he filmed his best friend’s suicide. [trigger #263]

Dwayne had no idea he was going to film Ricky’s suicide. He thought he was just filming a magic trick his best friend wanted to put on YouTube. Now that he knows the plan was suicide all along, and that Ricky duped him into it, he feels like he is continually being punched in the stomach every time he thinks about it, even after all this time. If, by some miracle, Ricky came back after all these years, Dwayne would hug him fiercely, and then immediately hit Ricky in his face. Whatever Ricky was going through, to cruelly trick Dwayne into participating in something so horrible, it was just too much.

In the days after it happened, Dwayne thought something bizarre had gone terribly wrong. When Ricky burst into purple flames and was nothing but a pile of ash in mere moments, Dwayne was overwhelmed with horror, then grief, then a mixture of the two combined with confusion. He thought perhaps it had been some kind of quasi-natural phenomenon, perhaps some new terror brought on by pollution and the increasingly bizarre chemicals we put in our food led to this spontaneous purple combustion.

Ricky’s mother, rightly believing that Dwayne had nothing to do with the death, allowed Dwayne into Ricky’s room to take whatever he wanted as a memento. That’s when Dwayne found all those books on the occult and various magical practices from around the world throughout history. Dwayne concluded that Ricky really had meant to perform magic, but not a magic trick, real magic. Somehow, it had gone horribly wrong.

Yet, as he continued digging, the various spells Ricky had underlined and scribbled notes about didn’t include self-destruction as a potential risk, they were for self-destruction. And Dwayne realized that Ricky had meant to self-immolate. For the life of him, he still doesn’t understand what compelled Ricky to do that. He had seemed his usual self right up to that afternoon, twelve years ago. There didn’t seem to be any indication that he was unhappy, or had a death wish. If somehow Ricky came back after all these years, right after the hug and the punch to the face, Dwayne would have to ask why.

she got me dinosaur socks. [trigger #262]

I met my fairy godmother when I was 34, the day before everything turned around for me. I had no idea, entering that week, that I was about to have the best six days of my life. I couldn’t have foreseen winning that trip to London, or randomly having a relaxing three hour conversation with Tom Hiddleston at my favorite local coffee shop while he was shooting a film nearby. I certainly had no idea I was about to find a literary agent who found a publisher for my first book in three days and got me a book deal on top of it for my next one.

My fairy godmother never showed up to take credit, but I have to assume she had a lot to do with lining up those events. At the very least, she made sure I was appropriately outfitted for all that was about to transpire.

I was feeling pretty sorry for myself before she showed up. I was discouraged by failure after failure. At a friend’s party, when I couldn’t stand the shame of answering the sixteenth new person who asked me what I did, I went outside to sit in the darkness on the front porch. That’s when she appeared.

At first, she was just a faint blur that materialized on the lawn before me. It was roughly the shape of a person, but no detail could be determined. She was making sound, but it was like a voice trying to communicate over a weak radio signal.

The jumbled, human-sized thing making incoherent noises seemed to be asking me a question I couldn’t make out. I only guessed that because the staticky mumbling seemed to lift in tone at the end, and there were always pauses afterward, as if I might respond.

“Garblegarblegarblegarb? Garble? Garblegarble?”

Finally, she seemed to realize I couldn’t understand her. She disappeared completely for a moment. Then, there was a wooden knock, exactly like the sound a baseball bat makes when it makes perfect contact with a ball centered right on the sweet spot. With the knock, she was clearly visible and audible. She was short, probably no taller than 4’11”, and the sides of her head were shaven beneath a shock of bright red hair. She was all tattoos and piercings. Her skin was brown, one would be tempted to say she was African-American, but I doubt fairies hold the same sorts of cultural, national, ethnic boundaries we do. Her accent was subtle, but whatever her first language was it was most certainly not any language I’ve ever heard before.

“Sorry about that. I’m not used to phasing into a dimension that’s perceivable for you. I’m new to this particular role.”

I wanted to respond, but instead I just stared at her. I tried thinking back to recount how many drinks I’d had, or who had handled any of them and might have dropped a foreign substance into it. Nope, only one drink, and it was a beer I’d opened myself. Either I was losing my mind, or this was really happening.

“My name is Laila, I’m your fairy godmother.”

Count my drinks again. Definitely just the one. Did I let someone hold it at some point? Might someone have dropped something into it while I was holding it without me seeing?

“Are you stuck?”

“Sorry… I… I’m having trouble believing this is happening.”

“Believe or don’t believe. It is happening either way.”

She was a bit more abrupt than I would have expected from a fairy godmother. I liked it. No chitchat. No wasted words.

“Aren’t I a little old for a fairy godmother?”

“Old? No. Fairy godmothers guide in birth or transition. Never too old for new life or growth.”

“If you see some kind of change for me on the horizon you can see much better than I can.”

“Yes, I can see much better than you can.”

I actually laughed at that. I’m not sure if it is something to do with fairies, but I was acclimating to the situation with uncanny speed.

“So, do you have a message for me or something? How does this work?”

“Yes, a message and three gifts. The message: You have worked, you have failed, you have always gotten back up, albeit often limping. This has been breaking the cocoon. Now you are strong, and the next phase begins. Keep your eyes open, your ears attuned.”

I admit, my eyes teared up a bit. Most of me still didn’t believe any of it, but it was so much what I wanted to hear that it moved me whether it was real or not.

“Now, gifts. I’ll be right back.”

The sound of her leaving was different than the baseball bat sound, it was more like the sound of a breaking glass. Not a shattering glass, like a kicked window or a mug knocked off the counter. Just a breaking glass, the sound a wine glass makes when it hits something at just the right fracture point and cracks with that loud ting that fills the room. Arresting, but not jarring.

The sound of her return was like the sound of an open palm playfully slapping fleshy skin. It was far more erotic than the other two sounds, and I felt my face grow warm in spite of myself. Her smirk seemed to indicate intentionality, along with a few other decidedly ungodmotherly things.

As if reading my mind, her smirk deepened. “Godmother is just a phrase.” She actually winked.

“Here.”

She handed me my three gifts. They were actually wrapped, like it was my birthday and her a close friend. I looked into her face before opening any.

“You are unwrapping. It seemed fitting that the gifts would need unwrapping as well.”

I went from largest to smallest.

First was a remarkably fine grey suit, a purple gingham shirt, and a black skinny tie. I would learn when I got home and tried it on that the suit was bespoke, as if a skilled tailor had carefully fitted it to my measurements in the most flattering cuts. I was about to close the first box when she spoke. “More.” I paused, and then looked beneath the suit. There was also a pair of dinosaur socks, bright orange stegosauruses paraded in front of a green background. Paired with the rest of the outfit, they would offer a tone of playfulness and subversion. After all, she is a fairy and I am a writer.

Second, brown leather shoes the likes of which I couldn’t have afforded if I saved disposable income for a year. Hell, I couldn’t have afforded them if I went without some necessities for a year. Gaziano & Girling, bespoke yet again.

Third, the smallest box. It felt empty. It was empty. I looked at her, confused but certainly not ready to complain. She grinned, and kissed me gently on the lips. It filled me with warmth, but not an erotic warmth like a moment earlier. It was a sweetness that filled me. A confidence. I felt I could do anything, even impossible things. And over the next few days, through both chance and agency, wearing my best suit and with the warmth of a kiss still lingering on my lips, I did do things that I would have thought impossible just days before.

i never should have invited the owl. [trigger #261]

Well, that didn’t go as well as I’d hoped. I thought that at the very least we could come to an agreement on some sort of decorum for future meetings, some rules of order we could use to settle disputes within the tree amicably. In hindsight, I should have known better.

For one, I’m the newest tenant. This means even I know that I have no authority whatsoever in the general political landscape of the tree. Thus, when the meeting started to fall apart, there was no way I was going to have a chance of reining things back in again.

Second, I’m a woodpecker. This means that it is particularly difficult getting anyone to hear out my grievances, since I’m the schmuck knocking on the side of the tree for hours at a time.

I at least hoped we could agree that regular meetings are needed to clear the air. Even that was a failure. My cohort wasn’t exactly helpful.

The squirrels were alright, as they usually are. They were on my side from the start. You can usually count on squirrels to be levelheaded and reasonable. You can also usually count on them to stab you in the back the second things go wrong, but that’s a truth I’ve learned long ago and keep safely nestled under my wing.

The chipmunk was useless, he couldn’t sit still, and every noise seemed like it was about to cause him a heart attack.

And don’t even get me started on the owl. I never should have invited that guy. If I’m honest, the owl is a dick. He thinks he knows everything about everything, and the second he starts losing an argument he pukes up a pellet with small bones inside. It’s like he can distract everyone from him losing face by immediately disgusting and intimidating them. At that point in the conversation tonight I think the chipmunk may have actually suffered a small stroke.

I’ve only been here a few months, but I’m already starting to think I need to start looking for another tree to live in. Maybe a small tree where I can live alone.

hunt and peck. [trigger #260]

I’ve always referred to myself as timid.

That’s putting it generously.

Or, perhaps not generously, but just choosing my very best moments and using them to describe all of me.

At my very best and bravest, I am timid. Carefully surveying every moment before actually entering into the fray.

Hunt and peck. Hunt and peck.

Again, that’s when I’m at my best.

Much of the rest of the time I find myself petrified by even the most mundane tasks and encounters. And I mean that in the true sense of petrified, to be frozen in fear.

As if made of stone.

That’s where the word comes from. Turned to stone.

Now it is often used just to refer to anyone scared to an extreme degree. But one isn’t actually ‘petrified’ without that turned to stone bit.

I remember in school when we learned about petrified wood. I only knew petrified to mean being very afraid. I thought it was so funny. The idea of wood being frightened.

It isn’t wood at all, though. Any organic material was replaced so long ago by minerals. What used to be alive has now been turned to stone.

Not much different than what happened to me.

Buried under layers of pressure. Robbed of air to breathe. Drowned yet again. And that which was living turns to stone.

All life extinguished.

But it isn’t all bad.

Petrified wood is also lasting. Hundreds of millions of years it remains.

Dead. But abiding.

At least preserving a record in full dimensions of the living thing that once was.

first time homebuyer’s class. [trigger #259]

In recent years, the Kiraduvians have gotten quite good at continuing their sociological research on earth without making it obvious that they aren’t humans themselves. Early on, though, it was pretty touch and go.

As far as appearance and language is concerned, they had no problem from the outset. They have deception field generators worn on the tops of their eight heads. These devices create a field which alters any sound or light leaving said field, so those on the outside see exactly what the wearer wants them to see while also translating Kiraduvian into the appropriate human language instantaneously, and vice versa. It’s the sort of impossible science fiction silliness that just so happens to be real. Interestingly, the deception fields have another feature that Kiraduvian ground personnel don’t know exists, in that Kiraduvian High Command can take over the devices and alter the sound and light entering the field. This is used by Kiraduvian High Command, so they can control what is perceived by the sociologist on the ground. This is helpful when, say, High Command wants to know what happens to a Kiraduvian when they are mauled by a bear. That sort of research doesn’t fall under a sociologist’s purview, and most Kiraduvians have a survival instinct that evolution gave them on their own planet. High Command can override that survival instinct by having the deception field convince the earthbound Kiraduvian she is being approached, not by a bear, but by an adorable puppy (even Kiraduvians love adorable puppies).

However, the deception field generators masked appearance but not behavior. It would convince a bunch of earthlings that Kiraduvians looked like humans, and fool them into thinking the creature they were speaking to didn’t have eight heads, twelve arms, and bright orange skin, along with one leg and three feet. However, if that Kiraduvian was on your roof, it would look like you had a human on your roof. If that Kiraduvian was picking one of its noses, it would look like a human picking its nose. If that Kiraduvian was attempting to eat a stop sign… well, you get it. Of course, the deception field could have fixed this, but it was too beneficial for sociological research to see how humans responded to a wide range of behavior. This means that early on, humans who unknowingly came into contact with a Kiraduvian thought they were in fact coming into contact with a very strange human.

One thing early Kiraduvian pioneers liked to do was go to different sorts of places where other humans were being educated. What better place to learn? This explains why, during the late eighties and early nineties, there were some remarkably strange children on earth. They weren’t children at all. They were Kiraduvian young adults with deception fields. However, school wasn’t the only educational context utilized. Drivers Ed, cooking classes, dance lessons, religious training, music lessons; all were a wealth of available information for someone wanting to understand humans. Obviously, it led to some disconcerting conversations with the instructors. For example, the teacher of a first time homebuyer’s class never entered a session expecting to be asked how much of the average home is edible, or whether or not it was considered rude to encourage one’s home to mate with someone else’s home without first seeking permission.

Kiraduvians have learned quite a bit, and the whole process is going much more smoothly know.

let me give you the tour. [trigger #258]

“Welcome, and congratulations on being here. Not many ever make it deep enough into our inner circles to be allowed in this space.” The man in the dark robe didn’t have the cadence or tone of a typical tour guide. There was no boredom, no sense that he said these words over and over again and now hated them. None of his enthusiasm seemed fake or forced.

Laurie, for her part, was nervous and sweaty all over. Not a common experience for her. Her hands were shaking gently, subtle enough that carefully folded hands could hide it. It was actually the only reason her hands were folded, which made her feel awkward and out of sorts. Still, it was better than revealing how nervous she was. She could not recall a time she’d ever been as nervous.

She intended to let her guide do all the talking, unless the perfect moment for a comment of her own made itself obvious.

The man in the dark robe continued. “It used to be more common. We once had an average of about eight initiates per year who saw this room. These days, it is much more rare. You are the third person in the last five years.”

Laurie’s breath caught. She new that it was infrequent that initiates were allowed deeper knowledge of the society’s secrets, but she had no idea it was that rare. She wondered who the other two were, since they would never have been able to reveal the secret to her any more than she would be able to tell anyone else this room existed, much less that she had actually stood in the middle of it.

Her guide kept looking at her, clearly appraising, but not in a judgmental way. It felt to her that he actually just genuinely enjoyed this part of his life, seeing the awe on the faces of those allowed into this hallowed space. “To your left here, you see the very first artifact the society ever collected, in fact, the artifact around which the society originally formed.”

Laurie looked where she was directed and saw that said artifact was a compass, tarnished and ancient looking. Although the compass was still, it didn’t steadily hold its relationship to north the way it should have. Instead, the needle spun around and around. Then stopped for a moment. Then around and around it went again. She watched carefully, the delight of a puzzle enough for her to temporarily override her nerves. Forgetting herself for a moment, she whispered to herself when she recognized the pattern. “Seven times, then southwest.”

“Yes.” Having completely lost touch with her surroundings, she was startled when her guide spoke. “Seven times, and then southwest, again and again. It is actually still our least spectacular and most important artifact, because this leads us to the vast majority of the others we find.

The compass is pointing one out right now. The direction of travel is uncomplicated, it is the direction we must go to find the other item of power. The number of spins indicates general distance, on a scale of 1 to 40. Over the centuries, we have been able to create a system that can interpret the distance almost exactly based on the spins. Lastly, the speed indicates urgency. The faster it is spinning, the more important the need for haste. The current spins are fairly middling. We have a man on it right now, he should return with a new item within the week.

Laurie continued to stare at the compass. Even after all of her study, seeing an object of this sort of power within reach was breathtaking.

“How does it work?”

Her guide chuckled. “We actually have no idea. We know it works, we have verified its accuracy time and time again, but we have no idea what principles are at work to make it function.”

He continued to lead her around the large room, showing her treasure after treasure. A huge, blazingly orange feather; a tattered leather bound journal with the name Lazarus burned along the front in Aramaic; a large chunk of what appeared to be metal, with strange markings on it Laurie couldn’t place, the metal vibrated continually. So many impossible and mysterious things, she just wanted to stay in this room forever and slowly uncover the secrets of each item.

you’re the worst, gerald. [trigger #257]

“You’re the worst, Gerald.” That’s all I said to him.

It was one of those vintage moves of mine where I am being light and jocular, but anyone who knows me at all can tell there is genuine contempt under the surface of my words.

It’s a pretty shitty thing to carry around as the last words you ever said to your husband, but I guess that’s life.

Not, “I love you, Gerald.” Or, “I’m so happy to be married to you.” Not even, “You’re irritating me and we should talk about it later after you get back from work.” Nope, I couldn’t find a mature way of expressing my displeasure. Instead, I was incapable of feeling anything true that day, and many days. I wouldn’t even allow myself to feel fully angry at him. Instead, I kept things ostensibly playful. A habit as maddening for me as it is for those who love me, yet I continue to do it.

It makes me wonder who the hell is in charge of my decisions, anyway. You hear people say “my body” is doing this and “my brain” is doing that. If the body and the mind are so separate from the mercurial “self,” then where the hell does the self reside?!

My “playful” sniping hurts me even more these days. Every time I catch myself saying something that has that outer sheen of humor with a deep core of disgust, always easily apparent to the careful witness, “You’re the worst, Gerald,” comes right back to the forefront of my mind. It’s as if those horrible last words tucked little sacs of poison in various folds of my brain, and the wrong move pops one so that the poison can ooze out all over all of my feelings, perceptions, and identity.

he stared at his whisky. [trigger #256]

Richard Griffin stared at the glass of whisky in his hand, in an office lit only by the street lights outside. Broken up by his wooden blinds, the light came through in sharp stripes. He moved his glass left and right, and watched as it vanished and reappeared, slipping from darkness to light and back into darkness.

The whole scene was a cliché from a noir film.

Richard Griffin liked it that way. He was more comfortable when he could sense the kind of moment he was in, when things were familiar, even if that familiarity was the result of a film trope. When he knew what kind of moment he was in, there was a script he could follow, or at least a few thematic points he could hit. It helped him feel anchored, rooted, and that’s no small thing in this life. When a moment called for a cliché, Richard was going to embrace that cliché without shame. This was most definitely a stare at a glass of whisky with the lights off kind of moment.

The cliché only went so far. Richard wasn’t a private detective, or a cop who blurred the lines of morality to get the job done, or even a newly crooked insurance agent.

What Richard was thinking about as he sat in the dark with his whisky was the terrible reality that he was going to have to fire his best friend Tony the next morning. It was unavoidable. The company’s financial situation was dire, and someone had to get the axe this month to keep the company from going under entirely within the next three. Tony was, by any possible metric related to job performance, the clear choice to be laid-off. If Richard fired someone else, everyone would know it should have been Tony, and why it wasn’t. Richard wondered if it would be worth it to fire someone else and let everyone chatter. No, that wouldn’t work. He would still have an undeserving person’s firing on his hands, and morale would fall apart. Tony would be even worse at his job by that point, because he would lose all credibility with his coworkers.

Sadly, it might not even help to fire Tony. There was a decent chance that this would be a bandaid placed on a deeply punctured artery. This meant that, as Richard sat alone in his office, he knew that he was potentially about to alienate his closest friend in a move that wasn’t even going to save everyone else’s jobs.

What sort of cliché could Richard use for that? What comfortable and familiar trope could he use to get through what would most certainly be the worst meeting of his life, with a fallout to match?

there seems to be a power outage. [trigger #255]

I’m not sure how I got stuck, but stuck is what I am. There is a dam inside that has stopped up any magical ability I once had. It used to come easy, sometimes even too easy. There were instances where I created things by accident, because of an usually vivid daydream. Now, even if I can scrounge up the power to perform a bit of magic, it feels disconnected from me. Far away. Not the internal thing it once was.

I feel unplugged. The electricity is gone. And when someone like me is unplugged, just like any other electrical thing, I become so much dead weight. I’m utterly useless. It’s infuriating. Which would be okay, if I could use any of that anger to find a spark of power within me.

There are schools of magic concerned with ley lines, or lines of power that run throughout the world. There are those tasked with maintaining these lines, finding shorts and blockages and repairing them, so that the world exists as it should. It feels like I have just such a blockage within me, like my internal power lines disrupted and need to be repaired. Yet, how does one go about doing that sort of maintenance inside one’s self? As far as I know, there are no magicians who maintain the internal lines the way some work with those in the world. If this were an issue with a ley line, we would simply find the block and reroute the line around whatever rockfall or new building or highway has disrupted it. It’s not so simple inside a man.

I’d give anything to feel that old electricity coursing through me again, to feel that creative power overflowing, impossible to contain.