just start from the beginning and tell me what happened. [trigger #168]

“Just start from the beginning and tell me what happened.”

“Oh, God. It was terrible. I can’t get the images out of my head. They were everywhere, sinking their teeth into flesh like animals. Their appetites seemed insatiable. No matter how much they consumed, they just kept stuffing more and more into their mouths. Their chins were dripping, and yet they paid no attention. There was nothing but appetite, nothing but disgusting consumption. I’m still nauseas, I might be sick.”

“I don’t understand, what are you telling me? Zombies? Cannibals? Werewolves? Aliens? What was it you saw?”

“Zombies? What the hell are you talking about? They were just televising the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest on ESPN2. Zombies… you need to stop watching so many movies.”

i think my soul has sleep apnea. [trigger #167]

As he looked across the coffee table at his therapist, he wanted to say so much all at once. His mind and heart were a log jam of thoughts and emotions. There was so much to say, that he was left saying nothing. He wanted to articulate his pain, his weakness, his suffering. He thought perhaps there might be solace in having someone, anyone, understand what he meant when he talked of his own pain.

He offered the best metaphor he could.

“My soul is never at rest. There is always pain, always a knotted grip on my heart. I think my soul has sleep apnea. If, by some happy mistake, my soul falls asleep and is resting in my chest for a bit, it suddenly loses its ability to get air and wakes up sucking and gasping for oxygen. Any moment of rest is so often followed by heart-crushing panic and despair. I just don’t know what to do about it, to feel like a normal person once in a while.”

 

he inhaled deeply the alpine air. [trigger #166]

Jonathan looked down at the northwestern wilderness below. He inhaled deeply, the alpine air was crisp and sharp in his lungs. It had been four years since the fall. Four years since they told him he’d never walk again. Now, here he was on rigorous hikes up into the mountains. He still despaired the reality of never actually climbing again, but that was the only place he allowed the despair to touch. Beyond that, he took every limitation as a challenge.

He walked, biked, ran, and swam in ways the doctors still said didn’t make sense. But, that was Jonathan. His mother used to say she was surprised he never learned to fly, just because it was something everyone said couldn’t be done.

fun with lipstick. [trigger #165]

She called it, “Fun with lipstick.”

Whenever a relationship got to the point where she felt like her and the guy she was seeing were getting bored and paying less and less attention to each other, she would start wearing a different and more garish shade of lipstick with each consecutive time they saw each other.

Some noticed early on that she was wearing a shade she never wore before, and that was always the times she tried to have a talk to see if perhaps the relationship was salvageable. However, sometimes the men went for some time without noticing, which then just became an entertaining enterprise to keep the relationship happening until they finally noticed how absurd her lipstick options had grown.

She knew that in part the men sometimes noticed but had gotten past the point of caring, or perhaps knowing how to say something to her, but she still enjoyed the past time. It added some humor to the bitterness of an ending relationship, not that she usually cared about these men enough that it was too sad.

There was one time, where a guy didn’t notice for weeks of nightly dates. Finally, one night she actually changed shades of lipstick in the bathroom three times during the same date. On the third shade he finally noticed, and she just laughed and walked out of the bar. He never called to see where she’d gone.

sapphire ring. [trigger #164]

He’d heard rumors of the Children of Saturn, but never actually met one knowingly. Any time he saw a sapphire ring, he thought of their existence, but hadn’t yet seen that characteristic black ring with a single sapphire set between a sickle and a bundle of wheat.

The rumors were always fascinating. The Children of Saturn were famous and infamous, and yet facts were few and far between. It is said that they practice quite loose sexual morality, some even claiming they are responsible for the growing modern practice of polyamory and similar practices. They are said also to exist for one purpose, to subvert the world order in favor of equality for all peoples. That clearly was behind the rumor that many anti-poverty and social justice organizations are, deep down, rooted in the soil of Saturnian leadership.

The man before him was most certainly wearing not just any sapphire ring, but that sapphire ring. The chances of him being called upon by the Children of Saturn, and on a Saturday of all days, was so slim he’d written off thoughts of that as paranoia.

While he knew that the sickle on the ring signified justice, a lifetime of cultural depictions of the Saturn myth as the grimm reaper made his heart beat faster at the sight of the black winnower on the ring. Reminding himself it stood for justice didn’t exactly make him feel better, wondering what might be cut away from him in a Saturnian world.

“Friend, we have need of your service.”

This was really happening. It wasn’t just a chance encounter. This man was here for him.

“My skills and abilities were yours to use as you will.”

For better or worse, his journey was beginning.

seen in williamsburg, brooklyn. [trigger #163]

Bill had been running the same scam for years, wandering from town to town like a minstrel, or a hired gun. He was like Josh Ritter’s next to last romantic. / he’s stolen hearts like they’re horses / and horses where hearts can’t be found / Although, since there normally aren’t horses one can steal these days, he just stole hearts exclusively.

First off, he didn’t go by Bill, that’s too boring for him. He changed his name to Hugo.

Second, he had a full-proof heart stealing scam, which is just a euphemistic way of saying he beds lots of women; which itself is just a euphemism for saying he’s a wanton womanizer.

His scam involved cities with hipster enclaves, which will inevitably have a smallish newspaper just for hipsters. These newspapers normally have a missed connections section. Hugo then posts a missed connection ad, being vague about location and appearance, so that he doesn’t exclude too many women, but being specific in areas where hipsters would feel flattered to think of themselves in a certain way. He says broad, poetic things about how he could tell this woman he saw was intelligent and unique, that she prided herself on thinking with her own mind. He complemented her style, and that she was not a “slave to the style of the masses.” He would go on like this for whatever was reasonable based on price, and then let the responses come rolling in.

He was currently at the end of his run in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn. Soon, it would be time to ride off into the sunset, maybe poach some college girls up in New Paltz before heading south.

the power of a chalkboard. [trigger #162]

The last thing Merle needed was to run into gremkins, but that’s exactly what happened. He was exhausted, he’d been using far too much magic in his experiments, and being this tired it was a terrible idea to be out and about in the wild.

To come into contact with being as powerful as gremkins was a stroke of ill luck, indeed. As everyone knows, gremkins wield vastly powerful magic, but only have the brains of children who’ve never had parents. They are terribly dangerous, but not because they hold any malice in their hearts. They just honestly don’t know any better. So, when they had sensed the powerful magic in Merle and decided to eat him to consume it, there was no thought given to how he might feel about being eaten, or that it would kill him to be eaten; all the gremkins knew was that they wanted, and that was all they needed to know.

He’d tried threatening them, scolding them, and frightening them. Nothing had worked thus far aside from prolonging the inevitable. At full strength, he might have had the strength to simply bludgeon his way past them, although at a considerable cost to himself perhaps. Yet, in his current weakened state, he had no chance of surviving a head to head confrontation with twelve gremkins.

That was when he had a sudden inspiration. He remembered being a child, and thinking that his teacher knew absolutely everything, without failure or error. Perhaps the child-minds of these gremkins felt the same way.

“My good, gremkin friends. You really can’t eat me at all.”

“Wassit? Sures we does, Wizardy. We’s loves the be eaten you soons.”

“No, I’m afraid it just won’t work, the law of obsficationism simply won’t allow it.”

“Wassat, then? I’s already knows, buts you should explains the law of obsyfakinsism to me mates, here.”

With his last remaining reserve of magical energy, Merle manifested a chalkboard and chalk. In long, boring sentences he made up the Law of Obsficationism and talked gibberish about it to the gremkins, writing odd equations and words on the board as if they meant something.

By the time he wrapped up, two of the gremkins were asleep, and four more didn’t look far behind. He cleared his throat, “Ahem, so, you see, you really can’t be eating me at all, friends.”

“Welly lookit here, boys. He’s a’bein’ right here after all. That theres rules of obsicrustaceanism is as clear as day to me, and it means we can’ts be eatins at ‘im after all. Dammit all.”

“Awww! Blast and bugger. Come offit. Why not?!?”

“Stupid! Didn’t yous hear what he’s beens sayin’? Law’s the law boys, can’t do nothin’ about that.”

And just as quickly as children are prone to lose interest, especially after a long, boring lecture of one kind or another, the gremkins heard a noise and chased it off into the woods. At this point, Merle heaved a great sigh of relief and sunk down onto his knees from exhaustion.

swamp water bubble tea is my favorite. [trigger #161]

The dragon uncoiled her serpentine body, scratching huge gouges in the dirt and rock alike as she stretched her sinewy legs. She didn’t like being awoken like this, but for Ai she was willing to make an exception.

She smiled a dragon smile before, in a huge puff of smoke, she was transformed and now looked like a young female human. Her human form had never been one of her favorites, but again, Ai was changing her perspective on that as well. As was usually the case, she had neglected to add clothes to her human form. She could have, easily enough, but she enjoyed watching Ai as he struggled to keep his eyes from hovering over her small, exposed breasts and the thick tuft of hair between he legs. She grinned again at his discomfort and the smell of his arousal, this time her grin was more like the playfully villainous smile of a cat, and not the powerful, dangerous, queenly smile of a dragon.

“A drink, Ai?”

“No, thank you. It’s good to see you Longwei.”

“I’ll bet it is. Your eyes are darting like a rabbit before a predator. I wonder if you would be as fun to trap in my claws.”

A drink appeared in her hand, and she drank deeply. “Mmmmm, swamp water bubble tea is my favorite.”

“Blech, sounds terrible.”

“Maybe there’s something else you’d enjoy to try tasting instead then, Ai?” She enjoyed seeing the blush rise to his cheeks. This time her grin was both feline and dragonish at once.

kinky boots (not the obvious). [trigger #160]

“Um, Janine?”

“Yeah, Hugh?”

“What’s going on?”

“What do you mean what’s going on?”

“What are you wearing?”

“Clothes, Hugh. I’m wearing clothes.”

“You’re wearing poodles as boots. And they’re alive. And they actually appear not to mind.”

“Yeah, they’re one of my favorite pairs, but their hair is getting all kinky and they are starting to make my feet cramp as they get tighter…. and you weren’t talking about that, you were commenting on the fact that I forgot to change when I got back from Faerie. This is awkward.”

“Ummm, Faerie?”

“Yeah, Hugh, listen. There are some things you don’t know about me. We need to have a talk.”

the prodigy (not the band). [trigger #159]

If you read his FBI file, Tony Francony had been a prodigy. He may be a worn old man now, but once he had been the youngest and most talented “cleaner” in The Family. Tony ‘TNT’ Francony was a killer early in life, and earned his nickname 100fold. Clearly, he never actually used TNT to kill anyone, although he did delight in the use of more modern and useful explosives. No, in addition to his love of explosives, TNT Francony also earned his nickname because he was so explosive and volatile. It could be assumed that if you didn’t handle him the right way, there was a good chance you’d wind up missing your hands, if not your face and life as well. He’d been able to survive the turmoil of mob family politics by staying out of the middle of disputes. He never chose sides, and people always saw his value for making “problems” of various natures “disappear.” Thus, by now, he’s already outlived the life-expectancy of most in his line of work by decades.