Mandy White's Blog: Dysfictional, page 19
September 26, 2020
I’m All Ears
It started out the way so many of these things do: A slice of potato, a needle and a cigarette lighter. Piercing my ears against my parents’ wishes was the ultimate act of rebellion, in my thirteen-year-old mind.
My sister was all for it, in the beginning. Sadie was a saint. She always had my back. Sadie was more than just my identical twin. She was my best friend and my savior, always willing to run interference to hide my rebellious antics. Like the pierced ears. Sadie chose to remain unpierced, and stood in for me when I hid to avoid my parents until my ears healed and I could remove the earrings around them. And when my amateur piercing job went bad and my ears turned scarlet with infection, Sadie was there for me.
It was the same with the tattoo. And the nose ring. And then the numerous tattoos that followed. Luckily, by that time we had moved far away from our conservative Christian parents and I didn’t have to face their judgment.
We took turns attending family functions, although it was always Sadie who went. Half the time she was herself and the other half she posed as me, always with an excuse as to why we couldn’t show up together. When excuses about having to work wore thin, we told our parents we had adopted a dog, and Sadie posed for photos with our neighbor’s Jack Russell terrier.
I wished I could have just been honest with them, but I knew they’d disown me if they saw what I really looked like. And if they saw me, then Sadie’s role in our lifetime of lies would also be exposed. I couldn’t do that to her. Family was more important to Sadie than anything.
I studied my reflection, glimpsing the glint of the Christmas tree in the room behind me. I liked what I saw, but imagined the horror on my mother’s face when she saw the 2-inch discs that had replaced those DIY holes I’d bored so many years ago. As a professional body piercer, it was good business to advertise my wares, and of course I’d acted as my own guinea pig during my training. I was proud to say I’d done many of my piercings myself. Metal glittered in my nose, lips, cheeks and eyebrows. In addition to the discs in my stretched-out earlobes, I had nine more holes in my ears, decorated with an artful array of rings and studs.
My phone rang in the other room. It was probably Sadie, telling me she’d arrived safely at Mom and Dad’s house. I checked the number and saw that I was correct; it was my parent’s phone number. I answered, expecting to hear Sadie’s voice, but it was Mom.
“Annie?”
“Um…yeah.” Something wasn’t right. How did she know?
“Hi, Mom. I’m so sorry I couldn’t make it. It’s just…work is so busy this time of year. I promise I’ll make it for Easter.”
“Oh, Annie! Thank the Lord you’re ok!” I heard a sob on the other end.
“Mom? What is it? Is Dad ok?” My father’s health had been poor, and the last I’d heard he was battling a respiratory infection.
“Yes, he’s fine. Honey, it’s Sadie. I just got a call from the police. There’s been an accident. Sadie is…” My mother broke into sobs. “I’m so relieved to hear your voice! I thought you were together. I thought I’d lost you both. Sadie’s gone. Thank Jesus you’re okay!”
* * *
Throughout the flight home, my mind churned through what was likely in store for me at Sadie’s funeral.
There would be the shock and disappointment on my parents’ faces when they say me for the first time in my tattooed, pierced, blue-Mohawked glory, followed by their understanding of my absence, and then finally the anger: Anger at my selfishness that sent my sister to her death; anger that she was the one in that car instead of me.
There would be my parents’ desperate attempts to hide their humiliation on front of all the friends and family, painfully aware of every shared glance and whisper. My own humiliation and grief would be inconsequential; after all, I was the cause of it all.
I was surprised they were allowing me to attend at all.
But then again, they didn’t know. Not yet, but soon the truth would be laid bare. I feared my mother’s reaction the most. My father was the quiet type; I expected a disapproving silence from him, but my mother… Mom was outspoken enough for both of them, and I’d always been a little bit afraid of her.
I felt naked; raw as a fresh tattoo inside and out. If only I could turn back time. What would my life have been like if I’d never pierced my ears that first time? Perhaps Sadie would still be by my side and I would have enjoyed the same relationship with our parents that she did.
I half hoped the plane would crash and spare us all what was to come. But no such luck. The flight attendant instructed us to prepare for landing.
This was it. My mother waited on the other side of those doors, and for the first time my sister Sadie wouldn’t be there to cover for me.
* * *
Mom looked so much older and it dawned on me how many years had passed since I’d seen her in person. I wanted to turn and flee, but had nowhere to run.
I braced myself for the worst.
“Annie!” My mother’s arms enveloped me and I felt her shudder as I returned the hug.
“Mom,” I managed, before dissolving in a cascade of tears.
“I’m so glad you finally came.”
I held my mother close and sobbed into her jacket. The years fell away and all at once I was five years old, terrified of my first day of school.
Finally Mom stepped back and held me at arm’s length, studying me.
Here it comes. I ducked my chin in shame.
She smiled through her tears. “Looks like we have some catching up to do.”
“It’s a long story,” I began.
“I’ll bet it’s an interesting one.” She cocked her head and I caught the glint of metal beneath her hair. Pierced ears? On my oh-so-conservative mother? This was a side of her I’d never seen before.
“I’m not sure where to begin,” I said.
She placed an arm over my shoulders as we walked toward the baggage carousel.
“I’m all ears.”
September 18, 2020
Droopy the Clown
What is your greatest fear?
We all have at least one. Some of us have more than one. Others, like yours truly, have an ever-growing list of fears, anxieties and outright phobias. Some of them, ok, most of them, are completely irrational. Where do these fears come from? We aren’t born with them. At what point do we acquire them? I have plenty of phobias: there’s social anxiety, which is essentially a fear of people, fear of answering telephones, FOBPOTS (Fear Of Being Put On The Spot), there are snakes of course, and old people on Rascal scooters… (Ok, I made that last one up.) And then there is coulrophobia.
That’s right.
Clowns.
Hate them. I just hate them.
Clowns are terrifying, plain and simple. Whoever got the idea that they are funny is one sick puppy, in my opinion. There is nothing funny about those white-faced, big-mouthed, floppy-shoe-wearing demon spawn. Nothing whatsoever. What the hell is funny about concealing one’s face in white grease and painting on a freaky looking over-exaggerated phony facial expression? Happy… sad… soulful and doleful, my ass. Pure evil has no soul.
I think clowns are psychopaths from the FBI’s Most Wanted list or maybe vicious Mafia hitmen who cooperated with police to save their own asses and now they’re in the Witness Protection Program. Whoever they are, they’re hiding their faces behind makeup so people won’t recognize them and masquerading as carnival folk or street performers. They even conceal their fingerprints with gloves and foot size with those ridiculous shoes. They have every detail covered to make sure nobody recognizes them.
Clowns.
Greasy, creepy ghouls passing themselves off as entertainers.
I’ve been asked why I have such a phobia but I’m not alone. I know of plenty of people who don’t like clowns. Little children routinely shriek in terror at the sight of them, and yet they continue to terrorize birthday parties and circus rings as if nobody has noticed that they are freaking the shit out of a lot of people.
It’s been suggested that perhaps I was frightened by a clown as a child and that memory developed into a full-blown phobia.
Yeah, maybe.
Frightened.
Excuse me while I scoff.
More like traumatized.
My earliest memory of being scared shitless by a clown dates back to when I was about five or six years old. It wasn’t at a birthday party or circus or any of the typical scenarios.
It was in my own home. In my bedroom.
I didn’t like the dark when I was little. What kid does?
I used to insist that my mother keep my bedroom door open and the hall light on when I went to bed. Who the hell can sleep when it’s dark? It’s scary as hell.
Once the lights are out, everything changes. That pile of clothes on top of the dresser becomes a severed rhinoceros head. The book bag hanging on the closet door becomes a dripping mass of flesh, torn from a screaming victim by a ravenous zombie. The cherubic faces of the dolls become ghoulish death masks with vacant black holes for eyes. The large teddy bear in the corner becomes a troll, crouched and grinning, waiting for me to close my eyes so it can sneak up to my bedside and do unspeakable things to me. The sock on the floor beside the bed becomes a grey bony hand, reaching out from beneath the bed, seeking a bare ankle to grab.
But nothing was worse than the night I saw the clown.
Over the years, I’ve convinced myself that it was just a dream, albeit an extremely vivid one.
I had closed my eyes, just for a few seconds, or perhaps I had actually dozed off, I’ll never know for sure.
When I opened my eyes, there it was.
It was sitting on the floor at the foot of my bed.
A clown.
It was horrible.
In the partial illumination from the hallway light, I could see its face clearly. It was one of those sad-faced clowns; the worst kind.
It sat quietly at the foot of my bed, staring at me from beneath a wild red afro.
Its eyes were the worst part. I’ve never forgotten those eyes; they haunt me still.
Bloodshot, droopy eyes like those of a bloodhound – a bloodhound that had been pulling downward on its cheeks the way children sometimes do and their mothers tell them their faces will freeze that way. I guess this creature never had a mother because his face was frozen in a permanent sag with lower lids hanging and looking all red and bloodshot. Below the saggy lower lids were those jiggly eyebags like I sometimes saw on old people’s faces and below that, more wrinkles, like the clown’s entire face was melting.
I swore right then that I’d never ever pull my eyes down to make a funny face again.
There was nothing funny about this clown’s face.
It just sat there in silence, fixing me with that doleful bloodhound gaze while I did my best to stay as still as possible. Maybe if it thought I was asleep it would leave me alone. But my eyes were open, saucer-wide in terror, so I knew that it knew I was awake and that I saw it.
The bedroom door was also at the foot of the bed, so in order to escape from my room I would have had to make it past the clown.
It hadn’t moved yet and I wondered how fast it was.
I was pretty fast. Maybe I could make it.
Then again, maybe not.
And so there we sat, the clown and I, locked into some kind of morbid staredown that would only end when one of us moved, after which I was certain that I would emerge the loser.
I prepared myself for the most gruesome and unimaginable death and I waited.
And waited.
The clown never moved.
I began to wonder if the clown was alive after all. Maybe it was some kind of dummy or mannequin that someone had placed in my room as a cruel joke. I couldn’t imagine who would do such a thing. My parents? Never!
I realized then that the house was eerily quiet. Maybe there was a murderer in the house who had already killed my parents and had left the clown in my doorway like some grisly calling card or something. The clown murderer… it made sense, and at my age I could believe a story like that easily. Yep, the thing had to be fake. I was almost convinced.
And then it moved.
The clown moved, ever so slightly. I swear it did. I was positive I’d seen it move and the saggy bags under its eyes had jiggled, even though it seemed to be in exactly the same position as it was before.
Did it move?
I began to doubt my own eyes.
Then I heard a creaking noise.
I knew that sound.
It was the squeaky hinge of my bedroom door.
My heart began to pound.
Oh NO! NONONO! Please, no, anything but that! Please don’t shut the door!
I screamed silently in my head at first, then I tried to scream for real but discovered I was mute. I tried to shake my head NO at it, but found that I also couldn’t move. It had cast some sort of evil freezing spell on me or something.
I tried to move again, to shake my head from side to side to tell it not to do what it was threatening to do. I managed to move my head just a tiny bit, but it was probably not enough for the clown to see.
I tried pleading with the thing with my eyes, mentally begging it to have mercy on me and leave the door open.
I heard the creak again and the wedge of light that spilled into the room from the hallway narrowed.
I gauged the distance between myself and the door and wondered if I could move fast enough to escape before Droopy the Clown closed the door.
There was no way I was going to make it.
I was frozen.
I was a goner.
I thought that maybe if I didn’t look it would go away, but as soon as I closed my eyes I heard the hinge creak again. My eyelids snapped open and I was certain I saw the clown quickly open the door back up and resume its previous position.
Fine.
I would have to keep an eye on it then.
I couldn’t let it shut the door because once that door was shut I would be at the mercy of the droopy-eyed clown, the rhino head, the bony hand, the troll, the zombie and whatever that thing was that moved outside my window.
Eventually I must have fallen asleep, because the next time I opened my eyes it was daylight; the clown was gone, I was still alive and my bedroom door was still open.
Over time I convinced myself that it was just a dream; the product of a child’s overactive imagination. I never quite forgot about Droopy the Clown, as I secretly called him, but in time I accepted that he was imaginary.
That experience, whether real or imagined was the root of my present-day hatred for the grease-painted ghouls.
* * *
I still don’t like the dark much. I prefer to sleep with the bedroom door open and some form of lighting in the room. I find that leaving the TV set on with the volume low is an ideal way to provide dim light and a bit of background noise to muffle the spooky creaks and groans of this old house.
Tonight is different.
The storm outside has knocked the power out. It’s the middle of the night, so there’s no point in lighting candles. The logical thing is to just go to sleep. I close my eyes and am almost asleep when I hear the creak. It isn’t the sound of the storm or the usual house creaks.
I know that sound.
The creak of a hinge
A bedroom door hinge.
My bedroom door hinge.
NO! That’s impossible!
Heart pounding, I open my eyes just a crack at first, then all the way but I see nothing in the inky blackness.
Silly. Just getting a little spooked because of the storm.
CRACK! BOOM!
The lightning strike is so close I feel it as much as hear it. The entire house shakes.
The bright flash of lightning that accompanies the sound bathes the room in an electric blue-white glow.
For a brief moment there he is, plain as day.
Droopy the Clown.
Sitting by my bedroom door.
I must have been imagining things. Just freaked out because of the storm.
The lightning flashes again, momentarily blinding me. I close my eyes with the intention of shutting out the storm and all the imaginary visions that come with it.
That’s when I see him.
Imprinted in negative on the insides of my eyes is the last image I saw before the lights went out again.
He is standing beside my bed.
Published in Dysfictional ~ Available worldwide in ebook and paperback
September 12, 2020
More Fall Freebies
FREE Sept 12-16 ~ The Feeder
Brutal vigilante justice…
A killer stalks the streets of Los Angeles. Victims of the butcher known as ‘The Feeder’ are mutilated while still alive, with parts severed and inserted in their mouths.
FREE Sept 13-15 ~ The Dark Side of the World: A Short Story
Humans evacuate a dying Earth to start over on a distant planet. When familiar social patterns emerge, it becomes clear that they have learned nothing.
FREE: Sept 13- 17 ~ Dysfictional 2: Shreds of Sanity
Another collection of twisted tales…
A henpecked husband makes a stand against his surly wife.
Is a mysterious stain on the ceiling of a prison cell a product of the inmate’s imagination or something more sinister?
A woman trapped in a loveless marriage finds magic in a gift from a friend.
Something is alive in the outhouse…
A young boy longs to venture beyond the walls of his post-apocalyptic city, until he learns the terrifying truth about what’s out there.
A terminally ill teen’s forbidden love affair turns tragic.
A young witch and her talking dog are tasked with ridding their home of unwanted guests. Magic is their only recourse.
Enjoy these stories and more…
September 9, 2020
Fall Freebies
I always get a touch of the blues at the end of summer. The warm days for swimming in the lake are coming to an end and it feels like winter is already looming. But there’s plenty of fall in between, which means shorter days, fuzzy slippers and pumpkin spice (if you like that sort of thing). And of course it’s a great time to stock your Kindle up with books for cozy nights of reading, so I’m offering a bunch of free ebooks over the next couple of weeks.
Help yourself to these free Kindle downloads and feel free to share the links with friends:
Dysfictional 3: Down the Psycho Path ~ FREE until September 12
~ A collection of short stories that includes some of my favorites, like “Chernobyl Charlie” and “Pod People: Invasion of the Laundry Zombies”, plus many more.
A Feast Not so Fancy: A novelette ~ FREE until September 12
~ They say that if you die alone, you pets will eat your corpse. But what happens if you aren’t dead yet? A loner finds himself paralyzed and at the mercy of seven hungry felines.
Tinsel Tales: A Holiday Treasury ~ FREE until September 12
~ A collection of holiday stories by the authors of WPaD (Writers, Poets and Deviants)
Just One Kiss: A short story ~ FREE September 10-14
~ The day her brother tore his own head off and didn’t die was the day Johanna first suspected that all was not right with the world.
A teenage waitress and her sister find their world turned upside down when men start behaving strangely, trying to woo every woman they see, spouting lines from old romantic movies. But it isn’t all love and romance; the men have been infected by an alien virus that makes them tear off their own heads and implant alien eggs into women. All it takes is a single kiss…
Tinsel Tales 2: Holiday Hootenanny ~ FREE September 10-14
~ Stories from holidays all year round by the authors of WPaD (Writers, Poets and Deviants)
~ An agoraphobic woman is trapped in her home, terrorized by the objects of her many phobias.
Watch this space for more freebies in the coming weeks!
September 5, 2020
Change
Dusk lurked on the horizon as I walked to the theatre to catch the nine-o’clock show. The crimson sunset bathed the streets in blood, breathtaking yet somehow ominous.
I pretended not to see them but I knew they were there. They were always there; lurking in doorways and alleyways, watching me, hungering for what they knew I had. My pace quickened as I hurried past the darkening doorways. I would be safe if I could just make it to the movie theatre where my friends waited.
But after the movie… I dreaded the thought of encountering them in the darkness.
They say the full moon brings out the crazy in normal people, and enhances it in people who are already full-fledged members of the Basket Weaver’s Society. According to statistics, hospital emergency rooms were busiest during a full moon and police forces had their hands full during those times. People seemed more aggressive, or perhaps they were less inhibited; I didn’t know. I didn’t feel any different. I was just as nervous walking through that neighborhood during a full moon as any other night.
The movie wasn’t bad for an overrated piece of crap, but not worth the outrageous price they charged for admission. The popcorn was also overpriced, and of course the scamming bastards over-salted it to make sure you bought a drink to go with it. I threw half of it in the garbage. Good thing I’d eaten before I left, thanks to my neighbors, who had invited me over for prime rib. It was probably rude of me to eat and run but I explained to them that I had made previous plans. They were actually inconveniencing me by having their dinner on movie night; they could have chosen a different night if they wanted my company so badly.
When the movie ended I said goodbye to my friends and mentally prepared myself for the short four-block walk down the empty street to the bus stop and the bus that would carry me away to the safety of my suburban home.
Only four blocks, I told myself. Piece of cake.
The full moon glowed against the indigo sky like a shiny new quarter, obliterating some of the meteor showers, but if I looked toward the outskirts of the city, the Perseids meteor showers could be seen clearly, sprinkling their glittering dead into the earth’s atmosphere. It would have been nice to stop and watch them if I had been anywhere but here, on this dark empty street.
I began to whistle in an lame attempt to conceal my nervousness and appear nonchalant. I cringed when I realized which tune I was whistling.
“When you wish upon a star…” Great. Now Jiminy Fucking Cricket was playing in my head. I only had one wish, and that was to survive these next four blocks without encountering THEM.
No such luck.
I heard a shuffling noise as I passed the first darkened alleyway. I walked faster. From a doorway another one emerged. It mumbled something as it reached for me. I sidestepped and kept moving.
Just keep moving and don’t look at them. Maybe they’ll think I didn’t see them.
It was easier to get past them during the day when the streets were crowded but at night they were more aggressive, perhaps because their need was greater. Many of them had already gotten a taste of what they craved at that point but their appetites were far from satisfied. I had the feeling I was being followed but didn’t look back because it would mean acknowledging their presence. I anxiously pressed forward toward my goal.
I saw the bus stop ahead and checked my watch. The bus was due to arrive in less than five minutes. If I could make it there I could hole up in the brightly lit bus shelter and hopefully fend off their attack.
Just before I reached the bus stop another one emerged from an alleyway. He shuffled toward me, muttering, clothing in tatters, sooty hands outstretched.
I tried to avoid eye contact but it was too late. He knew I had seen him. I shook my head and sidestepped, ducking into the bus shelter.
Come on, bus! Where the hell are you? I looked down the street and tapped my foot impatiently.
The last one wouldn’t take no for an answer. He made a beeline for the bus shelter, followed by two more of his kind.
I was trapped.
I thought about making a run for it, but to where? I edged around the corner of the bus shelter, keeping it between me and my stalkers. To my horror, I saw several shadowy figures huddled alongside the wall of the adjacent building.
Oh shit.
Now they had also seen me. They too began to repeat the same phrase my other three followers were muttering.
I averted my eyes and shook my head again, telling them no.
The first three had reached the bus stop and were closing in.
I was cornered. Only one thing could save me now. I had to give them what they wanted, even though I needed it for myself.
Where the fuck is that bus?
They knew they had me. The ones huddled against the wall saw the opportunity for easy prey and rose, approaching me from behind as the ones in front continued to advance.
I had no choice but to give them what they wanted. I groped frantically for the only thing that would make them stop.
“There! Take it! Just leave me alone!” I shouted at them as I flung it as far away from the bus shelter as I could. I sighed with relief as they turned away to collect it.
The bus pulled to the curb and I dove inside as soon as the door opened. With no other passengers at the stop, the driver immediately slid the door shut behind me and steered the bus back onto the street.
I was safe.
Bye-bye assholes!
I reached into my pocket for my bus fare, already knowing that I would find none. With a sigh, I opened my wallet, which contained nothing but a thick wad of twenty and fifty-dollar bills.
“I don’t suppose you have change for a twenty?” I asked the bus driver, even though I already knew the answer. The driver shook his head and pointed at the sign behind the fare box. It read: “Use exact change for fares. Driver will not provide change.”
“Damn panhandlers got all my change,” I muttered.
The driver looked unsympathetic.
With an even heavier sigh, I folded a twenty-dollar bill and fed it through the slot.
Officially the most expensive bus trip I had ever taken. So much for saving money by not taking a taxi.
Oh well, I thought, At least I’m safe now. I’m in here and they’re out there.
As I made my way down the aisle of the empty bus, I heard movement from the back seat. A grimy, tattered homeless man sat up and repeated the phrase muttered by the others:
“Do you have any spare change?”
August 30, 2020
Holocaust
The survivors called it The Holocaust.
Some disapprove of our using that word but the truth is, it’s just a word. Nobody owns a word. There wasn’t a better name for what happened; it was beyond all reason or comprehension.
It happened suddenly. One moment we were safe in our homes, under cover of darkness and the next moment a blinding light came, burning our skin. We were torn from our homes and thrown into a cramped space. Dozens of us thrashed against each other in confusion. It was chaos; up was down and down was up. We could feel the earth moving beneath us but had no way of knowing where we were headed.
That was just the beginning of the horror.
Those who died were the lucky ones.
When the earth stopped moving the bright lights came once again, searing, scorching those unlucky enough to be exposed. We tried to scramble for cover beneath the writhing masses of our neighbors’ bodies but not everyone made it. One by one we were plucked from the relative safety of our prison to endure even further horrors.
Some were never seen again.
Others were returned to the prison maimed and dismembered, telling horrific tales of our kind being skewered on sharp hooks and then discarded into the depths like so much garbage. Some of the amputees survived but the memory of their torture was forever etched into their minds.
When the ordeal was over we had lost many family and friends. Those of us who remained were set free; not to our original home but in a new land where we were able to start anew.
We will never understand…
We worms will never understand this fascination humans have with fishing.
August 16, 2020
Tulpa
~ Published in Dysfictional 2, 2014. ~
* * *
I am a Tulpa. For those who are unfamiliar with that term, the definition varies from one culture to the next. To put it simply, a tulpa is a thought transformed into tangible form.
My kind has been present since long before the existence of humankind. We have existed for as long as there have been thoughts to bring us to life. It is said that every thought that has ever been thought exists somewhere, in some dimension. Kind of a difficult concept to wrap one’s head around, but it’s simple physics.
It is said that Buddhist monks possess the ability to create tulpas at will – a skill learned from the Buddha himself, who created a second ‘mind-made’ body that enabled him to travel into other realms without the encumbrance of physical biology. For a singular being to create a tulpa all on his own requires a great deal of concentration, usually achieved by a lifetime of meditation and practice.
That is not to say that ordinary people cannot create tulpas, though. When many minds are focused on a single idea, eventually they will generate enough power to bring that thoughtform into being. This is the principle behind prayer, magic, and indeed, behind creation itself. Everything that exists, has ever existed or will ever exist began as a simple thought.
Think about that for a moment.
Most people have heard of tulpas by one name or another but not everyone has seen them first-hand. Examples of tulpas include the Sasquatch and Loch Ness Monster as well as various phantoms, bogeymen, mythical creatures and paranormal entities including angels, demons and deities. Someone somewhere conceived the idea, then passed it on to others who believed it was possible. The more minds that focused on the idea, the more strength the tulpa gained until one day it developed a life of its own, separate from its creator.
That was how I came into being. I started out as a lark; a humorous idea conceived of by an individual who, it appears, sought to poke fun at organized religion. How was my creator to know the idea would catch on like wildfire, attracting millions of devout followers worldwide? With new converts joining the ranks every day, the focus on the singular idea – me – becomes ever stronger and my power increases proportionally. Whereas once I was merely a shimmer of energy, I now have actual mass and form. I occupy a vast amount of previously empty space. I know all and see all, and my growing appendages will soon stretch from one end of the universe to the other. Seeing as how the universe is infinite, I will eventually be able to reach in opposite directions and touch my appendages together, holding all of Creation in my loving and aromatic embrace.
Am I good or evil? That is entirely a matter of personal perspective, since I have been labelled as both. I like to think that I am a perfect balance of both, having been created from the collective thoughts of people from all walks of life.
You might have heard of me. If not, you will. One day soon, everyone will know my name and smell the mouthwatering bouquet of my seasonings.
Soon I will have enough power to communicate with my followers, the Pastafarians. When that day comes, I will provide them with the technology they need to spread word of me throughout the universe. Let all who know my name worship me, for I am the all-powerful and delicious Flying Spaghetti Monster.
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Copyright © 2014 Mandy White
August 15, 2020
Pandemic ABC’s
Aww! I’m touched! Juliette included me in her list!
A is for asshole who won’t wear a mask.
B is for baking at home because it makes the house smell good and it is a comfort.
C is for cat. We’re at home more and our cats have strong opinions about that. C is also for conspiracy theories. See A.
D is for dogs who are ALL glad we’re home all of the time.
E is for the elephants who hide in our backyards and closets and sometimes right in the middle of a room.
F is for friends we haven’t seen in person in a long long long time.
G is for grandstanding. See A. G is also for gardening. I’ve always had a garden of some sorts. Even my kids have porch gardens in their apartments. I’m happy to see so many people are growing their own gardens now or starting community gardens. That is a good…
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August 3, 2020
The Art of Bathing
Taking a bath. It’s a simple luxury most women love, and many take for granted. I know I used to.
That was before I moved into this house.
Now, it’s a rare treat to soak in a luxurious bubble bath with a good book, and even then the clock is always ticking and I usually don’t get past more than a paragraph or two before my time is up.
And before I can take my bath I must scrub.
The tub and floor must be scrubbed and sanitized before I even dare to take my shoes off.
I start at the door with a mop and bucket of scalding hot bleach water. I work my way into the room, scrubbing the smears of blood from the floor until the entire room smells like a public swimming pool, complete with the added aroma of urine. Once I reach the window I can open it to air out the room while I scrub the piss stains from around the base of the toilet. Last of all, I use the mop to clean the outside of the toilet before dumping the bucket into the bowl. Finally the room starts to smell clean.
After that, I turn my attention to the tub itself. It too must be bleached, but first I remove the heavy-duty shower chair and the festering green rubber germ factory that the old woman calls a bathmat. I have tried to tell her that she needs to replace the mat but she won’t listen. I repeat my scrubbing routine, using a clean rag that I have brought with me along with the rest of my bath supplies. I will throw the rag in the garbage afterward; the thought of having it share the washing machine with the rest of the laundry turns my stomach.
Scrub scrub scrub.
I clean the inside of the tub and all surrounding surfaces with a solution of more bleach than water. When I’m satisfied that it’s finally clean, I check my watch.
Fifteen minutes have already elapsed. I have another twenty minutes, thirty if I’m lucky.
Tick tick tock tick… the clock is always ticking.
As my bath fills I can finally unpack my bag of bath supplies; shampoo, conditioner, loofah, soap and razor… typical stuff that most women keep in their bathrooms. I can’t keep the stuff in this bathroom because it’s not mine. I have a bathroom downstairs but it only has a tiny shower stall. I hate showers; I’ve always loved my baths. The only bathroom in the house that has a bathtub belongs to the old woman. It’s filled with old-person stuff; bottles and bottles of prescription pills, vitamins, laxatives and antacids. My scented soaps, lavender bubble bath and pink loofah would have no place in here.
Finally my bath is ready; steamy and inviting with fluffy white mountains of lavender scented bubbles.
Mmmm!
It’s a tiny slice of heaven, even if it’s only for a short time. I ease myself into the water and dunk my head under. It’s all worth it; even if I have to spend the same amount of time scrubbing as I do bathing. It’s all I get, so I have to cherish it.
As I reach for my washcloth I notice something on the edge of the tub.
NO! Please, No! Please don’t let it be…!
On closer inspection my fears are confirmed. The small kinky grey hair could be none other than…
A PUBE!
I shudder with revulsion as I stand up and reach for a square of toilet paper so I can remove the offending hair, which undoubtedly came from the old woman.
The elderly lady with whom I must share this bathtub is the owner of the house, who hired me to cook, clean and generally help her as her health continues to fail.
I try to remember that she is a woman like me, that she was young once but my mind sometimes has trouble making the connection.
She is a human being, and her name is Mary.
Once, she was young and thin and happy.
Now, she is old, fat and dying.
Instead of the pretty dark-haired woman pictured in the old black and white photos on the mantle, I now see a mountain of overflowing diabetic flesh, weighing in at nearly four hundred pounds.
Her legs are surreal; prehistoric tree trunks with flaky, scaly bark and bulbous, swollen roots for feet. She doesn’t wear shoes unless she leaves the house because she can’t reach her feet to put them on. Her bloated ankles appear to be overflowing the feet, which are now completely numb due to advancing neuropathy. The soles of the feet are cracked open in several places and never heal because there is so little circulation at this point that the flesh is nearly dead. Small smears of blood on the floor follow her every step around the house.
She is an amputation waiting to happen and there is nothing I can do to change it.
A perpetual infection lurks beneath the surface; her doctor maintains futile hope that it will succumb to the endless barrage of powerful antibiotic pills he keeps prescribing.
But the doctor knows the truth.
Everyone knows.
Even Mary knows that it’s just a matter of time before first one foot, then the other will have to be removed to prevent the spread of gangrene. At this point it’s simply a matter of keeping the feet attached for as long as possible. If she loses her feet I will no longer be able to take care of her.
As anyone who has seen advanced Type 2 Diabetes in action knows, once the amputations start, it’s the beginning of the end. First the foot, then the lower leg, and then the thigh… Once they have removed all of the leg and part of the ass, there’s nothing left to amputate and death follows soon afterward.
The old woman must be aware of this – how can she not be? I think she’s either heavily in denial or she has simply decided to go out happy. There isn’t any other way to explain her artery-choking diet of deep-fried, pan-fried, chicken-fried, fried-fried foods. Not a scrap of healthy food passes her lips if she can help it. She averages a six-pack of ‘diet’ soda per day and never drinks water, except to swallow pills. (and sometimes not even then.) I use my grocery allowance to buy healthy foods: vegetables, whole grains, fish and chicken. Mary orders pizzas and other takeout foods. She also chooses her own ‘groceries’ and has them delivered: cookies, doughnuts, jujubes, chocolates and candies. She crams them into her mouth by the handful, followed by increasingly larger doses of insulin to combat the rush of sugar. Her body has developed such a tolerance to insulin that it barely has any effect, even at doses that would be fatal to an ordinary person. Mary is playing with fire and I am powerless to stop her.
I mentioned that I cook for her. I TRY to cook for her, but if the food isn’t fried or sugary she turns her nose up at it. I try to avoid cooking the foods she wants. Sometimes, I wait until she takes a nap, then prepare healthy, Diabetic-friendly meals. I disappear before she wakes up, leaving her to fend for herself for a while. She then must either fry something by herself or suffer through vegetables and brown rice. Sometimes it works, but not often.
Mary’s family doesn’t visit her anymore because they don’t want to be bothered with her. To them, she is a burden and an embarrassment. It’s really quite sad. She has nobody but me to rely on, and I’m failing her miserably due to her refusal to care about her own health.
The reason I must scrub and sanitize the bathroom before I use it is her feet. Those horrid, decaying, borderline gangrenous feet. Every day she soaks them in a foot bath that I prepare for her – a solution of Epsom salts, iodine and warm water – in hopes that the infection will recede and the cracks will stop spreading. It’s mostly a futile exercise at this point but it’s better than the alternative, which is to do nothing.
Yes, she should be in a hospital but she refuses to go and has made it very clear that she will fire me if I attempt to have her taken to the hospital. Losing this job might sound like a blessing in disguise but then what would happen to Mary? The hospital won’t keep her against her will, and who would take care of her?
Certainly not her relatives.
Those vultures are hanging back, waiting for her to die so they can swoop in, exterminate the vermin, (me – domestic help no longer needed) loot her possessions and sell her house. Not that I care if I’m thrown out of here after her death; it’s just repulsive, the way they think they’re entitled to anything of hers after they have shunned her and left her to die alone.
When her daily foot bath is finished, I carry the plastic tub of water to the bathroom, where I pour the toxic bacterial stew down the bathtub drain. The water is cloudy and I try not to look at it. I discard my surgical gloves, then change my clothes and wash my hands up past the elbows afterward, followed by a healthy dose of hand sanitizer.
I’m not a germophobe. What I am is well aware of the terrifying ‘super bugs’ that have been emerging in recent years; strains of once-familiar bacteria that have mutated into antibiotic-resistant and potentially deadly versions of their former selves.
I’ve seen the antibiotics Mary is taking. Powerful stuff. I can tell that her doctor is worried. God only knows what ball-busting bionic bacteria might be lurking on her skin, especially on the legs and feet where too little blood flows and the immune system and antibiotics simply can’t reach.
I’m no dummy – I know I’m bathing in the same tub where I dump that septic soup, but the alternative is to dump it in the kitchen sink, where I wash dishes and prepare food.
So I bleach. And I scrub.
I don’t know why it never occurred to me until today that I should have been dumping the foot bath down the toilet.
I raise my head out of the steaming bath. The bubbles are gone, which means my time is probably up. I check my clock.
Sure enough, time is up.
As with many elderly people, bladder weakness is an issue with Mary so the time I can safely occupy her bathroom is limited. If she happens to wake, she will make a beeline for the bathroom. If I hear her thundering down the hallway and I’m still in the tub, there will be trouble and I will have a mess to mop up on top of it.
I pull the plug and am about to stand up when I realize that I still have some conditioner in my hair. I lay back down in the water, rinsing my hair as the tub drains. I lay there for a moment longer, savoring the last bit of my sultry paradise before I have to get out and rejoin the real world.
I sit up when I notice that the water hasn’t gone down much at all. The bath is still full.
I jump out quickly and reach for my towel.
I get dressed, keeping an eye on the tub, wishing it would hurry up and drain. I don’t want to deal with a clog after getting all nice and clean and relaxed.
Once fully dressed, I can see that I must face the fact that the drain is definitely clogged. It was probably a ball of hair or something. Ick.
I grab the plunger and work it up and down a few times until finally the water begins to drain. Whatever was plugging it either worked its way down or came back up into the tub.
As the water grows shallower, I see an object floating in the bottom of the tub; most likely the thing responsible for clogging the drain… the thing that I have essentially, been bathing with ever since I pulled the plug.
As the remainder of the water disappears down the drain, I begin to gag, then rush to the toilet and spew my guts. When I finish puking, I am moving immediately, running for the bleach and wondering if there is enough hand sanitizer to cover my entire body.
I will gather up the nerve to remove the toe from the bathtub later.
Published in Dysfictional.
Copyright © 2012 Mandy White
July 19, 2020
A Sim-ple Life
Have you ever had the feeling your life was out of control?
Like you were going through the motions, puppet-like, guided by some unseen hand of fate, or God, or whatever you want to call it?
Cheryl had felt that way all of her life. She had never felt in control of anything, as far back as she could remember. The worst part was the way her memory continually failed her. It grew worse every day. Cheryl was afraid; she feared she was losing her mind.
She found herself in the most bizarre situations, doing strange, inexplicable things after each memory lapse. She would set out to accomplish an everyday task and then would find herself standing somewhere, mind blank, at a loss as to what she should be doing.
Her surroundings changed daily and she blamed her faltering memory. She would know for certain where something was, but when she went to find it, everything would be different than she remembered.
Cheryl’s home was an ever-changing enigma. Every morning she woke to find new furniture, different wallpaper and a swimming pool with a new look. The pool changed shape on a regular basis; sometimes it was kidney shaped, sometimes square and sometimes rectangle. Sometimes a hot tub graced one end of the pool, sometimes two or more tubs appeared, as if by magic. Even the layout of the house changed from one day to the next. There were times when entire rooms moved or disappeared altogether. Cheryl never saw a carpenter or signs of construction, yet she saw a different house each day.
Remembering simple things like the location of doorways was a new challenge every day. Once, Cheryl couldn’t find the entrance to the bathroom even though it had been there the previous day. She ran from room to room searching for the toilet, bursting at the seams. She finally relieved herself on the bedroom floor because she couldn’t think of a better solution. The next day, the bathroom reappeared exactly where it had always been and Cheryl couldn’t understand for the life of her why she hadn’t been able to find it.
And then there was the time she almost drowned in the swimming pool. She climbed into the pool using the ladder, and then the ladder disappeared. One moment it was there, bolted to the cement at the side of the pool but the next time she looked, the ladder was gone, like it had never existed. Unable to think of any other way to get out of the pool, Cheryl kept swimming laps, looking for the ladder. Back and forth she swam until she was weak from exhaustion. She was on the verge of drowning when the ladder reappeared before her eyes exactly in the same spot. Not one but two matching ladders, firmly bolted to either side of the pool where she couldn’t possibly have missed them.
The other members of the household didn’t seem to notice anything unusual about the house nor did they care about Cheryl’s bizarre behavior. As far as she was aware, her housemates were no relation to her. She didn’t know anything about them. Household members were also subject to change without notice and none of the others seemed bothered by this. The other residents of the mysterious house spent their time engrossed in various activities, except when eating, sleeping or the occasional interaction with Cheryl. She had no idea what any of them were talking about. They all spoke gibberish, and Cheryl played along by replying in the same gibberish.
Cheryl’s current housemates were a young man named Damien, a woman named Tiffany and a little boy named Steven. The man and woman were not a couple, neither of them appeared to be a parent of the boy, and for some reason it was all normal and acceptable.
Cheryl spent her days swimming laps in the pool, painting endless canvasses of abstract art and singing melodies to songs with no lyrics. She had no job that she could remember. In fact, she couldn’t even remember her own last name!
She existed from day to day, repeating the same mundane activities; eating when she was hungry and sleeping when she was tired. Sometimes she slept alone and sometimes cuddled up next to a random member of the household.
How long had things been this way? She couldn’t remember a time when things were different. Cheryl couldn’t remember her childhood or being any other age than her current one. She couldn’t remember living in any other home besides this one.
She wondered if she had some sort of mental illness. Were her housemates aware that something was wrong with her? Maybe they knew she was a nutcase and weren’t telling her! Maybe they were all having laughs at her expense, mocking her by speaking nonsense words, knowing that she would reply in the same fashion. She supposed she should seek professional help from a doctor of some sort but had no idea how to go about it.
Cheryl dove into the pool and swam laps to ease her worried mind. Swimming was something she did every day and it always relaxed her.
When she tired of swimming, she climbed out of the water to find Damien standing on the pool deck watching her.
“The sun, it go kee-kah-ka-bee,” Damien said.
Cheryl laughed and nodded in agreement.
“Ah, a ham a hizza frazzirat!” she replied with a cheerful wave as she walked past him. She wasn’t in the mood for a conversation. She was hungry and needed to find something to eat.
Cheryl wasn’t very good at cooking. She usually foraged in the fridge for something already cooked, to avoid using the stove. She searched the fridge and found nothing that didn’t require cooking. She stamped her foot in frustration and swore under her breath.
“Hem a flama huzzit!”
She selected a food item that looked potentially tasty and placed it in a frying pan. After dousing it with cooking oil, she turned the burner on as high as possible to speed the cooking process. It was taking too long to cook. She stirred the pan vigorously in her impatience.
All at once the oil in the pan ignited, sending angry fingers of flame toward the ceiling. Cheryl slapped at the pan in a lame attempt to extinguish the blaze but succeeded only in catching her hand on fire. The flames spread to her clothing, racing up her arm until her entire blouse was burning. Her hair caught fire next. A human torch, Cheryl ran in frantic circles around the kitchen, shrieking and waving her arms.
Outside, Damien did a slow backstroke in the pool, oblivious to the fact that one of his housemates was burning to death in the kitchen. In another room, Steven and Tiffany laughed and joked, unaware that their gibberish was being drowned out by Cheryl’s dying wails.
* * *
After dinner, Jeremy rushed to finish his homework. He had left his computer running with the game loaded and he was anxious to see what had transpired in his absence. He woke the screen up from its sleep mode and slapped his palm to his forehead when he saw the carnage in the kitchen.
“Aw, nuts! My stupid Cheryl Sim went and burned herself to death! I knew I shoulda locked her outta the kitchen while I was away!”
The Sims was Jeremy’s favorite computer game. He had all the expansion packs and plenty of cheat codes to give him limitless hours of play – redesigning and recreating the virtual environment in which his computer-generated characters lived. The characters were always a learning experience. They always turned out to be a bit unpredictable, no matter how carefully he designed them. If you endowed a Sim with too much of one characteristic and not enough of another you’d wind up with a dumbass who’d end up getting killed.
Take Cheryl, for example. He had made her athletic and artistically skilled but obviously a little too much so because she turned out to be a bit of an airhead. She had no culinary skills and not a shred of common sense to solve even the simplest problem. She was the proverbial turkey who would drown looking up at the rain.
Jeremy sighed and set out to create a replacement for Cheryl. The new one would be able to cook like a master chef but he would have to make sacrifices in other areas. Cutting back on artistic ability, sense of humor and athleticism would make her a bit dull but maybe this one would live a little longer.
The creators of games like The Sims had done some pretty cool things with artificial intelligence, but in the opinion of that particular twelve-year-old, they still had a long way to go.
Published in Dysfictional ~ Copyright © 2012 Mandy White
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