Magic Graveyards

You Remembered Everything Chapter Four

When Tommy Lemolo was fourteen she broke her left leg playing school softball. It was a gruesome injury involving both her tibia and fibula.

“Never break a bone before? Looks like you have a special talent for it,” a vaguely cute Xray tech joked with her at the hospital as he wheeled her in for pictures. A healthy shot of morphine had placed Tommy in a state of serenity; it made people funnier and cuter than they might have been judged previously. It thickened her senses, therefore she did not register the look of deep concern on the tech’s face nor his change in attitude after he had viewed the first images.

A lot more pictures and concerned faces followed. Eventually Tommy learned the awful truth: Osteosarcoma. Bone cancer.

It cost Tommy her left leg at the knee and endless hours of chemotherapy. But she gained the “cure”– that is if “in remission” (a phrase Tommy found a bit non-committal) can be taken as a cure. For six years her checkups have returned clean, and she figured that once she passed the ten year mark she would be gold.

Still, you never know.

Tommy, however, learned that you could go through life as though it was an endless game of Russian roulette or just get on with it. One of the nurses who had lost a leg in a motorcycle accident said “Look at it this way kid, you will go through life stubbing only half as many toes.” Tommy figured that she wasn’t the first amputee to hear that from the same nurse. But it was a positive thing. Regardless, uplifting sentiments, bumper sticker slogans and spitting in the devil’s eye perkiness only get you so far. It renders down to living in fear, fretting over every bump and pain, just waiting, or getting on with it.

Tommy was all about getting on with it. She had stayed the night at Irene’s, as was her habit when the PDQ came out (although she only drank half a can–oddly fresh or otherwise, the stuff really was piss). She rose quietly a bit after six, and got ready for a run. Ever since her brush with death, Tommy was never tired upon waking. Even on slightly under four hours’ sleep she was ready to go. She loved to run in the early morning. The world was hers and she had room to think. She experienced the mornings and did not hide from it behind earbuds the way so many others did.

It was going to be a beautiful day. The air was cool and clean–there wasn’t a sluggish summer breeze carrying the high stink of garbage or the charnel stench of small deaths in the high grass. Tommy noticed that the cemetery’s main gate was already open, which was a happy surprise. Being inside New Town in the morning was like being under water, amongst the shadows of the yews and maples. Moreover, the circular path that was about a quarter mile in length went down then back up the face of the graveyard. It attracted many runners and dog walkers.

Tommy entered the cemetery and chose to run right. If she had gone left she would not have seen the corpse of Holly More propped up at the foot of the great maple because he was on the other side of it.

She ran and avoided the areas where the spray of the automatic sprinkler system overshot the grass and landed on the pathway. There were people who bitched about that sort of thing, but the getting on with it mindset does not linger on such inane matters. And as she hit her stride, Tommy’s mind flitted from subject to subject like a hummingbird.

“Weird Ellie coming out… ‘dreamt of a man and lady in the graveyard’… Dow Lady–why haven’t I ever seen her? Everyone else has…bastards Ha! Goddam snobby ghost–ha! Maybe a joke…naw…hey, who’s the fucker frying bacon while I’m being all healthy like–bastard–Ha!”

This line of thought stopped soon after Tommy had made the turn and was halfway up the hill. She saw some guy lying against the big maple tree. At first she went on “Yellow Alert.” Often homeless people would catch a bit of sleep inside the cemetery. Another thing Tommy had gained from her illness was compassion, but you could only have so much compassion when you are a young woman clad in running shorts and a tee shirt (fake leg withstanding) and there is no one else around.

At first she slowed down and waved. No reply. Upon drawing closer she saw he was out for the count. His body lay limp and his head was bowed. Closer still and she saw flies landing and departing from him.

“Hello?” she said, her trepidation set aside. Something told her he was dead. Still, young women in shorts and tees explore situations even after “something” gives them inside information. Then she saw the needle, the tubing, the dried trickle of dried blood, which (Tommy assumed) had attracted the flies. She knelt on her one real knee about five feet away from the man, and without taking her eyes off of him she extracted her phone from a compartment she had devised in her prosthetic (all kinds of shit in there–wallet, gum, smokes for healthy living, etc).

Tommy opened her phone and called 911. And although she had looked away from him for maybe half a second, when she looked back there was a ghost beside him. This was when time stopped for roughly seven seconds (only time can be stopped for an amount of itself; the eternal paradox). The wispy glimmer of a woman was obviously a ghost because people are not see through and are not like to hover above the ground as this individual did. Stunned, Tommy gazed at the ghost. The ghost finally laughed and said, albeit from what sounded like a very long distance, “You will remember everything.” Time resumed and when the operator said “911, what is your emergency?” the ghost vanished.

******

Emma, who, like Holly and the mind she referred to as Keeper, was centered in the great tree. She watched Tommy leave the house and enter the gate which Keeper had unlocked with a quick blue bolt of electricity a few minutes after sunrise. Apparently, Keeper had over-estimated the voltage necessary to unlock it–therefore that was one lock that would never work again–it leapt off the gate and lay in the grass, fused into a molten mess. Emma always found it amusing whenever the all powerful Keeper goofed. Stuff like that had happened before–once with even greater energy.  Emma remembered a dead pine felled during a fierce storm in 1962. (She also got hit with a bolt of lightning that day and Dow Lady sightings were higher than ever for weeks). It appeared that it would crush the small Caretaker’s Cottage, and two City employees who had taken refuge there. Emma believed that Keeper’s intent was to nudge the thing out of harm’s way. Keeper was very spare with “her” resources and Emma understood that Keeper did not seek human attention. But instead of pushing the pine to one side with an electric “shove,” Keeper blew it into toothpicks. The concussion knocked out many windows, but the city employees were saved. 

And although Holly was “there” as a tree spirit for lack of a better term, his mind had been sucked into a Legend–his energy ebbed at a low pulse and she figured that it would remain that way until sunset. Emma had always wondered how that went. “Do I vanish, or am I still in the tree?” For over seventy years, she had “kept the Legends” for Keeper, and today was the first time she hadn’t been sent into the life of one of the persons buried at New Town since her arrival in 1943.

It was a pleasant development, seeing the sun again with her own mind. Whenever Keeper culled electricity from storms and the air itself, She (meaning Keeper, again for a lack of a proper term) stored it, assumedly in the tree, which really was not a tree in the common sense. Emma had learned how to tap the power after she had been inadvertently hit by lightning in 1966 (something that Keeper had not arranged). She found that with a little practice she could “thinktoward” her shape and project it wherever she wanted to in the cemetery. Emma found it amusing to do this when Tommy appeared at the foot of the tree.

But there was also a necessity involved. Emma and Holly had twenty one days to make contact with Tommy and Irene (whom Emma had watched grow up, as she had “known” Elsbeth Allison nearly all her life as well). By the twenty-first of the month, a certain task must be accomplished. Emma had never directly communicated with Keeper, she was on the need to know basis, but she knew the outline of the situation if not yet the specifics.

Fortunately, Emma was very intelligent and despite being dead she could still learn new things. Every night when she returned from a Legend, the number that began as 25963 and reduced to zero in her mind as she died, went up by one. At sunset, after her final “dip” into a Legend, the number twenty-two entered her mind, and twenty-one did the same. Long long before, within her first week of odd conscription, Emma had figured that 25963 was how many days she had lived–from 20 May 1872 to 21 June 1943. She inferred that it must also be the number of days of her service.

What happened after that, she had no idea. But she had an idea and if it could happen it would be wonderful.

******

The aftermath of Holly More’s (supposedly) lonely death was well attended. Three police cars, two aid vehicles (featuring two nearly identical semi-cute EMT’s both with the same, haircuts Navy tattoos on their forearms. and (for no known reason) and a firetruck, all arrived soon after Tommy placed the call. She took advantage of the interval and went inside to fetch her sweat pants. 

After six different cops (one of whom was a friend of her dad’s) had asked Tommy essentially the same questions, she figured that she had been “cleared” from the suspects’ list–as though there were any other except for what was in the needle.

Irene had been in a state of semi-consciousness when Tommy darted into her room and told her there was a “deadguyinthecemeteryandaghostohmygod.” Tommy was in and out of the room in sweats within two seconds, three tops. Irene was much coffee and at least two cigarettes away from making sense of what Tommy had told her.

Slowly, Irene rose and peeked through the blinds on her bedroom window and saw a procession of emergency vehicles pull up to the main gate of the cemetery. Although a bit sluggish without adequate levels of the substances she was addicted to in her system, Irene figured what Tommy told her probably had something to do with it. 

“What happened?” she asked Tommy, meeting her at the gate about twenty-five minutes later. Gram was still sleeping. Irene almost brought the baby monitor speaker, but she recalled its sudden death. Besides, it was out of range anyway. She toted a comically large gas station coffee cup instead. She offered some to Tommy, who accepted.

“I was running and found a dead guy against the tree–had a needle in his arm,” Tommy said. “I also saw the Dow Lady.”

“That’s a bit of a news overload for a Tuesday morning,” Irene said, lighting the day’s second cigarette. “Um, dead guy and the Dow Lady?”

“I really saw her–and I just found this.”

Tommy pulled up her left pant leg and opened the compartment in her prosthetic. She made sure no one was looking then showed Irene a lump of metal that somewhat resembled a padlock, and stashed it back inside.

“Whazzat?”

“The gate was unlocked. Figured it was still open from yesterday–too early otherwise.”

“That the lock?”

“Duude, I do wish you’d wake up quicker.”

“Awake enough to know about withholding evidence.”

“You watch too much CSI.”

“How come you hiding it then?”

“The Dow Lady,” Tommy said, as though it explained everything. 

The driver of a white van lightly beeped his horn because the girls were in his way. 

“Sorry,” Tommy said, quickly dropping the leg of her sweatpants to cover the lock.

“That’s the coroner,” Irene said. “Same guy who picked up Mrs. Lonney a couple years back.”

“Who?”

“You remember her–she lived over in that little brown house…Mars bars on Halloween…had the weird little dog named Barfy.” 

Irene remembered that there had been some talk about bring Barfy on board after Mrs. Lonney’s death (which happened at least two days before she was discovered). Fortunately, one of her sons took him in. There were few animals that Irene didn’t love on sight, and Barfy was one of them. He was a small Heinz 57 of some sort, and a mean little bastard at that, always nipping, always making noise. 

“Her? That was hella long ago,” Tommy said. “Sixth grade.”

Emma listened to the girls (in her mind they would always be the girls, as was Elsbeth). Even though she was several hundred feet away, she could “thinktoward” any conversation or person in the cemetery; it was the same as being there. 

And although she could see the area surrounding New Town, she had no power to reach beyond what was obviously an artificial habitat. Irene was being an irritant because she kept stepping in then out of the cemetery. But she was able to infer from Tommy’s replies that the conversation, save for the lock and the sighting of herself, was fairly inane. 

“Are these guys done with you?” Irene said. “I probably should make sure Gram’s still alive.” She said nothing about the dead man, but she knew he would bound into her mind later, as most sad things did when she was alone. It was getting to be a hard world in which dead people were found lying about almost monthly, in a town of under forty-thousand. Harder still was acknowledging she was building a standard complacency to such news; although overdosing was old news, doing it in the graveyard was something new.

Irene’s little morbid jokes helped her survive, but they also carried a pang that disconcerted below the level of mention. It was something that had to refill, like a cistern, before it elicited any comment.

“Think so,” Tommy said. 

As they crossed the street and out of Emma’s reach, Tommy’s left leg began to hum. 

“Your phone’s making weird noises.”

“No,” Tommy said, “it’s in my front pocket–goddam what is it?” She bounded up the stairs to the porch swing, sat and opened the compartment. The lock was buzzing, like a June beetle.

“Don’t touch it,” Irene said.

“Like hell, I won’t–fucker’s in my leg,” Tommy said. She reached for it, hesitantly, and when she touched it the noise ceased. “Wow, it’s warm,” she said, holding the lock up to show Irene, who touched it. 

“Ow, fucker–” Irene said because she had been hit with a bolt of static electricity. “How come it didn’t zap you, ya lucky bastard?”

“Because she’s still dead in some places,” something said in Irene’s mind. 

And for the second time in one morning, time, again, was stopped for an interval of its own self. This “time” it paused for seventeen seconds. Keeper had run up a time debt during her activities and it was necessary to pay the interest, like that on a credit card, now and again–though really just now–an endless now of sorts. 

For Irene, upon the shock everything was still. Tommy was still holding the lock, frozen in place. A large Monarch butterfly was suspended in the air and was a pair of goldfinches just off the porch in a similar holding pattern. And there was no sound at all, like it must be in outer space.  

“What’s this?”

“You heard me,” the same voice replied. It was a man’s voice, unfamiliar, 

“Who the fuck is ‘me’?” Irene raised her voice, she did not like this at all, especially the utter silence.

“Don’t be frightened. Soon, you will remember everything.”

And with that, the mostly under-appreciated sounds of the world flooded back and Tommy laughed, “You are such a baby.”

End Chapter Four 

You Remembered Everything: Chapter Three

Chapter Three

21 June 1943

The Legend of Emma Withe (Part One)

The morning paper was the usual dog of war. Other than a follow-up article about a peculiar fire at the Dow Hotel, the Charleston Sun was, as always, heavy with the blare and thump of the trumpets and drums of war. And there were the usual op-ed pieces that scolded the young men who were “waiting for an invitation to the party” instead of volunteering to defend the land of the free, home of the brave and so forth. Emma felt that these writings would carry more weight if not written by men who were safely exempt from service on account of age. Moreover, it should have been noted by the writers that most of the men of service age in Charleston were there to build and refit warships at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. At seventy-one, Emma long knew that there were few things on earth more tiresome than an old man who has something to say.

With great reluctance, Emma turned to a quieter page in the paper. Running her finger down the updated casualty list (even the smallest communities had such a list), she waited for her heart to snag on a half-forgotten name as it had six times in the past year and a half. Whenever Emma found one of those snags, she’d send her mind back to when the dead soldier was a boy and she was his teacher at Charleston Elementary. She would endeavor to remember a day when the boy had seemed at his happiest, then she’d seal that memory in her heart and never think about the boy again.

There hadn’t been any snag in that week’s list. Emma sighed and rolled a cigarette. She pitied the boys on the list who had not been her pupils, but she had no space in her heart for them. Their deaths (which probably did not occur with the blare and thump of trumpets and drums) were just faceless redundancies to her, as they were to most everyone else. True–each had been a person with his families and friends and likes and dislikes; hopes and dreams. No disputing that. But there were just so damned many of them; lives stamped out short by foreign events already begun while they were still children. And as scarcity drives up value, a glut drops the price. A similar economy guided Emma’s heart; and she could only invest–however briefly–in the boys who had attended her fourth-grade class at Charleston. Even in retirement she could not afford to dwell long on such dark matters.

Emma laid the newspaper aside. She had a second dreary matter to dispense with.

For two weeks, Margaret’s letter had followed Emma around her rooms like a stray dog. For the first week it was stuffed inside a drawer. Unfortunately, Emma never realized just how often she needed to get into that drawer. Emma had hoped that the top cupboard would take the letter in and give it the same air of urgency that Christmas decorations have in the summertime. But the relocation to Emma’s version of Siberia proved ill-timed, for it coincided with the cupboard’s hitherto unknown busy season. And every time Emma found herself teetering on the stool, seeking out some suddenly required item, the letter wafted down onto the counter. Inexorably, Margaret’s letter found its way on to the table, the final stop.

Lewis had wondered why she just didn’t just burn the letter unopened. “That way it won’t be a bother to you.”

But that was Lewis, dear and sweet. Still a lap cat to her, even after all these years.

Always helpful, always caring, always advising. Poor Lewis. Never that helpful, caring, nor wise unto his own affairs. A buffoon, really. Lewis was too sincere to have prospered. But Lewis was the one person Emma wished to outlive; her death would hurt him immeasurably.

“All right Peggy,” Emma laughed, for the third to the last time in her life, “you win.” If it were only Peggy who had written this, she thought, knowing better, but hoping right along. Peggy was the sort of girl who’d rub daisies on her letters to “AMERICA, U.S.A.” How Emma lived for those correspondences from London. Home. Whenever she got a letter from Peggy, Emma would tear it open on the spot and hold it up against her nose; and somehow the seven thousand miles lying between Emma and her little sister were eliminated. Emma had promised to send for Peggy, someday. But promises have a knack of making liars of us all. By the time Emma finally relented and opened Margaret’s letter, forty-three years had passed since they had seen one another. And in that space of time, much had happened to both. Too much, to be honest. Little Peggy was all gone. In her place there was Margaret, which would’ve been fine if Margaret hadn’t grown up to be such a strange, one-note woman, who, like clockwork, sent equally strange, one-note letters every six months.

The letter was, as Emma had feared, all-Margaret. No “Dearest Sissy”; no stale, yet wondrous scent of daisies (which Emma allowed would have been peculiar to find in a letter sent by a fifty-four year old woman); no hint of Peggy. Like the Sun, the letter was thick with war; but not even an event as momentous as the Second World War could take the spotlight off God when Margaret wrote Emma her bi-yearly letters:

“…God found England Decadent. He commanded Satan to marshal the Nazis to smite England for its Wickedness…A Bright Day cometh, Emmalene! Our Homeland has seen the Evil of its ways! Soon She shall rise again! Come Home to God, Emmalene. Take Jesus back into your Heart! and we shall Rejoice Together! Evermore in Heaven!…”

That was the general smell of the thing. Although Emma had no reason to believe that Peggy might crawl out of Margaret like a survivor emerging from the rubble long after her empty casket had been laid into her grave, Emma always had her hopes. And no matter how many times Emma sealed Peggy into the vault, that winsome, beloved phantom always found a way to slip her chains. Emma carried Margaret’s letter to the sink. She held it by a corner, like one might hold a dead rat by its tail. She then put a match to it, and held it until she was certain that the fire wouldn’t go out when she dropped it into the basin.

The flames reminded Emma about the queer fire that had happened three nights earlier at the Dow Hotel. The blaze was confined to a single room and had taken the life of a woman. To Lewis, and half of Charleston (the other half had yet to hear), “confined” was an understatement.

“I got it all out of Joe Parnell,” Lewis, a most credulous sort of man, said, in reference to an ex-dentist who served as Deputy Coroner. “Told me if I breathed a word that he’d deny he ever said it… Told me that it was off the record.”

To which Emma smiled. Telling Lewis anything worthwhile or interesting was the same as publishing it in the Sun (which, to its credit, never ran the unsavory rumor that clung to the story–but did print an awful lot of follow up stories about the fire’s lone victim).

“’Spontaneous combustion,’” Emma said, laughing for the second to the last time in her life; echoing the thing Lewis had told her, and watching Margaret’s letter burn into Peggy’s ashes.

“Sister dear,” she said, “if not Heaven, then where else shall we meet?”

****

Emma had no plans to visit Mary in New Town Cemetery that day, even in retirement she remained a slave to routine. It was Monday, and she had gone the day before; for that is what she did on Sunday. And yet there she was, fully aware of the day, but not questioning why she had automatically walked to New Town instead of the Park Avenue Diner, where she ate lunch six days a week. It was through she had been guided like a sheep and was just as unquestioning as livestock. It was not until after death that she finally approached the why of the thing and, even more importantly, how and who?

Again, there she was standing at the foot of the Withe family plot. Which contained Mary’s grave and that of Emma’s departed and never missed husband, Robert. There lay an already paid for empty space between them.

Mary Elizabeth Withe

1900-1906

Here Lies a Mother’s Heart

Although it had been exposed to thirty seven years of weather, Mary’s headstone was polished and in all ways kept immaculate. Nary a finger of moss had invaded a letter, nor were weeds allowed to take root in the plot. Emma had twiced replaced the stone when the inevitable cracks had formed and figured she should do it again, before it was too late. Robert’s grave was untended and looked like something that had been ignored since it was filled in 1908.

Emma had complete control of her emotions. Hurtful memories could not sneak up on her. She could only experience emotions when she wanted to; only when she let them out of their cells. Mary’s death had changed Emma. It made her cold and ruthless, but only on the inside, for she was able to affect an acceptable, though aloof demeanor; her insensitivity, however, did not extend to children, or to persons such as Lewis who had something good and childlike about him that survived the push to adulthood.

Thus, she allowed herself to feel Mary only on special occasions. Regardless, at all times what passed between Emma and Mary’s memory lay beyond the reach of anyone else’s power of description. She had no feelings about Robert’s grave, nor her part in filling it. He was a closed book never to be reopened.

Upon gazing at Mary’s stone, strange emotions, lacking enough substance to gather into thoughts, began to swirl in Emma’s mind; a blizzard of half thoughts and indescribable feelings. I know this–I know all about this–why can’t I remember? She saw a small party of people moving toward her, and the sun began to move crazily in the sky, east to west with stunning speed, night and day alternating and gaining and gaining until it was all a blur. And numbers entered her thoughts: she first saw the meaningless number 20,058 and watched it reduce by one at a time with the same velocity the whipping sun marked new days.  It stopped at one. Then Emma laughed for the last time in her life. It was all clear to her. I remembered everything. But she didn’t remember everything long. A tremendous flash burst inside her head. The left side of her body died milliseconds before the rest; she fell in that direction, striking her head on Mary’s stone.

And somewhere, where cosmic records are kept, Emma’s one became zero. Yet that too wouldn’t last long.

(Author’s note. The image is obviously not June, unless at the poles. But I like it. LA)

End chapter three

You Remembered Everything Chapter Two

During Holly and Emma’s strange meeting, Irene Allison was at home sitting on a porch swing and drinking a can of PDQ Pilsner. Irene looked much younger than her twenty years because she was neither quite five feet tall nor a hundred pounds. It was a pretty night, maybe sixty, and not humid as it usually gets during summer in the Pacific Northwest.

Irene’s house stood at the crest of T-Hill, directly across the street from New Town Cemetery. Despite its location, little could be seen of the cemetery from the porch due to the quick drop of the hillside. Holly and Emma were no more than a hundred yards away, but since that was mostly downhill from her, they could have been on Mars for all Irene knew.

Unlike the dilapidated rows of war time duplexes, it was a clean, albeit aging, two-bedroom, single level working class home built by Irene’s paternal great grandparents prior to the Great Depression. It resembled a hundred others in Charleston save for a veranda that ran the length of the front of the house. Irene always thought that there was something southern and To Kill a Mockingbird about the veranda. A large porch swing to the left of the front door was the veranda’s main feature; Irene sitting on it during fair weather was often the swing’s main feature.

Irene had one ear trained on the baby monitor she used to listen in on her grandmother. It was stationed on the wide rail of the veranda. Hard circumstances and bad luck made Irene responsible for the well being of another human being even though she believed that she was not particularly able to manage herself. The weight sat uneasily. Over the past five years her life had been little more than about death; everyone she loved had a lifeline as long as that of a Bronte sister. Even the cat, Sir Jack Falstaff, whom Irene had known since the dawn of her memory, was sixteen.

As a diversion, Irene, again, wondered how a can of five-year-old PDQ Pilsner could still be fresh and fizzy. It was better to think about that than dwell on another lonesome night of her youth taking the big swirl down, then upbraiding herself for her selfishness.

PDQ was the lowest of the three local budget beers (said to be brewed from the “mysterious waters of Saragun Springs”). Each can featured a picture of “Pie-Eyed Peety the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon.” Peety was a toon in a porkpie hat, who smoked a cigar and held (an apparently bottomless) can of PDQ in one wing; he had been touting the swill since the 40’s. No matter how he was positioned, Peety’s head was always surrounded by six (Irene had counted) popping bubbles that inferred (along with his “pied” eyes) a state of extreme intoxication. There were uptight snowflakes who protested an insolently drunk pigeon being PDQ’s mascot. They said it was designed to attract kids to drinking, cigarettes, premarital sex, critical thinking and all the other stuff people would rather do than take direction from uptight snowflakes. Irene believed that it was a hypocritical society that begat useless snowflakes who made more noise about cartoon beer mascots than they did about people dying in doorways that caused people of all ages to flee reality. Regardless, none of that solved the prolonged freshness mystery.

These philosophical thoughts were interrupted at 12:17:09 A.M., the precise time of Holly More’s death at the foot of the cemetery’s great maple tree. The baby monitor squawked and Irene heard a female voice say “You remembered everything, darling,” at a volume well beyond the capacity of the cheap speaker, which, like Mr. More, died that instant. This was accompanied by a bright flash of light inside the cemetery. As Irene dashed from the porch through the house, she expected to hear thunder, but it never came. She turned the light on in Gram’s room and saw nothing out of order; Gram was sound asleep courtesy of one of the many pills she was prescribed for a litany of woes, including insomnia. All Irene got for the effort was a peeved yawn from Falstaff, who was curled at the foot of the bed.

Irene turned the light off and quietly closed the door. She never felt so alone.

But that feeling vanished when she heard Lauren Thommisina Lemolo’s ancient Dodge Colt pull into the Allison’s driveway. Only official people called her Lauren, to everyone else she was “Tommy.” Although she had been distracted that night, Irene usually knew that Tommy was on her way long before she arrived. The Colt made several strange noises (audible at about a half mile) that distinguished it from all other contraptions in Irene’s knowledge. Mainly, it was a combination of the loosely geared manual transmission and heavy exhaust pushed through the ragged tailpipe that caused a singular, hiccupping whurr–whirring sound. The Colt constantly threatened suicide but never got around to it. Tommy figured that it was waiting for the worst possible moment to do so.

“Oh goody, you broke out the urine,” Tommy said, bounding onto the porch, met by Irene. She was twenty-one, a year older and a foot taller than Irene. Always athletic, Tommy moved like a dancer even though she had a prosthetic attached at the knee of her left leg.

“You see a flash of lightning about a minute ago?” Irene asked as she handed Tommy a can from a bucket near the swing. “Looked like lightning hit the graveyard, but no thunder.”

“Lightning–on a night like this? Must be the pee talking.” Tommy then held her can of PDQ high as though it were a chalice. “I’m telling you there’s a Nobel prize kind of scientific mystery here to be solved–how can a beer brewed bad not go flat. Tellin’ you there’s money in this.”

For a fleeting second something hitched in Irene’s mind. She saw Fallstaff lying on the porch swing–confused, she began to think “didn’t I just see…” but it vanished before completion. As far as Irene was now concerned he had always been on the swing.

Tommy sat on the swing and nuzzled the old boy. “How ya been fatso?” She touched his nose with her beer and won an expression that suggested he needed to sneeze but had forgotten how. Not all that long ago Tommy and Irene would watch him hunt and eat moths on the porch. He hadn’t done much of that for the last two years or so. The shit you miss.

Irene remembered the noise the baby monitor made. She picked it up and shook it. Something rattled. “Fried,” she said. “When the lightning–or whatever happened, I heard a voice over this thing–real loud–now it’s cooked.”

Tommy took it from her, also rattled it, fiddled with the volume controls. “Wow, it is spent–you can smell the wires. What did the voice say?”

Irene sat beside her, she was about to answer but the words had also vanished. “Dunno–can’t remember. I took off thinking it was Gram, but she’s out completely. Must be a blown transformer–good thing it wasn’t ours.”

Although both Irene and Tommy were too smart to buy the lame transformer theory, neither of them felt compelled to explore why there would be a transformer inside a cemetery; nor why the lights were still on; nor how a transformer blew out a wireless monitor and nothing else. It simply felt better to let it go. Natural. Besides, there were two other monitors that came with the set; by the time Irene returned from fetching one from the kitchen, the topic was completely forgotten.

“How was she tonight?” Tommy asked, already knowing, lighting two cigarettes. She gave one to Irene.

“Same–how was work?”

“No breaking news there,” Tommy said. “Made a whole nine bucks in tips–one fucker left a quarter–but we stayed open all the way to 11:45–numb-nuts about peed himself worrying about closing fifteen minutes early on a Monday night.” Tommy waitressed at WJ’s Bar and Grill; on busy weekends she easily cleared fifty, sixty bucks a night in tips, even after cutting in the bussers. “Numb-nuts” was WJ’s assistant manager–Irene thought his real name might be Andrew–something with an A. She had never met numb-nuts, and still six months shy of twenty-one, she had only seen WJ’s from the outside. But she had formed a mental picture of the place, the workers and even numb-nuts based on Tommy’s colorful descriptions.

Tommy told Irene she could get her a job at WJ’s, but that was before the State “hired” Irene as Gram’s live-in caregiver. It’s a hell of a world; children and grandchildren having to take pay for something they had been and felt obliged to do for free. Yet even though the house was paid for, expenses were fairly low and Gram had both social security and her pension, there ‘s always the property taxes and increasing prices, more money is always needed. Still, it made Irene feel like dirt; like a sponge; like one of those awful people you hear about on the news whose neglect causes bedsores and whose greed raids the accounts. This made Irene so over the top scrupulous that it might have looked suspicious if anyone cared. It also seemed to her that the State needed a patsy just in case something went wrong.

Grandpa Henry and Gram were children of the Great Depression. Even though they were literally kids back then, they had been taught to buy all you can of something when it goes on sale. That sort of thinking led to things like thirty-one flats of PDQ in the garage, upon Grandpa Henry’s death five years earlier. One summer, when it got hot enough in the garage for some of the cans to explode, Grandpa Henry installed air conditioning (since discontinued), thus negating the money saved from buying in bulk. Two years of subtle mourning passed before Irene began to drink it. At a rate of six to ten a week (even with Tommy’s help) there were still nine cases in the garage.

Of course it hadn’t always been that way. There had been boisterous times, good times, alive times. But those things vaporized when Grandpa Henry collapsed in the kitchen from a heart attack when Irene was just shy of fifteen; the following month, Tommy’s mother died unexpectedly in her sleep. The “unexpectedly” part went away when an emptied bottle of hydrocodone and a note were located on her nightstand.

Irene was with her grandfather when he died, unable to do anything more than to cry and beg him to hold on till help arrived. Gram had been at work and Irene was in her room studying when she heard a crash and a thud in the kitchen. She found him lying on the kitchen floor in a puddle of Four Freedoms vodka. Although her grandfather was no stranger to losing consciousness, he rarely passed out that early in the day.

“I’m calling 911, please please please don’t die.”

But he did die. He died without regaining consciousness, in her arms, shortly before the ambulance arrived. In the intervening years, Irene had found the good in her grandfather’s sudden death. He had been spared the torture inflicted on Gram.

Death was taking the long way to Gram. Until she turned sixty-five she’d been strong and healthy–in defiance of her own tableau of evil habits. But Elsbeth Allison suffered her first stroke not five months after Grandpa Henry died. In itself, the stroke was no big deal. But it served as an opening bell for Gram’s season in hell.

Within three years, there was very little that was not wrong with Gram. She had diabetes, gout, emphysema, kidney disease, an enlarged heart, plus a liver “Harder than a twelve year-old whore’s upbringing,” so Gram had said, because she used to say stuff like that, prior to her brain no longer getting enough oxygen to sustain a personality. She had still managed to remain a funny human being until spring. Then she went away. The situation almost caused Irene to pray to the God she did not believe in to end Gram’s suffering until she realized that if God did exist, then he was the fucker responsible for pain.

Naturally, Gram had begun to live in the past because her present was shit and the future didn’t have plans for her other than the continuation of shit until she died. And despite the B.S. Irene had heard about miracles, she knew Gram wouldn’t be getting better because there was no better for her to get back to. Her equipment was shot beyond repair.

Gram, Irene’s Gram, never bitched about the situation. But the thing in the back bedroom complained full time about everything. Whiney, petulant, dumb as a post and certainly not the sort of person Gram would have liked, the doppelganger of Elsbeth Allison lived on for no apparent good reason. Still, every now and then old Gram would resurface, but the occasions were becoming steadily infrequent. Thus Irene was in the not so unique position of mourning the passing of someone while that person (in the technical sense) still lived.

All such facts went into causing a hell of a surprise when Gram came out of the house and asked Tommy for a cigarette.

End Chapter TWO

You Remembered Everything by Leila Allison: Chapter One

The Dow Lady

Near Midnight, 1 July 2014

Holly More lay dying, slumped against a maple tree inside New Town Cemetery. He’d found the idea of committing suicide inside a graveyard amusing. There was something awfully barn door during the cows about it he liked. Something almost tidy, yet mystically symbolic, unlike life. But he supposed that, like everything else he imagined, it had been done before.

His departure was going as planned except for one nagging fact: “Why am I still alive?” Except for his eyes, Holly couldn’t move, not the slightest twitch; the immense hot-shot he injected knocked him out immediately, but he had awakened, which should have been impossible. And yet there he was–again–thinking coherently despite the power of the dope–Still, smack always made things right; it even eased the possibility that Holly had entered a weird junkie eternity. As long as it didn’t wear off he was all for it.

But Holly knew he was alive. He felt a slight breeze against his face, the tree, hard and uncomfortable against his back, the tubing still tight on his right biceps; and he heard the rustling of the night creatures around him. But despite this unexpected return to consciousness, Holly knew that he wouldn’t, couldn’t live much longer. Not with the load he’d delivered to his system. He figured that this must be a brave, futile last stand by his brain against Death. Nice try, but he knew that the laws of science would soon prevail; he was a goner; if a team of doctors began working on him that very instant it wouldn’t change the outcome.

Even though it was a moonless night, Holly could see clearly; the headstones and abundant trees had emerged from the cover of darkness. Nothing glowed in the spectral sense, but it was as though each item had shunned the night. Very strange. He then gazed at the stars through the narrow openings between the trees. And Holly remembered when stars had names. Mizar, Aldeboron, Vega. His father was keen on astronomy and he had passed the interest on to his only child.

A sadness, a keen sense of loss similar to looking up names on facebook and instantly watching faces age many years since they were last seen, came over Holly–a pain underscored by feeling like a dissipated Rip Van Winkle, returning as a stranger and not at all welcomed by the past or the future. Another hurtful reminder of what he wasted and would never get a second chance at repairing. The sadness was a good one and it dared the heroin to do something about it. But trustworthy heroin had no patience with sadness, and it had the innate ability to locate the beauty in lament and convert the coldest, ugliest, guiltiest and loneliest shit into art, which made the sufferer holy. It was, of course, a lie, but it was a hell of a good one.

Anyway, it was too late for anything else but death. He would go never knowing if there were children like him on other worlds wondering the same about him as he had in the backyard long ago. And it didn’t matter–just another pretty forlorn color for the canvas. And although death was taking its sweet-ass time, this still being alive anomaly had its upside. So Holly flowed along, going wherever, whenever the junk took him until it took him for keeps.

And the places it took him:

Holliday James More loved women, but his relationships with them unfailingly led to trouble. He used to complain about his unerring gift for choosing the worst possible lover; late in the game, however, he admitted that the women who were attracted to him had the same personality defect.

The contrary mixings began early. At five, Holly fell under the malevolent spell of his “Step Cousin” Vicki, who was three years older. In a “holy shed” at his step aunt and uncle’s house down the road, Vicki convinced Holly that he and his mother would go to hell because they hadn’t been baptized (even though she had no idea whether they had been or not). She told him it was too late for baptism, but she could help them out if he were to take “ministry” from a Good Christian such as herself. Vicki explained that heathens were not allowed to pray, but she would be happy to pray to God on their behalf. In return for this service Holly became Vicki’s personal slave. Keeping this arrangement a secret from his mother and obedience were vital components of the deal; it was the only hope that Holly and his mother had or they would be left behind on Judgement Day.

Behold a typical ministry session:

Whenever Holly failed to be all the slave Vicki thought he should be, she’d lead him up into the holy shed and “pray for his sin.” The shed was constantly dark and creepy, no matter the time or season. And the atmosphere was enhanced by Vicki’s little girl voice. It sounded wrong, plain evil, when she said stuff like, “Dear Lord and Father–Don’t know what to do about Holly. He won’t mind me like he promised. For his sin, maybe you ought to do something to his mom. She lives at 1321 Farragut Street…”

Here, Holly would break and promise to do better.

Fortunately, Step Cousin Vicki was only in office for about ten months. In the space of seven years, Holly’s somewhat unstable mother was married to six different men including Holly’s father, who vanished one day and did not return until after his mother’s death when Holly was nineteen. During that time he had met all sorts of “step relatives” who were as temporary as rainbows or the flu (depending on how you looked at things). Funny thing was that he and mom never lived outside of Torqwamni County (mainly in Charleston), and yet once a Step was removed from office Holly never saw that person again.

Except for Cousin Vicki.

Twenty some odd years down the line he had a one nighter with a woman he had met in a bar. Upon waking in her bed the next morning, he recognized the faces of Step Aunt Claudia and Step Uncle Jim and Vicki in a picture that had to be taken around the time he had known them on the nightstand. Vicki was still sound asleep–she had called herself Tori the night before, but hearing a common name like Vicki wouldn’t have mattered to Holly; but he did question why she hadn’t hung up on his odd name for a guy. Probably too hammered, he thought as he gathered his clothes. This was followed by a much worse idea, Maybe she knew?

This situation, which happened often in Holly’s twenties and thirties, usually caused him to experience an overwhelming sense of shame. Once he had woken in a strange bed and heard a baseball game on a TV in another room. He remembered Saturday morning baseball games and the feeling that overwhelmed him was as vile as a dream of being buried alive.

Usually he did his best to beetle off as quickly as possible. He had an animal sense that allowed him to wake first and avoid the uncomfortable aftermath. Once, late in the game, he woke too late and saw a horrified look in his temporary lover’s face: “Dear God, I fucked that howler?” But he was pretty good at getting out ahead of that. The clearset memory he had of the blur of dalliances was that it seemed each and every last woman had a dollar store scroll of “Footsteps” hanging on her bathroom door.

Holly had no intention of waiting for Vicki to wake so they could reminisce. Rather pleased with himself, and not at all depressed, Holly whispered “Forgive her father, we hath sinned,” as he dressed and snuck out of her house. In a fit of inspiration, Holly happily peed on the wall of a small shed beside her garage…

And…

…toward the end of the third grade Holly was certain that he was going to die from a burst appendix. He sat third in his row and whether it be by coincidence or the hand of God, the two kids who sat in front of him had emergency appendectomies. One in October, the other shortly after Christmas Vacation.

“You’re next, slice, slice,” Roxanne Passinetti whispered in Holly’s ear at lunch the day after Mrs. West informed the class that Lonnie Mars (who had a face looked as though it had been drawn by Dr. Suess) would be absent for a while due to the same surgery that had made Yvonne Lassiter a star earlier in the term. To make certain that Holly knew what she meant, Roxanne underscored her comment with the slash of an imaginary knife. At nine, Roxanne was already a stunning beauty, but as evil as Pol Pot. No worldlier than he was under Vicki’s command, “You’re next” began to mess with highly gullible Holly’s mind. He began “checking” himself, rubbing his right side so often that it did get a little sore, which also caused the older kids to accuse Holly of playing with himself.

Two things played out to be true: Holly’s appendix was his for keeps; and there was no chance in hell that he’d ever go to bed with Roxanne Passenetti who grew up to be a wealthy supermodel-looking heart surgeon…

…then there was the time he made a fool of himself jumping up and down on an ant log to impress Kim Stuart, just to have every fire ant on Earth run up his pant legs…

And…

…smiling and waving at the pretty girl he recognized from the Subway store just to realize, too late, she was smiling and waving at some guy standing behind him…

…the look on Susan’s face the moment she stopped loving him…

…The Sheriff’s pant leg hiking up and exposing a diabetic scab on his shin as he got out of his car the day the world ended…making eye contact with a toddler in a playpen in a drug house…waking the next day certain that everything in the world had died except him because he had found a way to fuck that up too…

Holly found himself still at his place against the increasingly uncomfortable tree, still high, curiously, still alive. A tiny spark of fear flashed in his mind; he knew what happened to junkies found passed out on public property. But the thought was trivial, nothing more than a reflex.

His past had flashed across his consciousness. It all dropped simultaneously, yet some vignettes lingered for closer inspection, most others blazed by without note. These recollections spanned the entirety of his life save for the darkness of infancy, and, surprisingly, did not always feature his failures with females. At the same time he was aware that he was dying from a deliberate overdose at the foot of a maple tree in New Town Cemetery. The clichés were true: Life is short and it does pass before your eyes at the end, you remember everything…

Then he saw her, in real time. A woman emerged from behind an oak tree. She approached slowly then knelt in front of Holly. Holly tried to summon the energy to speak but could not, she placed a shushing finger to her lips and smiled. All his life he had been searching for a smile like hers; it made sense that he should find it now.

Considering the possibility of a hallucination, Holly remembered the legend about the “Dow Lady,” and that New Town was supposedly her cemetery.

Like the names of stars, the Dow Lady legend was something he had forgotten a long long time ago, and yet it came to mind instantly upon seeing her; there was something about her that could not be; he couldn’t place a finger on it, but she appeared to be inserted and not a part of reality. And yet the world that contained them was perfectly normal; the breeze still caressed his face, the fucking tree was still digging into his upper back and he also could hear the drone of late night traffic on the nearby Corson Street Bridge.

Regardless of who- or whatever she was, the Dow Lady had a lot going for her. Her hair was dark red, what artists called Titian, and was drawn back and worn in a single thick braid, which was looped once around her neck and still had enough length to hang down her back. She was wearing an immaculate white nape to toe dress, something right out of the 19th century–like in pictures of English tea parties, except she wasn’t wearing a hat. He couldn’t see her feet and her hands were bare. Holly reckoned that she had lived long ago, which was puzzling because Holly knew that the Dow Lady had died during World War II. Still, since when must a hallucination make sense?

“What a wonderful face,” thought Holly. Not exactly a movie queen beauty, she was maybe thirty and had fair-skin, a faded splay of freckles and active, intelligent, friendly eyes that were the same color as her hair; her cheekbones were set high, like a cat’s, yet her overall face was shaped in an oval. The whole thing came together beautifully with her fantastic smile; the slightest hint of an overbite gave her smile a leaning forward, just-between-us quality, and it was the kind of smile that manages to personalize itself for its recipient. Holly was certain that no other person ever got the smile she had given to him, nor would he ever see what she showed to others. This reminded him of the bittersweet feeling of falling into unrequited love. Still half-heartedly supporting the hallucination fantasy, he cast about his mind for the face his imagination had kicked upstairs up to play the role of the Dow Lady.

Holly’s fading subconscious called out from the deepest chasm in failing his mind and told him that it was not responsible for this vision; for what it was worth, Dow Lady or otherwise, this was, well, is.

The Dow Lady held her silence and warm gaze, but she eventually glanced at the needle, moving only her eyes, then back into his. She shrugged in a c est sera sera sort of way and her expressive face conveyed It looks like you really did it this time.

Her name was Emma Withe, and she was no more the mythical Dow Lady than she had been Cleopatra. Still smiling, knowing his time had come, Emma took both of Holly’s hands in hers. She had attended death many times; yet each one had its own singular dignity. Life may vulgarly halt by, but death never slouches. Holly was surprised to feel warmth, yet her touch vibrated with a subdued electric pulse that hinted at great power. Holly finally passed out and thought no more. Emma held his hands for a long moment, listening. From holding them she knew that his hands had once played the guitar; effortlessly gave something called “the Vulcan Salute”; caressed and struck; created and destroyed. Lived.

Emma laughed. She was not pleased by the event but at a strange sound she needed to hear that confirmed they had done well. Emma leaned forward and whispered “You remembered everything, darling” and kissed Holly on the mouth at the last beat of his heart.

End Chapter One

You Remembered Everything by Leila Allison

Introduction

This merry month sees the beginning of a serialized novel by yours truly–or unruly. Today, the prologue for You Remembered Everything heralds the arrival of the book itself. The novel is written through chapter three and just to place an extra element of fear in my life, it will be written as we go along week to week.

As to not interfere with Guest Writer’s weeks (the last week of the month), Every installment will appear on Saturday, starting with Chapter One this Saturday the tenth, and every Saturday thereafter, for months to come (twenty chapters are planned). Unlike the missive in January, these are full chapters sometimes reaching five-thousand words, but usually about half that many. The material being adapted comes from a source of nearly 400,000-words.

This is also an adaptation of the original material in the serialized story I referred to as “You Will Remember Everything.” It was published by Literally Stories, part by part, several years ago, as related yet stand alone stories. Obviously, this version will bear a resemblance to that, but rest assured the two narratives differ greatly and soon.

Leila

Prologue

Charleston’s New Town Cemetery is seated in the west face of Torqwamni Hill, and no matter the season the quick fall of the slope and a thick line of adolescent Douglas firs at hillcrest combine to delay the cemetery dawn by a hundred yards or so. New Town’s a pretty place; the winding paths are lined with fragrant, non-fruiting cherries and delicate Japanese maples; on clear days the Olympic Mountains fill the western horizon with their beautiful yet icy indifference, and there is an abundance of old fashioned, winter-weary tombstones just begging to be charcoal-etched by artists and the sentimental at heart. A very handmade wood sign attached to the main gate informs would-be visitors that the cemetery is open from dawn to dusk. It’s been observed by the wise that dusk almost always finds its way to New Town just before the start of Happy Hour at the nearby White Pig Tavern.

Continue reading →

Saragun Poems

The Second of May happens to be Universal Ghosts of Lovers Spurned Day in the realm of Saragun Springs. So, in that spirit (pun most certainly intended), we celebrate two of the more dangerous ladies of the moors.

(Please return next week for more May merriment)

Leila

Anne and Kathy

-1-

I saw poor Anne Boleyn with head in hand

Seeking Kate on the moors of haunted land

They spoke of unstable boys and lardy kings

And masters and axes that grind and swing

-2-

“Sad Anne I shall fix you a ghost collar;

One that will make you a head taller”

With magic thread, thimble and witch needle

Kate gloriously restored Anne’s steeple

-3-

Their spirits walk the moors at night

Never resting ere first light

Together forever they laugh and sing

Of damned souls, to the beat of bat wings

-4-

Poor Henry and Heathcliff got what they earned

The wages of cruelty forever burn

Like pope toppers and scepters and royal lust

Far below in the flames evil yet just

The Oz Exception: The Season Finale

At the western edge of Chareslton’s New Town Cemetery lies humble, yet magical Alone Park. Although it is no more than an aged, somewhat forlorn bench (generously slathered with decades of birdshit) in a tiny lot rich with crabgrass, the presence of a non-fruiting Enchanted Cherry Tree makes it special.

Unique occurrences are commonplace at Alone Park. Just a half hour ago, the Volunteer Weekend Caretaker, Gwen Cooper, her Ghost boyfriend, John Mallory (contained inside her phone), and a Pygmy Goat named Fenwick Kloverleaf had passed through an interdimensional vortex that had briefly opened in the trunk of the Enchanted Cherry.

And just a moment ago, the door reappeared. It irised open and out popped a keg and six Black Rats dressed like movers in old movies, complete with little baseball hats. They huffed and puffed the keg down the side of the tree and placed it on the bench. The crew returned to the vortex, hopped in and from inside came the unmistakable, congenial sound of tips being passed out. “Thank you boys, here’s one for you and you and you…”

Gwen Cooper climbed out of the vortex, with her phone in hand. In the realm of Saragun Springs, John has a strange elastic physical shape, but here he only exists in the Caretaker’s Cottage or in Gwen’s smartphone when movement is necessary.

Gwen landed on her feet and gave the keg a happy knock. SARAGUN SPRINGS FAERIE ALE BREWED BY THE PDQ PILSNER CO. OF SARAGUN SPRINGS. BOTTOMLESS.

“I’ll have to get the hand truck to move this,” she said.

Fenwick poked his head out the vortex. “No need,” he said. “Now that it is in your realm, it is even more weightless than a balloon–that is typical of bottomless kegs. The Rats put on a bit of a show.”

Gwen plucked the keg up in one hand. “Amazing.”

Hark reader! You hear a strange noise, like the grinding of gears as this post goes from the past to the present tense…

Right now, John’s face fills the screen of your mind. “Dear reader, today was supposed to be the penultimate chapter of this tale. But Leila got blasted at the party and deleted what might have been the greatest work of genius in the history of literature…”

From off screen, you hear a laugh and a voice a lot like Gwen’s mutter “as if.”

“Anyway,” John says, smiling like a candiate’s better half, “as a great man once said after Lassie plucked Timmy from yet another abandoned well, ‘All’s well as long as Timmy isn’t in it.’ If that quote makes sense in your mind to any degree, then you have been exposed to Saragun Springs much too long, and we encourage you to seek the help of a mental health specialistor nearest liquorcabinet. Before we go, I encourage everyone to remember to put the cream on your scones before the jam…”

Gwen is again heard off screen. “What! Not that again–no wonder you are dead, lover. Too ignorant to live. No live human being has ever ruined a scone that way!”

“Just completing the tale, darling,” John says. “Ending where it began.”

“I see,” says Gwen. “Oh well, just roll the credits.”

The Oz Exception

Starring….

Dame Daisy Kloverleaf/The GOAT

Gwen Cooper

John Mallory’s Ghost

Fewnwick Kloverleaf

Penrose the Flying Weasel

The Great HeXopatha/Renfield/Mari-Kat Lywd (an identity mixture at best)

Pie-Eyed Peety the PDQ Pilsner Pigeon/PDQ Pete

The Woak Grove

Ernie the Evilmost Elm

Sheep up the yingyang

Juan Gee

Professor Moriarty

Beezer and Barkevious the Braw Bros. Baw

One Legion of Black Rats and various minions

The Spring itself

One Conjured Demon

One conjured Bad Pixie

The Interdimensional Vortex

16 Psyche

Pong

Ping

the billigits

“D.O.”

And of course our vast herd of belligerent little Lambs featuring

Tam, Boaby and the other one whose name I forget.

and Leila Allison as the befuddled pen

The Oz Exception has been brought to you by PDQ Pilsner, proud sponsor of the Pushsprings awards–be sure to try the newly acquired Faerie Ale.

Next week will feature an edited novella from long ago, whose excepts first appeared in Literally Stories UK. Then sometime come spring beware of the “rubaiyat of the billigits.” (remember, billies do not use caps). Double beware of a sample of their work coming here tomorrow.

The End

The Oz Exception Prologue

Prologue

According to my second in command, Renfield, everyday is Bring Your Pet to Work Day in Saragun Springs. At least it is in our office, that braintrust of the Springs from which the best bad ideas possible are concocted.

Renny has three pets that she allows to charmingly run amuck. Two are “The Braw Brothers Baw, Beezer and Barkevious” (who insist they are brothers even though Beezer is a British Bulldog and Barkevious is clearly a Scottie). Just yesterday, the third member of “Team Renfield” leapt onto my desk with that insolent indifference perfected by Cats, who know the precise moment when to leap from an unseen spot and land in front of you, thus giving your heart a test far more conclusive than that of the treadmill.

“Oh, you little fuckstick! What have I told you about that?” I damn near fell out of my chair when Renfield’s Black Cat, Professor Moriarty (or “Pro-Mo”), pulled that old trick on me for at least the fiftieth time in a week.

All Cats in Saragun Springs have cultured, mid-Atlantic speaking voices. The Professor ignored my complaint and started in with the insults, as is his habit. “You humans don’t have a sense of smell, outside the stenches you create–If you did possess my olfactory keenness, you would have been aware of the godly fragrance caused by my magnificence.”

I lit a smoke and hooked my thumb at the litter pan in the far corner of my office. “Tell me, Oh Magnificent One, what god creates something straight up from beer-shit hell? And if the Germans had sprayed the Allies with Cat pee in the Great War we’d all be singing David Hasselhoff songs today. And what’s that goddam thing doing in here anyway? You’re Renfield’s Cat.”

“Tut, tut,” Pro-Mo said, shaking his head. “I am my own master; ‘tis amazing that your head stays inflated with so little in it.”

I have a deft hand with Cats. Before he could swat me I landed “scratchies” on top of his pointy little head. He immediately fell into an opium daze. All Cats become hopeless stooges when involved with scratchies; we all have our weaknesses. “I’m putting you in a story,” I said. An epic day to day thing and you, little sir, will like it.

“Yes, yes, yes, in a story” he purred. It’s disgraceful how little of their bad temperament Cats retain while under the influence of scratchies. Whilst I had him under my power (my hand was starting to cramp), I whistled for the Bros Baw.

Renfield’s fiends will appear (by and by) in a daily  opus that begins tomorrow and will last all month.

See you in the morning…

Leila