the drug’s charming effect. He figured that Cobain had foreseen such and had taken the preventative Hemingway measure, just in case the smack coerced him into changing his mind and calling 911 to get help for the overwhelming amount of heroin in his system. Shotgun blasts to the head change your brain, but not your mind. Not with the organic computer needed to do that dripping–

“No! No! No!” He said, snapping off each “No!” like it was also a gunshot. He was in the habit of snapping off three No’s whenever his ever incessant mind took an image too far.

The First Intrusion

The preceding scenario has been freshly concocted by me, a Pen Name. The Pen Name appears at the top. The reason for this intrusion, and for the others to come will be made clear to you, by and by. Vanity tells me that the appearance of my name might be the reason why some of you are reading this. It could also be the reason why more of you aren’t reading this, which, of course, renders this sentence meaningless. If the latter is the case, I humbly beseech the ones who are reading this on the strength of my name to deliver a message to the others who avoid the piece for the same cause. Tell them I said “I know who you are and it’s high time you learn that I only scan your stuff and check the categories before I phony up a seemingly high-minded, positive comment on your behalf.” You see, the main reason why Pen Names exist at all is to catch the hell-fallout produced when the real person behind the veil exercises the fallacy called Free Speech.

Wait a second–veil gives me a big idea. Let’s return to our unnamed, insincerely suicidal hero and see what he can do with it.

The Scenario: Part II

He had researched how many happy pills it would take to kill a man his size. It was a mathematical, time dependent equation which had factored in the prevention of vomiting, and had a tipping point of no return. Whilst in the chair where someone would find him, he envisioned himself running blindly toward the end of a great cliff, then coming to a devil may care skidding stop, just standing there with his toes hanging over the crumbling edge, only one forward urge of weight standing between him and eternity. There are things further from the truth than what he had imagined; mainly, he was actually more like a man on his hands and knees creeping up to the safety rail at the rim of the Grand Canyon.

Still, the pain caused by his incessant mind was real enough. Since he was eleven he had been plagued with a horrible twisted perversion of something called “Cherophobia”–the fear of happiness. Whenever he got too happy or witty inside, a dark amorphous shape that he uncreatively but accurately named “Black,” would rise from his subconscious and negate the positive with a hellish image. Although there is nothing funny about Kurt Cobain’s suicide, his little touches of “enough heroin to drop a boy band,” and “Shotgun blasts change your brain, but not your mind” had helped. But the visualization of the ruined substance that had created Come as You Are “dripping” from the wall behind Cobain’s exploded head was the work of Black.

Usually, the conditions present in his Black attacks were much wider set apart than what appeared in the Cobain thing. Instead of getting nipped for whistling in the graveyard, a true Black attack would manifest itself when he’d be doing something like joyfully opening a birthday present and then suddenly remember the time he had entered the kitchen and saw Mom’s latest insane, grinning boyfriend holding a bread knife to her throat. And a great shame would encompass him, as though he had done something wrong. That’s an example of a major Black attack. All Black attacks great and small always ended with him biting off “No!” aloud three times if alone, and in his head if in public.

He had grown up surrounded by hellish images not of his own creation. His beautiful, mentally ill mother attracted abusive men. Although no major event such as murder had ever happened, the threat of such was always there. He was a caged rabbit housed between a wolf and a stoat enclosure. Funny thing was that none of it was really anyone’s fault, or so he had reasoned. But the worst part was how everything had a way of falling to normal afterwards. Not ten minutes after the bread knife episode the three of them were eating dinner as though it was just another day.

Over time he developed a defense called a “Tuesday Dream.” There is a metaphysical, non linear reason for the name. Yet nothing felt truer. He once theorized that Tuesday was the one day of the week in which things were at their most settled. Unlike most other children he feared the weekend, for that was when alcohol was added to the craziness. And in that sort of world, the weekend begins where Thursday gives over to Friday, and leaves too big a stain for Sunday to hold on its own, so it dribbles into Monday.

A typical Tuesday Dream required a brightly lit, bizarre yet sense-making vignette of his own creation to take shape in his mind. It had to be comedy, made by him, thinking up the Marx Brothers didn’t help much. You must slay your dragons with your own goddamn sword. No! You must hit the villain in the face with a pie you baked. He considered the last two items, and although the pie thing was truer, the dragon one sounded better.

He sat up in the easy chair and said, “Betcha’ ain’t heard this one. It’s a real side-splitter, an aisle roller. Imagine uptown New York on a sunny day in 1962. And imagine looking at it as though it were a movie. Then the camera catches the ogling reaction shots of men in the streets. Each guy catches a glimpse of something that turns him into a human boner–even though something that crass was only inferred back then.

“Anyway, you get a low back shot of the commotion in a skirt as she goes up the front stairs and enters an office building. She’s a Kapow! ‘Eyes up’ sort of girl, who does things to an arch business suit that are unholy. She really swings it. And how.

“You then see the Kapow! ‘Eyes up’ woman passing out more boners when she gets on an elevator inside the building. All the guys–including the elevator operator–a balding guy wearing an organ grinder’s monkey type of suit–gawk at her even though her face is hidden by a light colored veil that obscures her face. The few Plain Janes around glare at the woman with jealous contempt. The Kapow! Woman in the veil seems oblivious to all of them. But she knows. She knows. This role usually went to Marilyn Monroe or Jayne Mansfield when the producers didn’t have Monroe or Mansfield money. This time the mystery actress behind the veil is Miss Hazel Court.

“Anyway, there’s a cut to a shot inside a plastic surgeon’s office. The plastic surgeon is played to the hilt by Tony Randall. And you know that he’s a plastic surgeon because of the witty repartee exchanged between Tony and his nurse/receptionist who is either Eve Arden or Thelma Ritter.

“For plot reasons it is necessary to get it across that the plastic surgeon is bored with his family man life. Maybe he does this during a phone call while he’s seated at his desk. Then Eve or Thelma buzz the doctor and tell him that his appointment is here…

“No-wait! Tony buzzes the desk to ask if his appointment is there and the next shot is of Eve or Thelma wryly looking up at the veiled mystery woman. Eve or Thelma says ‘Yes. And how.’

“Tony gets an erudite boner when he sees her. There was nothing boring about the shape in front of him. After the perfunctory stuff is out of the way, Tony says, “How may I help you, um, (he consults her name written on something on his desk) Miss (he says hopefully) Aphrodite?

“Her cultured, flirtatious, yet oddly muffled English accent comes from behind the veil and informs Tony that it’s ‘Just Aphrodite.’ Before he can respond she speaks mystically into his soul. ‘I am the Goddess Aphrodite. Immortal and all powerful in love. Yet, alas, this mortal shape I occasionally must take currently requires the services of someone like you.’

“And as she unclasps the veil she says, ‘It’s been a thousand years since I last took this mortal form. And as you already must know, dear Doctor, the ears and nose never stop growing.’ The veil falls away.

“Jeezus! Get a load of the look on Randall’s rubber face when he gets a load of her and her thousand year nose and ears. She’s about as likely a boner passer-outer as a Mrs. Potato Head…”

Then he faltered. The animation in his voice and form dissipated. It was as though he had become unplugged. The imagined image of Hazel in prosthetics reminds him of Mrs. Doubtfire, which immediately dissolved into the thought of Robin Wiliams with a belt around his neck…

“No! No! No!”

Second Intrusion

The notion that people might be characters of writers’ invention is as old as thinking; I suspect that it came about the week philosophy was invented. Writers taking up the safety of the nom de plume is nearly as ancient. There’s nothing philosophical to be found in that. At one time there used to be physical penalties dealt out for the trap called Free Speech. A head in the basket here, ten years’ hard labor in the gulag there. Although getting dragged out into the cyber-public square for a virtual stoning proves that the soul of intolerant stupidity travels from age to age as immortally as the Plague, most nations now have laws against inserting heretics into the iron maiden. But maybe that would be more merciful than nailing a Bad German to a cross planted in the never-never wasteland called Social Media.

There isn’t an even distribution of pain and happiness in the Universe. There is an equal amount of those two qualities in the Universe, but it’s pain that is found everywhere whilst happiness tends to be found in globs which are separated by eons of spacetime. Most of those thoughts, too, are hardly original. Still, like the inclusion of slavery at the founding of the United States, the uneven distribution of equal amounts of pain in the Universe is probably a condition that could not be eased prior to the start of the Universe, lest there be risk of there being no Universe at all. A compromise, however, was hashed out between unknown factions. One side wanted an even distribution of both pain and happiness. The other said they preferred the concept of cause and effect. As it goes with political compromises, everybody shook hands and announced a Great Accord; which meant that one side gave up on its principles and returned home smiling and reassuring and waving a document as empty as that brought back to England by Neville Chamberlain, after he’d been sold a pot of magic sauerkraut by Adolph Hitler.

All the preceding gobbledygook results in as good a definition for the meaning of life as a human being deserves to get. Cause and Effect. Plain and simple. Life is like floating through a sea lightly, yet always poisoned with pain, and very few of us run into the widely interspersed islands of happiness. Such is the case of the “he” in our scenario. His life has been a horror show put on by Cause and Effect. But something, if not new, at least rare is going to happen to our anonymous, hapless hero. He is going to run smack into a glob of happiness. For I am the Pen Name who created him and his history and pains and his various strangenesses, and have endowed him with a will, if not exactly free, is, at least, had at a steep discount. Unlike the gods real people beseech for help, I am going to take responsibility for this guy I have created today.

I could just go in and change both his nature and nurture, but since he believes that he has accrued his scars honestly, it would be as unfair an action on my part as was my drawing him up out of boredom because I could not think of anything else to write about in the first place.

The only difference between a hallucination and reality is the ethical, if not moral, choice, if any, made by the god or Pen Name in charge of a particular person or persons. The preceding sentence is of the kind you have to read ten times for it to almost make sense once, for it is similar in flavor with this current sentence, which is about to end, without actually saying anything useful, right now. With all that left rattling about like ghosts summoned from the grave only to discover that their necromancer might be high on something, and that she has no idea why she had called them forth from their cozy holes, I exit and present a implausible/plausible happy ending for this nameless soul conjured by my indiscrete scribblings. Since I drew him up I feel responsible for his well being. Alas, I don’t want to deal with him much further, so here goes with the implausible/plausible happy ending. It’s an open ended happily forever after. All writers do such as means to get the reader’s imagination to do their work for them.

Scenario Happy Ending

Too many happy pills too soon tend to make their takers dozy. Many honestly suicidal people who consume them as a means of discovering the Undiscovered Country pass out before they have paid the sufficient fare. They usually awaken confused, many hours later, perhaps half-wondering why the Afterlife has the same stuff in it that they have at home…

Sincerity-Challenged Afterthought Intrusion. Or: A Pen’s Attempt to Cover Her Ass

Suicide is plain wrong. It is a preventable tragedy. Although it seems like people care more after the fact than they did before, and tend to lay dollar store votives and fake flowers in the typical barn-door-after-the-cows response inherent to the human race, trust me, doggone it, people care. Giving a fuck about the pain of others is what people do. So, don’t forget to wipe and stay off the pipe, take your vitamins, say your prayers, take everything you read literally and give obsequious props to whatever geographic-dependent god your ancestors told your family to believe in. It’s gonna be (: (: (: (: (:!!!

Happy Ending Continued….

Such happened to our hero, who finished four tablets shy of Nirvana. Whilst he had been studying Hazel Court’s image gallery, he fell into a sleep so profound that his building’s fire alarm didn’t stir him when it went off due to a neighbor’s misguided attempt at cajun-style blackened chicken. Although the First Responders put the fire out quickly enough, there was much smoke and confusion. The EMT’s went from door to door with a master key provided by the building’s super to check out unanswered knocks.

As he slowly came to with the aid of an oxygen mask, he saw a beautiful angel with red hair and green eyes in a Torqwamni County Fire Department uniform. She was holding the mask to his face. She shushed his first attempts at speaking. Her name tag said V. Aphrodite. And she gazed into his eyes, glanced at the vial then back at him, then said, ”Do you know that the nose and ears grow forever?”

THE END

Welcome to Saragun Springs Book Three: Feckless Fables Part Eight

(Today we reach the end of book three. There are many fables and you should either look forward to them or be thankful that they end right here for the time being–LA)

Program note: Book Four, the Great HeXopatha will appear in September

Now for our featured presentation…

The Wishingwellwraith and the Trade Rats

Flo and Andy were a Trade Rat couple who lived at the edge of the Chihuahuan Desert in southern New Mexico. Flo had dug their den (aka “midden”) on an abandoned ranch, close to an old well that had dried up ages ago. Although they weren’t exactly in the desert, the land was thick with mesquite, chaparral, agave cactus and peyote.

Little did the couple know that the ranch had been a hideout for famous bandits and desperados in the nineteenth century. Or so the new owner, who’d recently moved in, claimed. And if Flo and Andy had been cynical Trade Rats attuned to human affairs then they might have made the connection between the advent of the new highway that passed less than a mile from the ranch and its heretofore unknown history as an outlaw hideout. And if Flo and Andy knew how to read, they would have understood the sign that the new owner had erected at the ranch’s entrance:

Renfield’s Wild West Ranch

The James Gang, Billy the Kid, Pancho Villa,

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid All Ate Peyote and Drank Tequila Here

Guided Tours: Three Dollars for Adults, Five for Each Child

Also, a Real Live Wishing Well (Reasonably Priced Wish Menu)

According to her mother, Flo hadn’t married well. Andy was a lazy Rat who spent nearly all his time loaded on peyote and fermented agave, and tom-ratting about with his like-minded, worthless friends. While he was passed out in the midden one day, Flo had watched the smiling young woman who now owned the spread attach another sign, this one to the dilapidated well near their midden. Although it has been established that Trade Rats are illiterate, we aren’t. The sign on the well said this:

Wish Menu:

Luck: Fifty Cents

True Love: Ten Cents

Termination of True Love: Seventy-five Cents

Contextual World Peace: Fifty Cents

Wisdom: A Quarter

Lesson Learned: A Quarter

Happiness: Function Currently Out of Order

Results Vary

Then, incredibly, after hanging the sign, the smiling young woman looked directly where Flo was hiding. She took three steps in that direction, stopped, held up a disco ball keychain, which glinted gloriously in the ceaseless sunshine, then tossed it in the well; still smiling, she walked away.

Trade Rats (aka “Pack” Rats) are the famous characters of Ratdom known for their adoration of shiny objects–Glitters, that they immediately procure with haste. Trades are also known for “paying” for Glitters by replacing them with other objects. This leads to things like the mysterious transformation of a carelessly stored heirloom pocket watch into a pine cone.

After the woman had gone, Flo wasted no time climbing down the old bucket rope that led to the bottom of the dry well, which was no more than ten feet deep, and likely never a source of water. She located the keychain, danced about, and swapped it with one of the dozens of pebbles lying on the well’s floor.

And just as Flo was about to climb the rope back up with her prize, a Wishingwellwraith Spirit suddenly spoke to her. His name was Smythe.

******

“He wants us to do what, pet?” Andy asked that night over his supper of peyote and fermented agave cactus. Even though Flo had already explained the deal to him twice, Andy was fixated on the keychain she’d brought home, besides, he wasn’t much of a listener to begin with.

“‘Us?’” Flo said with a contemptuous little snort. “As in we, as in you and me? As in a joint effort called ‘work?’”

“No need to bring your mother into your voice, love.”

Whilst Andy was eating, Flo had already begun work on the short tunnel that would connect the midden to the bottom of the well. As was so often the case in their marriage, their conversations involved him sitting there consuming, paying little heed to her words, whilst she labored back and forth. This would go on until he’d say something ugly about Mom, which would cause her to hurl a stone at him. Flo had a pretty good arm for a Trade Rat, and Andy excelled at ducking hurled objects. Therein lay their compatibility.

But this time she did her very best to explain the situation to him, if only to gain a better grasp on it for herself.

“It’s like this,” she said, “the ghostie–remember me telling you about him, by the name of Smythe?”

“But of course, pet,” Andy lied.

“He told me that the human that’s come round wants us as business partners. Says that there’s going to be lots of other humans coming round to the well fairly soon. Furthermore, the ghostie is of the wishing well persuasion, which means–”

“I know what that means,” Andy said. “He’s the middleman.”

And for once Andy had caught the gist. All animals, no matter how “low,” can communicate with human Spirits (who, by the way, resent being called a “ghostie”), but, for maybe a thousand reasons, animals cannot talk to living persons. Andy’s constant intake of peyote gave him an especially keen knowledge of ghosties. For instance, without being told, Andy knew that Wishingwellwraiths were personages of low character; grifters who enjoyed the hunt far more than the spoils. ‘Wraiths had a knack of parting fools and their belongings even though the ‘Wraith, being dead, had no use for material goods.

The peyote, more than Flo, made the situation clear in Andy’s mind. “So, the human wants us to fetch the money from the well and bring it to her in exchange for Glitters.”

“Precisely,” Flo said. “That’s why I’m digging this tunnel.”

“Don’t let me keep you from it, pet.”

******

The smiling woman’s name was Renfield. She no more cared about the history of the Wild West than she did for Smurf genealogy. But as a professional Supernaturalist, Renfield had coaxed a large cash grant out of congress for the study of the interactions between Wishingwellwraiths and Trade Rats. The ranch Renfield had bought from the government for a bid (the only bid) of twenty dollars was the blind from which she’d observed the doings in the well on multiple spy cams she had arranged down there on the sly. A tiny portion of the grant was spent at various New Mexican Dollar Stores; anything small and shiny was cleared off the shelves. Anyone wanting to purchase a keychain or a compact mirror at a southern New Mexican Dollar Store during that time had to drive to either Arizona, Texas or Tijuana.

The ranch and the new highway opened the same day. Smythe, the Wishingwellwraith Renfield had engaged for the study, worked his silent magic on people from his place at the bottom of the well. The “Grande ” Opening grossed nineteen dollars, thirty-seven cents, four pesos, two bus tokens and a washer.

Three-thirty-seven (along with the pesos, tokens and the washer) of the take was spent on wishes. As planned, Renfield had dropped an empty felt marble’s sack that had a drawstring into the well, the night before. She then told the ‘Wraith to have Andy (who actually came along, but did none of the work) and Flo fill the sack with the coins and leave it on the back step of the house. In keeping with the Trade Rat business model, Renfield had left two small mirrors, a tin charm bracelet, a packet of ball bearings and a Yosemite Sam keychain on the back porch. The Rats emptied the sack on the step and filled the bag with their pay and scurried off to the midden.

This process repeated itself for a week until (as Renfield had predicted) the ‘Wraith got bored and decided to cause strife. She smiled as she watched the following unfold in her laptop, which communicated with the spy cams in the well.

Flo was busily collecting another couple of dollars in coins when Smythe began talking to Andy, who was just sitting there, dazed on peyote.

“You’re being played for a sucker, friend,” said Smythe.

“How so?”

“These bits you exchange for cheap Glitters are worth ten times what you are paid. She puts all the money in a little wood box and does nothing with it.”

“We know.”

Those two little words stunned the ‘Wraith. “‘We know?’”

“It’s like this, friend,” Andy said, “you offer services you cannot possibly provide for money you cannot possibly spend because you are an…what’s that people word pet?”

“Asshole, dear,” Flo said, as she dutifully arranged a pile of pebbles and cactus seeds as payment for the loot.

“Yeah,” Andy continued, “an asshole. You get a kick out of conning, and when that bores you, you look to cause trouble.”

“You seem to know a lot about Spirits, for a Rat,” Smythe said.

“More than you know about Rats, friend,” Andy said with a wink.

After Flo and Andy left, The ‘Wraith, who knew about the cameras and microphones, translated for Renfield what the Rats had said to him.

******

The next phase of the study involved the duplicity of Rats. Despite their attitudes, Renfield knew that what the ‘Wraith had said to the couple wasn’t forgotten. So, she decided to pay a little less for the coins and told the ‘Wraith to explain the concept of taxation to the couple.

It didn’t go over well.

“I won’t work unless we are paid in full,” Andy said.

“As far as you go, there’s no difference,” laughed Smythe.

Flo didn’t say a word. Renfield observed the female Rat; she looked thoughtful, twitching her whiskers, as though she had a big idea.

After filling the sack with that day’s take, Flo conked Andy on the back of the head with it.

“Why’d you do that for, pet?”

“Never you mind,” she said. “Just follow me.”

The Rats disappeared into the tunnel, beyond the reach of the camera, microphones and the nosy Wishingwellwraith.

Renfield wondered what kind of rebellion that Flo, who was obviously the brains of the outfit, had planned. If it was interesting, it might pry more money out of congress for future Supernatural studies.

She switched to the back step camera. Under normal circumstances the Trades would be out there in a couple of minutes.

Renfield began to record her voice on her phone:

“Oh, here comes Flo, now,” she said. “But no Andy–shit, hold up, that is Andy, but not Flo. Where in hell’s name is she? Oh my God, Andy is actually doing work! He looks chagrined. Maybe rats can’t count, but they must know what fewer looks like…Paid them with a pair of fingernail clippers, the bus tokens and the washer they brought me a while back…”

Andy took an awful long time going about his tasks. Between each movement, he’d take a rest and gnaw on a wad peyote he had in his cheek. Even with fewer items to load, he took ten times longer than Flo to put them in the sack. Then Renfield heard two sharp whistles from somewhere out behind the house. Andy had heard them too, and he scurried off with the sack in the direction the sound had come.

Something’s up, but what? Renfield thought as she collected that day’s wishing well take. The mystery was solved the instant Renfield discovered that the wood box she kept the change in was open, the twenty dollars or so in coins were gone and that one of those weird bulb-like blooms of peyote had been left as payment.

Fortunately the entire house was on one camera or another. And that evening, Renfield laughed and laughed over her Cutty Sark and ginger ale, watching over and again, Flo fill a Dollar Store shopping bag with the loot and drag it swiftly out the open window.

The Amoral: You Can’t Cheat an Honest Rat

End Book Three

Welcome to Saragun Springs Book Three: Feckless Fables Part Seven

Renfield Awesomenicitizes the Ghost of the TomTom Ghost

( Prefatory Remarks by Ms. Allison’s Employer)

After almost three years in the making, Leila Allison Studios has informed me that something called Renfield Awesomenicitizes the Ghost of the TomTom Ghost: A Feckless Fable of the Fantasmagorical has opened its pitiless eyes and is currently slouching off to anywhere but Bethlehem to get itself born. Although this… whatever it is… exists in print only, Ms. Allison insists on bringing her productions forward as though they were motion pictures, complete with a cast, crew and an expense voucher that I am hesitant to look at.

According to an urban legend whose popularity exponentially expands with that of the increasing population of congenital idiots, it takes three years for swallowed chewing gum to pass. Ms. Allison feels that the audience should view Renfield Awesomenicitizes the Ghost of the TomTom Ghost: A Feeble Fable with the soul of that urban legend in mind. For reasons unchallenged by critical thinking, Ms. Allison is certain that any audience able to identify with a wad of Juicy Fruit, grimly determined to survive a perilous journey through untold miles of intestines only to wind up someplace a little less than heaven, is probably the sort of audience who will embrace Renfield Awesomenicitizes the Ghost of the TomTom Ghost: A Feeble Fable for whatever the hell it might be.

Leila’s (here I make like Pilate and wash my hands of the affair) little whatever it might be “stars” four members of the Union of Pen-names, Imaginary Friends and Fictional Characters, to which Writer-Producer-Director Ms. Allison reluctantly belongs. The players include Renfield Stoker-Belle typecast as Renfield Stoker-Belle; a “literary turkey” named Krook briefly essays the role of the TomTom Ghost until he’s suddenly (and inexplicably) replaced by Miss Izzy (Queen of Shoeboxes), who chews the scenery (as well as a bit of Mr. Krook) as the Ghost of the TomTom Ghost. There’s also an old car named Lucille involved. She has no lines but I’m told that she drives the action. Ms. Allison so wanted a celebrity fictional car for the role, but union rules forced her to settle for one of her own construction. My guess is that Titty-Titty Gang Bang and Herpes the Love Bug were both unavailable.

Anyway, I figure that I should step in and issue this fair warning: Something in Leila Allison Studios has opened its pitiless eyes and has slouched off, possibly, in your direction.

Your Obedient Servant,

Ms. Allison’s Employer

Now For an Unscheduled Crafted Insincere Apology

I have returned to post a crafted insincere apology. The innocently meant “Titty-Titty Gang Bang” and “Herpes the Love Bug” comments shared above have provoked the ire of corporate congenital idiots. Someone in my organization leaked the prefatory remarks early, hence the necessity of a crafted insincere apology.

In this case the two injured parties (Chitty-Chitty so and so and Herbie the etc.– to both I’d meant only passing offense) work for “The Ears.” Disney has moles everywhere that regularly report instances of “non-Mouseketeerishness” to the head of Uncle Walt–which, according to reliable intel, is currently located in a meat locker outside Encino, California.

The Big Diz aimed to get tough with me and sent over a couple of goons with voices like Bob Hoskins and Mike Reid, but in form were actually interchangeable Goofy and Pluto in fedoras and raincoats. I had to think of something quick. Fortunately, I am in possession of a “sex-toon” in which a certain corporate fairie (whose name ryhmes with “jinkle hell”) is so jazzed up on pixie dust that she overlooks the age (mainly the lack of it) of a famous woodenboy/nosedildo.

My collection of sex- and sin-toons keeps me out of the mortuary. Just last year the teetering Speed Racer franchise got a small dollop of what a sin-toon can do when some person unable to come to an accord with virtual Edo-mafia posted a few cells which depicted Pops losing Spridel and Chim-Chim at a Casbah gambling den. I informed the comic-canine goons that I’d post the sex-toon and some serious #MeToo doggie-doo concerning their past hump-the-leg activities (some of it goes back to the 30s) that would Kevin Spacey both of them into an early retirement if we couldn’t work out a solution amenable to #MeOnly. Thus I got out of the tight spot by promising a crafted insincere apology.

I live a blessed life. I’ve managed to issue a crafted insincere apology without saying sorry to nobody nowhere no how. I rock. Oh, yeah, don’t forget what I said about the slouching thing with the pitiless eyes. It’s definitely headed your way.

Always Your Obedient Servant,

Ms. Allison’s Employer

Ms. Allison’s Feckless Fable (aka, “The Slouching Thing With Pitiless Eyes”)

Renfield Stoker-Belle exited her haunted house in the wilds of Torqwamni County one sunny Saturday morning and cheerfully hopped in behind the wheel of a “cherry” 1967 Dodge Charger convertible named “Lucille.” She engaged the motor and spoke to her beloved automobile.

“There’s awesomenicity in the air,” Lucille,” she said. “At long last we are off to the Great Torqwamni County Leftover Food Storage Device Symposium–where I, the one and only Renfield Stoker-Belle, will proceed to awesomenicitize the gathering with my revolutionary double-smack corner burping system.”

The location of the symposium was in a part of the county unfamiliar to her, so Renfield plugged the coordinates into her TomTom. The instant she did that a weird little voice that sounded like a cross between John Geilgud and Porky Pig blurted “Hulululu-lah-too-too” out of the TomTom.

An extremely perplexed, vexed and perhaps even hexed WTF expression entered Renfield’s pretty face. This condition was in no way eased by a snap of static and the sudden emergence of a purring second voice inside the TomTom, who growled “Get out before I fricase you.” This was followed by what sounded like the panicky ruffling of feathers and the beat of tiny talons running off into the distance.

“What the hell’s going on in there?” Renfield asked as she beat on the TomTom with her fists.

“Stop that, woman,” the purring voice said. “I am the Ghost of the TomTom Ghost. I demand that you take me to a wishing well that’s on the way to your asinine convention. There I will assume my vocation as a Wishingwellwraith.”

After a couple of years living in a house that’s a portal routinely used by ghosts to cross-over from one side of reality to the other and back, Renfield sighed with the same degree of annoyance one displays when encountering an encampment of cookie selling Girl Scouts strategically placed at the supermarket’s main entrance.

“We ain’t going nowhere until you tell me A, what happened to the other dude, and B, how can you be a ghost of a ghost?” Renfield said. As an experienced supernaturalist (as well as a leftover food storage device icon) she knew that the best way to deal with ghosts was to keep them talking. For whatever reason, ghosts cannot lie.

“The ‘other dude’ is a pain in the ass who cut the line and hopped this device even though I had already laid my claim to it long ago. I’d kill him if it were possible, but since he’s dead to start with the best I could do was give him a good whack of electricity, which, as you know, can be highly uncomfortable to accept no matter what side of the grave you call home.”

Renfield considered the situation. She eventually whatever shrugged and placed Lucille in gear. “All right, fiend,” she said, “I’ll take you where you want to go, but it better be on my way, or I’ll plug your butt into a wet generator.”

It was three miles north to the well where the Ghost of the TomTom Ghost wanted to go. It lay at the end of a reasonably level dirt road, which Lucille didn’t find objectionable. The well looked as though it had fallen out of a fairy tale, with its little stone circle, bucket draw and thatched roof. Somebody had even affixed a quaint wooden sign with “WISHES TAKEN FOR A FEE” engraved on it to the tiny roof.

“How do you know about this?” Renfield asked, still seated behind the wheel.

“This is my property and I had it built before I died,” the purring voice said as it vacated the TomTom and began speaking from the well. “Thanks for the ride. Hope you awesomenicitize them at the dumbass meeting of yours.”

“Just a minute, buster,” Renfield said. “Why a wishing well?”

“In life I was the president of a large payday loan company,” the former Ghost of the TomTom Ghost, now a Wishingwellwriath, said. “I so love taking other people’s money away from them. Just watching it stack, don’t you know?”

“I get it, it’s all clear to me now,” Renfield said. “You’re an asshole. It explains everything. Tell me, wishy, do you have the power to grant wishes?”

“After the ‘asshole’ crack, I’m afraid that answer will cost you,” the Wishingwellwraith said. “We both know I cannot lie, but I’m not required to reply.”

Renfield laughed and reached into her purse then flung a dollar coin into the well and listened for the splash. She replugged the coordinates to the symposium into her TomTom and placed Lucille in gear.

“Oh, hell no,” the Wishingwellwraith said. “But I do sell them false hope, which, nowadays, is a marketable commodity.”

Renfield gave the wishing well and its contents the Finger before spinning Lucille around and driving off to make awesomenistic history.

The Amoral:

The Optimist forgets that things are only at their brightest when the sun explodes.

****

One More Crafted Insincere Apology For the Road

Just heard from an indignant Wishing Well Ghost who objected to the character of miserly, grifting Ghost of the TomTom Ghost/Wishingwellwraith just presented. Told him I’d say sorry for real if for fifty grand if he could either triple the president’s IQ or endow him with a sense of taste. I even gave this ghost a method of accomplishing both at the same time: “Just turn the S.O.B. into a Spam sandwich.”

If we should see this event unfold before the next election, then I’ll say sorry. Until then I will reach out to the readership to raise the necessary funds.

Awesomenistically Your Faithful Servant,

Ms. Allison’s Employer

Welcome to Saragun Springs Book Three: Feckless Fables Part Six

To conclude this book we present a three parter to finish the week–LA

-1-

The Renfield/TomTom Ghost Debacle

All writers have that one bugaboo story that refuses to finish. It’s as though the damned has something against you, and would do anything to mess with you, even to the point of sacrificing its chance of appearing anywhere in the Universe. My bugaboo story is called Renfield and the TomTom Ghost. It has been in production for two years, yet not even a hundred words have been “shot.”

Although I have finally figured out a way that might move Renfield and the TomTom Ghost across the finish line before I die, I’m determined leave a record of my suffering in this matter just in case it does kill me.

The Union of Pen-names, Imaginary Friends and Fictional Characters (from here, UPIFFC) is responsible for both my woe and the possible solution. It is important to know that the woe part was inflicted on me by the union with intent while the solution came up by accident.

I’m a humble pen-name, and when I came along my union was known as the Amalgamated Union of Pen-names and Imaginary Friends. I get along just fine with my fellow aliases and the imaginary friends–hell, the way I see it, everybody should have a dozen of each. Unfortunately, about two years ago (which is not coincidental to when Renfield and the TomTom Ghost began to shoot), my dues-hungry union decided to expand and include under its incompetent wing all fictional characters. And I mean all of them. No exceptions. Everybody and thing ranging from the facehuggers in the Alien franchise on up to Hamlet is in the UPIFFC (almost wrote “on up to Jesus Christ,” but I’ve got enough people mad at me as it is). As a pen-name, when I create fictional characters, I also create fellow union members. It is an insipid situation that causes me to be both a comrade and “The Man” at the same time.

There once was a time when I just wonked-up (yes, busybody autocorrect, I mean “wonked-up,” not “worked-up”) a character and went on my way. “No, no, not so fast,” said the union after the inclusion of fictional characters. “You now have to offer the parts in every new story to all of your previously created fictional characters, before you can create new people or creatures.”

My trouble stems from the fact that since I’m a pen-name, I’m also a fictional character, and possibly even an imaginary friend to my “employer.” (Right here, I am resisting all temptation to bash on that rat.) Persons who have the nerve to publish under their own names are not obliged to follow UPIFFC rules. Moreover, as a virtual type of person, the way I “write” is completely different than what goes on inside the tweedy, elbow-patched, pipe smoky, oak panelled studies in which you breathing writers produce works of genius during the narrow interval which lies between the cessation of one drunken orgy and the start of the next. My productions resemble movie sets at which I am the producer, director, screenwriter and, sometimes, an actor.

{Now for a word from Ms. Allison’s “employer”: “Have you ever noticed that some writers begin new paragraphs with information that really should be in the old paragraph? It happens because, in this case, the writer read somewhere that modern day readers are turned off by long-assed paragraphs of, say, greater than eight lines–which happens to be the length of the previous paragraph. If I know Ms. Allison as well as I think, an example of this is about to happen.”}

I arrive “on set” at hell o’clock in the morning, hair askew, clad in a ratty bathrobe, a novelty-sized coffee cup in one hand, a cigarette in the other, one slipper on, the other MIA, and one eye closed in an unconscious effort to balance out for the missing slipper. The “script” we shoot from is just an outline with only a few set scenes and lines in it. It’s what my actors do with it that creates the story’s final draft. So when I, even in my slovenly condition yell “Action!” I do it with the high hope that the magic will ensue–or, at very least, the literary equivalent of that truthful crudity “It’ll make a turd” ensues.

Not so with Renfield and the TomTom Ghost. It is to be a simple story about Renfield driving her “cherry” 1967 Charger named Lucille into the wilds of Torqwamni County to attend Tupperware-Con (Renfield is a food-storage device fangirl and expert). She’s to plug the coordinates into her TomTom, but a ghost has gotten into it and refuses to direct her to the convention until they locate and return the ghost to the wishingwell it “wishes” to haunt, but cannot find. All right. Fine. Whatever. So it ain’t Lord Jim; but I dare you to find anything else like it.

I had written the piece for one of my major fictional characters, Renfield Stoker-Belle. Although she loved the idea of “at last seeing my name atop the marquee, where it belongs,” she was still a touched pissed at me for making her look both duplicitous and a bit of “a weirdo, in general” in earlier pieces. Realizing from the title that I couldn’t shoot the yarn without her, she went diva on me. Her demands caused her to come off as both duplicitous and a bit of a weirdo, in general.

“I want my own dressing room,” she said. “No more sharing a john with anthromorgraphic rodents and peeping tom shadowghosts,”

“All right. Fine. Whatever,” I said.

“I also want a bowl of Skittles–a big mo-fo of a bowl, fresh everyday, mind you, in my dressing room–minus the purple ones. If I see even one purple one, I will not perform until you remove the offending Skittle, personally.”

“All right. Fine. Whatever.”

“Also, I’ll do the script as writ, but I insist that three words be included. Word one: ‘awesomenicity’ as a noun–as in the state of awesomenicity that I inspire. Word two: ‘awesomenicitized’ as in a verb–by such I mean–”

“I know what a fucking verb does, fink.”

“And…’awsomenistically’ as in an adverb. Everybody knows that you are keen on adverbs and collect them all adverbally-like.”

“All right. Fine. Whatever. Will there anything else, Sire?”

“Just one itsy bitsy thing–a non-issue when you think about it,” Renfield added with a duplicitous bat of her pretty green eyes. “I want to chose my co-star. I’ve got the perfect dude in mind.”

Although I didn’t give a rat’s ass one way or the other about who played the TomTom Ghost, I figured that I should show token resistance to at least one of her demands. “Hold on a minute there, weasel-girl,” I said, “the union says that I’ve got to cast all parts from my own stable of fictional characters. If you have one of those bohunks you see on one of those fingerbang romance novel covers in mind, you’re S.O.L.”

Renfield’s vocabulary is often as profane as that of a whorehouse parrot. Yet she feigned great offense to what I had said to her, as though she were one of those mass produced Disney princesses introduced to the concept of farting. “Could you be less crude in the presence of talent?” she said haughtily. “Rest assured my co-star is one of yours. I had to sift through many two-dimensional cardboard persons to locate someone who will both serve the story and at the same time remain aware of who is the star of the piece.” Then she smiled and whispered: “I can see that you’re getting twitchy because we have just entered the seventh line of this paragraph. Relax. I told my supporting actor to come see you at hell o’clock tomorrow morning in that cat-pee reeking slum you call an office.”

Sure enough, at hell o’clock the next morning there was a scratching at my office door. Not a knock, but a scratching, like that made by a rat in the wall.

“Come in,” I said confidently, because I had “Security” on hand just in case things got uglier than they already were. There’s no better protection against the loathsome critters that dwell in the sub-basement of my creative dungeon than the virtual version of my fuzzy white cat, Miss Izzy. (For the record, the virtual version of my corpulent black cat, Sir Dudley, adheres to the Falstaffian Code as far as the relationship of discretion and valor go–they meet at a homonym, for both Sir Dudley and Sir John like to hit the “sack.”)

The door creaked open, and standing there, all eighteen inches of him, was a turkey. Not a turkey as in that staple of 70’s sitcoms, the “jive” turkey; nor was he even a real turkey nor a virtual representation of such. He was a literary turkey–meaning he had at one time been an oft-rejected and subsequently retired piece I had written a long time ago, thus released into my “Turkey Pen,” where he (according to my muse) took the shape of a cartoon turkey composed of the printed words and numbers that had been present when he was an oft-rejected story. He (and dozens of others of his kind) had evolved into a fictional character when I had a story called Out in the Turkey Pen published a few years back.

The dynamic that exists between feline and fowl in the virtual world of pen-names, imaginary friends and fictional characters is the same as what it is in your so called “real world.” The little turkey cringed at the sight of Miss Izzy, and Miss Izzy began to chatter at the sight of the turkey.

“Oh for the love of cranberry sauce,” I groaned. “You can be the TomTom Ghost. Now get on out of here before Miss Izzy strews your giblets all over the rug.”

I should have vetted the little turkey, whose name was “Krook.” He turned out to be a ham–not as in Hormel, but Shatner, And he was a belligerent little fucker as well. For two goddam years he emoted and chewed the scenery and got in the way of the story. I have abandoned the thing over and again just to return to it because, I guess, I am curious to see what it is like to repeatedly punch myself in the face. Renfield finds the situation she has caused highly amusing and often pelts me with purple Skittles because I had found out, a bit late, how hard it is to imagine a bowl of Skittles without the purple ones in it. Damn near impossible.

Just yesterday I had another go at the christless thing. It went like this:

Renfield leapt into her cherry ‘67 Dodge convertible named Lucille with great

enthusiasm. “There’s awesomenicity in the air this morning, Lucille,” Renfield said,

awesomenistically. “We’re off to Tupperware-Con, where I am the featured after lunch speaker.

The topic is Burping in the 21st-Century. I’m going to awesomenicitize the audience with my revolutionary double-corner snap and release.”

She started Lucille, who greeted the sunny morning with a throaty purr. Renfield proceeded

to feed the convention’s coordinates into her TomTom, unaware that a ghost had gotten into the device overnight.

“Guide us to Tupperware-Con, trusty TomTom,” Renfield said, once again awesomenistically. Instead of repeating the coordinates the ghost in the TomTom said, “Hulululuzipppptbuthum….”

“Cut!!! I screamed as I leapt out of my director’s chair. “Krook! You’d better be having a goddam stroke in there. I don’t recall writing ‘TomTom Ghost, here, why not make a weird-ass noise instead of reciting the dialog as writ?’”

Krook popped his head out from under the dashboard. “It’s called improv, young lady,” he said as though he were goddam Peter O’Toole. “I was speaking in Ancient Gobblish–I’m not surprised that you’re unfamiliar with it.”

“Read the shit as writ or I’ll familiarize my foot with your—”

“Director abuse! Director abuse!” Renfield laughed as she pelted me with purple Skittles. “Miss Leila’s just one private part noun away from a meeting with a union rep.”

“What an excellent idea, Miss Renfield,” I said. “I’m going to do just that! After all, it’s our union.”

The Union of Pen-names, Imaginary Friends and Fictional Characters is a ramshackle structure located at the corner of 12th and Never in a part of town where it’s best to keep one hand on your wallet and the other on the pepper spray. The guy who represents me and my characters is named Lennie. No surname, just Lennie. He also happens to be one of my fictional characters, so I guess you could say that there’s a conflict of interests.

Lennie is a dim version of Mark Twain, and he has perfected the art of feigning dementia as to cut down on unnecessary conversation (which is all of it). You’ve got to read between the lines with Lennie to locate the wisdom. Hell, you’ve got to write what lies between the lines with Lennie, just to ascertain whether he’s still breathing. Although his tutelage inevitably leads me to anxiety and despair, I figured “any port in a storm will do”–an old cliche, which pretty much means the same as “any rat in a plague will do” when dealing with Lennie.

I entered Lennie’s office without knocking still clad in my robe, hair askew and one slipper missing. From his chair behind a desk that had been very old in 1903, Lennie regarded me with the same degree of awareness a mannequin has for other mannequins.

“Still running the senility gag, I see,” I said, less than awesomenistically, as I plopped down in the severe wooden client chair in front of his desk. “I know you’re in there because I created you. Keep on playing turtle or ostrich or pin the tail on the Julian Assange with me, rat bastard, and I’ll never go away.”

He sighed. “And who may you be?”

“I may the the person who relocates this sonofabitchin’ building to the North Pole unless you come out of hiding in plain sight.”

“A worse neighborhood? I tremble at the thought.”

I recalled the wino I had to step over on my way into the building; I recalled all the strewn trash on the cracked sidewalk; I recalled all the dregs of society milling about the grounds; I recalled blending in with it all perfectly. “All right,” I said, “I’ll improve conditions around here as best as my budget allows. I’ll do it even if you are your usual less than helpful self. All I ask is that you actually listen to me for a minute or so, before I let you drift back into your inner sanctum. Deal?”

“You’re that Allison woman, aren’t you?”

It was my turn to sigh. “All right. Fine. Whatever. Have it your way. But since you seem almost able-bodied verbally, perhaps you could advise me on what to do with an FC of mine named ‘Krook.’ The little jackwagon is deliberately ruining a story, which should’ve gotten him fired for cause a long time ago, if not for the union.”

“”’Krook?’” Lennie said softly. “From Bleak House? Using other writer’s characters is forbidden.“

“No, no,” I said. “Not him–not the real unreal him,” I said referencing the ugsome would be blackmailer of Lady Dedlock in Bleak House. “I don’t steal from Dickens anymore than anyone else does. My Krook is a literary turkey whom I had writ for a different story. There were dozens of turkeys in that thing and I named each one after a character from Dickens. I had a Krook, Twist, Fagan and so forth…”

“Seems unkind,” Lennie said, gazing at a point in the wall behind me, “that Mr. Krook should now suffer a fate worse than spontaneous combustion.”

I was in the process of mentally filling in the blanks after “Listen, here, rat bastard,” when I found myself in a blissful state of awesomenicity. Could say I had an epiphany. Could say I asomenicitized a kidney stone. Round here, it’s all pretty much the same thing.

“Eureka!” I shouted and I leapt to my feet and began my “happy dance.” I’d say that a confused expression entered Lennie’s face, but that would be redundant.

At hell o’clock the next morning I called the Renfield and the TomTom Ghost team together, armed with a new script. I showed the altered copy to Renfield only, who glanced at it, shrugged her shoulders and said, ”All right. Fine. Whatever.” Apparently her highness had had enough of the pugnacious poultry’s antics as well.

After I yelled “Action!” the same old bullshit wafted the same old steam heavenwards until the TomTom Ghost spoke. As Krook once again proceeded to “improv” gibberish, which sounded like Yoko Ono singing an aria backwards, the new script kicked in. A flash of fire and ozone emanated from under the dashboard, and Krook, though unharmed, exited that area with great haste.

“Cut and print scene one,” I said. “Thank you Mr. Krook,” I continued. “You have essayed the role of the TomTom Ghost to perfection. But the new script outline requires a new actor to play the Ghost of the TomTom Ghost because the original TomTom Ghost has spontaneously combusted. Our story is now called Renfield Asomenicitizes the Ghost of the TomTom Ghost.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Krook said.

“You’re just now catching on to that?” Renfield said through a mouthful of green Skittles.

“We’ll see what the union has to say about this,” Krook puffed.

“It won’t say a goddam thing, you little a-hole,” I said. “I gave you the role of the TomTom Ghost, and now that the TomTom Ghost has been vaporized, a new player will assume the role of the Ghost of the TomTom Ghost.”

Before Krook could get even shittier about the situation than he already was, I summoned the great actor I had secretly cast in the role of the Ghost of the TomTom Ghost. “Miss Izzy, we are ready to shoot scene two.”

Miss Izzy strode onto set and once more the uneasy and extremely one-sided feline fowl dynamic presented itself. Miss Izzy lit out after Krook who beat a hasty retreat to the Turkey Pen and hasn’t been heard from since.

Only God knows how well casting a virtual female cat in the role of a male ghost of a ghost will go. But if you ever do see Renfield Awsomenicitizes the Ghost of the TomTom Ghost coming your way, I hope you will read it and come away with renewed appreciation for of suffering of the artist.

Welcome to Saragun Springs Book Three: Feckless Fables Part Five

The Pygmy Unicorn and the Effluvium

Introduction

Today we present two fables due to their byte-sized length(s).

The Unicorn and the Effluvium

: A Feckless Fable of the Fantasmagorical

The Players

The Pygmy Unicorn: Miss Daisy Cloverleaf, Pygmy Goatess (Shop Steward)

The Effluvium: …………………………………Renfield (Venal Imaginary Friend)

The Voice of Denial:…………………Maab the Photobomb Fairie (Shop Steward)

The Voice of Rage: ..Poppyseed the Hummingbird (Shop Steward, Emeritus)

The Voice of Indifference:… Boots The Impaler, Siamese Cat (Shop Steward)

The Voice of The Other Cheek: …Flo the Trade Rat (Shop Steward Emeritus)

Himself: …………….Pie-Eyed Peety the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon (Shop Steward)

Kane: ……………………………………………………………………..Leila Allison

Act One

One sunshiny spring morning, Daisy the Pygmy Unicorn carried a heavy heart to her beloved flower patch in the meadow–which she dutifully fertilized with a quick evacuation of glitter out her butt. All was well in the meadow, but Daisy couldn’t forget her despair because she had overheard someone say “There goes that little goat with the paper mache horn glued to her head,” back in the barnyard.

Act Two

Daisy plopped down in the patch and instantly crushed tiny tendrils of fledgling clover to death. Her heart was filled with woe. Then voices began to speak in her head.

“They weren’t walking about you, Sweetheart,” said the Voice of Denial. “Maybe they were talking about all the other Pygmy Goats who have paper mache horns glued to their heads.”

“Like hell, they weren’t talking about you,” said The Voice of Rage, “I say you go back and cleanse the barnyard.”

“I might be willing to help do that…depends how I feel after my nap,” said The Voice of Indifference.

“Now, now, little friend, if you identify as a Pygmy Unicorn, then you are one in the eyes of the Law,” said the Voice of Other Cheek.

Of all the Voices, Daisy identified with The Voice of Rage best.

Act Three

Daisy was plotting her revenge when the Effluvium Spirit who enhanced the scent of flowers came by.

“What you need, little friend, is an attitude adjustment,” said The Effluvium. The Spirit then activated the magic that lay in a nearby field of poppies and urged the scent on Daisy. This caused Daisy to forget all about her sadness. And she went home to the barnyard and spent the rest of the day smiling as she rolled, rolled, rolled in zee hay.

The Amoral As Spoken By Pie-Eyed Peety the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon:

“Squ-wack–Thee Who Smelt it Dealt It.”

Poppyseed and Flower Power

Poppyseed was an orange Rufous Hummingbird, who was as aggressive and single-minded as they come, until he flew over a burning field of “wildwood weed,” one afternoon, during the annual two-thousand mile migration. Something in the drifting smoke asked “Why must you always be in such a rush, little friend–Have you never been mellow?”

The rest of the flock had avoided the field, but Poppyseed was known for his individuality and recklessness. He alone had flown above the pungent blue smoke, and he alone found himself perched on a weather vane atop an old barn, with no memory of lighting there, wondering why he had never been mellow.

Under normal circumstances, such a dipshit question would have enraged Poppyseed. But that was before a new philosophy had edged into his cut and dry, now! now! now! personality. What’s it all about? Poppyseed thought, watching the rest of the flock zoom into the distance.

“It’s about peace, love and harmony…seeking oneness with the Universe, my busy little friend,” said a human Spirit that suddenly appeared on the barn’s rooftop. The ghost had long lank hair which flowed below the brim of a floppy hat. He was wearing sunglasses that had round yellow lenses, striped bell bottom pants, sandals, several strings of beads–and if Poppyseed had known anything about human politics, and could read, he would have recognized the face of Richard Nixon on the tee-shirt the Spirit wore, with the words “What me Worry?” printed below Tricky Dick’s cartoonish visage.

“Do peace, love and harmony taste good?” Poppyseed asked. “I like aphids and honeysuckle myself.”

The Spirit laughed softly and removed his sunglasses. Poppyseed saw strange images take shape and melt in the ghost’s kaleidoscope eyes. Psychedelic colors and paisley fractal flows… and he could hear music. If Poppyseed had known anything about 1960’s pop music, he’d have recognized Incense and Peppermint as lip-synched by Strawberry Alarm Clock on The Ed Sullivan Show. And there were visions… Hundreds of young people of various races standing in a field, single file, hands joined…all singing the praises of a god called Coca-Cola…then a man standing out of doors in buckskins with a feather in his hair…a single tear falling from his eye…

The wind had shifted during Poppyseed’s vision quest, and the blue haze cleared from the area of the barn. Thus Poppyseed’s intense, light’s speed metabolism had time enough to process and eject the remaining effects of the wildwood weed smoke as though it had never been breathed. Poppyseed immediately glanced in the direction the flock had gone and calculated that he could catch up to them after only a few minutes on afterburners.

The Spirit sensed the change in the Hummingbird’s attitude and tried one last sales pitch. “No, no, little friend. That is the old way…the way of the establishment…”

“Could you be more useless?” Poppyseed said. Although he had little patience with, and even less time to speak to any of the human ghosts that all creatures can see, he felt obliged to break a talon off in this fool’s ass. “‘Have you never been mellow’? ‘Harmony with nature’? ‘Why rush’? It’s like this–mellow, laid back Hummingbirds wind up as lunch for cats and stoats. Get a job, goddam hippy.”

And Poppyseed zoomed off to rejoin the flock.

THE AMORAL: All You Need Is Love and a Decent Credit Score

Welcome To Saragun Springs Book Three: Feckless Fables Part Four

(Author’s note–Yes, for anyone who noticed, I got tired of writing the whole damn thing out–LA)

Tippleganger and Dozzle

Prefatory Remarks

Defining the Tippleganger:

The Spirit half of this little drama

Has a second bottle of wine ever convinced you cut your own hair? Did that darn vodka make you “overshare” sex fantasies you have about your sister’s husband with a mutual friend who cannot keep a secret? How much Budweiser does it take to get you to call your ex at three a.m.?–in spite of what it says about that sort of thing in the restraining order.

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Welcome to Saragun Springs Book Three: Feckless Fables Part Three

Fiona and the Footfallfollower: A Feckless Fable of the Fantasmagorical

(But First, Noted Supernaturalist Miss Stoker-Belle, Unnecessarily and Inexplicably Evacuates the Contents of Her Mind)

Before I educate the readers on the ways of the Footfallfollower ghost, I’d like to introduce an innovation to the world of literature; an innovation of my invention (here, I will allow the suspense to build). Of course no stylistic innovation can spontaneously occur without inspiration. Hell, even Shakespeare played Hollingshead for a stooge–Right? In my case the Big Idea presented itself in the otherwise useless world of modern pop music–specifically that dodge-word creators of such use to obscure naked acts of plagiarism–namely, “sampling.”

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Welcome to Saragun Springs: Feckless Fables of the Fantasmagorical Part Two

The Cormorant and the Misophonyx: A Feckless Fable of the Fantasmagorical

Prelude

There are three music Spirits. First you have the Tintintinabulator. Tins were classically trained pianists in life who haunt specific keyboards (pianos, organs, harpsichords, etc.) in death. Tins are generally friendly, but being artists they are hypersensitive to criticism and require reassurance full time. Next we have the Chimespeak. Best described as self-taught travelling minstrels/buskers in life, Chimes are nomadic Spirits who wander from here to there and affect anything from the grandest church bells on down to kazoos fashioned from handkerchiefs and combs. Tastes aside, these two Spirits classes are equally talented even though the Tins tend to look down on the “prolish” Chimes, who in turn wonder how a Tin can look down on anything with “its” head so firmly tucked up its own buttocks.

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