Meg Sefton's Blog, page 28

Gillian Welch and David Rawlings

The little Prince

Cherub, A clay cherub by Garret Nuzzo-Jones, flickr

There is a light in the world for a little Prince and we, the children who have died at the hands of our caretakers, see it at night from where we reside. We are the Realm of the Comforters. We are a ragged crew, deformed, still, from our injuries but beauty in the afterlife is not the beauty that is prized in life. We wear our raggedness like battle scars. It grants us a certain power: The power to empathize, the impetus to act, the motivation to bring justice to children on earth.

Baby Prince was drowned by his very own father. A distraught mother and an angel detective helped solve the crime and and put the father away, but of course, this was not enough to save the child. The dear one came into our world choking and screaming, for children who have been killed at the hands of those who are tasked to love them are in a certain kind of confused state. Our Book of Souls states it is natural for a child to love a caretaker beyond all reason for love is the first rule. And yet, confusion and anger exist in that love and serve to render the child inconsolable.

We found the child in his crib sitting up, wailing, though he had already died. In our Book, we are allowed to comfort the newly deceased but only to bring them rest until they are discovered. It was likely no one heard him die for he had been held under water. After this heinous act, his father had placed him in his crib so that he could “discover” him and cash in on an insurance policy.

We suspended ourselves from the ceiling in the nursery, reaching down in unison to the child in the crib to form a small basket nest, a cradle for rocking, a place over his bed. We sung of babies finding sleep in trees in leaves with birds chirping, a place to safely rock and dream. Gradually, he was comforted, and slept, and we slipped him onto his blanket. The next few nights, a beam of light followed him from his room to the hospital and to his little grave, and at night we visited the grave until he joined us in our Realm, to be mothered and comforted, to play among us, to be our little Prince.

A Good Karen is Hard to Find

Big angry baby by Sebastien Lienard-Boisjoli, flickr

My great granny, MawMaw, rides in the back seat to Walmart with us on our monthly shopping trip. We have a Ford hatchback so it’s a little tight, but these days, she’s pretty tiny, so she fits in good with Junior and Missy. LeRoy and I are in the front. I ride shotgun.

MawMaw always has to sit in the spot that will be in the shade, especially when we park to wait for pick up. What has never made sense, however, is that she rarely sits in the car when we arrive. She patrols the lot, a tiny derringer tucked in her cleavage held in place by her miniature bra. She doesn’t like the look of “Karens” she says and if “Karens” will ever be out in force, it will be in a Walmart parking lot on a hot Florida Saturday.

MawMaw is a lot of talk. She’s really a dyed-in-the wool Democrat but she says she’s been “radicalized” by the pandemic. Really, she just watches a lot of YouTube videos with Junior and Missy and they hoop and holler at “Karens” and “male Karens” and animal hijinks videos and ignoramus conspiracy people.

She hates white power people and watches a lot of KKK YouTube documentaries, though she was taken aback when I married a black man. So yeah, she’s a tiny little white lady. I’m a bigger white lady and the children I had with LeRoy are mixed race. LeRoy and I let her say her piece about things but if we don’t agree with her or find offense, we just let it go—she’s eighty seven.

MawMaw helps when the Walmart person is putting our groceries in the back, though she does this slowly. One day, we are taking up the only remaining space and a “Karen” in an SUV starts beeping her horn in little taps. When no one looks at her or acknowledges her, she lays on it a bit more.

LeRoy gets out of the car to inspect and be a male presence. This doesn’t deter the Karen who hops out of her car and starts yelling at LeRoy: “Why do you allow this little ole lady to carry your groceries, you lazy asshole? We’re all out here waiting and here you are just taking your time!”

By this time, I’m out of the car, though I’ve begged Junior and Missy to stay put.

MawMaw then reaches into her blouse and pulls out her derringer. She shoots at the hood of the SUV and we hear a clank as the bullet ricochets off the hood. She shoot again at the tire. “Listen, you big ole heiffer, you best be getting in that jalopy!”

The Walmart person is on his phone calling the police. “I’ve called the police,” he announces. “Get in your car,” he tells MawMaw.

“Not til this crazy bitch apologizes to my son-in-law.” She says, her lipsticked mouth set in a firm line, the upper half of her face hidden behind her cataract glasses.

To our surprise, the Karen starts to sob. “I’m sorry,” she says, “I’m sorry! I don’t know what came over me.”

Granny tucks her gun away. She talks to the sobbing woman like I’d seen her talk to Missy or Junior when they’re upset. “It’s ok, little one, we all get a little mixed up, time to time.” LeRoy nods and puts his arm around MawMaw. “I’ll bet you’re a real fine person, deep down. That’s what we all want, to be a real fine person.” And gradually, the woman’s sobs subside and she wipes her eyes with a tissue LeRoy hands her.

When the police arrive, they come across a clot of people in the parking lot. They cuff MawMaw and confiscate her gun.

After she’d done her sixty days’ time at the Orange County Jail, she and Missy and Junior compare her stories of the pokey with the television series Orange is the New Black. She gets back to making her biscuits and fried chicken. And no one really bothers her that much because she is old. But then again, no one really ever sees her coming when her ire is up.

Deadmau5

Please dance with me like you live in a city in Florida, even if you would never want to live in a city in a Florida. Have a great Friday. —Margaret

Double

Earthbound Souls by matthias leuger, flickr

A fit and successful man, Ryan loves his mom, but feels sorry for her too, in the way that only newly minted adults will sometimes feel sorry their older relatives, particularly those closest to them, well ok, admittedly, in the way newly minted adults will sometimes feel sorry for their mothers. It has occurred to him that had his parents stayed together, the burden of thinking so much about his mother could have been displaced, since it would have been largely the responsibility of his father. Now he felt the weight. He had rebelled against taking this on in high school, but gradually assumed the mantel as the years progressed.

When he visits his mother, Ryan has a protocol for keeping track of her. Inevitably, her preparation of an elaborate meal helps him create ruses to slip off into her room: He wants to check his weight because he doesn’t keep a scale at home; he wants to look at her pictures because he likes looking at them; he needs to borrow her Bible to look something up. Had Ryan lived in town, his mother would have been suspicious that he went into her room at all, but she was always so happy to see him, she didn’t ask questions.

He knows where she keeps her blood sugar monitor; he checks recent readings and the ninety day history. He syncs the scale he bought her to his phone and tracks her weight; nothing new there which is both good and bad. He checks the notebook beside her bed where she keeps a written record of finances and doctors’ appointments. She is still in trouble financially and physically though her smile and easy manner seems to bely that. This was just her way. He checks her Bible. The tiny piece of paper he inserted at the edge of a page in the New Testament is still in place which means she hadn’t unzipped the cover and read her Bible and likely hadn’t attended church and Bible study. There is a whiskey bottle bedside— not great—though it is still mostly full. The dust level on her dresser is reaching visible though oft used surfaces like her bedside secretary desk is variably dust free.

Sometimes, he had been surprised by notebooks found in her secretary such as a girlhood diary she kept of her travels with her family in Egypt and Israel. The notebook contained hieroglyphics and their translations and notes about Christmas in Israel, but also complaints about his aunt and grandmother, that they huddled together and gossiped on the trip and left her out. His late uncle and grandfather formed the male unit. She complained she didn’t fit into her own family. This had surprised him, though she would never have admitted any of this to his face. She may not have remembered writing this down. Who knows that she didn’t remember this experience or remember sticking this journal into her secretary desk.

One time he had seen his mother, a younger version of his mother, tidying up the bookshelves in the spare bedroom where he slept. He had sensed her presence, and when he opened his eyes, it was confirmed, but he was afraid. He knew she was not the mother that was alive now. His current mother had thinning hair and moved more deliberately, as if she were thinking before deciding to invest in a certain commitment to act. He was afraid for as he observed this newer version of her—which was younger and more carefree–he also heard his older mother in the kitchen, making his dinner. At dinner, he said nothing about this phantom but he had the unsettling sense he didn’t know his mother, that he didn’t know anything about how she lived or what she thought or how she had experienced life, though she still seemed to know a great deal about him, even what he chose to leave unspoken.

It was always a relief to leave his mother’s home and enter into the chaos of his father’s life, one with fewer memories of the past, a new family with a new mother and brother, where life with his father’s former wife was rarely, if ever, spoken of. And then it was even more of a relief to go home to his own town where there was less history and more possibility, where anything could happen, where the horizon expanded out in all directions.

And he was thankful he had yet to see his mother’s younger double here at his new apartment. He prayed for a stay of execution.

Thursday evening with Robert Deeble

A really great person and musician out of Seattle. Have a restful evening. —Margaret

trauma play

Dollhouse highchair by Joker Venom, flickr

At night, Jada arranges the Mitchells around their little table in their little chairs. Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell sit at either long end of the rectangular plank and the children—a boy, a girl, and a baby—flank their parents. Jada arranges Mrs. Mitchell near the sideboard and kitchen for the tiny mama has to keep jumping up to get the bread, fetch the tiny pitcher of lemonade, retrieve forgotten items such as the salt and pepper. She is the most ragged of this tiny set, and so Jada performs nightly maintenance, wrapping her arms and legs with webbed fabric from her mother’s first aid kit. Mrs. Mitchell must move up and down, she must climb stairs, she must feed her family. When it is over she must drink and spank her children.

After dinner, Mr. Mitchell reads a paper cover to cover while Mrs. Mitchell deals with each child one by one, carting them up to take a bath and get in bed. Sometimes she punishes them, sometimes she reads to them them, or if the situation warrants, sometimes she locks them into the closet for the night. Every time she descends the stairs to retrieve a fly swatter or a belt for a spanking or the first aid kit to touch up burns she administers them from a scalding tap or a food she will force one of them to overeat and throw up because they bother her about their favorite treats–ice cream, banana pudding, strawberry milk–Mr. Mitchell turns a page of his tiny newspaper. Mrs. Mitchell is not a mean mommy. She is just tired. She sees no end in sight. When the children are finally all in bed, she sits on the toilet and cries into her hands.

Jada cries too. Is it that she cries for Mrs. Mitchell? She doesn’t know. She’s so worried she might lose Mrs. Mitchell to her incessant worry and work, that she will deteriorate right before her eyes. Jada worries for herself for Christmas only comes once a year, and who knows if her parents will understand the importance of doll repair, or worst case—replacement. Jada is worried Mrs. Mitchell is being too hard on her children, and that something will happen or they may say mean things to her or run away, but Jada has some odd respect for her as well. Mrs. Mitchell is only being what she knows herself to be, the mommy she knows she must be to raise her children.

Jada remembers when she saw the beautiful new dollhouse under the Christmas tree. Her heart skipped a beat. Everything was a pristine white painted wood. Everything looked so real: a tiny stove; a tiny pan with bacon and eggs; tiny stairs that led up to the second story; a brass bed for the parents; two wooden beds for the children; a crib for the baby; a real porcelain tub, toilet, and sink.

But on the Christmas night she received her dollhouse, Jada developed a belief of something terrible: a belief that the legs of the kitchen table were matches, for the tips of the legs were painted a dark color, a brownish red. She believed she would accidentally scrape the table against the floor and the dollhouse would be enveloped in flames. She believed everyone would die.

She never told her parents about this belief. Even then, she knew there were some things you kept to yourself.

Inktober: Trapeze

In the early days of the circus, the 19th century, there was puritanical disapproval because “entertainments” were considered a sinful waste of time and the outfits that performers wore revealed too much. But the animal menagerie that was set up alongside the performance tent was a shrewd move to recruit an audience among the faithful. That is the setting of this mini-story which reveals a child’s dreams. Dreams, I think, are the lure and effect of the circus. (I realize I’m not writing of Halloween or writing spooky yet with the circus theme. I’ve become intrigued by the research.)

circus by tmmmb, flickr

Henry Buckland, a religious man of New England, took his family to see the animal menagerie. But Little Henrietta broke away to glimpse a forbidden scene under the big top: the trapeze. She vowed to be a trapeze artist one day and wear gorgeous, glittery clothes.

50 Horror Writing Prompts

Here are some wonderful prompts for writing spooky this time of year. I thought I would share them. I have become especially intrigued with the circus prompts and may also expand this to come up with carnival prompts. Really, when you think of it, there are quite a few scenes and situations that lend themselves to scary other than what is typical. What about movie theaters, abandoned shopping malls, libraries, etc.? The English writer MR James is one of my favorite horror writers and he has a good handful of library horror stories. Oh, and he writes a seaside horror that is downright chilling! I think many of these 50 prompts on this site have a great potential to inspire spooky, fantastical, weird writing because they go a little deeper than the typical horror prompts.

Regarding this first category listed, “home horror” listed on the site, I was part of a literary anthology called Demonic Household. We were to choose an item that was “possessed.” That was fun! I used the Japanese horror story of Hanako-san who haunts toilets. When I was describing the way my young characters summoned something haunting and scary, I put it in the same category as the Bloody Mary game that we used to play when I was a girl. But watch out, Hanako-san can drag you down to hell!

Happy getting scary and scared.

Sincerely yours—Margaret

Horror Made

I have been spending more and more time writing, but I keep wanting some prompts to get the inspiration flowing. But I wasn’t finding any that really hit the right note for me. I wanted some with horror or sci-fi elements already baked in. So… I made some!

Today I offer you 50 Horror Writing Prompts. With 10 in each subcategory:

Home Horror Sci-Fi HorrorCircus HorrorAquatic HorrorSupernatural Horror

Home Horror Prompts

There’s a demon in my teapotSomeone keeps writing messages on the bathroom mirrorThe doors and windows have suddenly sealed themselves shut with your main character stuck insideA monster has found its way into the house using mirrorsSomeone is living inside the wallsOne doorway in the house is actually a portal to another dimensionThe back porch transforms into something that stalks the streets each nightA cursed object is brought…

View original post 525 more words

Circus III

Though my father spoke certainties from a pulpit, he understood magic.

For at least one day of the year, he took us to see the big top. He bought us cotton candy and peanuts.

He was friends with a lion tamer.

He dreamed big.

He prayed.