Tales From The Set: “Call My Ex, Please?” (a true story)

Posted by Madd_Fictional on June 18, 2021

When choosing some sort of creative art as a career, you find out early on that you need to find other employment opportunities outside your field of interest In order to pay the bills. And since I have yet to acquire the fortune that is my birthright, when I lived in Los Angeles briefly, one of those jobs was working background on tv and film sets — also known as being an extra.

Greys 1019 — *The simplest game of **Where’s Waldo** ever. Look for the clever clog in the gray suit on the left blocking his face with his own champagne glass. A star in the making.*

As I had no aspirations of being an actor, I’m pretty easygoing regarding my placement in the crowd. Tucked behind tall people? Facing away from the camera? Set in a position farthest from the principal actors? Not a problem. I was glad to be working and I kinda liked being on set and watching the crew set up shots. Other perks include:

Absolutely no acting ability is required (thankfully)
Being booked on a series or feature gets me out of the house and breaks the monotony of my average day
I get to slip into the skins of different people (hospital administrator, construction worker, churchgoer, Muslim, parent, etc.)
I’ve seen myself on TV three times to date (freeze frame is my best friend)

The downside?

The pay could be better (but I’m non-union, so dem’s da breaks)
Lugging around your own wardrobe (always bring at least two options) on public transportation (guess who never learned to drive?) can be cumbersome
The hurry up and wait… and wait… and wait… and wait… can wear on your patience, especially later in the day
Craft services (the snacks and drinks table) for extras is a bit of a dice roll
And sometimes other background actors. Not all, mind you, you come across some interesting people chock full of stories and experiences who are willing to let you pick their brains… then there are the others.

Before I get to the meat of the nutshell, I need to set the stage. Picture a room that holds one thousand people. Only one person in that thousand is certifiably crazy. Do you know how you’d be able to spot the nutjob? It would be the only person speaking to me. Got it? Good. Let’s proceed.

One time I was on the set of a tv show named Grey’s Anatomy in extras holding (just as it says on the tin — a place where background actors lounge about while they wait to be called to set) minding my own business, when an attractive young woman stood close to me and started speaking. She clearly wasn’t looking at me, so I followed her eyeline to see if she was perhaps conversing with someone behind me. Nope, no one there. So, I assumed she invited her imaginary friend to the set to keep her company, and I shrugged it off.

For the record, I do not discriminate against people with invisible friends as I know full well the difficulty in making and maintaining worthwhile friendships, imaginary or otherwise. That, and I once dated a woman whose older sister was pretty chummy with Mickey Mouse, Goofy, Pluto and the rest of the Disney gang, and they would often go on Magic Kingdom adventures in the solitude of her bedroom.

A story for another day.

But this woman kept repeating the same sentence, loud enough for me to hear, but no one watching would ever had accused us of having a conversation. More like we were secret agents who daren’t risk breaking our cover, she was giving me the sign and awaited the countersign.

“You’re not the first one to live in a strange place with strange people, nor the last,” she repeated.

I looked at her. She, however, refused to make eye contact and simply waited for my reply. Never one to resist the urge to poke the mental tiger, I finally said, “Sometimes it feels that way, though.”

The sluice gates were opened and I wasn’t prepared for the rush of conversation headed my way. Among the many topics she introduced:

How women are Christlike when they menstruate, as they suffer for mankind.
How she’s happy not to be dancing for biker gangs anymore.
How pigeons are truly blessed and carry our prayer up to heaven.
How she gave up selling subscriptions to a specialist magazine for ukelele players because she made a decision not to give up her integrity for money.
How the government was concealing the fact that chicken fried steak was the cure for cancer.
How her stepfather used to send Chinese pornography to her Toy Yorkie.
How July always smelled like shades of red.
How okra smells like sex before you cook it.

And a host of others I can’t recall at the moment (I’m sure they still haunt the nightmares I can’t remember). Throughout the day, I tried my best to avoid her. Trips to the restroom, striking up conversations with strangers, hiding within crowds of people, but she always managed to sniff me out and made other people uncomfortable to the point they drifted away and gave us space. I had been designated friend-of-mental and no one wanted any part of providing me shelter.

After the scene I was in wrapped for the day, I stood in line for one of the shuttle vans to take me from the set to base camp. Okra-Sex-Smell-Girl was nowhere in sight and as the van pulled up I thought I’d made my getaway. But the Transportation Captain held the van because there was still an available seat. I know I don’t need to tell you who the seat was next to, or who filled it.

Okra-Sex looked straight ahead. To my knowledge, her eyes never once fell on me. I was an entity that only existed in her peripheral vision. “Can you call my ex from your phone, please?” she asked.

“What? No.” Okay, not the best response, but she blindsided me.

“Please? I tried calling him but he won’t pick up the phone, probably because he recognizes my number. I think he’s still mad at me. I just want to make sure he’s okay because my friend threatened to beat him up.”

“Call your friend and ask him if he beat up your ex.” Mystery solved. Columbo was on the case.

“He wouldn’t tell me if he did. He knows I’d be upset.”

I shrugged an oh, well.

“You’re not going to call?” She seemed genuinely surprised.

“Nope. Not happening.” By this time I stopped looking at her, as well, figuring maybe the cold shoulder would silence her for the rest of the ride. As if.

“Why not?”

“Hmmm, because not my ex, not my problem?”

“But he doesn’t know you. When he answers, just say you dialed the wrong number or something. Then tell me if he sounds beaten up or not.”

If he sounds beaten up. Under different circumstances, I might have let the exchange play out a little longer, but it had been a long day and I was both tired and hungry, so the best I could manage was, “What did I say? No? Then that’s what I meant,” before I officially checked out of the conversation.

Not that it mattered. Even without my participation, her side of the discussion continued without skipping a beat:

“If you call, I won’t have to stop by his house tonight. You’d be doing me a big favor.”

“You’re so mean.“

“Do you think I should just leave my ex alone?”

“Well, you obviously don’t know what being in love is like.”

“I’d do it for you. Do you have somebody you want me to call? Give me your phone, I’ll do it.”

And it went on like that for the entirety of the trip. When we reached our destination, she smiled, still not looking my way and said, “Thanks, for being sweet.” And maybe it was my imagination but as she walked away I thought I detected a spring in her step, like she’d made her decision on what needed to be done.

For at least a week afterward, I followed the local news for reports of a lover’s tiff gone horribly wrong in a room that reeked of sex… or maybe uncooked okra.

First Saturdays

Posted by Madd_Fictional on June 17, 2021

Hi, my name is Rhyan and I’m a movie addict.

And an insomniac.

Native New Yorker, born in Manhattan, raised in The Bronx, and because I inherited my mother’s transient nature, I’ve managed to live in each of the five boroughs. Poor as a skunk’s misery, a church mouse, Job, Lazarus, and dirt. Hell, I’m still poor, and most likely always will be.

The best thing about growing up without anything is that you learn to make the most of what you’ve got and distract yourself from what you haven’t got. My major distraction was television.

It was my babysitter, my tutor, and my secret friend that entertained me as the rest of the world slept. Its siren call would lure me into the living room, where I’d toss my blanket over the both of us so the light didn’t spill out of the room and give away my position. Then I’d plug my mono transistor radio earphone into the headphone jack and marvel at all the noir, horror and science fiction movies that played on CBS’ The Late Show, The Late Late Show, and The Late Late Late Show.

I was always a wreck in school the following day, but man was it worth it.

The only thing that trumped this near nightly process was the first Saturday of the month. Like most poor folk, we were on welfare and this was before the Food Stamp bill was passed in 1970 which meant everything, rent, bills, and food monies arrived in the mailbox in one convenient check. The Saturday that followed check day was always considered my day. Wherever I wanted to go, wherever I wanted to play.

My playground of choice? 42^nd Street. The first stop was Tad’s Steak House. Sure, the broiled steak was thin and more gristle than meat, the garlic bread was oilier than Brylcreem, the chocolate pudding coated with that yucky skin and a fountain Coke served in a large red plastic tumbler that smelled like the previous beverage it held… but to me, it was pure heaven.

Then my mother gestured at the movie theaters that lined both sides of the street and said the most perfect thing anyone could have said to me at the time, “You can see all the movies you can stay awake for.”

These were once majestic movie houses that slowly transformed during the decline of New York City starting in the late 50’s into grindhouse theaters before grindhouse was even a word. Each one ran three films, usually one current and the others whatever was on hand.

On these magic Saturdays, I tore through Roger Corman flicks, Hammer Films, the Toho tokusatsu imports and so much more. All uninterrupted viewing aside from the occasional mom hand that would clamp over my eyes during nude or sex scenes. Only when I started to nod off was it time to head home, despite my protestations.

On the way home, we’d stop off at the Horn & Hardart automat and my mother would dump tokens into my hand and send me off to fetch dinner from the individual glass door compartments. Even though it was only plain food — sandwiches, beef stew, and the like — there was something about slotting coins and retrieving a prize that appealed to me.

The final detour before reaching home was the Optimo Cigars shop that had a spinning wire rack of comic books where I’d select my month’s reading material.

I realize this may not seem like any great shakes to you, but it remains the only positive memory I have of my mother — too long and too personal a story to go into here — and I can’t think of a better way to honor the anniversary of her passing.

A Rose by Any Other Voice

Posted by Madd_Fictional on June 16, 2021

“You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone’s soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose. That tale will move them and drive them and who knows that they might do because of it, because of your words. That is your role, your gift.” ― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

There are different types of stories. Some you share, some that transform themselves into other creative endeavors, some that are stillborn with no hope of resuscitation, and some that you hide from everyone, sometimes even yourself.

When I wore a younger man’s clothes, I wrote a story. One that I’ve never shared, one that will never transform itself into another work of art, one I have not read since its inception. But every so often when my mind settles into a rare resting mode and all my thoughts become inconsequential white noise, the story whispers to me so that I don’t forget it. It does what it needs to do in order to survive.

No, it’s not a true confession, nor is it based on or inspired by true events. There’s no deep-seated ideological conviction behind it. It’s also not the most powerful or hard-hitting thing I’ve ever written. Hell, the thing isn’t even written in my voice. Chiefly because it’s not my story.

The story belongs to someone else, told to me in part before she died.

Rose loved to tell stories to take her mind off her illness, so we’d meet occasionally when her health allowed or sometimes talk over the phone and she would spin her vignettes. She wasn’t a professional writer so the stories were uneven and structurally unsound, but they were enjoyable nonetheless. She was witty and articulate and sometimes, but not too often, a good telling trumps structure.

And she continued telling stories until the pain became too much to bear, but before Rose died she said to me, “Complete it,” and slow on the uptake as I can often be, I didn’t catch her meaning until months later.

It wasn’t an easy process. When I finally wrote the story down as close to verbatim as my past-its-sell-by-date memory could manage, I looked at the work and was confounded by what I could actually do with it. At first, I wanted to restructure and outline everything so that I could plot a logical ending, but that wouldn’t have been true to Rose’s storytelling style. A style I had become very protective of.

In the end, I decided this wasn’t a story that could be written, only transcribed, so I sat in front of a mirror with a digital recorder and recited the fragments Rose left me as a parting gift and traveled down a nonstructural road to see where it led me.

And I didn’t go it alone. I could feel Rose’s hand in mine, leading me down the path to the story’s final destination.

Alice: Reflections of a Looking Glass Friendship (true story allegory)

Posted by Madd_Fictional on June 15, 2021

“Of course it hurt that we could never love each other in a physical way. We would have been far more happy if we had. But that was like the tides, the change of seasons–something immutable, an immovable destiny we could never alter. No matter how cleverly we might shelter it, our delicate friendship wasn’t going to last forever. We were bound to reach a dead end. That was painfully clear.” ― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

They say you meet friends in the damnedest places when you aren’t looking for them and I thought this was utter nonsense until the day I found a friend in the reflection of a mirror. I know what you’re thinking and no, this isn’t a story about finally finding and befriending myself or coming into contact with the Supreme Intelligence that exists within me, because it wasn’t my reflection. This person, this woman who has no name as far as you’re concerned, that I will call Alice, stood beside the mirror version of myself, to the left. Always left of center. I should have taken that as a sign, but you never see the glaringly obvious without the benefit of hindsight, do you?

Before you mistake Alice for an imaginary friend, know that were I in a mirrorless room, I wouldn’t be able to communicate with her because she simply wouldn’t be there.

How she came to be trapped within mirrors is anyone’s guess and I doubt she truly knew herself, though whenever asked, she would always blame her fractured memory, splintered like the shards of glass of a shattered mirror that held incomplete images of her past.

She was fascinating in her way, Alice was. A brain filled with dark matter. Insecure to a fault. A high maintenance friend if ever there was one. Not only was she needy, self-absorbed to the exclusion of all else, devoid of a funny bone—despite the fact she claimed to have an excellent sense of humor—but she was also passive-aggressive and more than slightly obtuse when it came to the rules of the world that existed outside her own head. But as I said, fascinating in her own right.

It’s a shame that fascination wasn’t enough to carry through. I was determined in the beginning to plant our relationship in the soil of time, water it with patience and let it bask in the rays of understanding.

What sprang from the dirt wasn’t the flower of friendship, but the weeds of unwanted advice. It’s what broken people do, you see, they have an undying need to give others advice on how to fix themselves. I am by no stretch of the imagination a Bible scholar, but I am familiar with the passage:

“And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?”

But I endured it. You ask me why? I couldn’t tell you. That’s what friends are for, I reckon. But then I started to notice that her reflection was dwarfing my own. She began taking up the majority space in the mirror, and I, trying to keep the peace had ignored the signs and allowed it to happen. My own fault, I plainly admit it.

But no more.

As I grow older, reluctantly wiser, and I reevaluate my life choices and take stock of my friends, I see with regard to the Alice matter that I will never get a decent return on my investment. Some people are a bad fit within their own skin as well as with other people.

Not long after, I noticed she wasn’t simply trapped within a mirror. Alice was actually trapped in a glass box of her own construction, caught within a mirror pocket dimension. And to add insult to injury, she was attempting to trap my reflection, and thereby me, inside one as well.

In the end, I did the only thing I could do, for she gave me no other choice. I placed her reflection in the only fitting place I could think of — my rearview mirror. The very last time I ever laid eyes on Alice, she was shrinking in the distance until she was little more than a dot on the horizon.

My sincerest wishes for her are to find her way out of her glass cage and strive to be more than a visual echo in the reflectors of others. But that first step begins with her. She has to want to be a real person, and I’m not sure she knows how.

In any event, adieu, Looking Glass Girl. Here’s not looking at you, kiddo. To the rest of you lot, go forth, make friends, and be mindful of mirror-lurkers.

Braiding Tales: We Built a World, Row by Row (a true story)

Posted by Madd_Fictional on June 14, 2021

“We gave the Future to the winds, and slumbered tranquilly in the Present, weaving the dull world around us into dreams.” ― Edgar Allan Poe, The Mystery of Marie Rogêt

I spent most of my early teens in the Bronx. The street I lived on, corner to corner, ran the length of three average city blocks and was the picture of diversity—the melting pot that New York had become famous for. It was all about migration. Italians were moving to new ground as black people nestled in and on their tail were Hispanics followed by West Indians. It was a neighborhood in transition where multi-cultures learn by cohabitation that differences in race didn’t make a person less human.

It was also the 70’s and I rocked a killer afro to end all ‘fros. Metal pronged afro pick with the handle clenched in a black power fist and a peace symbol carved out on the base, tucked in the back of my hair.

It drove my parents crazy. They rode my back constantly to get it cut but there was that preteen Samsonian fear that the strength of my personality—-my Madd-ness—-would be stripped away, were a barber to lay clippers on my precious locks. When I got the “as long as you’re living under my roof” speech, I knew I needed a solution and I needed it quick.

Enter: Cynthia Holloway. I mentioned my plight in passing and out of nowhere she offered to braid my hair into cornrows. So, we sat on the stoop of a private house and armed with only a comb and hair grease, Cynthia worked her nimble fingers like a loom.

She was one of those neighborhood girls that I’d never really spoken to before outside the odd hello. Not that there was anything wrong with her, she was simply a person that kept herself to herself. The type of person you’d have to make an effort to get to know.

It would take many years for me to become that type of person.

But in sitting with her I discovered she was both intelligent and imaginative, with interesting stories to tell. Her father was a retired Army Ranger colonel, who spent a great deal of his free time on the road in a jazz band.

I’m not sure how much of that was true. No one could ever remember seeing Cynthia’s dad, so maybe it was a story she invented to keep nosy kids at bay. Or perhaps it was one of the quiet lies that parents tell their children to spare them from the harsh realities of troubled marriages.

Since we had nothing but time to kill, we talked about our constricted home lives, mentioned the odd hobby, told a few jokes and had a couple of laughs, and when all the conversation wells had run dry, we told each other stories.

At the end of every month, when the braids began to look a little ratty, I’d take them out and Cynthia met me back on that stoop to repeat the process. And after a brief bit of catch-up, we’d go back to telling each other imaginary stories and without meaning to, wound up designing an illusory sanctuary from the burdens and pains of our everyday pre-teenage lives.

While we mentally terraformed our neighborhood row by cornrow, we got to know each other in those months as the monarchs of our fantasy world. We explored the surroundings, went on adventures, and basically forgot the world for a few hours a month.

Come the fifth month, I sat on the stoop and waited, my hair a wild crop of imagination waiting to be plowed, but Cynthia never showed. I later learned from a friend of a friend’s sister that she and her mother had moved away in the middle of the night without telling a soul where they were headed.

I tried to imagine all the possible reasons that would cause them to make a hurried escape under the cloak of twilight and seriously hoped it had nothing to do with her retired-Army-Ranger-colonel-jazz-band-dad. Nothing negative, anyway.

And yes, I eventually had no other choice than to submit to the ~~butcher shop~~ barbershop haircut. Much to my surprise, I managed to retain all of my Madd-ness afterward. I was still filled with my nerdy sameness and when I missed her a bit, I’d sometimes sit on the stoop and give an imaginary Cynthia updates on the latest goings-on in the world we created.

Thanks for humoring me as I wool-gathered.

PS. Cyn, if through some bizarre happenstance you should come across this, hit me up real quick. There’s a world in some need of serious upkeep.

I Am A Sentient Black Hole. Ask Me Anything.

Posted by Madd_Fictional on June 13, 2021

I’m feeling a bit under the weather today, so instead of either skipping a day or tossing up some filler nonsense, I’ve decided to invite a guest blogger, who happens to be a character in one of my science fiction novellas.

Please extend to her every courtesy.

– Madd Fictional

My name is Ganymedorah and I’m a sentient black hole keen to debunk stereotypes. Ask me anything.

The title says it all. In my recent travels throughout the universe, I found that many people know little to nothing about what it’s like to be me. Let’s change that!

saganosity How’d you come to be?

Ganymedorah Wow, a birds and bees question straight out of the gate. Okay, let’s see how to put this. Do you know what happens when two gigantic patches of darkness get so close to one another that they fall into each other? Well, sometimes, if they love each other very much, they take a honeymoon trip together. I am a result of a wild, crazy and uninhibited weekend.

SarahMcL If you had a pet, what kind would you choose and what would you name it?

Ganymedorah If I could own a pet, I’d probably choose an inverted supernova. I’d love to watch the little guy bury the bones of a dead solar system in the yard! And I’d name him Champagne, of course.

justice4hansolo What fact still blows you away even though you’ve known about it forever?

Ganymedorah The universe is filled with empty calories. Seriously. I can eat and eat an incomprehensible amount of matter at an absurd speed and never put on a pound. Well, almost never. Sometimes I manage to put on a little water weight.

syfy4lyf Star Trek or Star Wars?

Ganymedorah Star Trek, original series. Nobody beats Shatner’s Kirk. Nobody. Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga should be sent to Rura Penthe for the way they killed the character off in Star Trek Generations.

winstigator Do you think you could beat Centaurus A in a knife fight?

Ganymedorah Centaurus A is so full of shit, pardon my French, puffing up his chest and boasting that he’s a “giant galaxy.” If he ever looked at me sideways, I’d whup his superluminous central supermassive black hole butt without breaking a sweat.

fullostars What are your thoughts on Brian Cox, Neil Degrasse Tyson and Michio Kaku?

Ganymedorah Imagine that theoretical pub debate! If only I could find a place at the edge of the universe that pulled a proper pint. Time to whip out the old Hitchhiker’s Guide, methinks!

knows.e.parkour Tell us something you’ve never told anyone.

Ganymedorah I pick up broadcast signals all the time. Reality television is my guilty pleasure and I’m absolutely addicted to 90 Day Fiancé. Kirlyam is so friggin’ cute!

K-FitzMat Do you believe in ancient aliens?

Ganymedorah Believe in them? I still see them (there’s a whole weird bendable time thing that runs around and through me). I am totes timey-wimey. Oh, and before you ask, yes, dinosaurs existed and no, they didn’t ride on the ark.

othrwhtmeet Do you like bacon?

Ganymedorah Duh, who doesn’t? Next question.

icanhazeuropa Is there life elsewhere in our solar system, particularly Mars, given the variable quantities of methane in its atmosphere that could suggest bacterial activity beneath the surface?

Ganymedorah Aw, man… y’all are really making me regret spilling the beans on the whole ancient aliens thing. Why would you want me to ruin that surprise for you? Wouldn’t it be better to discover it on your own?

xs10shal What never fails to blow your mind about humans?

Ganymedorah 1) That people always choose to pursue things that are the absolute worst for their emotional and physical well being.
2) That even the most vile among you are sometimes capable of acts of kindness so incredible as to make my gaseous heart feel as if it’s about to burst.
3) The Captain & Tennille divorce. I mean, who saw that coming?

tinfoilhat Conspiracy theorist here. Is there a secret society of black holes?

Ganymedorah If I told you, I’d have to drop you into a gravity well.

trebek2dafutr If you appeared on the game show Jeopardy, how do you think you would do?

Ganymedorah Depends on the categories. I’ve got Space, Science and Potent Potables on lock. Do the kids still say that? But I’d suck (sorry, black hole humor) at Pop-Music, Sports and Math. I would definitely make the first few rounds, especially if I hit a Daily Double but ultimately would lose the Final Jeopardy question. Wheel of Fortune? That’s an entirely different matter.

statnislndmedim What are your feelings on the afterlife, and are you scared to die?

Ganymedorah Without any hint of braggadocio, I, by my very nature, am too much of a good thing to worry about my decomposition and demise. Too much mass, and too much gravity pushed together and collapsed into a single point with infinite density. In-fi-nite. I love the sound of that. Now, if I’m meant to die, I will not go gently into that good night, trust me. As for what awaits me on the other side, who knows? But I love a good mystery, me.

dollylamas Will our minds ever be able to truly comprehend our worth in the vastness of the universe?

Ganymedorah As long as you continue to ponder it. If I could impress one thing on people, it would be to stare into the unknown and unknowable without fear and full of questions.

constellationkate Last night, a 900-foot asteroid was due to streak extremely close to Earth, but it just disappeared, leaving astronomers baffled. Do you know anything about that?

Ganymedorah Yup, and you’re welcome.
Burp.
Oops, pardon me.

Greetings from Europa – Sixteenth Transmission: News From Dery’Ylok Prefecture

Posted by Madd_Fictional on June 12, 2021

F irst Transmis sion * Second Transmission * Third Transmission * Fourth Transmission * Fifth Transmission * Sixth Transmission * Seventh Transmission * Eighth Transmission * Ninth Transmission * Tenth Transmission * Eleventh Transmission * Twelfth Transmission * Thirteenth Transmission * Fourteenth Transmission * Fifteenth Transmission

Greetings from Europa!

Jampi and I stayed in Jhisal long enough to repay Meis’lo and the rest of the village for their hospitality. This was done by sharing our stories and pitching in with the communal chores.

On the morning that we packed our egami and prepared for our departure, two Denpas entered the village, one from the east, the road behind us, and the other from the road ahead.

I recognized Huc’yan, one of the Denpas from my village, who carried word from Kubus and Veron. News concerning the children of Rezter was coming less frequently now because villages grew scarcer the further out they traveled, and when they finally arrived at Pwyll there would be no word until they had completed their pilgrimage and were on their way back.

For now, Kubus and Veron had managed to circumnavigate mecot’ra safely. They encountered biss’ore, a band of travelers, or nomads and after describing their pilgrimage, received an offer of friendship to camp with the group and travel together as they were headed in the same direction, at least for four days.

Huc’yan also had a message from my wife, who was relieved that our son was safe with me. She had never been separated from myself or our children before and admitted that she didn’t realize the value of the things taken for granted until they were gone. This was her way of saying that she missed me and Jampi and it nearly brought tears to my eyes hearing Huc’yan imitate not only my wife’s voice, but the pain in it as well. I made him repeat the message several times, which he did without complaint. I sent word back that neither I nor Jampi ever felt we were taken for granted, and I added, “We miss you, too.”

The second Denpa, the one who traveled in from the opposite direction, wasn’t known to me. He brought news of a terrible tragedy that occurred in Dery’Ylok Prefecture. A young Europan girl was killed (not the word the Denpa used, but my human inference) by the mother of another girl. The two children were playing in the field when they came across a (the Denpa used a word that I had never heard before. When I asked for clarity, no one could help for the word had no translation. It was known to Europans and had never needed explaining before). This object, whatever it was, was so fascinating that the girls fought over ownership of it. Their village elder was called in to arbitrate the dispute and after listening to both girls’ stories, awarded it to the one who told the most compelling tale. This threw the mother of the other girl into a frenzy and she strangled the little poor girl, stole the object and was caught attempting to hide it.

The news was almost too much to process. Fighting over an object? Jealousy and anger? Murder? This wasn’t the Europan way. As I mentioned in a previous transmission, Europan children are considered micdow yl, sacred, the vessels of new life. Something was definitely happening in Dery’Ylok Prefecture and it wasn’t right, and here I was traveling to this place carrying my son in tow.

I voiced my concerns to Meis’lo and asked if I could leave Jampi in his care. The old man agreed without hesitation, but offered a piece of advice:

“This is Jampi’s age of learning and he is with the best teacher, his father. He is safe with you because you will do everything to protect him, and he needs to experience the world, both good and bad.” I let that simmer a long while, and in the end, Jampi and I continued on our way to Dery’Ylok Prefecture. The little scamp would probably have found a way to sneak out of the village and follow me anyway, so it was best that I knew exactly where he was at all times. And Meis’lo was right, I would protect my son with my life, and if agvann occurred, then it would have been the will of Nes’Tim.

Until next broadcast, this is Captain Edwards, signing off.

Glossary of Terms

Abogzons – Gynecological engineers.
Agvann – Translation: The will of Nes’Tim; an accident.
Alum’Vedca – The day marking the new solar cycle of Peace and Maturity; a tribute to the era when Europans evolved from their primitive prey state.
Arcek – A spiritual theologian
Biem – A time to show respect for the aged.
Biss’ore – Travelers, nomads
Bokloryn – An unrepayable debt; an act that places the receiver in a lifetime contract of servitude.
Cu’nal – A biological storage unit.
Denpa – An envoy equipped with an audiographic memory that can store and recall spoken messages at will in the same voice, tone and inflection of the original person who spoke it, who travels from village to village to deliver messages from other communities both near and far.
Egami – A docile mineral-based creatures primarily used for family transportation due to the fact they are virtually inexhaustible.
Gates of Juh’holl – Europan afterlife; where souls are released from the flesh to become stardust and rejoin the universe.
Grahas – A gerbil-sized creature, resembling a stone armadillo, that emits heat when stroked.
Homnils – A warm, yet sad, reminiscence about something in the past.
Ipu llqr mwyll xfrr – Abogzon credo meaning “success or death”; satisfaction guaranteed.
Isogoles – Europan monthly day of pay.
Jampi – Captain Edward’s son.
Jbwqnadb – The Europan spelling of lemonade.
Jhisal – Meis’lo’s home village.
Klanea – Translation: unknown to us; stranger.
Mecot’ra – Unterraformed areas of Europa.
Meis’lo – The only surviving witness to the murder of the prophet Nes’Tim.
Micdow yl – The vessels of new life; children.
Nes’Tim – The most revered spiritual prophet on Europa, slain by a heretic tribe who call themselves Sel’Tab.
Pwyll – Europa’s highest mountain.
Qik’climajh – Depending on its usage in a sentence, denotes either the act of telling a story, or the storyteller themselves.
Sel’Tab – A heretic tribe responsible for the death of the prophet Nes’Tim.
Shig’umfu – “Interesting world of another”; a documentary qik’climajh in which neighbors tell the story of a person’s life as learned from casual conversations.
Spo – Food.
Uz Cu’nal – A biological storage unit used primarily for food preservation.
Uz – An unspeakable sexual act; a derogatory term; an insult.

The Strange Case of Wilhelmina Soames

Posted by Madd_Fictional on June 11, 2021

“Tucker, Nelda, Aubrey…” a woman’s voice would call out.

“Farley, Vance, Giselle…” every day like clockwork.

“Odilia, Ainsley, Wesley…” regardless of the weather.

She was dubbed the Mad Mother of Main Street, this woman was, Miss Wilhelmina Soames by name, pushing an empty pram up and down the thoroughfare from sunup to sundown, calling out a series of names in the same manner that a mother would call her children and placing a hand behind one ear to listen for a response.

Most of the locals came to ignore Wilhelmina’s comings and goings because people had a way of accepting the things that happened every day, didn’t they, even madness. Those with nothing better to do than mind the affairs of others had many a nasty thing to say about the Mad Mother, but not one single solitary soul could have testified under oath that Wilhelmina spoke ill of anyone, not even of those who mocked and teased her as she strolled by.

Occasionally the mental Miss Soames would go rooting around alleyways and underpasses and all the other nooks and crannies that the city possessed, places ignored by upstanding citizens, places where the foolish, the nosy, the mischief makers, and the destitute often went missing, and she would sniff about and go digging like a truffle pig through the rubbish and muck. Most times she emerged disappointed but on rare occurrences there would be a smile wide enough to split her soot-speckled face in half, as she cradled something invisible to the eyes of everyone else but her own, and she would coo and sing lullabies to it as she gently placed it in the pram.

If Wilhelmina had a home, no one knew the address, and if she ate, no one bore witness to the consumption of food of any sort.

Because gossip was the least effective yet most prevalent form of communication, many rumors surrounded Mad Mother Soames, all supposedly from reliable witnesses explaining her separation from sanity. Some said she used to be employed as a childminder for a wealthy couple and lost track of her young charge while running errands, and the distraught parents ruined her socially, leaving her to fend for herself on the streets like a common beggar. Others claimed the baby lost was her own and in a moment of distraction, the handle slipped from her gloved grip and the pram rolled out into oncoming traffic.

And then there was the urban legend. Before cities were constructed, the planet was a patchwork of tribal lands filled with indigenous peoples who knew the ways to appease the forces that kept the balance of life in check. Those ways and the knowledge that accompanied them were lost when the colonizers arrived. As was the way with life, accidents would occur that sadly resulted in death and those souls too young to have bonded with their physical counterparts would become separated and wander aimlessly with no knowledge and no ability to find their path to the afterlife. So, every decade a new person who had unwillingly and unwittingly sacrificed a young life to the forces that kept the balance of life in check, would become the collector and guardian of those tiny lost souls.

The Mad Mother’s daily search ended when the city was asleep, and Wilhelmina would push her pram into a lot that had remained vacant as long as anyone could remember because it did not have a clear title. The ownership situation was so complicated that no real estate investor felt it was worth the time and effort to resolve.

Wilhelmina had been fortunate this day, so she scooped her invisible bundle out of the pram but tripped over a bit of rubble in the process, causing her to slip and strike her head on the jagged edge of a section of a demolished brick wall.

She awoke quite literally beside herself, her flesh encasement lying face down in the remnants of a building had taken on an ashen pallor, but she was surprisingly unconcerned because she realized it had served its purpose faithfully and it was now time for her to move on, as she had much bigger fish to fry.

Miss Wilhelmina Soames, the Mad Mother of Main Street, smiled as she looked out over the sea of baby souls surrounding her, all with arms outstretched for a cuddle and calling her Mummy.

Blood Money (Part 2)

Posted by Madd_Fictional on June 10, 2021

Blood Money Part 1

Foy plucked a dried fragment of brimstone from a carpet fiber with a pair of tweezers and dropped it into a plastic vial. “All right, Detective History Channel, if we can’t touch the coins…”

“Or the pot,” Elodie added.

“Okay…or the pot, then how are we supposed to bag them as evidence?”

Elodie pulled out her phone, scrolled through her contacts and dialed a number. “This is Detective Elodie Arcement, Badge One Point Six One Eight. Suspected religious artifact at the scene, possibly cursed. Requesting Pure Soul dispatch as soon as possible.”

Foy raised an eyebrow. “Pure Souls are immune to religious curses?” she asked.

Elodie shrugged. “More immune than you or me, I reckon. If it turns out they’re not and the smotening happens to them as well, then it’s their fault for not knowing their limitations.”

“First of all, smotening?”

“I don’t know how to conjugate smote, do you?”

“Second,” Foy continued. “Your regard for the preservation of human life is astounding.”

“I know. It’s my gift and my curse,” Elodie said, inspecting the living room. “When your team comes in, make sure they collect any phones, tablets and computers they find, as I don’t see any in here.”

“We know how to do our job, Detective Arcement,” Foy said, the arctic front blowing off her shoulder dropped the room’s temperature by ten degrees.

“I know you do, Mara. I was just thinking out loud, that’s all,” Elodie offered her friend and colleague an apologetic smile, before leaning into the foyer to call for the uniformed officer guarding the front door of the house.

“Yes, Detective?” said the baby-faced cop, Nelson by his nametag, mid twenties at best, green as grass.

“Gather up all the available uniforms to question the crowd for witnesses and do a door to door with the neighbors to see if they’ve noticed anything suspicious going on in the neighborhood recently,” Elodie said.

“On it,” Nelson nodded and left to carry out his instructions.

“You’re treating this like a murder investigation,” Foy asked. “I thought we were classifying it as Divine Misadventure?”

“We are, I’m just covering my bases in case this entire thing was staged to make it look like an Act of God.”

Before Foy could comment, a man with a briefcase appeared in the living room entryway. He was at least a head higher than what society considered to be tall, and was undoubtedly the recipient of thousands of the air up there must be thin comments throughout his life. And even though he was too tall for his build, looking like he had been stretched on a torture rack, the isolation suit fit his lanky frame perfectly. Elodie groaned at the sight of him.

“Elijah Richardson, Eleventh Level Pure Soul, ID Number 937781, reporting as requested,” the man said.

“I know who you are, Richardson,” Elodie said.

“I am required by law to state my name, rank and identification number when first entering a crime scene,” Richardson replied.

“And you’ve done that, so can we please get on with this?” said Elodie, exasperated.

“I should have known you would be here, Detective Arcement. These types of cases have a way of finding you, don’t they?” Richardson said, giving Elodie the once over. “Still ignoring regulations, I see. Pity your shoes have to pay the price for your independence.”

Elodie was about to respond when Foy chimed in, “Marabel Foy, Forensics.” She proffered her hand and Richardson glanced at it a moment before ignoring the gesture completely.

“Where is it, then? This potentially cursed artifact?” Richardson asked.

“Can’t you sense it?” Elodie asked with a wry smile. “Aren’t you attuned to the vibrations of objects replete with religiosity? Or is all that rhetoric you spew a load of bunkum?”

“The only vibrations I can feel are the jealousy and shame emanating from you,” the Pure Soul retorted. “Must be hard for a lapsed Catholic to have to rely on someone else to do a job she was deemed unworthy for.”

Foy’s eyes went as wide as saucers. “You were a Pure Soul?”

“A novitiate,” Elodie corrected.

“Who couldn’t make the grade,” Richardson added.

“I found some of the teachings hard to swallow.”

“Too bad that was the only thing you found hard to swallow,” Richardson said, extremely pleased with himself.

Elodie’s temper flared from zero to sixty. “That’s a dirty sticking rumor with no basis…”

“Enough!” Foy interrupted. “You two can get a room later and hash out your differences. We have business to attend to. The artifacts are right this way.”

Kneeling before the clay pot and coins, Richardson set his briefcase down on the carpet, careful to avoid a smoldering brimstone puddle, and inspected the items. “Shekels of Tyre,” he said.

“And take a look at the pot…” Elodie said.

“The clay looks to be circa AD 30 – 36 and it was obviously smashed and pieced back together,” Richardson said.

“Can someone please tell me what the significance of this pot is?” Foy asked.

Elodie was about to explain when Richardson beat her to the punch. “There are several contradicting accounts of what Judas did with his payment when he learned the price Jesus paid for his betrayal. One version stated he was commanded by God to give the money to a potter to create a clay pot. When finished, the potter smashed the pot on Judas Iscariot’s grave.”

“So, you’re suggesting that this pot may be the only vessel that can hold these coins?” Foy asked.

“The only logical explanation as to why anyone would go through the trouble of gluing the pot back together,” Elodie said.

Richardson opened his briefcase, revealing a smaller case inside, and in that case was a pair of white gloves embossed with an ornate cross. He said a prayer under his breath and touched each glove to his lips before slipping them on.

“And if these artifacts are cursed, you can safely handle them without retribution?” Foy asked, gesturing to the charred body that Richardson seemed to ignore entirely.

“I suppose we will find out soon enough, won’t we?” Richardson said. “I advise you both to stand back.”

Elodie and Foy took two giant steps back from the coins and the Pure Soul.

Richardson recited another prayer under his breath, blessed himself by making the sign of the cross, and reached for the coins.

To be continued…

Blood Money

Posted by Madd_Fictional on June 8, 2021

Detective Elodie Arcement arrived on scene shortly after 3 a.m., the so-called hour of the wolf, when things of this nature usually occurred. She flashed her credentials to the uniformed officer standing at the barrier of black-and-yellow crime-scene tape and was intercepted by a second officer attempting to hand her a forensic isolation suit, which she waved off. Those things never fit right and she found them difficult to walk in because they always managed to bunch up at her feet.

Arcement entered the victorian terrace house, and the air stank of sulfur, largely due to the drops of brimstone that fell through the shattered skylight, creating puddles in the remnant of the living room shag carpet. Although avoiding the puddles as best she could manage, her shoes were getting ruined. She cursed herself for not slipping on the isolation suit when she had the opportunity.

In the center of the living room, Forensic Scientist Marabel Foy, in her isolation suit, was kneeling over the charred remains of a body, conducting her preliminary examination.

“Someone took their sweet time getting here,” Foy said without looking up from the corpse.

“Give it a rest. I wasn’t on call tonight. Shumway called in a family emergency and guess who gets to pick up his slack?” the detective said. “What do we know so far?”

“It’s early days yet, but I believe I can officially list the cause of death as: Smote,” said Foy. “Don’t you just love biblical crime scenes?”

“Gotta give Shumway credit for ducking out on this one. Can you ID the victim?” Arcement asked.

“Ellie, I can’t even tell you if it’s male or female. I need to get what’s left of the body back to the lab.”

“Everything been photographed?”

Foy nodded. “My team’s been over the scene twice. I always find it odd that a bolt from the heavens can reduce a human body to ashes and leave everything else undamaged.”

Tell that to my shoes, Arcement thought, before noticing that the corpse’s right arm was extended and just beyond its reach was a clay pot lying on its side with coins spilling out of it.

“Has anyone touched these?” Arcement asked, gesturing at the pot and coins.

“No. Like I said we were waiting on you…”

“Good. Tell them not to,” Arcement cut her off.

“Why not?”

“Because these coins bear the likeness of the Phoenician god Melqart along with the Greek inscription ΤΥΡΟΥ ΙΕΡΑΣ ΚΑΙ ΑΣΥΛΟΥ which, if they’re genuine, makes them Tyrian shekels.”

Foy waited for an explanation and when none came, asked, “Meaning…?”

“Tyre is a Phoenician city in what we now call Lebanon. They issued silver coins from roughly 130 B.C. to 70 A.D., but no two are alike due to their primitive minting process.”

“And you know this how?”

“By having a theologian and coin collector for a father,” Arcement answered. “Like I was saying, shekels were struck by hand with a four-foot-long hammer whose head had the face on it and the minters stood four feet back and struck the coin and even the most skilled minter wasn’t able to get a perfect strike every time, making the images off-center.”

“I’m still not following,” Foy said.

“Okay, how many coins do you see?” Arcement asked. “I count nineteen on the rug and I’m willing to bet the number still inside the pot is eleven, which would bring the total to thirty. Think about it, thirty pieces of silver.”

“You’re not saying that…”

“This may be the blood money Judas Iscariot received for betraying Christ, and if I’m right then these coins are cursed and may be the reason our victim is now a charcoal briquette.”