“Your husband just walked past us looking like he stepped out of an abattoir, which isn’t exactly a normal look for an accountant, and you don’t seem fazed by it at all.”
“Well, it’s not the first time.”
“What?”
“Lately, Hughie’s been coming home bloody every night.”
“And you never thought to ask him why? Or what’s going on in his life?”
“No. My mother taught me early on that sometimes the secret to happiness is figuring out which questions you’re better off not knowing the answers to.”
Consider this light fare a palate cleanser from yesterday’s post while I concoct tomorrow’s entry.
Certain truths take a while to be accepted as fact. The world going to hell was the latest example of this, and unfortunately for the human race, most likely the final time it would happen because, by the time the populace at large began taking the news seriously, it was already far too late.
When media outlets first began reporting that the viral internet video which led to the Presidential Internet Shutdown was responsible for opening interdimensional portals all across the globe, allowing demonic creatures to invade the Earth, it was easy to see how the news could have been ignored. It sounded like a prank on the scale of the Orson Welles’ 1938 “War of the Worlds” radio scare. But the portals would continue to appear until it was no longer possible to ignore.
Those who had never been in the presence of pure evil before soon discovered it to be a palpable sensation that overwhelmed all the senses because its very nature was too raw for the sane mind to handle. That was the scene in the Corbyn household. As the other residents of the Notre Villa Cooperative fled the city in search of a safe haven, Barnaby Corbyn was boiling hot water and fetching towels for his wife, Margot, who was in labor.
Out of his depth, the poor man tried contacting his wife’s doctor, the hospital, the ambulance service, and even the police, but none of the calls were able to get through because there was no longer a dial tone on their landline or signal on either of their mobile phones.
Normally, Barnaby was not a man who was good in a crisis and knew absolutely nothing about delivering a baby, but needs must when the Devil drives, so he intended to follow his instincts and do his level best, which included keeping Margot calm despite the oppressive tension that filled the bedroom. He soon discovered that his level best would prove insufficient to the task at hand when he caught an unnatural movement out of the corner of his eye.
His legs buckled as he staggered toward the bed. At first, what he saw had not made a bit of sense. Margot had gone limp suddenly during her patterned breathing, her face taking on a deathlike pallor, and pushing its way free of her pregnant stomach was what appeared to be a tiny obsidian hand.
A shriek that had never been issued from a human, let alone a man of his stature, escaped Barnaby as fingernails sharpened to scalpel points slowly and deliberately scratched at his wife’s bloody belly flesh. Instinctively, he covered his mouth, attempting to choke back the bile rising in his throat at the same time as he was screaming.
Sanity slowly leaked from Barnaby’s ears as the realization dawned on him that one of those interdimensional demon portals had opened in the last place anyone could have expected…inside Margot’s womb.
I don’t dream. I never have. Dreams are reserved for people who are asleep. Me? I’m what they call a true illuminate because I can transcend into a higher state of consciousness, beyond the realm of mere dreams. When my physical body is at rest, recharging, I enter into a state of intensified wakefulness and the universe becomes a playground for my astral form.
Sometimes I travel with purpose, to view the birth of a star, or bear silent witness to the death of a solar system. Other times I drift aimlessly in the cosmos and ruminate on the miracle of existence. Then there are times when I’m caught in the undercurrent of an event that exists in defiance of the natural order and chaos of reality.
Tonight, it’s the latter.
I’m being drawn against my will to a bedroom, where a naked couple performs some sort of, I don’t know, ritual? that can only remotely be considered sex by a raving lunatic. The sounds of their ecstasy? lament? fill the air as their bodies bend, twist and contort in ways the human form isn’t designed for, even if they happen to be triple jointed. They both move in a feverish and jerky fashion, attempting to slot themselves together, like two shifting pieces of an ever-changing puzzle, until the man’s mangled body finally forms the proper key to tumble the lock of the woman’s hideously misshapen physique.
There’s a sound unlike anything I’m ever heard and suddenly a patch of reality behind the deformed mass of the couple segments horizontally and lifts like a venetian blind being drawn. I can’t be sure, but I think they somehow managed to open a door to another dimension? plane of existence? and now shapes are moving in the reality rift, clawing their way through the opening.
I try to move closer in order to get a better look, tamping down my fear of the unknown because in my astral form whatever they are can’t hurt me. And just as the lead figure is about to come into view, I’m being pulled away, snapping back to my physical body, by a force stronger than the one that brought me here. On the way I see things, brittle and broken images of horrible events happening all over the world, racing past me at subliminal speeds…before I come to a complete halt.
It takes a moment for me to realize that I’m back where I started from, the spot I chose to rest, at the treeline of the forest behind my house. But something’s wrong. I hear noises coming from within the forest, unnatural sounds trying to mask themselves within the hum of nature. My senses are sharper during intensified wakefulness and I can feel them, lurking in the field of trees, cloaked by the shadows of the night, moving stealthily toward my sleeping body.
I force myself to remain calm. I still have time to slip back into my body, wake myself up and make it back to the house before whatever’s coming can reach me. The process of slipping back into my physicality is so simple…
No! It’s impossible!
I didn’t spend that much time away from my body. I’ve traveled longer distances and remained out until the crack of dawn with no problem plenty of times before.
My attention snaps back to the treeline. They’re braver now, all the stealthiness abandoned as they crawl out from the cover of the trees. And I see them for the first time, these things, like creatures out of a nightmare. I scream to draw their attention but they can’t hear me.
The inhuman beasts surround my defenseless outer casing. I try again to reenter my framework, but for some reason, maybe I was away too long, I’m now locked out of my own body. But I don’t give up. I lunge at them, swing my fists and try to kick them, which is about as effective as fighting air. So, I float, helpless to stop them, and all I can do is watch and cry as they tear the flesh from my bones and savagely devour my anatomy.
I once felt superior to everyone else. having the universe to explore, but now all I feel is homeless and alone, and I’m terrified because I’m not sure how long I can survive without the physical body that served as my anchor.
“Next question?” the woman at the podium asked. Her hawkish features placed her in the category of handsome rather than beautiful and were accentuated by raven hair cut straight around the head at jaw-level, with a fringe. She was dressed in a black Kevlar bodysuit which made her look like a cross between a superheroine and the baddie in a post-apocalyptic science fiction film.
“You there, the woman in the purple jumper,” she pointed into the sea of reporters.
“Miss Begum, given the mortality rate associated with your line of work, aren’t you the least bit scared that you’ll never grow old enough to start a family of your own?” the reporter asked.
Of all the questions Matilda Begum had ever been asked, this was the one she hated most, which was probably why it was the one asked most frequently.
“I learned to conquer my fear when I was young,” Matilda said, and then course-corrected. “Put a line through that. What I meant to say is that my father taught me at a very young age to use my fear as a motivator.”
“You mean, he endangered the life of a child by manipulating you to help him do his job,” another reporter piped in.
“First of all, my father was a good man,” Matilda snapped, caught herself then regrouped. “And he never manipulated me to do anything. I asked to help him in his work.”
“But as a parent,” yet another reporter added. “Wasn’t it his responsibility to keep his only daughter out of harm’s way?”
“You all already know this story, so I don’t know why you keep rehashing it, but for the sake of this conference, I’ll go through it one last time. My mother was murdered when I was a toddler, so I have zero memories of her. All I’ve ever had in my life was my father. When I was little, he was the biggest, smartest, most important person in the world. When I got older, I could see that he wasn’t really any of those things. He was just a man, flying by the seat of his pants, trying to do his best to raise a girl he didn’t properly understand. When I matured, I realized that he was pretty damned close to the man I thought he was as a child because he endured all my teenage rebellious nonsense, all the hatred and vitriol I spat at him, and never once held it against me.”
“That doesn’t answer my question,” the third reporter said.
“Who’s at the podium, you or me? I’ll answer your question anyway I see fit, and you will not interrupt me again if you wish to remain in this room. Clear?”
The reporter remained silent.
“Good,” Matilda smiled. “Now, where was I? Oh yes, my father would have preferred a son, he never said as much, but he raised me like one and I didn’t mind because I wanted to be just like him. He had turned his quest to find my mother’s murderer into an occupation, and when he finally located the killer, I wanted to be there, to help him get justice for a woman I never had the chance to meet.”
“But you were only ten at the time, were you not?” the second reporter asked.
“Ten going on fifty, as my father used to say.”
The first reporter asked, “And you weren’t scared?”
“Are you kidding me? I was petrified! We stood outside the killer’s house and I was shivering so much I could hardly stand.
“I told my father, I can’t do this!
“And he smiled and said, That’s okay, honey, you just wait here. This shouldn’t take long.
“But I told him I wanted to be there, I wanted to help, for my mother.
“And he asked me, What’s your shark? And I just looked at him like he was crazy.
“I never told you that story? he asked. I thought I did.
“Then he proceeded to tell me the story of the Sharks and Fish. Anyone familiar with it? No? Well, it goes like this:
The Japanese have always loved fresh fish, but the waters close to Japan haven’t held a great deal of fish for decades. So they built bigger fishing boats and traveled farther out to sea but the farther the fishermen went, the longer it took to bring in the fish. If the return trip took more than a few days, the fish weren’t fresh and people didn’t like the taste.
To solve this problem, fishing companies installed freezers on their boats to allow the vessels to go farther and stay longer. However, people could taste the difference and didn’t care for frozen fish, which brought down the price.
Then the fishing companies installed fish tanks, but once placed in the tanks, after a little thrashing around, the fish stopped moving. They were tired and dull, but alive. Unfortunately, the Japanese public could still taste the difference.
Apparently, because the fish didn’t move for days, they lost their fresh-fish taste. The fishing companies pondered over the dilemma until they stumbled onto the solution:
To keep the fish tasting fresh, the fishing companies still put the fish in the tanks, but now they added a small shark to each tank. Sure, the shark ate a few fish, but most of the fish arrived in a very lively state. The fish were being challenged.
“So, when you lot ask me if I’m scared, of course, I am and I think that anyone in this or any other profession should be in a constant state of fear when doing their job. This, of course, requires your willingness to break free from your comfort zone and push boundaries.
“If it isn’t already, life needs to be your exploration into that frightening undiscovered country. Every new project is an opportunity to attempt feats above your current skill set. To see what lies beyond the unfamiliar horizon. To embrace bizarre new thoughts, take on larger points of view. To shake hands with the intimidating unknown. To paint the world you live in with unique challenges. Anything less and you do a disservice not only to your work but also to your life.
“Challenging yourself is about punching above your weight class, learning to not only chew but swallow that which you’ve bitten off, and in essence growing as you come to the realization that you’ve just become something better than you believed yourself capable of.”
“So, when you lot ask me if I’m scared, of course, I am and I think that anyone in this or any other profession should be in a constant state of fear when doing their job. This, of course, requires your willingness to break free from your comfort zone and push boundaries.
“If it isn’t already, life needs to be your exploration into that frightening undiscovered country. Every new project is an opportunity to attempt feats above your current skill set. To see what lies beyond the unfamiliar horizon. To embrace bizarre new thoughts, take on larger points of view. To shake hands with the intimidating unknown. To paint the world you live in with unique challenges. Anything less and you do a disservice not only to your work but also to your life.
“Challenging yourself is about punching above your weight class, learning to not only chew but swallow that which you’ve bitten off, and in essence growing as you come to the realization that you’ve just become something better than you believed yourself capable of.”
“So, in the wake of your father’s passing, God rest his soul, does that mean you’ll keep up the family business?” a reporter off in the rear of the conference room shouted.
“Of course,” Matilda said, her smile beaming. “Vampire hunting is in my blood!”
I watched him discreetly to see how he adjusted and was surprised at just how easily he accepted change. Don’t get me wrong, things were awkward at first.
Normally a surefooted man, he began stumbling into things and tripping constantly. Somehow, the growth of the additional eye must have thrown off his depth perception. This only lasted a few days, though. In no time at all, he returned to his usual graceful self, more so in fact. In recent times, I couldn’t recall him having a single episode of clumsiness.
His innate ability to adapt was a huge advantage and the more comfortable he became with his condition, perhaps the more likely he would finally feel comfortable to confide in me. I knew this wouldn’t happen any time soon because he was preoccupied with the advantages and shortcomings of his newly altered state.
Besides the obviously improved eyesight, his reading skill and speed increased one hundredfold. Magazines that he initially glanced through, the ones instantly bundled for the recycled trash day, he started tearing through, reading them cover to cover no matter what they were–Omni, Scientific American, Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan.
Once he conquered magazines, he moved on to books. At first, my little trashy paperbacks and dime novels, but then he moved onto more serious fiction. One time he even polished off Moby Dick and War and Peace in the same night. Many was the night that I tossed and turned to the sound of him in the den flipping through the pages of some book or other at a breakneck pace.
As fate would have it, just when I was beginning to adjust to his third eye, I discovered that his nose had changed. Nothing drastic, just a slight flaring of the nostrils. With this minute alteration came a sensitive sense of smell. Now I thought he’d have no choice but to talk with me about it, but he didn’t, he just became reclusive. It was obvious to me that this was just the beginning—of what? I had no idea. Concerned at this point, I began dropping hints. Asking how he was feeling. If he had an allergy or a head cold. When was the last time he had his eyes checked, surely reading for long periods under that dim reading lamp couldn’t be easy on the eyes.
He began to become irritated with my prying, so I stopped, convincing myself if he could live with the changes then so could I and maybe that would have been true if it stopped at his nose.
His ears were next. First the right and then a week later, the left. Sprouting upward to a point. The result was enhanced hearing. Accompanied by migraine headaches from sounds that even our dog couldn’t pick up.
Then his mouth. Bleeding gums that resulted from a second row of teeth that pushed their way to the surface over his original set. Tongue followed a short time later. Elongating. Forking.
After that, I couldn’t tell you what was next. I never saw him again. Not that he moved or I left him. He just kept himself forever on the other side of a locked door. Part of me was thankful. I was spared the sight of the monster he was becoming. And he was spared the look of revulsion that I could no longer hide. That didn’t curb my curiosity, however. I still peeked through keyholes and drilled tiny holes in the wall. Why? He was changing into a wholly new person and I had to see what the end result was. After all, he was the man I married.
On the few occasions when he caught me spying, he flew into a rage, demanding to know what my problem was. My problem? Like I was the one who looked like an inhabitant from the Island of Dr. Moreau.
And that’s all I know. Whatever loyalty I felt towards him, whatever love I had for him, was gone. Gone the moment I got a clear look at what he’d become and witnessed his potential for violence. I was probably an idiot for remaining as long as I did, but then, love blinds sometimes. All that was gone now. The very next morning I packed a change of clothes in a rucksack, emptied the bank account, gassed up the car and left. Without a backward glance.
And I avoided mirrors, afraid that I had contracted whatever disease afflicted my husband, for it was a known fact that the thing that affected a loved one, affected everyone surrounding it, and I was terrified of looking into the face of my very own transformation.
My mother warned me to guard the things I held precious by keeping them hidden inside me. The only thing I held precious was her and I found it impossible to place her inside my body. I was too young to understand she was talking about love. Too young to save the best parts of my mother’s love in my heart. Too consumed by the hate caused by her leaving me on my own. Too young to accept that death comes to us all.
It was hard to hold onto her love. Hard because I watched her body decay and rot away to nothingness. I watched to see the precious things she kept inside her and where she managed to hide them so I could do the same. I never found them. I watched as I picked vermin from her flesh and fought away carrion from her decaying form, until the day she was unrecognizable to me.
In particular, I watched her heart. Who knew what was inside there but I knew it was fragile because my mother spoke many times about how it had been broken. She said, “Sometimes you have to break a heart to find out how strong it really is.”
But when her heart became visible, I couldn’t see any cracks. I watched it as it bruised like an apple and disintegrated away. Nothing inside it but emptiness. I was hoping to see love—even though I had no idea what love looked like—or at least be privy to some secret that would explain the world to me. I found none of those things.
Her heart was a chamber for maggots. That was what my mother kept precious. Little disgusting creatures that fed off her body. They were everywhere. Stripping my mother of her beauty.
It grew harder to remember her face. I tried to recall the last time I saw her eyes or her smile but that memory was too distant in the past, lost in the forest of forgetfulness.
Occasionally I dreamt of my mother, standing in a room somewhere I had never been but yet felt so familiar to me, her face was a storm. Clouds roiled where features should have been. When she spoke, her voice was a swarm of black bees the drained the life of anything it touched. The bees blotted out the room and ate a pet dog I only had in dreams and never in real life, before coming for me.
I would run from the house and through the trees, down a dirt path that led to a black pond of brackish water. The water called to me and I was torn for the water was frightening, but so too were the bees who devoured trees on their way to eat me.
No real choice at all, I dove into the pond and discovered the water was actually tar and I was being pulled in, just as other creatures foolish enough to make the same mistake, the same fear-based choice as I had.
My nose and mouth filled with hot thick liquid, bitter molasses that scorched my insides, and melted me like butter on the griddle.
I woke alone in the dark, choking for air, my chest weighted with the heaviness of fear. My breathing was a thick, wet noise like someone sloshing through mud — or tar! — and I no longer felt safe in this world, so I did the only thing I could think to do.
I crawled inside the remains of my mother’s body and wrapped her tight around me so that I could be the thing she kept precious.
Today’s entry is a shortie because I’m busy wrestling with a wordy bastard of a story that refuses to be tamed but I’m in a particularly stubborn mood, so challenge met!
That said, I offer you my three simple facts of writing:
If you do not write the story you truly want to write, it will never be read. You can’t have the unwashed masses confirm your greatness when you haven’t given them anything to be in awe of.
If you don’t submit your work—–for review, publication, employment, or whatever—–the answer will always be no. The cruelest rejection you can ever receive is from yourself, the toughest critic you’ll ever know. If you never show your work, you never give an editor, publisher, prodco, or whatever, the chance to say yes (exercise caution, of course, and protect your writing before letting it fly out into the world).
If you don’t write, you’ll never be a writer. Plain and simple. Also, many, many, many years from now, when you’re lying on your deathbed, do you really want a box of regret—–filled with all the unwritten stories of your life—–hanging over your head like the sword of Damocles? I think not.
My mother warned me to guard the things I held precious by keeping them hidden inside me. The only thing I held precious was her and I found it impossible to place her inside my body. I was too young to understand she was talking about love. Too young to save the best parts of my mother’s love in my heart. Too consumed by the hate caused by her leaving me on my own. Too young to accept that death comes to us all.
It was hard to hold onto her love. Hard because I watched her body decay and rot away to nothingness. I watched to see the precious things she kept inside her and where she managed to hide them so I could do the same. I never found them. I watched as I picked vermin from her flesh and fought away carrion from her decaying form, until the day she was unrecognizable to me.
In particular, I watched her heart. Who knew what was inside there but I knew it was fragile because my mother spoke many times about how it had been broken. She said, “Sometimes you have to break a heart to find out how strong it really is.”
But when her heart became visible, I couldn’t see any cracks. I watched it as it bruised like an apple and disintegrated away. Nothing inside it but emptiness. I was hoping to see love—even though I had no idea what love looked like—or at least be privy to some secret that would explain the world to me. I found none of those things.
Her heart was a chamber for maggots. That was what my mother kept precious. Little disgusting creatures that fed off her body. They were everywhere. Stripping my mother of her beauty.
It grew harder to remember her face. I tried to recall the last time I saw her eyes or her smile but that memory was too distant in the past, lost in the forest of forgetfulness.
Occasionally I dreamt of my mother, standing in a room somewhere I had never been but yet felt so familiar to me, her face was a storm. Clouds roiled where features should have been. When she spoke, her voice was a swarm of black bees the drained the life of anything it touched. The bees blotted out the room and ate a pet dog I only had in dreams and never in real life, before coming for me.
I would run from the house and through the trees, down a dirt path that led to a black pond of brackish water. The water called to me and I was torn for the water was frightening, but so too were the bees who devoured trees on their way to eat me.
No real choice at all, I dove into the pond and discovered the water was actually tar and I was being pulled in, just as other creatures foolish enough to make the same mistake, the same fear-based choice as I had.
My nose and mouth filled with hot thick liquid, bitter molasses that scorched my insides, and melted me like butter on the griddle.
I woke alone in the dark, choking for air, my chest weighted with the heaviness of fear. My breathing was a thick, wet noise like someone sloshing through mud — or tar! — and I no longer felt safe in this world, so I did the only thing I could think to do.
I crawled inside the remains of my mother’s body and wrapped her tight around me so that I could be the thing she kept precious.
Sally forth and be keeping things preciousingly writeful.
I burned my soul to ash but the pain paled in comparison to the terror that struck my heart like a match, anticipating her arrival and the tirade she would carry in tow. An unwarranted fear, as she was calm when she saw what I had done. Calm and nurturing. Soothing my pain with herbs and aromas, and each early morning during the hour of the wolf, she laid an ear on my back and listened as my soul mended itself.
She never spoke the words of disappointment aloud but it registered in her eyes. Although residing within my body, this wounded thing, this unwanted soul, did not belong to me. She had laid claim to it many years past, and in my despondency, I had taken liberties with her property and attempted to destroy it. Again.
ii.
The first time, I threw my soul into a sinkhole and allowed the ground to swallow it whole. I made her acquaintance when she plucked it from the soil like a tattered tuber. “I saw what you did,” she said. “And since you would so recklessly toss this precious thing away, it is no longer yours, but mine, agreed?” I nodded and she handed my soul back to me for safekeeping.
I honored our pact for a few years, caring for it within my limited capacity, but during a particularly nasty bout of depression, I tied heavy stones to my soul and pushed it off the sea wall. For a second time, she appeared, fishing my soul from the waves, and scolded me, “You are charged with protecting this thing that is mine, do you understand?” Again, I nodded. Again, I lied.
iii.
“Why do you want this worthless soul when it has been crushed by the earth? Why do you want it when it has been drowned in the sea? Why do you want it when it has been set aflame like so much tinder?” I searched long and hard yet found no answer in her silence.
iv.
During the day, when she thought me preoccupied, she secreted herself in the shadows and slept. One day I followed her into the darkness and watched her body twitch from dreaming and listened as she muttered,
One more soul, once buried deep.
One more soul, in ocean steeped.
One more soul, by fire burned.
One more soul, of air returned.
v.
Under her care, my soul grew healthier and it frightened me. I was pitilessly plagued and badgered by the phrase, One more soul, of air returned, that repeated in my mind’s ear until it turned dogged and cacophonous. But she was unaware of my inner torment, in fact, she was in an exceptionally good mood today, her voice almost a song, “I know you don’t see it, but you are a gift, you are. You have no idea just how special.”
vi.
Today was the day. I felt it in my marrow. Something was destined to happen, something I most likely would not survive. I should have embraced this eerie premonition, for it was no secret that I did not want to continue in this manner, broken, detached, and alone. But the choice of how and when I departed this wretched life was mine to make and mine alone. So, I stalled by distracting her with trivialities. “May I have more broth? Have you seen my shoes? No, not that pair, the other ones? Can we go for a walk?” If she knew my plan, her expression never showed sign. No request was too large or small on this day. She granted them all.
vii.
We strolled along the pathway in the park that led to the duck pond, a place we visited often during my convalescence. Picked, naturally, as not to arouse suspicion as I searched for the proper diversion in order to make my escape. But I was so wrapped in my own thoughts, I failed to notice that she was walking slower than usual today. “Can we rest a moment?” she asked as we neared the benches. “I am a little short of breath.”
Her breathing became a labored and raspy thing before it hitched and became lodged in her throat. When her face went dusky blue and she slid off the park bench, I panicked. The opportunity had presented itself and there I stood like an idiot, frozen. Entangled in the decision of whose life to save, or more accurately, whose death I could live with.
There was no real choice.
viii.
Her breathing was a trembling, liquid sound as I pressed my mouth to hers and exhaled, but instead of me breathing air into her body, I felt her sucking air from my lungs, and not just air…
I tried desperately to pull away but her thin, vise-like hands clamped down on the nape of my neck and held me firm in a kiss that was collapsing me. My hold on life became dim and futile, but before I slipped away into emptiness, I noticed the oddest thing: her belly began to swell.
Every fiber of my actuality was drawn into her, and my soul, the object I had forever been so reckless with, was systematically being stripped of concern, of negativity, of identity. I fell further and further into a darkness that pressed on me from all sides. So tight, so constricted. I was still unable to breathe but the sensation was somehow different now.
At the very moment when it seemed the darkness was about to claim me for eternity, there came a burst of light so bright as to cut my eyes. Thankfully something soon blotted out the light – a face, slowly coming into focus but I knew her before I saw her. From the moment I heard her soft cooing, “You are a gift, you are. You have no idea just how special.”
Mother.
About Of Air Returned: Delusion can be a scary thing, but it can also be wonderful at the same time. This piece was written in the early part of 1988, during a period when I swore I could do no wrong—it’s fine, you can laugh, I’ll just cringe quietly in the corner. I was heavily into both science and speculative fiction and had recently rediscovered the works of The Brothers Grimm, so I was determined to create my own collection of fairy tales for the—then—modern age.
Applying fairy tale rules, I could introduce the fantastic or the bizarre into any story with little or no explanation, and have all the characters in the tales accept everything as normal. Wishes as deus ex machina. Love as the ultimate cure-all. All the good stuff without all the fuss. Genius, right?
It would take the better part of six months for me to discover I wasn’t the groundbreaker I imagined myself to be. On the plus side, I followed my then idol, Harlan Ellison’s advice and was able to churn one of these puppies out a day.
Of course, most of them are unreadable. This one teeters on the edge. I kinda like it and it kinda embarrasses the hell out of me, but it was one of the three Rhyan Realm tales–yeah, I created my own sub-genre name for them, what of it?–that actually saw print… after 10-some-odd rejections.
You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll kiss a few minutes goodbye.
Prodigy. Genius. Talented. Gifted. Blessed. While it’s true these words describe yours truly to a T, there are times when greatness does not come easily (no, really, it’s true) and some of the ideas that spill forth from my gray matter fall far afield of the greatness for which I am currently known (if I have to label this as sarcasm you are instructed to take a seat at the back of the class until such time as you are able to purchase a clue).
Most of these hideas (hideous ideas) are forgotten as quickly as they appear, but there are a handful, a select few, that hang around and claim squatter’s rights on mental real estate better suited to my magnum opus(es).
This post shall serve as an eviction notice, with the hope that given some minor attention, the ideas will pack their belongings and fuck the fuck off back to obscurity.
Venusian Gender Non-Specific Martians From The Moon
The year is 1938 and the United States launches a rocketship with the secret mission of sending settlers to stake claim to Earth’s moon for America. Upon their arrival, the lunar settlers stumble upon the satellite’s indigenous lifeform, Venusian Martians (the exiled offspring which resulted from the great Venus Mars Conflict) who do not identify by gender. The settlers also learn of a Venusian Gender Non-Specific Martian plot to invade Earth and mine the planet for the most precious energy source in the galaxy… human sex chromosomes!
Trouser Snakes On A Dame
Samantha Jackson, an asexual parking enforcement officer, is trapped in an interplanetary shuttle full of horny extraterrestrial businessmen during the rush hour commute and is forced to take on car after car of deadly, one-eyed snakes, deliberately unzipped to deflower any virgin who dares stand in their way of spacejacking the shuttle to the nearest pleasure planet!
“I am sick and tired of these masturfapping trouser snakes on this mother loving dame!”
Pocket Rocket To TheStars
It’s 1937 and America is looking for alternative fuel and power sources. Enter female rocket scientist, Hedda DiClasse, who builds a rocketship powered by the ever elusive and once thought to be mythical female orgasm. Problems arise when Captain Manuel “All Man” Hardbody is brought aboard to pilot the vessel despite the fact he possesses too much testosterone. Can he and Dr. DiClasse put aside their differences and come together to ride that rocket into the Milky Way?
I Was A Teenage Neanderthal Bride
Ooba wan’t going to be told whom she would marry, especially with all the potential Cro Magnon suitors running around, with their promises of a newer, better way of life. But even as she discovers the perfect homo erectus, she finds herself torn between pursuing her wondrous new life or saving her old life and her family from extinction.
If Books Could Kill
A single mother gives her daughter a popular children’s book, only to discover that it is possessed with the soul of her recently murdered serial killer husband who’s out for revenge.
Firstborn
A viral outbreak renders the human race infertile and in order to cheat death, the top scientists and surgeons turn to the works of Victor Frankenstein until generations later, the world is nothing but frankenpeople, but when a frankenwoman gets pregnant and gives birth, the planet will stop at nothing to dissect the newborn.
Gym Rat Blue
Five unbelievably attractive rookie cops who look as though they spend every waking moment at the gym, have just graduated from the police academy in a nondescript city that could be New York but is probably somewhere in Canada. Now that training’s over and the rough and tumble life of a beat cop begins, they must learn not only to deal with their duties as police officers, but also deal with the problems and expectation of their severely dysfunctional families and friends, while maintaining their unnatural good looks, even after being shot. Pose, pout, protect and serve is the name of the game at the One-Oh-Sex Precinct.
Let Go Of My Ears, I Know What I’m Doing
We never need talk about this story or its title ever again. Sorry I even mentioned it Move along, nothing to see here.
Sally forth and be repurposing your less than stellar story ideasingly writeful.
MADD FICTIONAL 