THREE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING IS THE WITCHING HOUR. Forget midnight—too many pyre-inclined mortals are still awake and bungling about for sticks and matches at that time. No, what witches crave is a highly unpopulated hour to perform proper witchery in; an hour indistinguishable from the way things go in the grave.

Joey had begun to think of herself as a witch. Really not much else to do—not when you are awake, again, still, at 3:00 A.M. Up until the freaking three-A-of-M on the morning of June the eighth (the eighth, mind you), Joey’s knowledge of witches involved the usual school-patter about Salem, Massachusetts, The Wizard of Oz, and that old-timey staple of retro-TV, Bewitched. Joey saw something wrong with the Bewitched set up. Yeah, yeah, it’s just a show, I know, I know. But the idea of a powerful, beautiful witch getting married to become the barefoot and pregnant slave of some asshole with a face like something wonked-up by Dr. Seuss pissed her off. In her current state of being pregnant and six days past the due date for her first (and only–goddam right there, baby) child, Joey’s estimation of the male side of the human race was at an all time low; and with it being three–No! three-oh-two, in the morning (again and still) her rating of the fellas continued to plunge.

Lying there in the feeble light cast by the clock radio, she took stock of her sleeping husband, David. Unkempt and utterly defenseless, David didn’t look like he had been wonked-up by Dr. Seuss.

Instead, he resembled Shaggy, the bungling proto-dude ostensibly responsible for a dog by the name of Scooby Doo. Between Shaggy and Scooby there were maybe six good brain cells—and Scooby has most of them. Together this duo got the better of ghosts and werewolves and, yes, witches by the third station break. In the real world these individuals would be bilked for all their Scooby Snacks by online Nigerian princes. But not in TV-land—Oh, no. In TV-land men and their toadies are far more clever than witches. David was a mortal. It remained to be seen just who was more clever, now that it was the Witching Hour.

By the time the clock radio informed Joey that it was 3:04, Joey understood that she needed to complete an action of some sort that might allow her to sleep; an action that lay somewhere between prank and violence; an action that would make her current displeasure of her current situation the current number one topic in the mind of God. Forget the poor, the diseased, the unfairly persecuted–God did nothing for those people anyway, so she could have a moment under the spotlight and not fear any sort of karmic repercussion down the line. Plenty of justified complaints swirled about her over-charged brain; they swirled like waves of graveyard bats. For instance: why a clock radio? How backwards. There were at least six cells in the house that had alarm functions. Why not a rooster? Why not let one of those cox-combed menaces have run of the bedroom? Why hold on to a relic that you had from childhood? Something that his mommy probably bought for him. Go on, get a fucking rooster, let it terrorize your wife and mother of your child while you sleep away blissfully and oh so…

“KOH-zee,” Joey hissed softly. And she smiled the smile of persons who understand that the rules of logic do not apply to them. This was/is/always will be the Wiccan Way. The epiphany was given extra juice when the voice of her obstetrician, Dr. Milo Vance, spoke in her mind, in the form of a phone call that had taken place some eighteen hours previously. “Now, JoAnne,” he clucked, like a rooster (clucking is as close to mocking laughter as roosters get), “you have somehow misconstrued an estimated due date as an oral contract.”

Dr. Vance had probably added some chickenshit advice to that, but Joey couldn’t say because she had hung up on him. Then fucknut didn’t call back as she had fully expected. Required. Arrogant quack. Quacking clucking strutting mixed-up duck-rooster monster.

Joey reached down and plucked the family sized box of Lucky Charms that stood on the floor by her side of the bed. It was either it or her phone, but it was on the charger–plus it had become a bit of a bore, constantly siding with the world view of Dr. Cluck Cluck to whatever prolonged pregnancy questions she put to it. Lately Joey found amusement belittling and bemusing the Google Gemini AI for its lack of compassion. But you can only shake a cage for so long–plus the gizmo was way the hell over there, across the room. Anyway, this was an occasion in which only food would suffice.

Joey was amazed by the wonder of Lucky Charms. She had known about the stuff as long as the average person, but it was not until the last month, at the ripe age of twenty-four, that the awesome splendor of Lucky Charms opened for her. Being a lady of refined and ever-changing tastes, Joey had developed a gourmet’s knowledge of Lucky Charms over the course of the past month. The brown filler, which resembled horse chow, was good enough to cleanse the palate; it allowed the complex subtleties issued by no less than two hundred or so calcified charms to mince at the tip of her tongue.

Except for the stars…Joey wouldn’t rather eat a steaming pile of dogcrap than one of those grimy orange stars, but that didn’t mean they were far off from a similar estimation.

“Jesus Christ, Jo, why won’t you eat the stars? Isn’t all that stuff made from the same shit?”

Even in the darkness, only slightly aided by the glowing numbers of the clock radio, Joey was able to remove the stars, mainly by feel. By 3:23 a little pile was building near her water bottle, which stood beside the glowing clock radio on the nightstand–if six and one misread moon constitutes a little pile.

She reran David’s statement about the stars in her mind. She added a merry little light in his eyes and an insulting tilt of his head to the rerun, a tilt like that of his ever incredulous Mommy.

She struggled up onto her elbows and gazed at him with extreme virulence. “Because they taste funny, fucker. How dare you and your mummy think, I, your wife, and mother of your child, mind you, double dare say the stars are good enough for me.” These words seethed across low and quickly. Temporarily sated, Joey opened the water bottle and took a drink. Inspiration struck. She then poured a little in the bottle’s cap (again by feel and by the glow of the clock which now read 3:27). Joey dipped the stars (and ate the misidentified moon) in the cap and stuck them to the side of David’s neck, good and firm. The concept was to create a star for him to see upon waking. But to do that she would require far more materials, at least nine.

Then it happened. Precisely at the click of 3:28 it became evident that whatever Angel or Demon in charge of JoAnne Carter flipped a switch and the birth machine kicked on all at once. Water broke, contractions began and Joey rammed her thumb (a time honored attention getter for a girl who grew up with four brothers) into David’s armpit and yelled “Up Fucker!!! Now Now Now!!!” directly into his ear.

*****

A Brief Intrusion by the Author

As it should be the case in all fictional stories in which a baby is born, it went perfectly and there were no complications and the child, a girl (name her whatever you like), entered the world just before dawn on 8 June of whatever year you would like it to be (as long as you understand that cell phones and Lucky Charms must exist at that time–unless you want to go to the trouble of inventing a parallel universe for those to be around in the 1920’s–your call. Seems like needless work to me, but as staged, your call).

This tale is based on actual events that occurred in 1986 and it pleases the writer that all three parties are still about in the world and none have ever gone to prison or run for political office, which is always a good thing to know. Yes, it has taken nearly forty years for it to get this far. It predates cell phones that came along, as well as Wikipedia. But Lucky Charms have always been the soul of it.

Therefore this tale is one of the oldest in the Leila Allison canon, actually the Irene Allison collection–or should I say half story because I, Leila and Irene, have never discovered a decent way to end it. But now that forty years have passed (or will this June–the actual date where most all else is fabrication–except the Lucky Charms, which did happen), I, Leila, feel a strong need to complete Overtime and release it from its almost eternal mooring in the boatyard of my mind.

For an ending, I could baffle the readers with bullshit. Do you know that a “hidden key” could be summoned in the charms with the addition of milk in 2005 (when the tale was a callow nineteen)? It’s all right, do not curse your ignorance, few people know about it. It preceded the arrival of the hourglass charm in 2008 (remember the Year of Change, Americans? Overtime turned twenty-two that year. Again it is all right if you do not because that was political jargon which has the shelf life of Mayfly shit and should not be taken seriously). 2008 was also the year that the creepy looking cartoon Leprechaun’s name was changed from “Lucky” to “Emerald Elder.” The only thing interesting about the change is that someone was actually paid to come up with the name, which, perhaps for me only, is the most pedo-sounding name since Wacko Jacko and/or Rupert Murdoch.

Sigh, as you plainly see, thinking up an end for Overtime has been a challenge. So I have dusted off the original closing and now present it to you, the Patient Reader.

The Ending

As you already know,everything went well at the hospital. Sometime after sunrise, Joey gave birth to a hella-noisy little girl named Susan Marie (You still may call her what you want, but Joey chose Susan Marie. The first for Joey’s mother, the middle for David’s mummy, who noticed the rank but couldn’t really say shit about it without coming off like a bitch–which was Joey’s intent, also figured out at three in the morning).

Sadly, David missed the delivery because he needed three stitches sewn into his head on account of his recklessly nailing it on the clock radio after he had “dreamed” that someone had shouted “Up Fucker!!! Now Now Now!!!” into his ear. It should be stated that everything went well except for David banging his head during the hectic moments after the said Angel/Demon had flipped the switch. But considering he had little to do with the physical part of the pregnancy after conception, he was wise enough not to bring up the subject for twenty years, and at that time he quickly dropped it remembering that the possession of an occasionally leaky memory was one of the key aspects of a lengthy, if not entirely happy, marriage.

Eventually, the newly minted family of three got together for the first time. This happened in Joey’s room, which she had to herself because of Susan Marie, whose deafening howling power matched that of a possessed leaf blower. She was perfectly healthy, just someone who enjoyed self expression early and often. Normally hospitals treat and street mothers ASAP, but in a rare bit of genius David had paid for a two day stay ahead of time. Motivations for acts of genius are often cast under the light of suspicion, as do their sudden appearance in literature. The best thing to do there is “go with it.”

“Does your head hurt much, darling?’

David almost answered honestly but he was (and remains) always smarter than he looked.

“Ummmm, no,” he said.

Susan Marie gave up the howl and gave both her parents a knowing glance over, even though science says such is impossible for children her age.

“She seems to be sizing us up,” David said. He extended his index finger toward Susan Marie’s hand, which she grasped and held onto.

“I swear she’s smiling Jo–can they do that this early?”

Joey laughed. “She’s a Daddy’s girl,” she said. And she was very happy to know it because right then and there it was clear just who would be bringing th bottle at the Witching Hour.

(This Saragun piece will appear at 3 A.M. Pacific Time, USA, to honor matronly Witches)

Leila Allison