Elayne Griffith's Blog, page 6

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Need a witty, self-discovery, tiger-on-your-couch adventure along the veins of Way of the Peaceful Warrior? Or how about some hilarious dark humored cartoons parodying Wool from Hugh Howey, Pet Sematary from Stephen King, and one about the stupidity of love and relationships? ;)

They’re all free on Amazon Kindle Friday-Sunday!

YAY! :D

My Writing Life Cartoon – Parts 7 & 8

See previous posts for Parts 1-6 :) More neurotic, silly, little cartoons to come!

My Writing Life Cartoon – Parts 4, 5, & 6

To see parts 1, 2, & 3 check previous posts—enjoy :)

My Writing Life Cartoon – About The Lost Generation

Lately I’ve been feeling a little stressed out about what the future might hold for me (considering my generation has now been dubbed The New Lost Generation–and it’s so true). I can’t name one of my 28-33 yr. old friends who has a salaried job+down payments on anything (other than debt)+a nice car+savings+retirement…..mmmmmnope, nada.

So, since I’m in the same boat, and I cope with the stressors in life by amusing myself with neurotic little cartoons, here’s the latest one. May it amuse you as well ;)

My Writing Life: Parts 1, 2, & 3 (more to come)

 

Off to camp Nanowrimo!

Hello muddah hello faddah,

well, here I go – 10,000+ words for July! I always freeze up about half way through a novel with fear and doubt, so hopefully Nanowrimo will help me get back into the lion’s den ;)

It starts on Monday, so I’ll be moving into a nearby cave with nothing but my computer and barrels of caffeine.

I’m  working on an existential, apocalyptic, nano-zombie, sci-fi western called Azimuth. Here’s the working-cover:

 

Anyone else out there at camp? What are you working on?

 

Do you have the courage to become a full-time writer?

Originally posted on Dream, Play, Write!:

What would it take for you to quit your day job and write full-time?

Imagine your days spent writing?at your favorite local cafe over a steaming mug of coffee, out on your patio as you soak up the mid-morning rays, or on a cross-continental train ride through Europe. As writers, we can work anywhere!

What would give you the courage?

For me, it was a writing retreat halfway around the world in Bali that gave me the courage to break free. For you, it may be something as simple as a growing realization that you want more from life, more from your writing.

I challenge you?every day on my audio program, Dream, Play, Write!?to work toward the life you dream about. This is called your Grand Vision, and instead of simply setting goals to get there, which can be counter-productive, I tell you how to set up a writing…

View original 65 more words

What’s your opinion? – Following your dreams vs your bank account –

 

I’m curious. Tell me your own experience/thoughts. Our society pushes for the college degree, 9 to 5 job with benefits (WTF are those?), white picket fence, chocolate lab, and matching volvos, but what truly makes us happy? What truly is the purpose of our short little lives? Do these abstract numbers in our bank accounts really matter? Who’s to judge? And is “following a dream” just a spoiled, entitled, privilege?

In a nutshell: I grew up middle class, got a BFA in art, had many generic well-paying/poorly-paying jobs over the years, got laid off many times, started writing a fantasy novel, Sapphire, cause I was bored. It turned into an obsession, a passion, and now a career choice. Presently I work at an organic farm-to-table, family owned, business and write on my days off. 

My opinion: Though my bank account is usually hovering around zero, I’m happier than I’ve ever been. Go figure. I came to the conclusion that life is short and meaningless unless you give it meaning, and strive for something you believe in, love, and are passionate about. Money may buy shelter, food, clothes, etc but it sure as hell doesn’t buy purpose or joy (and it doesn’t buy shit on today’s wage in today’s economy, but that’s another matter, another rant, another time). And as a creative person, I have to do something creative. It’s like breathing. If I don’t do it, I’ll suffocate.

—Steps down from podium—

So what’s your opinion…

 

Cupid’s Guide to Stupid Hearts

 

0.99¢ on Amazon – click below

 

Cupid’s Guide to Stupid Hearts

 

This aint your fluffy bunny ‘n’ bubbles ‘n’ snuggles kind of guide to love and relationships. Cupid lays it out like a smack upside the head of common sense, a wedgie of down-to-earth advice, and hilariously horrible straight from his ass love. 

He might be jaded and brazen, and thinks you’re all a bunch of idiots, but he truly wants you to find love. Not just love for another, but ultimately love for yourself. 

So if you’re easily offended, and can’t handle an arrow of tough-love, then go snuggle your bunny and watch another princess flick.

, 

 

End of excerpt

 

Excerpt from Azimuth

AZIMUTH

Chapter One

2200 A.D.

Present Day

“Men have become the tools of their tools.”  

- Henry David Thoreau

 

Five thousand bleeding feet and soulless eyes follow me day and night. Mysterious specters from afar, shadows on my trail, but never a sound, never any closer, only the distant ebb and flow of shuffling soles. Six months have I traveled the wasted landscape, a Moses of these monsters, but the worst monster is the man reflected back at me through the eyes of all my victims. Since the nanocide, I hunted down every living survivor, and now only two remained, this man before me, and the woman still ahead.

My gun leveled at the last man between me, and humanity’s future.

“Logan!” The lunatic yelled my name and grabbed fistfuls of sand, trying to anchor himself to the world of the living. “For God’s sake, can’t you see that you’re helping it!”

An archaic saying lost of meaning, God. I squinted, and the gun fired.

The man screamed, fingernails tearing at his chest as the micro-bullets spread across his skin, quickly going to work. Within seconds they reached his brain and what was left of him collapsed in a twitching mass of flesh.

The weapon materialized back into my liquid exo-skeleton as I turned away. My horse gave a snort as I walked over to him.

“Shhh,” I said, stroking his smooth black skin that rippled like dark oil under my hand. “Only two of us left now. Only two little monkeys jumping on the bed.” I laughed aloud at the one thing in the world that wasn’t funny; the fact that I could count on one hand how many living, breathing, humans still walked this planet. I laid my forehead on his neck. It felt nice to lay my head against his warmth even if it did smell like plastic with a dash of ions.

A sizzling noise caught my attention, though I knew very well what the sound was. The specialized bullets were disassembling the body molecule by molecule. Soon it would be like the body had never existed at all. Dust to dust.  Atom to atom. Amber grasses rustled and I closed my eyes to better feel the breeze and smell the earth. Earth. That’s all we ever were and ever would be. Beneath my feet lay the bones of billions, the decayed bodies of many living things. Like morbid armor, the planet wore a crusted layer of death, a mesh of infinite interlocking links between our greaves of grief.

My only companion, Buckyball, shoved his large head against my chest and disrupted my poetic musings.

“All right. All right.” I smiled. “We’ll go find her.”

Unwelcome, but all too familiar, came the sound of skin scraping across ground. Raising my eyes to the nearest hill, I saw them stop, all five thousand of my ominous followers, and the shuffling tide became ragged waves of breath. Silently I suffocated under the weight of their empty stares, this gaunt garrison, this constant reminder of why the gun should be aimed at my own skull.

With effort, I tried to ignore the horde, and heaved myself up onto Bucky’s back. His skin-armor shifted and slid to adhere my armored legs to his sides. No amount of sudden maneuvering would dislodge me. We were like one animal. Soon as I was astride and secured, our minds synced up. Now we truly were one organism. Since I was the more intelligent species, and stronger minded, Buckyball trusted me. He’d go anywhere I told him to, even off a cliff if I so wished. Never would I find a more trusting and loyal friend, certainly not in a human anyway.

He could sense where I wanted to go, the distant abandoned city, so he threw his head high, black spikes protruding then retracting along the crest of his neck, and made for the crumbling buildings at a good clip. I thought of my purpose: the woman. She was the last one. Clouds of insects chattered and buzzed, clacking their wings, as we disturbed their private lives in the high-rise grasses. Bucky’s drumming on the hard-packed dirt was like a lullaby, the swaying of his stride soothing me into a rhythmic existence. Ahead stood the sinew of humankind’s ingenuity, while behind followed the ghosts of gods. 

EXCERPT FROM FOLLOWING AMUR

 

 

 

 

I never wear my socks during sex. It makes me feel used and trashy, like a night of strawberry schnapps with a high school jock. At this point, I’d take a vapid set of pecs over the masculine void in my love life. I must admit I have never been in a romantic relationship, at least not in a princess-in-a-tower kind of way. After years of empty schnapps bottles, I finally realized that I was actually the dragon. Now I tend to go about relationships in a more jaded secretarial kind of way.

I see you have plastic lop-sided balls hanging from your truck? Next!

Not many applicants are lining up around the block. It’s hard to love someone when love turned on you long ago, and your nights consist of paralyzing panic attacks. How can you have hope when as a little girl no one ever came to your tea party, not even your toys?My failed imagination and relationships aside, the most terrible secret I keep is a piano. I haven’t played the piano since I was sixteen. I was a virtuoso, a rising star, and now at thirty-two I work a dead-end mall job. Silently. Invisibly. But this was all before I came face to face with a little old man and an eight hundred pound Siberian tiger.

The day that fateful knock came to my door, a coworker of mine had been recommending that I go to yoga. She vowed that stretching her hamstrings like mozzarella sticks had completely changed her life. Since stretching mozzarella across the restaurant table was always a favorite pastime of mine, I figured I’d buy this fad a drink. I went out and bought everything that looked remotely related to yoga, including what turned out to be a dog toy.

“Now release your tail bone to the floor,” said our instructor. “Let the energy flow from the crown of your head out your feet. Let that stress, those negative energies just wash away.”

I glanced at the clock in hopes of mentally manipulating Einstein’s theory of relativity. However, his theory held true: when impatient for time to speed up, time slows down.

“Now push your hands into the floor. Keep those heels high for downward facing dog, or Adho Mukha Svanasana, and reach those sit bones high!”

As my trendy ass rose up towards the halogen light, and my hands became rooted to the expensive Buddha mat, I imagined the smiling Buddha image saying, “Someone just made a pretty penny off your desperate need for connection. Namaste, foo’!”

“Okay, class, sit in a comfortable seated position, hands in mudra, close your eyes, and breathe. Let the flow of your breath be your guide. Follow it like the tide of the ocean and let your thoughts drift away.”

I cleared my mind of thought, making enough room for the thought of a vanilla spiced latte. I cleared it again and wondered if I’d have enough on my next paycheck to pay my insurance bill. I furrowed my brow in frustration determined to stop thinking even if it meant sitting through the next class. I focused on my breath again, like the tide, like the ocean, like fish in the ocean, like toilet seats and beer cans in the ocean. I pursed my lips. Breathe, focus, just be, like seaweed floating in shafts of sunlight, floating, just floating so peacefully.

“Thank you, everyone. You may open your eyes.”

I opened my eyes and met hers. She smiled at me.

“Namaste,” concluded our yoga instructor.

“You were seaweed?” Ivy said over the phone as I watered my dying plants.

It was ironic that my best friend’s name was Ivy since, I swear, for the life of me I cannot keep anything alive but cacti and plastic plants; so I buy everything but, fating the poor things to a slow agonizing form of Japanese water torture. “You know, meditation. It’s supposed to open your inner eye—”

“Your inner what?”

“Eye.”

“Oh, God. You’ve turned into a new-age floozy. I’ve lost you.”

I rolled my eyes at her accusation and watered my potted stick. I think it used to be an Orchid. The flower’s dainty petals had long ago swooned, wilted, and melodramatically fallen to the floor in an Oscar winning performance.

“Is Bleb still alive?” Ivy asked.

Bleb was my goldfish. I glanced over at his bowl. He was floating peacefully upside down.

“Yeah,” I said. “I think so.”

“You have the weirdest pets.”

I laughed and nodded. It was true. Bleb always looked dead because he had a dysfunctional swim bladder that made him swim upside down. I found the name Bleb after falling into one of my late night Internet black holes: “a bleb is an irregular bulge in the plasma membrane of a cell.” Seemed like a good name for an irregular fish.

Ivy had been talking the entire time I was reminiscing.

“How about 9 o’clock, Tuesday?” I heard her say when I tuned back in. “We can recite some Hail Mary’s at O’Malley’s. Maybe some nice priest will buy you a drink.”

I snorted. “Even if he does, I’m not getting down on my knees.”

Ivy laughed and dropped the phone.

“But sounds like a plan,” I said when she picked it back up. “Oh hey, I gotta go. Someone’s at the door. I’ll talk to you later.”

We hung up, and I gave my wilting plants a wilting look then went to answer the door. I opened it to find Pete, my disheveled neighbor.

“I heard it this time. You were playing that music. It was too loud!”

“Pete, I wasn’t playing any music.”

Peter Fritzwalski was a middle-aged man who lived in the apartment below me. As far as I knew he never had any visitors or ever went out, except for his daily delusional escapades to my door. I felt it was my duty to play along since it was probably the only highlight of his day. His graying lanky hair looked as if it was actually sprouting from his knit cap, which I assumed had melded to his skull since he never took it off. He wore the same patched up black tights, the same wool sweater whether it was warm or cool out, but oddly enough it was his leather ballet shoes that he kept impeccably spotless. He would go out of his way to keep them unmarred, once even climbing over the railing of my second story floor, and inching along its edge, in order to avoid a shallow pool of water. Everyday it was the same routine, though sometimes the subjects changed. Last time it was my nonexistent parrot that had escaped from its cage, flew through his window, and inexplicably stole his last cupcake.

“But I heard it,” he said, his wide blue eyes accusing me of the audible crime. “It was Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake.”

“I told you, I don’t listen to classical music. Now go home, Pete.”

“Well, then you shouldn’t play it so loud if you don’t listen to it.”

“Go home, Pete.”

I shut the door and heard him stand there a few minutes before he gracefully tiptoed away. I decided I would try that inner-lightenment stuff again before I had dinner. I threw a pillow on the floor and tried to sit still, but in a matter of minutes my foot started falling asleep. I shifted to lazy-cross-legged, closed my eyes, and tried to become the seaweed. As before, my mind raced with worries and thoughts. Just being was harder than opening a can of tuna with a butter knife; I should know. You’ll try anything when the electric can opener dies on your last meal for the week. Why was I thinking about tuna?

“Float, float, no thought, just breathe, seaweed, float.” I repeated this mantra a few times and, remarkably, started to feel more relaxed. I was the seaweed, I was just floating, no worries, no thoughts, no doorbells. Doorbells? I opened my eyes and glanced at the clock. It had been nearly fifteen minutes already! I smiled at my accomplishment—take that Einstein—but quickly became annoyed when the doorbell rang again. With a sigh, I got up to answer, thinking of how best to get rid of Pete this time. I was not prepared for what greeted me. There, standing with hands cupped in front of him, was a little bald monk adorned in orange robes. He smiled. My eyebrow shot up, a habit of mine whenever I find a monk standing at my door. We stared at each other. He blinked, which was an amazing feat since his eyes were almost totally obscured by drooping folds of skin.

I licked my lips, forgot I had on cherry lip balm, made a disgusted face, and said, “Can I help you?”

The little old monk continued to smile, nodded his head, and gestured at the opening.

“Oh,” I stammered, “Oh, no, I can’t let you in, but if you’re looking for someone maybe I could help.”

He just looked up at me, or sort of rotated his head since there were hardly eyes to look at, and smiled in silence. I glanced around and thrummed my fingers on the door.

“Well, I need to go. Sorry I couldn’t help you. Try the main office.”

Both of my eyebrows rose as I closed the door on the strange old man. I turned around then paused for a minute. I did a little mental ballet with my facial expressions, then turned back around and opened the door. He was still standing there. I stared at him then closed the door again. My eyes fixated on the doorknob for a few minutes then I slowly reached out my hand, and opened it once more. The orange monk was still standing there, smiling patiently, and squinting up at me.

“Are your hinges working?” he said.

Taken aback by his sudden communication, I wasn’t sure what to say. I opened my mouth, but he spoke first.

“May I come in, or did someone already answer your ad?”

“My ad?” I blinked a few times in rapid succession.

“Yes.” He nodded. “Your ad for a roommate.”

I nearly tore the door from its well-oiled hinges. “Oh, that ad,” I said as if it had been obvious all along. “Of course, of course, that’s why you’re here. Why else would a monk be standing at my door?”

I hesitated, then just out of amusement of the situation I said, “Sure, come in.”

 

 

“You have a monk living with you? A monk?!”

I was having coffee with Ivy at my favorite quaint little café. The air outside today was crisp and called for warm conversation. I took a sip of my coffee and burned my tongue.

“Yeah,” I replied, “his name’s Mr. Dawa.”

She just looked at me as if I had said, “A wild mountain gorilla selling blenders showed up at my door.” Which, when I thought about it, seemed just as likely as a monk who smelled like cow shit and saffron.

“What?” I asked. I took another sip despite my coffee’s previous warning.

“Well.” She looked flustered. “Well, where did he come from? I mean, who ever heard of a little Tibetan monk wandering the streets of L.A., looking for an apartment to rent?”

I shrugged. “It’s L.A. And you’re throwing your coffee onto the guy sitting behind you. Ivy, calm down.”

“I am calm! I just think, I just think it’s a little weird you know.” She stared over her to-go cup at me as she took a gulping sip.

“Ivy, he’s totally harmless.” The jury looked unconvinced, so I continued on with my case. “He’s a monk, like, Dalai Llama style. He just meditates, wanders around smiling, talks to Bleb and my plants—”

“Talks to your plants?”

I gave her an exasperated look. “Somehow he comes up with the rent. I’m not sure what he does, but as long as he pays rent and doesn’t throw any wild meditation parties it’s fine. What?”

“I knew it,” she said, nodding as if I had said something absolutely illuminating. “He’s part of a drug-ring, or maybe even the mafia.”

“The mafia?” I tilted my head down for a good long are-you-kidding-me stare. “The Tibetan mafia, Ivy?”

She shrugged, crossed her legs, and leaned back in her chair.

“Where do you even come up with this stuff?” I said. “You have got to stop reading every self-published romance-thriller you find. It’ll give you dementia.”

“I’m just saying.” She emphasized, saying, by throwing the rest of her coffee over her shoulder. She released a finger from her coffee grip to point at me. “There’s more to his orange robes than starching.”

“I bet.” I sighed. “So how’s work?”

A grin replaced her chastising frown. “Still saving the planet one kid at a time.” The table wobbled as she leaned towards me. “You know, Hugh Howey, that author guy? He just donated a bunch of money to our organization. I met with him too. Really nice guy.”

She was always name-dropping, and I was always nodding like I knew who the hell she was talking about. Then I would inevitably have to say, “Who?”

And with a look like I’d just crawled out from under a fifteenth century cow patty she’d answer along the lines of, “You know, he wrote that one book about sheep or whatever.”

“Sheep?”

“It’s not about sheep. The title has something to do with sheep. Or maybe it’s llamas.” She waved her hands at invisible gnats. “Never mind.”

I forgave Ivy’s bragging butter-tongue because deep down I really admired her. She had dropped out of college and started a non-profit organization to help children all over the world. It was now one of the largest international organizations and had helped hundreds of thousands of children not only survive, but even get educations and jobs.

I always feel like such an asshole when she talks about it.

“And you?” she asked, nodding to me. “Still spoiling kids one electronic gadget at a time?”

“You know me. Just breaks my heart when those pudgy little cooter-fruits don’t have the latest I-Diddle-Myself device.”

“Bia, why do you work there?” She shook her head like a bobble doll. “You could be doing so much more. You’re smart. You’re talented—”

“No.” I said sharply. “I’m not talented.”

A moment of silence fell between us as we sipped our cold coffees. She knew better than to go down that road, but I appreciated that she worried about me.

She raised her eyes to my downcast ones. “Still having trouble with insomnia?”

My fingers started to tear at my coffee sleeve. “Sometimes. I think I’ve watched every T.V. show ever made by now.” I laughed a little, and Ivy smiled, but only to appease me.

The man behind her finally got up and noticed the coffee stains on his coat. He looked down at Ivy.

“Excuse me, miss, uh, did you do that?” He glared and pointed at the splotches. I saw that he was wearing a very expensive watch. Great. A man of his station probably wouldn’t hesitate suing over spilt milk, much less coffee.

Ivy, however, could care less, an endearing trait of hers that had gotten us into quite a few interesting predicaments. Her eyes flicked down to the coat that probably cost around one hundred lattes, then back up to his squinting brown eyes. “Those stains were there when you walked in.”

He looked confused then angry, and my heart sped up to mach five as he stood and towered over the both of us. “I think you owe me an apology, miss.” He hissed the last word.

Ivy growled. “Why should I apologize for your support of sweat shop slavery, sir?”

I melted into the chair as people around us started to stare. Here we go again. Ivy did this at least once a day. She wasn’t happy unless some unsuspecting American citizen was shamed into self-flagellation, sold all their material items, and began a life of ascetic guilt. She took a sip from her eco-conscious, fair-trade, organic, $3.99 latte with antibiotic and hormone free milk, daring this incarnate of all she deemed evil to confront her righteous powers. She was in charge of one of the largest humanitarian organizations in the world and was, well, let’s just say passionate verging on insane.

His face turned bright red. I could tell he was still trying to decipher what she meant. I was afraid this man might become violent until Ivy unleashed her super-rant powers, then I was certain of it.

To-go cup in hand, she slowly stood up, glared right back at him, and said, “Where’d you get that coat?”

Her strange inquisition seemed to be the only thing keeping him from punching her in the face.

“Look, lady,” he began to growl back, curling his hand into a fist.

“No, you, look!” The force in her voice actually made him step back, and I saw his hand uncurl.

I must say, right then, I had to applaud Ivy’s passion even if it was about to give her a bloody nose. I wondered if I should do anything to help, but my cowardly butt made a good argument that chair cushions were more comfy than bloody noses.

“Ma’am,” said a young barista. The poor lad was going to lick his lips off his face from nervousness as he approached her.

Without looking, and like the spider-thing from Alien, Ivy’s hand engulfed his pimpled face and pushed him away. The boy stumbled into a chair and stayed there, either too afraid or too amazed to stop the scene.

“You,” said Ivy, brandishing her cup at the rich-man like it was a gavel. “You get upset over a Goddamn stain on your precious jacket, but do you get upset over poverty? Disease? Crime? War? Do things that matter actually upset you, sir?” She yelled the next few words with explosions of spit. “I-didn’t-think-so, your Majesty!”

Only the percolator had anything to grumble about in the silent coffee shop. I, and about twelve other people, turned our stunned gazes to the victim of her verbal warfare. He seemed to have been nuked into mute shock. His mouth uttered disjointed grunting sounds.

“Lady,” he finally spat. “You’re a fucking lunatic. You’re lucky I don’t call the police.” With one last glare, he turned and stormed out the door.

“Ma’am!” said the manager, who had been a silent accomplice like the rest of us. Ivy turned to him, hip cocked, and the offending cup still held high. “Ma’am, I have to ask you to leave. And I’m afraid we’ll have to refuse you service from now on.”

She leaned in, and the rotund man tilted backwards like a globe teetering on chopsticks as she said, “You should be afraid.” He cringed. “Your lids don’t work.” In one smooth motion she peeled off the lid and flung it into his face like a ninja’s shiruken.

Before the sputtering red globe decided to call the police, I detached from the safety of my cushion.

“Ivy,” I said, grabbing her arm. “C’mon, let’s just go.”

I was so embarrassed. So, then, why did I keep hanging out with her? This thought had never occurred to me before now as I steered her out the door like she was a dangerous bull. As we made the last few arduous steps to the glass exit, which seemed to recede further away the closer my hand reached towards it—damn you, Einstein—Ivy threw her empty lidless cup into the recycle, turned to me and said, “I think I’ve had way too much coffee.”

I burst into laughter, shook my head, and pushed open the door. This was why I hung out with Ivy, the crazy bitch.

  

 

I met Pete again on my way up the stairs to my apartment. I really wasn’t in the mood for more crazy, but his multicolored scruffy head peaked out his door.

“You shouldn’t let your dog bark,” he blurted out as I started up the stairs. “Your dog was barking.”

“Pete,” I sighed, “I don’t have a dog.”

Of course, debating his delusions was completely delusional since reality had no place in Pete’s world. I continued up the stairs, fumbling for my keys.

“Yes, you do!” he yelled after me. “It was barking. Woof! Woof, woof, woof!”

I rolled my eyes as his “woofing” echoed up from below. Finally locating my pink pepper-spray key chain, I unlocked the door, stepped inside, and screamed.

A large white tiger was lounging on my red sofa. It stared at me, swishing its tail. My instincts kicked in, and I froze. It swished its tail to the left. It swished its tail to the right. I stood there as a model of evolutionary perfection: a mannequin.

“Ah!” I nearly jumped out of my skin when something touched my shoulder from behind. I glanced back, not daring to take my eyes off the vicious woman-eater.

“I told you,” said Pete over my shoulder. “Your dog was barking, and you’re not supposed to have dogs, or parrots.”

Incapable of intelligent thought, I did the first thing that came to mind. I whipped up my tiny can of pepper-spray, pressed the button, and shot a beam of liquid agony right into my Orchid stick five feet to the left of the tiger. The tiger perked its ears up as it followed the dwindling stream. I wasn’t very good at this self-defense thing. We both stared at the immobilized stick, then the tiger turned back to me, and made a sound very much like a sigh. There was only one good spray in my Save-A-Breast can—I should have bought more to save all my body parts—so I did the next thing my glob of gray-mush could come up with.

“Pete! Pete, go get a broom. Go downstairs and get a broom.”

“And a dustpan?”

“Just go, Pete!”

He turned and pranced away down the stairs. The tiger hadn’t moved. In fact, it seemed to have lost all interest in me and yawned, showing its huge bloodcurdling fangs. Fangs meant to rip out my throat! Fangs meant to tear me limb from limb! Fangs large enough to—

“Oh, there you are,” I heard a familiar voice say from the kitchen.

Mr. Dawa came plodding on his bare feet towards the beast, which looked ready to pounce.

“Mr. Dawa!” I reached out a hand. “No, don’t! We need to call someone!”

“Oh, dear, no, no, no,” he chuckled as he walked up to the tiger. It snuffed and closed its eyes as the old man peered at it.

“A tiger, you say?” He gave me a long look that I couldn’t decipher, then looked back at the tiger. “I believe he is called Amur. He is harmless.”

“Harmless?! Mr. Dawa, there is a tiger sitting on my sofa!”

END OF EXCERPT

For more go to Following Amur on Amazon