Dreadful

by Caitlin Rozakis

He woke up with no eyebrows and no idea how he’d gotten into such a position.

So, this was shock. It seemed terribly inconvenient that the brain’s reaction to being placed in mortal jeopardy was to become much stupider.

He supposed it was too much to wish for a really dramatic lair, with craggy mountains and caves, or a proper moat, at least. If he was going to fail at “ominous,” though, it might have been nice to at least achieve “picturesque.” Maybe he could terrorize them into a beautification project.

He wondered which had come first, the conviction that women would treat him with disdain or his apparent determination to treat them like they would before they could get that far.

It occurred to him that a spell to make one’s enemies into idiots via the power of breasts might be immensely helpful. Then again, it might not be a spell. It might have only been the breasts.

A toddler with a lightning wand would inspire fear and indulgence, without respect.

He knew immediately that this had been a truly terrible idea. An idea on par, perhaps, with stripping naked, covering himself with honey, and politely requesting a bear to fight him. Preferably while drunk, and declaiming insults about the bear’s mother. Who had probably been a perfectly charming lady of the ursine persuasion.

If it was all about controlling other people’s impression of him, he could choose a different impression to aim for regardless of what was going on inside.

“But we don’t choose what life we get, we just do our best to make the most of it.”

“Who’s the real anyone? When does who you’re pretending to be stop being a pretense and turns into who you really are?”