The Dragon's Lair

Day one

2011-08-01T20:40:00.001-07:00

Word count: 2,830 out of 50,000. Not as good as I wanted, but not a bad start either.

Synopsis: Intro/Outtro written. Started Seattle stories.

Less than 24 hours to go...

2011-07-31T07:29:00.000-07:00

Unlike previous years, I won't be posting my story entries here. Word count and synopsis of what I did, yes, but not the story itself. I promised the Mister I'd submit this particular NaNo offering up to a couple publishing places see if I can drum up any interest. If not, that's fine, I might self-publish if I get positive feedback.

I'm not as prepared as I usually am for a NaNo run, and that concerns me a little. Very few notes, a somewhat nebulous idea as to what I'm doing, and no snacks. Add a birthday and a camping event in there and this is going to be the first time since I started that I'm not sure I'll finish.

Wish me luck, folks. I'm going to need it.

Three day weekends

2011-07-29T10:01:00.001-07:00

Aren't as much fun as they were when I was working.

Three days remaining...

2011-07-28T06:06:00.000-07:00

and then it'll be Sunday and NaNo time. Hoping to make it a productive three days because I know things tend to fall to the wayside when I'm pumping out 50,000 words in 30 days. In this case, I'll have 31, and there'll be fewer days when I can't write due to family and social obligations.

The general goal is for 1,667 words a day. I'll be at 1, 852 per day. If I can meet my goal of 5,000 words on August 1st, I'll be able to knock that down to 1,730 for the rest of it. If I'm not working, of course, this will be a heck of a lot easier.

So it's going to be three days of frenzied laundry, dishes, and pre-cooking for easier meals. And hoping I don't burn myself out of November's NaNo.

Early morning post

2011-07-27T07:18:00.000-07:00

Rather than try to put this off till this evening and realizing there is absolutely NOTHING to write about, I think I'll try posting this morning before the day hits me full force. Let's just ignore the fact that yesterday was a pretty blah day anyway and I don't know that I could have accomplished much in the job-hunting department anyhow.

I've applied for two jobs this morning. One thanks to the marvelous MB at the Starbucks where they put up with me for 2-3 hours every weekday morning, and one that I found on a website I haven't used before. Fingers crossed that something happens with something I applied for, cause I'm so ready to work again. Heck, the Mister's sister who lost her job the same day I did is already working again, and she had a pretty specialized position. I'd lower my standards, but I need at least $13 an hour to be doing better than unemployment, and coming from a position where I was making almost $20, well....

I finished the journal page below last night and realized a few things.

1. I'm not using enough gesso. Or it needs to be thicker. Either way, lines in comp books should NOT show through.

2. Watercolor paints in the little pots like we give kids are extremely difficult to work with. They don't stay in the lines you draw, if you add a few drops too much or too little water, you get the wrong color, if the water isn't pristine for white it all goes wonky..

3. I need more turtle wisdom in my life. A lot of what I've been posting is now-now-now-faster-faster-aaaaaack! Turtles enjoy the sun, and the water, and while they may have a goal in mind, they seem to enjoy the journey as much as the destination. Plus they can take some paint and mess without minding.

The kiddo's having a friend over for the second day in a row. I'm okay with that. They're both good kids and their biggest interests right now are playing video games and playing with boffers (pretend weapons made of PVC pipe, duct tape, and foam). Hard to argue with that.

Late night

2011-07-26T21:13:00.000-07:00

I think I may just nap after I get Ky to work.

(Sorry for the amount of 1-2 line postings of late. I'm doing them on my cell and it takes forever even to get these out cause I forget till I get into bed.)

Working on fictiony stuff

2011-07-25T17:18:00.000-07:00

No news in the job-hunting front, and my other time lately is taken up with journaling and scribbling out the details for the summer nano.

Weekend's over

2011-07-24T19:08:00.001-07:00

And I'm ready to go to work this week. Please let me have work this week. Please, please, please.

'Nother Migraine

2011-07-23T06:56:00.000-07:00

Partly stress, partly hormonal. Either way, it sucks the big one.

Brief Fiction

2011-07-22T06:55:00.000-07:00

Haven't done any of the fiction I normally indulge in a month before NaNo, so here's a small bit to flex my fingers...if you will.

Everyone knows the story of the Great Flood. Or, a story at any rate. It's pretty pervasive in every culture, the knowledge that the majority of land was unable to be seen and no one was left. The Babylonians told of Utnapishtim, the Christians tell of Noah, the Greeks spoke of Deucalion, and the Cameroons have a tale of a girl and her brothers who were saved by a goat the girl allowed to lick flour she was grinding.

Despite science's confusion and most people's belief that these are no more than children's stories, I can tell you they were true. I was there, after all. I was the cause for the destruction, many times in the past, the messenger to the saved ones, and shall do it all again when my Master bids it. I have seen the signs, and know it is coming soon. He grows weary of the turmoil and his sleep becomes restless as one who would soon wake. Soon to one of our kind is never the same as soon to you, so I shall tell you of the last "Great Flood" and perhaps you shall be prepared.

I see the question, and will answer before you interrupt my tale: I am not a god, nor do I make such pretense. Do they exist? I believe so. It is hard to believe such diversity exists merely by happenstance. But then, I am still young for my kind and may not fully understand the truth of the matter yet. I am, if you will, merely the messenger.

The dance of life is an intricate one, and the world you walk upon has been destroyed many times by my sister and I. Sometimes by fire, sometimes by water, and always it takes the pair of us to rebuild the place. It is never in the same shape, though sometimes the differences are so subtle as to be unnoticed by the inhabitants. The last time I was called upon to destroy the world, our Master was most wroth with the inhabitants. We do not know how he picks those to save. Perhaps he sees into their hearts and chooses the most worthy. Or perhaps he chooses them as one would choose their own execution...knowing that the end result will always be the same.

The tale I tell you, then is that of Atlantis. It has been told and retold, much as in the children's game where one states a sentence and through ten tellings, the end result resembles something almost like the original if one does not listen too closely. To know the truth, you must listen to my tale. The Atlantians were a beautiful people, and rightly proud of what they had constructed. They lived upon the ice in a city that was the most modern in the world for the time. Few people could safely make the journey there, and those that did spoke of running warm water in the homes, hot springs, and gardens of the most fantastical fruits.

The problem with living upon ice is that heat causes it to become unstable. And humans are notoriously short-sighted. They could not conceive that their sheer presence would cause heat, much less their insistence on warm water and heated homes. So, as their inventiveness became more wide-spread, the ice upon which their city was based became less stable. The outer lands saw the results first, the ice thinning, causing their beloved city to become almost an island. When nothing was done, and more people came to Atlantis, the sky itself began to warm with their presence, and I did what needed to be done.

The city was no more, sunk to the bottom to become a half-remembered tale in the mists of human memory. A tale to be trotted out for children, becoming more fantastical as time progressed. And my part? After my sister had done her work, I ensured that the water had a place to go, notifying people ahead of time as I was bid. Your scientists call this the end of the Younger Dryas era, and note the influx of freshwater into the North Atlantic from the event. Not that anyone has paid much attention yet, but they will.

My Master stirs, and my sister itches to warm the sky once more. Soon it will be time and I will notify the new survivors. Years after, they will tell their tales of the lost cities of Ellay, Pearee, and Cidknee. Or perhaps they won't remember them at all.

quick note

2011-07-21T20:52:00.001-07:00

The seventies Cap'n America movie is absolutely awful...but I can't seem to change the channel. It's (as Ky says) a "train wreck." He's also a little confused by why I have the tv on, but I think he's letting that pass for now.

Good (unexpected) interview today. Hoping for good news tomorrow or Friday. Plans for tomorrow are to donate blood and do the weekend tidying for gamers on Saturday. We'll see though. I tend to be a lil' woozy after donating blood, and had a serious issue with low iron last time. Bleccch.

Additional notes

2011-07-20T21:18:00.000-07:00

The Mister wished to correct the lack of knowledge I displayed a little earlier this evening. This is the problem with being married to a comic book fanboy, occasional silliness that contradicts "official storyline" is seen as something to be rectified.

For the record, then:

1. No, the Swamp Thing is not known to be an exhibitionist. On the other hand, he does wander around naked. More for the fact that he is no longer human and therefore no longer needs clothes. I was told to think of him as a green-gray-brown version of Doctor Manhattan. Without the obvious boy bits. He might be able to split himself into different versions of himself, but DC hasn't done that storyline yet. (For those who are puzzling over my reference, check out the comic "The Watchmen." Yes, they made it into a movie too, but I've always preferred books to movies.)

2. Yes, the Swamp Thing is a guy. According to DC comics history, he was originally Dr. Alex
Holland. Despite no longer being physically human, he still loves the ladies, seducing them with a hallucinogenic yam he pulls out of himself from somewhere. You know, I don't want to think about that any further.

3. Jury's still out on the smell thing, but I suspect that, being made of vegetation, he just puts out pheremones or pollen or some such to attract the ladies of the human species and keep them subdued so they don't go screaming off into the night. Maybe it smells like Eau de Millionaire or Bacon Cologne or something. It'd have to be pretty amazing, no matter what it is, cause I just don't see the attraction.

Ending it on a silly note

2011-07-20T18:07:00.000-07:00

Not the weblog. I've got many, many more words to write down. Though...on a slight tangent...did anyone ever notice when the "we" got dropped from weblog? Now it's just a blog. Blog? Sounds like something the Swamp Thing did when he thought no one was looking. Or maybe he's an exhibitionist, so he wanted to make sure everyone was looking? Well, now that I know I can blame the Swamp Thing for the practice of shortening weblog to simply blog cause he wanted a little love and attention...

How do we know Swamp Thing was a he, anyway? It might have been a girl. Under all of that ooze, how could you possibly tell if it had girl bits or boy bits? I mean, I wouldn't want to look. I don't know that I'd want to get near him/her/it. There's a reason the word "fetid" is generally used in association with swampy areas. The decay smell is not exactly nose friendly. But there are people who enjoy it...or don't mind it, or maybe they don't have a sense of smell.

Which leads me to the question of how the Swamp Thing bathed. It's a logical progression, if you think about it for a minute. If I smelled like I suspect s/he does, I'd be hitting the showers, pronto, and not coming out till I at least smelled somewhat human again. Now, I can't use scented soaps/shampoos/etc, but I still manage to smell clean. Swamps...um...don't. At least, not the ones I've been around and through. Hmm...piling up more questions than answers, and I've rather forgotten what I was originally going to discuss.

Darn you, Swamp Thing, and your exhibitionistic tendencies!

Not a whole lot to say tonight

2011-07-19T20:07:00.001-07:00

Went and saw "Thor" as a family at the dollar theater and taught the kid to make homemade rolls. Those were the highlights of my day.

Tomorrow, I get to go to the library.

Missed yesterday

2011-07-18T15:32:00.001-07:00

Which doesn't thrill me, but a migraine will do that. Today, though, I played in my garden a little...

And worked with the kid on making salsa:

Tomorrow we're off to the movies as a family and Wednesday I can finally take time to write. Interviews permitting, of course.

Lessons of late

2011-07-16T22:43:00.001-07:00

I've learned a few lessons over the course of the week that I suspect I prolly should have picked up earlier.

1. Au gratin sauce is just cheese gravy. Melt butter, add flour, cook till appropriate color, add milk, add cheese. Yum! Even better is adding some garlic salt and black pepper.

2. Assuming frozen white lumps in the freezer are pre-made biscuits isn't a good idea. I ruined a half-dozen macaroons that way.

3. Splattering paint everywhere, while messy, is cathartic.

4. Interviewers do a job I would never want to do.

Last interview of the week is complete

2011-07-15T15:16:00.000-07:00

Odd, and I don't think I'll get a call back, but it's done.

Thank goodness.

Iron-y, oh the Iron-y

2011-07-14T15:11:00.000-07:00

I went to donate blood this morning and (while I've occasionally gotten the "you're just a little low" in the iron department, this morning I was low enough that the little electronic thing they had wouldn't register it. While part of me was amused ("Yes, Miss Technician, I do believe that "LLL" is pretty self explanatory, don't you?"), another part of me was just a wee bit concerned. After all, I'm already taking 9 pills a day. I don't want to add an iron supplement to it too. But it looks like that's going to be the way of it if I wish to continue to donate blood.

Blechhhhh.

On the job front, I received a message from a gentleman at a job I'd applied for (not one that I necessarily want, but it pays a _little_ better than unemployment at the job's lowest posted wage)asking if I were available for an interview tomorrow or Monday. I indicated yes, and am waiting for a response as to when. Hopefully this will occur soon so I can plan out my day accordingly. The one redeeming feature (two if you count the pays-more-than-unemployment) is that it's a mere 5 miles from the house. That would make a tank of gas last a heck of a lot longer.

It'd mean use of the food bank a while longer if they start me at the minimum, but we'll see how it goes. If all goes well, they'd offer me the max and (while things would still be VERY tight), we'd be able to pay for our own food and the occasional very cheap outing.

2011-07-13T19:13:00.000-07:00

Long, long, long day. Three interviews and I feel like I've been run over repeatedly. Looking forward to tomorrow when my concerns are donating blood and handing in my notes on a product survey.

Saving the environment, one Aspie at a time

2011-07-12T06:41:00.000-07:00

I enjoy sewing. Between my serger (last year's Christmas gift) and the sewing machine I've had for fifteen years now (!!)as well as all of the assistance from my mother in law, I'm starting to get fairly decent at it. The little green bag above is my latest shared creation.

The original pattern idea came from this site, at the recommendation of a gal on swap-bot. Robert decided he wanted to help and not only drew & cut out the pattern, but cut out both sets of fabric and decided on the pocket (it had to be the appropriate size to hold a can of salmon) and handle sizes. He loved the end result and took off with it immediately for his friend's house. I'm rather pleased with the side seams and triangle seams near the bottom. Thinking I may make one of these for myself...potentially reversible with the rubberized stuff on the inside and bigger. Definitely bigger.

Today's plan, now that the job hunting is done for the day, is to work on journaling and making another pattern to start my own tote.

It's gonna be a good day

2011-07-11T05:57:00.000-07:00

Mondays tend to be a little slow in the job hunting department. I don't know why, but I generally get better results on Tuesday or Wednesday. To my surprise, I found nine jobs I'm interested in applying for this morning. And it's not even six am. I get paid a little later this morning which will get a looming project off of my list, have some great ideas for the two journals I'm working on, and might even be able to finish the page I have due with a music theme this morning.

Hopefully, this sense of well-being and can-do attitude will be able to carry me through the day and not drop me part way through.

Stitch and growl and...OW!

2011-07-10T17:53:00.000-07:00

Nothing new on the homefront. Spending today stitching up cat toys to deliver tomorrow and fighting my sewing machine. I need to pull out the manual and give it a good cleaning and go-over as it's been breaking threads and needles and just generally misbehaving. I am very pleased about the cat toys as it's going to be a nearly $50 check. That's gas money and money to replace the small one's mis-strung viola string and ship out an art journal to my girlfriend in Texas without touching the money that needs to go to bills and the grocery items the food bank doesn't provide. Phew!

Tomorrow I should hear about that interview in Seattle. I hope. Cause I'm ready. I think I'm ready. Or as ready as one can get for an interview.

I did go to the Auburn temporary library this afternoon for what was supposed to be a quick print job. Instead, I spent over an hour there. The computer I chose decided to go down and as there are only 6 computers there (I did mention temporary, didn't I?), I had to wait for a computer that wasn't being used. On the plus side, I did get all my color epherma printed for my August journal swap. Silly me, agreeing to work on a journal during Summer NaNo.

Back to tussling with my machine and hoping it all comes out all right by bedtime. Cause some snuggle-time with the Mister would be awesome.

Just a quickie

2011-07-09T17:33:00.000-07:00

As I'm working on dinner and trying to do the last-minute tidy-up that always comes before gamers arrive. I'm sure part of this is procrastination. I want to spend my Saturdays as the Mister and the kid do...just hanging out. But at the same time, I'd be mortified if the gamers saw what a gods-awful mess this place can get. So, as every gaming Saturday, I'm downstairs trying to get supper, cleanup, and another project or two all done at once. One of these days, I might just learn.

No exciting news. The Mister and I went to help in the deconstruction of a Mustang last night. Well...he went to help. I went because I really didn't want to spend the evening by myself. It was a gorgeous car, and most of the company was quite entertaining. I returned home by 11, he wasn't home till...1, maybe 2. I learned that working on a car is guyspeak for drinking beers, smoking, and playing with power tools. Just boys being boys. It was fun to watch for a while, if one doesn't take the mosquitoes into account and they were out in force.

Today the kiddo and I took two large bags to the Goodwill. Mostly clothes, but they'd been hanging about long enough that I felt nothing but relief over their departure. The goal is to have at least one large bag a week to go there this month, but we'll see how it goes.

Something in my kitchen is beeping at me, so I guess I'm off again. Only a few lines tomorrow as I'll be working on assembling cat toys, job hunting, and filing for another week of unemployment.

Yesterday was crazy

2011-07-08T04:03:00.001-07:00

But I didn't get much done. No, I take that back.

I got the Mister to work on time, hunted five websites for jobs to apply for, answered a few surveys, got him home, got three loads of laundry done and put away, fixed brunch and dinner, made bread, treated the cat, set up payment arrangements, and schooled the little one in home ec, science, and math.

Oh...and read part of a book on the middle ages (Daily Life in Medieval Europe - Jeffrey Singman, great book for a common sense overview of the era), talked to both moms and two girlfriends, IM'd with a third friend, cleaned the bathroom, did a bit of journaling, and spent time online. Oh, and the small matter of catching some tv with the Mister near the end of the night

Looking at it that way, I certainly did do things, just doesn't feel like much got accomplished. C'est la vie, right?

So, now that the Mister is again at work, I have an hour left to kill while I wait for the Starbucks to open this morning.

Let's see...I can go online for a while, though my options for that are pretty limited with only my phone for access. I could read some more. Or I could try the two minute "Journal Your Day"challenges someone posted in one of my journaling groups yesterday. That sounds most fun.

For the rest of the day, we're supposed to head over to the in-laws place. The Mister to do manual labor, me to visit. I don't know how long we'll be there, but I'm pretty much assuming that's going to be it for the day.

See ya'll tomorrow.

Long day.

2011-07-07T20:09:00.001-07:00

Details tomorrow.

Another quiet day at the library

2011-07-06T11:58:00.000-07:00

It's far better than being at home, I'll tell you that. I'm enjoying this time away from the house, where I can watch the trees and people going by without having anything that I should be doing pressing on me. Admittedly, while I've been here, I've applied for two jobs just to get it out of the way for the day cause I've got plenty to do tonight. But the relative quiet is nice and so is spending time with the not-so-small.

No word yet on the interview, so I'm just keeping my fingers crossed. If it's not happening tomorrow, I think we're heading over to my mother in law's to help her with her yard. I'm not happy about having to spend the gas (it's 50+ miles round trip!), but we did promise. Unfortunately.

attempting not to hyperventilate

2011-07-05T06:59:00.000-07:00

Oh, oh, oh! I have an interview in Seattle this week. It's for a secretarial position paying more than my previous position did (not by much, but goodness it'll be good to get back to a good-sized paycheck again if all goes well!) I filled out the pre-interview online interview this morning, really puzzling for a while over the "Why are you the best person for this position" question and finally went with the simple facts that I have the skills & drive to do the best for the company and the desire to want to see them succeed.

This is through a head-hunting company looking for permanent placements, so I'll actually be getting benefits and potentially a 401K and all that other good stuff. A permanent job after three years. I'm so, so excited! I'm not that excited about the commute, but for the amount they'd be paying me, I'll be able to afford to take the train up there. It'll be odd to be paid bi-monthly again after three years, but I hope I'll be able to figure it out.

Now, I'm not putting all my eggs in that basket. I'm still applying for two other jobs this morning, but it's certainly making my day a little better, and me more determined to enjoy the remaining bit of time left with my boy this summer. I've got a really good feeling about this one, I do, I do, I do.

Happy Fourth of July

2011-07-04T13:14:00.000-07:00

It's another day here in the dragon household. The Mister has to be at work by 3:30 tomorrow morning(bleh!) so there'll be no fireworks tonight. I've never understood why employers don't give the 5th off when it's traditional for the festivities to occur late into the evening. As for us, I've just pulled a cake out of the oven, but I think that and some family TV are going to be the extent of the festivities. Joy?

Today's excitement (which is different from festivities, I assure you) has had to do with our router. With everything resolved, I will say now that it's an absolutely incredible router. Over the last few days our internet connection has been flickering in and out and apparently doing its utter best to keep us connected. Incredible because it's been doing this on battery power only. Today it was needing a reset (boost) every ten to fifteen minutes and I called Comcast quite convinced that it was one of their crappy six-month-expiry routers. Instead, it turns out that the problem was a dead power strip, and the router has a two day battery life. Thank goodness for competent help (it took three techs to get it) and I'm so pleasantly pleased with the actual quality of the router we got this time.

Tomorrow's plans are to take the Mister to both his jobs (in order to make rent tomorrow, we can only put gas in one of the cars) and hopefully find some surveys to go take afterwards for gas money. Fingers and toes. The child is pleased because he gets to go with for the second job and do his schooling in nearby Kaibara park. There's also going to be time at the library, a picnic lunch, and a photo scavenger hunt before it's time for us to pick up the Mister again.

A quickie

2011-07-03T22:42:00.001-07:00

Before I toddle off to bed. Quiet, quiet day today. Laundry, dishes, and webcomics. Tomorrow, it's back to sewing and worrying about our budget. But today was nice.

Computery-stuff

2011-07-02T14:05:00.000-07:00

I got the house gamer-ready this morning, so I've spent the better part of the day playing with photographs from my trip to Yakima. Lots of discards, despite my best efforts, and I'm 2/3 of the way done. I'll probably post them on my facebook account once I get finished. So far, this one's my favorite.

Jobless

2011-07-01T12:26:00.000-07:00

Spent the morning alternating between job hunting and cleaning up photos from the Yakima trip last week. I was released from work on April 5. July 5th will be 3 months I've been jobless. It's a sobering thought. I have three more months of unemployment benefits and there's only been one nibble.

I don't believe I'm setting the bar too high. I'm not asking for anywhere close to what I was getting via the staffing agency. Maybe I just need to spend more time and figure out other possibilities.

We were supposed to go to a friend's house this morning, but it sounds like we're going tonight. Guess it's time for some baking therapy before I get too weepy. Brownies sound like what the doctor ordered. Yes.

Time waster

2011-06-30T07:20:00.000-07:00

On the art journal group I occasionally play with on Facebook, someone posted a little bit about an application called "Scribbler." I've spent the last three hours playing with the darn thing. Here's the one I like best so far, edited in MS Paint.

One more day to go

2011-06-29T17:15:00.000-07:00

I gotta' admit, I'm pretty stoked about all the posts I've made this month. Good practice, I think for August's writing. August will have to be more than a sentence or two, but that's why I have a month to write a bit more, right?

Or so I'll keep telling myself.

Got back in contact with a friend I haven't talked to in months, and I feel a lot better about it. I wish I knew why I put off calling her. It's not like she was going to yell and hate me for being away so long. And I know I feel good after talking to her. I dunno...sometimes it's hard to get the energy to do stuff like that.

Three Answers...

2011-06-28T06:46:00.000-07:00

Was tagged on this one on Facebook.

"Now here's what you do and please do not spoil the fun. copy and paste into a new note, delete my answers, add a new three questions if you want, and type in your answers. then...tag a whole bunch of people you know including me...three things"

Three names you go by:
1. Pyxi (or Pyx)
2. Denny (only by my mother)
3. Sweetheart (only by the Mister, though!!)

Three things you are wearing right now:
1.Blouse
2.Jeans
3. The necklace that substitutes for my wedding ring (bad eczema = no hand jewelry)

Three things you want very badly at the moment:
1. Enough money not to have to work for a paycheck again
2. Repairs to my car (one panel is being held on by duct tape!)
3. The motivation to start losing weight

Three things you did last night:
1. Watched a terrible movie with the Mister
2. Posted on my blog
3. Set out my clothes for today

Three things you ate today:
1. Banana
2. Cereal bar
3. Pumpkin seeds

Three people you last TALKED to on the phone:
1. Mom
2. Mister
3. Crystal (former co-worker)

Three things you are going to do today:
1.Teach the not-so-small's summer classes
2.Hunt for work
3.Dye one of my favorite fall jackets (it's currently camel colored, I'm dying it denim blue)

Three longest CAR--not bus or train--rides:
1.Chicago to Corpus Christi
2.Chicago to Seattle
3.Seattle to Couer D'Alene

Three favorite beverages:
1. Iced tea
2. Decaf coffee
3. Strawberry lemonade

Three things you're looking forward to:
1. Going back to work
2. Crown Tourney
3. The not-so-small's birthday

Three songs you last listened to:
1. "Kibosh on your Scene" (unknown artist - Sepiachord Passport album)
2. "Cell Block Tango" - "Chicago" Soundtrack
3. "Horse with No Name" - America

Three things you can't live without:
1. Laptop
2. Cell phone
3. Books

Almost there

2011-06-27T18:32:00.000-07:00

Being rather tired of my lackadaisical method of updating, I challenged myself earlier this month to update daily. So far, so good. For the 27 days of this month, this is posting number 26. They're generally not thought provoking, and some of my updates are only a sentence or two. But it's daily updates. My next challenge is to see if I can do it again next month. One more month after that, and I think I'll feel safe calling it a habit.

Robert's first day of summer schooling was a little hit-n-miss. The home ec portion (meal planning & preparation, making one's own laundry detergent, and why it was so important to economize in the home) and the geekery section went well. The math wasn't difficult as it was two sheets that someone was kind enough to put online. But I'm learning that the science portion of the schooling needs a little work. Or at least, preparation on my part. Oops? I'll do it tomorrow morning before he gets up as I'm starting to feel a little eyestrain from staring at the monitor the better part of the day.

My parents picked up another load for the dump (the defunct gas grill that hasn't worked in 2 years and a chair that died) before heading home today. I wish they could read this and know how grateful I am, but I don't think they'd be all that pleased to know some of my thoughts, so I'll have to rely on my never-terribly-adequate spoken language skills and not mention the blog.

It's early, but I think I'm going to call it a night for now and snuggle up to watch some on-demand TV. Tomorrow it'll be teaching, sewing, more job hunting, and perhaps a nap. Full day, by anyone's standards.

Home again, home again

2011-06-26T19:15:00.000-07:00

And I'm so glad I am. The husband didn't do anything about the house? Don't care. Had an absolutely disastrous dinner with the parents and little sister? Doesn't matter. Cause I'm home. I am snuggled in the living room with my husband, and in just a few minutes, I get to curl up in my own bed in my own sheets and wake up to the sound of my own alarm.

The visit with the parents wasn't terrible. We had a good time, they helped me far more than I dreamed they might, and now I'm glad to be home so I can process this time away from my loving spouse and how to incorporate the peace I found there here at home.

Last day

2011-06-25T22:20:00.000-07:00

Last day in Yakima. The kid tried to throw a small fit about going home tomorrow, but I wasn't having any of that noise. He chose not to stay, so he goes home with me.

Spent quite a bit of time shopping, parents refilling my poor empty pantry. Bless em both, I think I have enough food to last me for two months.

Monday starts the kid's home schooling experience too. Math, Science, Art, Music, and Home Ec in the morning and his afternoons are his own. We'll see how that goes.

With the Subtlety of a Sledgehammer...

2011-06-24T20:28:00.000-07:00

My NaNo plotbunny got me right between the eyes. I used to tell the not-so-small that dragons were the reason for the steam that comes up in the grates that you occasionally see in the city sidewalks. As this summer NaNo is a camp theme, and camp hearkens back to childhood and whatnot, it only made sense that I'd be telling the stories of some of those dragons.

I've never seen a small city that has those grates (heck, I don't even really know what they're for), but I think they'd make a pretty good entry/exit points for underground dragons that serve as the spirit of the major cities. As goes the city, so go the dragons. It'd be a collection of short stories and I think it'll just be a blast.

Perspective

2011-06-23T20:40:00.000-07:00

I think what I've missed most about going home to my parent's house is the sense of perspective. They have a beautiful little yellow house on the Yakama Indian Reservation. When you step outside, 90% of what you see is...well...nothing. You see the neighbor's clapboard (I kid you not) house on one side and on the other is cows. Other than that it's sky and the hills in the distance as if they were gently hugging the entire area.

When I take a minute to appreciate all of this, my problems and frustrations don't seem quite so insurmountable. They're still waiting for me, yes, but they don't seem to be closing in as fast or as hard.

It doesn't hurt that (with the exception of several pointed remarks on how fat I've become), my mother's been incredibly supportive today. She actually told me that she thinks I do amazing work on the serger. I would have killed for that kind of praise as a kid. Never mind that it's followed by "but it'd be so much better if..." I still feel like someone's just pinned a bright and shiny gold star to my name somewhere, and I'm grinning like a mad thing on account of it.

Rollin, Rollin, Rollin

2011-06-22T21:38:00.000-07:00

The week is definitely progressing in an upward trend. The class I took at the unemployment center today was worth all the ones that seemed worthless. It did what it was supposed to do, ideally, and not only helped me with my job search but re-energized what was starting to feel like a sludge through molasses.

And then I was able to have lunch with my mom and kid and enjoy some lovely, lovely sunshine. I think I may spend the rest of the week alternating between job hunting and discardia. I've had far too much hanging over me for far too long and it needs to get settled and tossed to make room for new blessings.

Unemployment continues

2011-06-21T11:29:00.000-07:00

I went to a class yesterday at the unemployment center, and I found myself wondering WHY it counted as a credit. It was depressing, it seemed hopeless, and I didn't get anything out of it that I didn't already know. Maybe it helped someone. I hope it helped someone. I'd hate to think that the people at the unemployment center realize that they're teaching classes just to punch their time cards. That would be the worst job in the world. Come in, punch your card, go through the motions, go home.

In happier news, my not-so-small managed to graduate from 8th grade. Somehow, in the chaos of life, my baby boy is going into high school. Wow. I'm a pretty proud mama.

Better?

2011-06-20T19:15:00.000-07:00

I'm cautiously optimistic.

I broke a fever last night after I went to bed (sweated right through the sheets...didn't even know I was sick enough for that). I awoke feeling somewhat empty, but definitely at peace and in less pain.

We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Writing past the crazy

2011-06-19T19:26:00.001-07:00

I wonder if every author (be they blogger, journalist, fiction, etc) finds themselves where they have to write past whatever ails them? I'd like to think I'm an author. Sometimes, I can even accept that my stories and words might be better than I give them credit for. Today I've been cycling moods the entire time I've been home and I'm done. I'm tired, so frickin tired, but it won't stop. I want to rage over stupid stuff. I want to scream and throw things and Lady bless it, I want to stop feeling so sorry for myself!

I'm not in a bad place. I have a husband who loves me, I have family that adores me, my mother (the woman who has never yet shown approval for anything I've done) is practically dancing with joy that I'm going to visit her this week. I have clean clothes. I have a roof over my head. I can flip the switch and turn the power on. But I can't stop crying and I don't know how to fix whatever's so broken in my head that I can't see what a spoiled brat I'm behaving like.

And just like that it's turned off long enough for me to walk to the post box and starts again when I get back in the house. Perhaps its a good thing that I'm going for a short break from the house at my parents. Maybe it'll turn the crazies off for a while.

Cure for all ills?

2011-06-19T07:01:00.000-07:00

Hmmm. I've heard that intimate attentions can take care of one's illnesses. I've heard several people proclaim that it cures all ills and woes. I don't believe that, or the medical community would have gotten behind it years ago.

I'd like to offer a different option: an evening with good friends and much laughter. When our friends arrived, I was dealing with chills, fever, and a stomach-ache. Frankly, that annoyed me, because I had been feeling better earlier in the day. I had been up and running. I went to a kingdom meeting, I ran errands, I was looking forward to going to the bar tonight (we're not, by the way). And then that. Not fair, life, ill played.

But by the time our gamers left, I was feeling quite like my usual self. Coincidence? Perhaps.

Way better than yesterday

2011-06-18T17:09:00.000-07:00

Still not a hundred percent, but nowhere near as bad off as I felt earlier in the week. Well enough to host a d&d game tonight, and that's a good thing or there wouldn't be any gaming till 4th of July weekend.

After game...not sure yet. The Mister wants to go to the bar...we'll see.

Slept...sorta

2011-06-17T18:50:00.000-07:00

Could have used more. Wanted, wanted, wanted more. But it didn't happen. The plan was to take it easy today. But you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and moms.

I thought I forgot my wallet at the house, so I wouldn't be able to pick up my check or needed non-food groceries or anything else. There were many bad words said when I dug into my backpack upon arriving home and found the darn thing. It was almost 1pm by the time we got home again. Enough time to take a short rest on the couch and pick up the kid.

I'd promised him that we'd get money from his account today and order his very own viola. Come to find out that the bank that we mistakenly saved his money with closed out the account and sent it to the Washington state unclaimed property people last September. WHA...?! Insert many swallowed profanities here. I've started the procedure to retrieve the funds, but they have 60 days before they even have to look at it. Nggggh!

We were fortunate enough to get pork loin ribs from the food bank this week. Despite leaving it in the fridge for two days, it hadn't thoroughly thawed. It's now been cooking over an hour past its scheduled time and it's still bleeding. Bless it. Ya' know what? I think I'm going to find enough bread to slap together sandwiches for everyone and call it a night.

Still not feeling that great

2011-06-16T18:38:00.000-07:00

Spent the night pacing the floor cause every time I lay down I hurt too bad to stay there. Around 11, I went downstairs to let my poor hubby sleep.

Feeling just a little bit better, but after my sis-in-law visited for 2 hours, I curled onto the couch again and stayed there. My sweet fuzzball (the cat, not the Mister) has spent that time doing a "boneless cat" imitation right over the heating pad. I think I slept, for a little bit, but I'm hurting again, so I think I'm off to take a hot bath and try and sleep in our bed again. Hoping it works this time. I get cranky on very little sleep and worse when I'm not feeling well.

Not feeling that great today

2011-06-15T12:30:00.000-07:00

Think I'm going to curl up on the couch till its better.

Back on Track

2011-06-14T06:14:00.000-07:00

Last night's post was born of frustration. After a little sleep, I'm doing a bit better. Still kind of upset that the professional courtesy wasn't there from the employment agency, but I've applied for one job this morning and am planning on a Worksource course Friday evening. Sick as it may sound, I'm looking forward to it.

I'm also looking forward to the three classes I'll be taking the following week. It's all good stuff, I think, and hopefully it'll help me get closer to employment.

I had a friend on FB suggest that perhaps volunteering in an administrative position wouldn't be a bad thing to do. As I'd come to that conclusion meself, I'm thinking I may check with the local history museum and potentially the two schools within walking distance. I'm also considering seeing if the local hospital has candy striper positions available as a foot in the door to working in admin there.

Of course, I'll still be calling the agency every day till I get a hold of the gal who's supposed to be taking care of me and showing up on Friday for my $20 check, but I have a plan, and it's a pretty good plan. That makes me feel a lot better.

Well...that's not good

2011-06-13T17:25:00.001-07:00

I'd like to think that something came up and there's a logical explanation why the gal who set me up on last week's interviews is now apparently avoiding me. If she chooses not to have me as a client, that's fine. But I do believe that there's a more professional way to go about the matter. Like...flat out saying something?

I want to be wrong. I want to hear a "Hey, something came up, I couldn't get back to you, when can you start?" But that's me and everyone else who's looking for work. Apparently, that particular job wasn't meant to be. I can accept that...though not entirely willingly. I just wish I knew which direction I was supposed to be heading in or why two employment agencies now have dropped me quickly.

If it was something I did, I need to know.

What is it...

2011-06-12T18:09:00.000-07:00

about a phone call from a good friend that just makes the day better? My day wasn't going badly, but there didn't seem to be a whole lotta' joy to it. One phone call later and there seems to be a bit of hope. A lot of hope. Healing power of someone saying they're going to pray for you, I suppose. It doesn't make a whole lotta' sense, but I certainly felt better afterwards.

I did finish one of the four fabric ATCs I was working on for my swaps. Picture to post tomorrow when it finishes curing. I started the embroidery for the second one, an elaborate keyhole. Fortunately, it's small enough that I don't need to hoop it. Just take it with me.

Tomorrow, the not-so-small is off school and wants to go with me to the Starbucks when I take Ky to work. I warned him that 3am is a terrible time to be getting up and moving, but he's insistent. Honestly, I don't expect him to do more than turn off his alarm and go back to sleep, but he's proven me wrong before.

Scaring the survey people and other inanities

2011-06-11T13:30:00.000-07:00

First off, I don't know if i got the job or not. I never heard back from the agency and when I called them in the afternoon, no one answered. Hopefully, all is well there.

For right now, I'm playing it like I don't have a job and am continuing to search. I'm also looking for fun (cheap) ways to entertain myself. To that end, I hit the local mall today and walked into the survey people's office. I don't know if you have them at your mall, but ours has a bevy of people who wander around and try to get innocent bystanders to take a survey. Very few people approach them directly, but that's what I did. Made $9 for an hours worth of work. A little better than minimum wage, and the fact they kept staring and sidling off was quite amusing as well.

As far as my swaps go, I got the two letters finished and mailed. Now I have a journal to finish, four fabric ATCs, and two journal pages before the end of the month. Oh, and potentially a vacation to pack for if I'm not working. Four day weekend to help my mom with her crafting...Haven't done that since I was knee high to a grasshopper. Should be interesting if we can keep from killing each other.

This may be it!!

2011-06-10T10:31:00.000-07:00

Very, very excited about today. I've got my phone turned all the way up, it's fully charged, and I'm waiting for the agency!

Having a hard time sitting still, even on my computer, so I'm going to go make some biscuits to see if that'll at least keep me out of trouble.

Second Hurdle cleared

2011-06-09T06:20:00.000-07:00

I thought the interview with this company was going to be the end of it. Get job/don't get job. Simple, right? Not quite. Apparently, yesterday's interview was a compatibility test. How did the personalities work together? As I've got a two hour working interview with this same company this afternoon (she only had two to give out), I'd say mine went pretty well.

To be ready for this, rather than take Kyle to work this morning, I stayed home and slept till what feels like a glorious and decadent hour...five am. If I end up with this job, I'll be getting used to that hour quick enough, but after two months of being up between 2 and 3 in the morning on the weekdays, five feels like sleeping till noon.

To give me further hope, I also had the drug screen done yesterday. I know that's not a cheap test so maybe...just maybe...I'll have a job soon.

I didn't want to get my hopes up...

2011-06-08T05:50:00.000-07:00

But I've got a second interview today. For a job that might start as early as tomorrow.

I don't want to start the happy dancing yet, but I'm pretty darn close. I was ready to take any old job, considering it a stepping stone to a better thing, when I found an advert for a temporary job that contained exactly the elements I wanted...the pay isn't exactly what I was looking for, but it's more than unemployment, and that's a great thing.

I completely blew away the company's pre-interview, and have the actual company interview today at eleven. Stay tuned for further developments....

And it's here!

2011-06-06T07:36:00.000-07:00

I participated in an art journal swap with a gal in VA recently, and was very excited on Sunday when I toddled off to the mailbox and found it waiting for me. Yay! *happy dragon dance* As hard as it was, I put off reading it till this morning when I had an hour and a half wait for the local Starbucks to open. It was colorful, delightful, and very much so had the voice of the author. I was so, so pleased.

As far as swaps go, this leaves me with two letters (one swap), two journal pages (two swaps), four fabric ATCs (one swap), and another journal to complete before month's end. No problem if I'm at home.

However, I applied for a job this morning that's quite a few dollars shy of what I was making with my prior employer, however...it's got the perfect mix of tasks, the right pay-range, casual wear (jeans & steel-toed boots), and it's in the exact right area of where I want to work. It's even through a temporary agency, so I'd be paid weekly. Fingers crossed...I really, really want this job.

Quiet day

2011-06-04T22:08:00.001-07:00

Two hours of application padded on either side by journaling, reading, and some darned good herb bread.

More tomorrow night after a family gathering on the Mister's side...

Afternoon post

2011-06-03T17:31:00.000-07:00

While I didn't get to doing much of anything today (darn you webcomics!), I did receive a pick-me-up in the news that my latest art journal has reached its new home and was enjoyed. That helped alot. Well, that and BLAT salad for dinner (Bacon, Lettuce, Avocado, Tomato)

Having eaten, I think I'm going to work on my gesso formula and do a few more pages in the journals I have going. That's not a bad way to end the night at all.

So, yeah

2011-06-03T07:38:00.000-07:00

Not a whole bunch to talk about today. Yesterday's interview was a bust. Unfortunately, that set the mood for the rest of the day (read: grumpy, disappointed, frustrated, etc) and sent my hands & wrists to itching something terrible. I'm having problems not scratching them raw even this morning. That general dissatisfaction translated to my crafting and creative endeavors as well, to my general dismay.

Having realized my mistake (allowing something negative beyond my control to influence my mood, I'm determined to make today a positive one. To that end, I've planned a nap for when I get home, to clean up enough mashups to make a pair of upbeat cds, and to take care of the housework at my leisure. It'll get done, just not all in a burst (which also tends to sour my mood).

Somewhere in there, I'm going to work on some journal pages, spend time with the Mister, and do my utter best to halt negative thoughts in their tracks. It's going to be a long weekend, and I'd like to start it with a smile. And maybe less itchy hands.

Projects in progress

2011-06-01T18:53:00.000-07:00

No jobs to apply for today, at least, none that I qualified for, so I spent today working on swap projects. I completed an art journal to send out to VA:

And I'm quite pleased with how it came out. Other than that, I've been working on embroidery for swaps. Pictures tomorrow, maybe, depending on how much gets done and what happens in the overview.

No creative words for quite a while

2011-05-31T07:20:00.000-07:00

So I'm going to return this to real life for now. When August rolls around (if I'm playing with Camp NaNoWriMo), I'll try to post the creative stuff again.

Let's see...current status: Job hunting, penny pinching, trying not to give in to looming depression and general insanity.

I'll admit, mornings at Starbucks waiting for the Mister are helping. Two dollars for unlimited coffee and free wifi are a pretty good incentive to get out of the house in the morning. Taking him to work at least lets me feel a little useful and gives me the opportunity to get out of the house. Even if I do have to be up and moving far earlier than I want to be.

Have traded the diagnosis of a wheat allergy for eczema on my hands. It's annoying, it's painful, but at least I can eat "normal" foods again. I've discovered I don't like refined flour products anymore after six years without. I prefer the whole wheat or alternate grains. It's prolly better for me in the long run.

Today's plans are to catch up on laundry, finish my art journal, do a little ironing, pick up the kid from school, and maybe go see a movie with the Mister at the local second-run theater. Not terribly exciting, but it's better than sitting on the couch all day.

Camp NaNoWriMo is coming....

2011-05-19T07:23:00.000-07:00

According to the website, the summer version of NaNo is due to start in August. Expect to see actual posts between now and then.

NaNoWrimo, Day Twenty One, 33229 words

2010-11-21T09:37:00.000-08:00

Re-seeding a grave was something the Roundings were pretty good at, she admitted with a slight smile. Most of the time the cops couldn’t tell when a former zombie had been replaced in his or her resting grounds. Not that it was something she liked to do, no one did. For the most part it was better to have a large and happy family. But in order to have that, sacrifices had to be made. I flinched at the sudden icy menace in her voice and the realization that it might indeed have been me being re - interred, but I believed I understood the necessity of the whole thing. Not even a zombie enjoys the sudden and forceful contemplation of their own mortality. I was no exception to this. I thanked her for the information absently as I attempted to process all of the data I’d been given. She chuckled and showed me out. It wasn’t until two days later that I realized she hadn’t answered a single question that I’d asked her. But it was too close to the time to leave to bother her with trivialities now. I’d have to wait until later. Much later. Like when I’d figured out what in the world I was going to do with this information.

Spring arrived before we were aware and it was time to set off again. I was rather regretful to be leaving the snug little circus city we’d shared half the year with the entire family, but I did have to admit to having itchy feet. I was ready to be back on the road and performing for the mass of believers and skeptics, to dazzle them all. In Pueblo City, Colorado, we caught up with the health inspector, Tom Flackery, for our quarterly inspection. He was a thin man with mousy brown hair combed over in a poor attempt to disguise the fact, and a uniform that was just enough on the side of too large to keep him from looking tidy. His eyes were a little bulbous, rather like a pug, and I could almost swear if I listened hard enough I would hear him snuffle. He was acclaimed to be one of the best and brightest in his division, my trailer mate Tom assured me, but really, he was quite oblivious to the goings on of the circus and that was why the Cirque always requested him. He was pleased to have a company that wanted his specific services, and the perks of tasting consistently good and usually different foods didn’t hurt. When I made a face, Tom chuckled in agreement. He preferred his food raw as well, but there was no accounting for the tastes of marks or inspectors.

The only complaint Mister Flackery had ever made was that there wasn’t salted peanuts available. I started to argue that there had to be. Who had ever heard of a circus without salted peanuts? When I asked, Tom rebutted with the query if I’d ever smelled roasting peanuts within the confines of the circus or outside of it. I had to stop and think about that one. I hadn’t, I realized, and shook my head in the negative. This satisfied my furry friend and he began to explain. It had taken the hourgans of Haiti to figure out how to return the risen to the ground, and they’d kept the secret to themselves for many, many years. In 1929, a researcher by the name of William B. Seabrook published a book that was considered at the time half fantasy and half truthful, but no one could ever tell which bit was which. The book was called "The Magic Island" and in it, Mister Seabrook related that he had become acquainted with a hourgan by the name of Joseph. He never gave a last name, and to this day there were arguments as to whether this speaks for the story’s authenticity or it’s sheer fallacy.

Whatever the case, Joseph had a number of risen whom he used as can cutters at Hasco, the huge factory and plantation of the Haitian-American Sugar Company on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. Officials, the hourgan bragged, knew all about the labor of these formerly living citizens, but chose to look the other way because of the amount of profit this accorded them. All they had to pay Joseph was a measly fifty cents a day per risen and to feed them two meals while they were at the factory. One day Seabrook came to find the hourgan in a terrible fury and the factory utterly still. While the man himself was not the most savory of individuals, his wife was a kindly soul, and she had been given the care of the zombies for an evening while he went to gather more bodies to work in the factory. She not only fed the risen a third meal, but feeling a supper was a poor thing without a sweet to follow it made the mistake of feeding them some homemade candy that contained salted peanuts. To her horror and surprise, the risen instantly realized their terrible situation and determinedly set out for their homes the moment the salted nuts crossed their lips. They did not make it to their living homes, but instead to the graveyard where Joseph was in the process of retrieving new bodies. That whole night, nary another body would rise for the hourgan, nor would one for the rest of the wizened old man’s life.

The werewolf shrugged at the end of his tale and stretched. “Not sure if it’s true or not, but that’s what Tianna told Dennis, and he’s been here the longest, so it might be. But then again, the old girl might just have bats in her belfry along with grave dirt.”

I snorted. “I wouldn’t tell her that.”
He shrugged and turned the discussion to other topics. But I made a mental note to talk to the Ringmistress about this the next time I got time and she was free. That turned out to be a week later.

NaNoWrimo, Day Twenty One, 32212 words

2010-11-21T04:29:00.000-08:00

Tianna was cordial, she always was when it came to inquiries about the family, and invited me into her living room. The place was spotless, with furniture the same delicate lemon color as the shades and a carpet the same color of a shaved lime ice. Conscientiously, I took off my running shoes and was grateful I was wearing clean socks. She indicated a seat on the invitingly overstuffed couch and asked after refreshments. With the cordialities concluded, she sat down across from me and waited for me to begin.

So I did. Before she could get three breaths out, I had asked a barrage of questions about the processing and my own rescue and the rescue of the others and why Emily didn’t remember being processed and why no one had said anything before … I do believe I would have gone on in that vein for a while if she hadn’t held up a hand to stop me, chuckling.

“I thought it was you outside my window.” She said at last. “Very well, let’s begin with the processing. It began, as many things did for us, with Georg Rounding…”

The traveling show had been going well for a few years for Georg, adding two new performers to his roster with each solstice. He’d never seen them rise at any other time, and he chalked it up to the vagaries of the undead existence. It worried Liesel, though, and she often asked him what would happen if they weren’t able to find the risen on the solstice. What if they wouldn’t come? They would be killed again, without a chance to know the delights of a continued life. She didn’t like this thought at all, and began to bother him to set up way stations for the undead, manned by those like herself who were sensitive to other risen.

He’d been stunned by the concept. Sensitive? She was able to tell where other risen were? Her affirmation of this led him to another concept. Was she calling the risen to her? Was that how she always found at least one? This too was answered affirmatively and Georg began to be concerned. If there were way stations for the dead, all of whom could call risen to them, wouldn’t he end up with an army of them? While he wasn’t a poor man and the family business was doing well, it would take money and time to set such a thing up. And to maintain it … he’d paused here, hoping she understood. She did, certainly, but she wasn’t about to take no for an answer. It wasn’t her way now that they were in a new nation and she wasn’t under her husband’s control any longer.

She suggested that rather than have him finance the project, that the troupers themselves could fund it. He’d been more than fair in his payment of them, and with a small and constantly rotating company of troupers, no one would notice a new face or an older one rotating back in. It would be chalked up to the nature of entertainers and it would give troupers a year off for every five or six that they worked. Perhaps more if they so chose. It would also give them a chance to indoctrinate the new Risen into the traditions and history so they would fit in smoothly when it came time to regroup.

The ones in the way stations were meant to also screen the newly risen. Not all those who rise, she admitted wryly, were civilized enough to become zombies. I started to object to this seeming inanity when I realized she was absolutely correct. In order for us to function as a cohesive unit, some sort of screening was necessary to make sure the new undead wouldn’t sell out the family at the first opportunity. It was the civilized thing to do, like putting down a mad dog for the safety of the humans and other creatures around it. Perhaps it’s not a word you think of when it comes to zombies. But maybe you should.

Which led to my next question of how they could have been sure about me. Her answer then surprised me, though I suppose that it shouldn’t have when I look back on it. Dennis. The little bear of a man worked as her roving sensitive. It was becoming rarer and rarer for Risen to come to the surface and be able to be put to work, especially the ones that rose away from the solstices. It was why I’d been traded from trailer to trailer in those first few days, for corroborating opinions. Had even one of those who’d housed me turned a thumbs down to my presence, I would have been shot in the head and placed back in the ground without a second thought.

NaNoWrimo, Day Twenty, 31402 words

2010-11-20T18:27:00.000-08:00

/I started to head towards the door bell when I heard my name being mentioned and froze. Feeling rather like a kid staying up well past his bedtime to listen to his parents discuss his report card, I moved bonelessly towards the window and did my level best not to make a sound. Tianna’s growl of a voice was distinctive as she spoke.

“What do you think?”

“I think that he may not have been the right choice.”

“Oh? And what would you have had me do, Keisha? Put him back in the ground?”

“We’re going to have to start moving with the times, sister dear. There’s little room anymore for circuses and traveling shows. The takes are getting smaller every year and if you insist on finding room for everyone in your show, the quality is simply going to go down.”

“And what of Emily?”

“That’s different.”

“Tell me, sister dear, how is that different?”

“The underground found her before we did. They had a chance to determine her aptitudes.”

“Well, it’s done, and there isn’t a whole lot that can be done about it, is there?”

Keisha sighed. “Tianna, Tianna. That penchant of yours for picking up every stray and waif before they can be properly processed is going to get us caught one of these days.”

“So you say. But at least I’m not heartless enough to only think of the bottom line.”
I slithered through the false orange - cedar smell of the beauty bark and started heading back towards the circus at this point in the argument. So, it wasn’t all sugarplums and spice once you were back from the dead. Apparently most of the undead had been processed in some fashion or other by person or persons unknown and I had managed to slip through the net. From the sounds of it, Tianna preferred not to send people to be processed. But what kind of processing was occurring? Was it something like that crackpot business where people had to pay exorbitant amounts to release themselves from their past lives and woes? Would people really be heartless enough to re - bury the recently revived? I don’t know that I could do it. And how was it that no one else had stumbled on this information?

Was it a secret they were all keeping from me? Or had no one been processed in Tianna’s company? That was a distinct possibility, and a good reason why no one would know anything about it. It might also be that Tianna kept mixes of breathers, undead, and plain freaks so it wouldn’t be safe for anyone but her to have this information. I shook my head to take the gerbil off the wheel of spinning thoughts and sighed. I wasn’t getting anywhere with this train of nonsense, but I wouldn’t be doing myself any favors if I went back and confronted the women now. Placing a smile on my face, I did the only thing that made sense. I went for a run to clear my head.

You would think as a zombie, it would be easy to think of nothing. And it is. But if you want to keep any of your mental facilities, it’s best to keep thinking. And once one’s in that habit, it’s really hard to shut it off for any reason. I think in my case a lot of it’s fear that I won’t be able to start again. Go ahead and laugh, but I don’t want to be one of the ones hunting around going “Mraiiiiins!” No thank you.

As I jogged along, I considered what I had heard in the most rational manner I could manage. It made sense, after a fashion, that Keisha would be concerned about the bottom line of the circus. She was also the paymistress, and what affected our profits affected all of us. It also made sense that she might want the future performers screened by someone. What if someone like John Wayne Gacy managed to rise? I shuddered at the thought and resolved to suggest to Tianna that she be more careful. That would, of course, mean fessing up to having been eavesdropping around her house. I slowed as I thought about that one.

She would be pretty upset, of course, but wasn’t it better to have her be a little upset and my snooping out in the open than to have her find out later and be really furious? I looked around and found I had made my way back to her house without being conscious of the fact. I guess I’d already made up my mind as to what I was doing and it just took me a little while and a mile or two of jogging to realize what I was up to. I made my way up to her doorstep and knocked. Within a moment, she had answered the door and I was struck as I always was at how slender she actually was out of the traditional ringmaster’s outfit of six layers. With a quick mental shake of my head I asked if I could come in as I had questions about the family.

NaNoWrimo, Day Twenty, 30538 words

2010-11-20T11:25:00.000-08:00

It couldn’t only be luck of the draw. If it were, there would be a lot more stories out there about how zombies were rampaging through the streets or getting mowed down by buses or whatever. Scientists would be studying the phenomenon and people would be … I thought about this some more. People would panic. That left a few options. One, the Roundings weren’t the only zombies in the game and things were possibly setting up for some intra - zombie turf wars. The second option was that the government did know all about the zombies and were keeping it quiet to keep the masses from panicking. But would every government do so? Surely this wouldn’t be an issue only in the United States. With a bit of horror, I envisioned zombies run amuck through the world. Crawling over the sacred cows in Dehli, riding humpback whales to get to the Inuit, working at Mickey Dee’s. That last one was somewhat believable, if I thought about it. So I didn’t, setting my mind to work on any other potential explanations for the sheer unbelievable luck of being in just the right place at the right time every time a zombie rose.

I’d been silent for so long that Emily finally poked at me. I looked down at her curiously, not even remembering what we’d been discussing. She raised an eyebrow and tapped her foot a few times before she spoke.

“If you’re done staring at the report like it’s the answer to all of unlife’s mysteries, I’d really like to have it back now….”

“Oh, sorry.”

With an apologetic smile I gave her back the paper which I’d crumpled just a little in my agitation. Her lips twisted in a momentary flash of annoyance before she muttered a ‘Thanks’ and walked away. I shook my head. This problem really needed a few answers. Because the last answer, that the Roundings were grave robbers, wasn’t one I wanted to consider either. It would explain the accuracy rate, yes, but it wouldn’t count for the people they chose. Why me over some other college student? Why this one instead of that one? They couldn’t know if these people were even suitable for the circus, and what did they do with the ones that weren’t.

The only person who might have the answers was Tianna, being the oldest of us all that I was aware of. With a sigh, I went to find her. At this time of day, she would be having a cup of coffee with Keisha, and I went first to her home, hoping to find them there. It was an honest to goodness house about a mile from the circus grounds, and I could only guess that it was the privilege of being a troupe leader. The outside was the pale pink found nearest the heart of the Ballerina roses my mother had grown when I was younger. Being such a forceful personality, I found it hard to believe that this daintily colored home was the residence of our fearless leader. To add to the incredulity facing me, the curtains were shaded by a fussy lace shade like the resident of a nursing home might use to discreetly hide away from the world that was going on without her. This was where the Iron Matron lived? Curious now, I peered through the windows and was greeted by a half - dozen pairs of green and gold eyes staring back at me. Cats. I frowned at them, as they watched me in a lazy sort of curiosity. This didn’t seem right at all. Had I found my way to Keisha’s house instead? Was this Tianna’s bastion of femininity in the face of a world that seemed intent on telling her that she had to be stronger than everyone else? Or … with a sinking feeling, I checked the little slip of paper which had the address on it. Sure enough, I was at the wrong house entirely.

Glad to know that my entire world hadn’t just been knocked on its head, I loped across the street to the proper house. This one looked a little more like Tianna’s style. The house itself was the particular orange of a tangerine wedge that had just been bitten into. Citrus - colored, just like the pants she always wore when she wasn’t on stage. The outside was carefully landscaped with the shrubs in the shapes of circus animals. There were roses here, but these were hardy Tropicanas, the peachy - red hues complementing the house and paying tribute to the Florida sunshine. No lacy curtains here, but a set of elegant Roman shades in a pale lemon color, and giving the lady utter privacy. She had a window open somewhere, and I could hear her and Keisha speaking.

NaNoWrimo, Day Twenty, 29732 words

2010-11-20T04:20:00.000-08:00

Chapter Nine

Emily had died the previous winter in Hartford, Connecticut, and been buried in the Cedar Hills cemetery. That summer, she’d awoken and smelled fresh meat. Following her instincts, she’d clawed her way out of the casket and ground to hear a bunch of screaming and then heard the footsteps of quite a few people running away. According to her, it had been sheerest luck that the Roundings had stopped in the city for repairs and that one of them had been passing by the cemetery and was able to rescue the new risen. She’d shown me the police report that had been filed with a slight grin, and I read it curiously.

June 21, 2010
2:43 AM

Six local high school seniors from the elite preparatory college of “Saint Mary’s Sacred Heart” claiming to be witches attempted to turn themselves in at 12:15am insisting that they had ‘raised a former classmate from the dead.’ The teenagers claimed that at 11pm they had arrived at the Cedar Hills cemetery to attempt to talk with Katherine Hepburn and get her assistance with a film history assignment on her movie “The Philadelphia Story.” Instead of raising Miss Hepburn, however, they heard moaning from under the earth. At this point the stories begin to vary. Miss Alicia Fanning, eighteen, claims she ran for the cemetery gate, leaving the others where they were. Mister Allen Knightly and Miss Kelly Caspar, also 18, claim to have seen a hand stick out from under the ground before they ran off in a panic. They managed to find Miss Fanning who was screaming about someone slithering over the gate of the cemetery towards their friends. Miss Gina Meni, seventeen, claims to have been held down by a giant weight near the tomb they were chanting around and says she believes it to have been a supernatural phenomenon. Mister Bill Edison and Miss Caroline Young, 17 and 18 respectively, stated that the hand that stuck out from the ground was three rows over and was followed shortly there after by a second hand, a head, and then a pair of dirt covered shoulders in a tattered white dress. Due to the nature of the story blood alcohol tests were administered and all tested positive for alcohol ranging from .01 to 1.8. Three of the students also tested positive for illicit substances.

Officers Susanne Fiera and Leif Thorgirsson were dispatched to the cemetery. They reported back shortly after that they had found black candles and several handwritten books of “witchcraft” around Miss Katharine Hepburn’s grave. The grave of Emily Black was also disturbed, having shovels stuck in the ground nearby and the look of tampering with the gravesite. All the teenagers were charged with malicious mischief and being under the influence of illicit drugs. A search of the accused also produced a bag of cannibus (street value $100), a selection of paraphernalia to ingest said substance with, several “dots” of lysergic diethylamide, and six knives, claimed to be “purely ceremonial.” None of the teenagers would confess to having had anything to do with the disturbance of Miss Black’s body, only stating “She came out of the ground.”

An inquest has been scheduled for June 22.

Officer in Charge - Staff Sergeant William Buckley.

I blinked at Emily in amusement, and saw she was grinning at me.

“I never liked those girls. They took the Wiccan path and made it into a dark and twisted plaything. I didn’t know it was them when I rose, and I would have been sorry if I’d eaten one of them, but I’m glad I at least scared them some. They made my life hell when I was a student at Saint Mary’s Sacred Heart Prep.”

I looked at her thoughtfully. I’d never known a Wiccan before. I had heard tales of people calling themselves witches that went dancing in the moonlight and praying to deer heads. Or maybe it was a goat head. Something with horns. But something else about the story in that copy of the police blotter bothered me. Not about the students who were accused of disinterring the newest Rounding, though anyone who would try to raise Katharine Hepburn had problems I didn’t even want to consider. Especially if they really thought she was going to help them with a homework assignment they were too lazy to do. What was bothering me, I realized after a moment was the Rounding presence. I’m sure Emily was grateful to have been taken in, and I was grateful for my rescue. But how had they known? Was there something in old Georg’s journal that would indicate how they knew about a potential riser?

NaNoWrimo, Day Nineteen, 29006

2010-11-19T22:00:00.000-08:00

Dennis returned his gaze to the computer and glowered at it instead. After a little while, he stomped outside, and the sweet smell of pipe smoke made its way into the tent. No one said anything, just went back to their hunting. Rather than disturb the silence, I sent Kylie an IM.

Spoonman90: Hey, will he be okay?
LdyWntrhrt: Yes
Spoonman90: Are you sure?
LdyWntrhrt: Yes
Spoonman90: I’ve never seen him that pissed
LdyWntrhrt: I know.
Spoonman90: Knock - knock?
LdyWtrhrt: Jeff, seriously. Little busy here.
Spoonman90: Come on, Kylie… Knock - Knock.
LdyWntrhrt: //sigh// Fine. I’ll play your stupid game for a minute. Who’s there?
Spoonman90: Banana.
LdyWntrhrt: …
Spoonman90: Sorry. But I think you should see this.

She got up with a sigh to indicate exactly how much she was being put upon to have to get up and walk the ten feet to where I was sitting and looked over my shoulder. Her whole attitude of “Well, what did you want?” told me that I needed to quit fooling around and show her what I’d pulled up. While the others had been looking at the peripherals, I’d gone to the state of Florida’s legal website and pulled up a very scary rap sheet. Frankie Jean wasn’t this son - of - a - dog’s first victim, and if we didn’t work hard, he’d be out on bail soon and doing it again. Because he could. I watched her pale face drain of its last vestige of color as her little hand balled into fists at her side. She nodded once, indicating I should print it, then walked out of the tent on silent feet. The others were looking at me and I shrugged, hitting print. I would keep hunting. In the end, between his social networking, his Live Journal, and his rap sheet, we had enough to keep this guy from ever qualifying for bail or seeing sunlight again. And I had to admit that felt pretty good. Not as good as ripping him to shreds and eating his brains would have been, but pretty good for what it was. Patricia and I delivered the papers to the police station that evening and ran hell for leather before they could get our names or pictures.

They used what we delivered, because the next morning it was all over the news and that felt even better. They showed a picture of the guy being dragged to a van for transportation to a more secure facility, and he was a little older than I’d been when I died. I couldn’t help but think that he had the hands of a seventy year old woman when they showed them. Further thought brought me to the belief that that woman would be named Gladys, and it would be complete with cheap off - fuschia pink nail polish and gaudy jewelry collected over a lifetime of Avon and thrift - store purchases. The image of this guy in a frowsy house - dress was the final straw. I broke into soft chuckles and shared the whole thing with Tom who was looking at me as if I were insane.

The explanation didn’t help, as he just shook his head and walked away. It was easier to go back to work though, knowing the guy was behind bars and due to finally receive the justice that was long overdue. It made it easier to get through the rest of the winter, and then we were on the road again.

NaNoWrimo, Day Nineteen, 28419 words

2010-11-19T21:00:00.000-08:00

The next morning dawned dark and stormy to suit my mood. I stayed under my blankets until the last possible moments before pulling on my practice t - shirt and jeans and heading out to the street. A few more of the apartments were doing credible imitations of movie zombies as they staggered and blinked their way to the large tent to receive their assignments for the day. Having celebrated Frankie’s life, we were now on to the more serious business of finding her killers and having our revenge. As kindly and sweet as we all could be, we were, in the end, zombies with a taste for living flesh and brains. While the stuff from the butchers is palatable, there’s nothing that compares to the thrill of the hunt for living flesh and the piquancy that horror gives the meat. Though the killers were nowhere nearby, I was salivating with the thought. I shook my head quickly and made my way to the tent, deliberately moving in a manner as like the living as I could manage. Don’t laugh, some mornings that’s much harder than others to do.

I wasn’t the only one with revenge on my mind that morning. We broke into our groups quickly and set to work. Today we were careful to let each other know what we were up to, and while it didn’t pay off by the day’s end, it certainly seemed promising. The ground searchers had had better luck. A young man had been admitted to a local hospital with several knife wounds and was still there as Frankie had gotten him in a kidney. I did mention she was good with her knives, didn’t I? His buddies had vanished immediately after, but this guy had caused not some little bit of grief to the nurses and doctors. While we felt sorry for them, they were about to lose their patient. They might think he’d just gone out a window or something to skip out on the hospital bill, but justice was about to be served. One of the animal wranglers had gone ahead as a scout and brought back bad news. Apparently the cops were already sitting outside the hospital and the man’s door. This would be a little more difficult than we first thought.

Tianna called us in to discuss the situation. While we wouldn’t be able to rip this guy apart as we’d first planned on, we would be able to make sure that he had enough dirt to bury himself into some rotten little hole - in - the - wall prison for the rest of his life. Or what would be left of it. Those of us who’d been hunting for them online changed direction and began looking for what we could on Mister Bravilio Alvarez. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if that was the guy’s real name or not, but it was likely one that he commonly used, so I didn’t argue. As the resident blog - mistress, no one was really surprised when Kylie got the first hit. Bravilio was a life long native of Talladega, Florida, and certainly a shady character if his Live Journal page was any indication.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t realize anyone still used Live Journal out there, but I decided to go with it for the moment. There was some hateful thoughts in there. Not that people aren’t allowed to think what they want to, but even people who’ve had the internet all of their lives should realize that it’s forever. Really. There are websites dedicated to screen - scraping the web so all the stupidity we place on line is forever preserved. Bill got the next hit with a hate website that mentioned Bravilio as a fallen comrade in the war against the races.
We looked at each other in disgust at this point. Race? Frankie’s murder had been about race? It took me a moment to place the sound I was hearing. It was a growl. Dennis’s face had flushed a mottled pink through the slight green tinge and his teeth were bared as if he were one of the great cats he worked with. Gone was the supernatural calm I’d always associated with him. In this instance, the man looked positively feral, and the rest of us froze. His wife, thankfully, kept a calmer head.

“Stop it, Dennis. That’s not helping.”

“Maybe you didn’t hear Bill, sweetheart.” He spoke each word concisely, spitting them out as if they tasted as awful as theit meaning was. “He killed our Frankie for her skin color. Because she wasn’t Hispanic.”

“I heard Bill, and I understood the import of it. But growling like Mufasa won’t help put this guy away. Bill, please set that page to print, will you? It’ll be a bit because the LiveJournal is printing right now, but every little bit will help.”

NaNoWrimo, Day Nineteen, 27604 words

2010-11-19T20:00:00.000-08:00

We had a free performance that night for the community in her honor, and that was the moment I knew that I truly belonged with the Roundings. While it had been fun before, and interesting, I hadn’t quite felt as if I belonged. But these kind and generous people were able to fit in more living than most living folks I had known could manage in a lifetime. Including myself before the accident. This was where I wanted to spend my death - time and damned be the consequences of after. It took dying to figure this out, and I didn’t want to waste any more time on just letting life take me where it would. I performed the trick that Frankie Jean and I had been working on, escaping from a straightjacket. She was to be one of my masked performers the first night I performed this for the mundanes, and I knew I was going to miss her deft touch in slipping me my only escape tool, a half-unwrapped paperclip.

Tiana held up her hands for silence, then smiled at the audience wolfishly. “You are all aware,” she began, of the nature of a strait jacket? They are designed to control persons--usually the violently insane--so that they can't harm themselves or others.” She had my strait jacket brought out to her and pulled on it. “As you can see, strait jackets are made of very resilient fabric that can't be ripped. This particular one is made of duck cloth and was obtained from the Shady Hills Mental Hospital three counties south of here. As you can see, they have very long arms,” here she held one out with Rollo’s help, “which are tied to the back so that arm movement is almost completely restricted.” She gave the jacket to Rollo as I stepped to her side. “Harry Houdini first accomplished the strait jacket escape thrilling audiences the country over. He even performed this trick while hanging upside down in the air from towering heights.”

“We have here our own magician, Mister Magnifico who claims that he is the master of time, space, and six other dimensions. Let’s see if he can pull off this same trick … though admittedly right - side up, shall we ladies and gentlemen? Mister Magnifico, will you please allow your lovely masked assistants to place you in the straightjacket?” I nodded and Tracy and Eileen stepped up, beginning the process as Tiana continued talking. “Now, as we just got this particular straitjacket today, Mister Magnifico has not been able to practice or modify it in any way, shape, or form. Also note that strait jackets are not designed to be worn for extended periods of time. They become excruciatingly painful as blood pools and swells up the elbows inside the tight sleeves. Shoulder, back and neck muscle cramp painfully and can't be moved to ease the pain. Mister Magnifico here has no more than five minutes before his muscles will lock up and we will have to release him.

As she was talking, the jacket was being put on me. I expanded my chest to the point of discomfort and held my elbows tightly to my sides as the jacket was being tied around me. Almost too late, I remembered to cross my right hand over the left one and lift up. I don’t know how Houdini did it, but I do believe that the lack of having to breathe helped in this trick more than anything else. As the women spun me around, I clenched a little bit of the fabric in each hand while they sat uncomfortably against me. Finally, the last tie was tied securely and three audience members chosen at random were asked to examine the ties. I was down to four minutes, as we’d planned earlier. So far, it was going well.

We’d considered using a straight buckle variety, but they’d proven too difficult to maneuver with my hands prone to stiffening. So ties it was with as few buckles as possible. The marks were satisfied and they returned to their seats, giving me three minutes to make my way to freedom. I let the air out in a quiet stream, relaxing my muscles and shrinking what felt like an entire size. Moving my shoulders experimentally, I scrunched them forward, shrugging them as deeply as I was able into the straightjacket’s confining sleeves. Not only did this make me more comfortable, it also loosened the back of the jacket.

Two minutes. With a look of intense concentration on my face, I used all the slack I had manage to make for myself and worked the arm’s buckle up over my head. I could almost see the audience salivating at the thought that I might not make it as the clock continued its relentless march towards zero. But my hands were able to move with a minute remaining and I now began to work at the arm ties with appearance of concern and a touch of worry.

While the audience had checked over and approved the ties, they hadn’t noticed the small gaps in the knots. It was into this that I worked a previously unfolded paperclip into them and pulled gently, hiding the small metallic object with my hand. They fell apart as they’d been intended to and I shinnied out of the jacket … just as the buzzer sounded to indicate my time was up. Had I still been a living, breathing man, I would have felt the fight – or – flight impulse that’s caused when one defies death. Instead, I felt the exhilaration of an act successfully executed and the adrenaline of the crowd’s applause. And somehow, I knew Frankie Jean was smiling down on me and applauding with them.

NaNoWrimo, Day Nineteen, 27373 words

2010-11-19T19:20:00.000-08:00

The rest of the afternoon was quiet, punctuated by clicks, quiet groans, and the occasional cracking of a soda can or beer bottle. Sometime in the afternoon, someone brought by a bowl full of sweetbreads to munch on. I don’t know about the others, but I don’t think I tasted a single one. My world had been narrowed down to the screen and the possibility that someone out there knew something they weren’t confessing to. Words, flashing screens, and anger. Like most of my generation, I’d grown up online. But I’d never seen so much anger. It was like the whole world was dealing with the outrage of the event. Or maybe it just seems that way now.

By the evening, we had to admit that the searching was fruitless in our current mental states. We were all too rattled and frustrated to be effective hunters. Especially when we discovered we’d been hunting through the same websites and our promising leads turned out to be each other. Those physically hunting had and equally frustrating lack of luck, and we turned our attention to the more immediate problems at hand. Such as the burial of someone who had passed on already. We would have to tell the county something, but Tianna and Keisha told us not to worry about it. They would handle that part. We would handle the rest. It’s what family did.

Circuses aren’t often associated with funerals. But when one of our own dies, Dennis told me the next morning as we dressed in our finest costuming, we refuse to let them slip quietly into that dark night. We were showmen, and a showman or woman has to go out in the same manner they came in. Our Frankie Jean had been a knife thrower, one of the best living or dead. She could make a perfect outline of a man while riding on a float, and even blindfolded. There was a story that she’d gotten in an argument in a bar one night and done just that when she was three sheets to the wind. So that’s what we re - enacted. We had one of our food handlers stand there and we carefully placed all but two of her knives around him. All six of the horses had on black barding and feathers, while a solitary flute rang out the notes of the Beatle‘s song, “Free as a Bird.” Behind the float and the musician dressed in mummers garb, we followed quietly. The clowns and mimes first, without their makeup, the animal trainers with their creatures sedately in place. Then the jugglers, the freaks, and the rest of us . All of us wearing something that was her favorite color, cherry red. I don’t know how Kylie had found the time, but she’d sewn a few spangles on each red item, just as Frankie had.

As the procession crossed the tracks and turned north towards the funeral home, six black horses bowed in turn as if at a signal from their trainer as the float passed them. I’d never seen them before in our grouping and could only guess they’d been brought in as a favor. As long as Keisha and Tianna had been running the circuses and wintering over here, there were a lifetime of favors they must have been owed. Today they decided to call some of them in. It was dignified, and beautiful as befitted one who died so young for the second time At the rear of the small procession, a calliope which hadn’t been used since the 1940’s played “Amazing Grace.”

The service was quiet, no gospel singers or professional mourners or Metallica music, and none of that other stuff either. Frankie wasn’t that kind of girl off the stage. Instead, a kindly man who bore a family resemblance stood up in a plain wood pulpit and said a just a few words. He told us what we already knew, but they were things that are always good to hear it again. To hear that your friend had a sweet heart, that she loved her community, that she was always happiest on stage was the gist of it. We all knew, for we were all her family, and couldn’t not know that. Not and say that we knew her at all.

The procession to say our last farewells was punctuated by a few soft sobs and quite a few stifled sniffles. I don’t know to this day who’d taken care of the details, but they made sure that we buried her in her favorite dress. The cherry red one with all the spangles and the shoes that made her look like a mis - placed Dorothy from Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz. Her lips were cherry red to match and a throwing knife had been placed in each hand. Not that we believed she’d need it where she was going. But she wouldn’t be comfortable with out them. And Monkey, her beloved black puppy, was laying alongside her. The funeral home had to have had problems with it, but the Roundings got their way. I walked Patricia up to the elegant ebony casket and said my goodbye very softly. And then I placed a small pouch near her, full of the dice she’d left at my apartment last time we’d played Dungeons and Dragons. She wouldn’t want to go without those either. Patricia saw the pouch and began to sob, so I led her away to recompose herself away from the others. When the casket was lowered into that sad and lonely hole, we watched them fill it before heading back to the arena with the same quiet dignity. The show, as they say, must go on. And no one knew that better than our beloved Frankie Jean.

I hoped that she would rest in peace.

Running rather late this morning

2010-11-19T05:56:00.001-08:00

Posts to follow this evening when I get done with work.

NaNoWrimo, Day Eighteen, 26398 words

2010-11-18T05:03:00.000-08:00

I’d done it. A few of us went over to Dennis and Kylie’s place for a celebratory supper afterwards and spent a pleasant evening with many toasts being drunk and good will oozing all over the place in a semi - bucolic haze. Yes, for those of you who are curious, zombies can get drunk. And incur hangovers. It is to this that I have to attribute my late rising to, and the late knowledge that one of ours had been killed.

We weren’t in a bad section of Talladega. Our area was more or less abandoned, which is what had made it perfect for a circus “town.” But it also meant that when Frankie Jean had been attacked, no one had heard her calling for help or come to her rescue. She’d been less than a half mile from the apartments and taking an evening walk with her dog Porch Monkey as she was wont to do after practice. She didn’t use the dog in her own show, but it was never far from her side. And it hadn’t left her in death either. She had been a strong woman and more than capable of defending herself, but her assailants outmaneuvered her and took her down with a shovel to the top of the head. While zombies can come back from pretty much anything, the tale about us staying dead upon brain death is absolutely true. First they’d taken out Monkey, and then bits of Frankie’s brain had been splattered all over the pavement along with the rest of her.

Tianna and Keisha had taken charge of the situation when they‘d been notified. Two of the troupers were set to bring the body back for its final rites. Four were set to clean the sidewalk before the mundane cops arrived. And the rest of us were set in teams to find Frankie’s killers. While the cops would look the other way at our existence due to the extremely hefty quarterly contributions to the widows and orphans fund, they wouldn’t overlook a murder in their town. They weren’t bad cops, or crooked, and they’d want to do their job and solve this murder for us. Quiet as we were about our non - living status, we were still good citizens and they respected that. Unfortunately for all involved, they wouldn’t be able to prosecute the murder of someone who had already died. So this left the matter up to us. Those of us who’d been at the celebratory dinner didn’t know any of this at the time. By the time we arrived, the sidewalk had been made spotless and the big tent was already the center of operations.

Dennis looked around as we arrived and frowned, pointing out the lack of bodies milling around. Then he noticed the circus flag at half mast and his shoulders slumped.

“Crap.”

He explained it to the rest of us, who’d never seen the flag that way and were looking at him oddly. The Rounding flag only lowered when one of our own had passed on to the final death. The one there was no rising from. In his twenty three years as a zombie, he’d only seen the flag lowered twice. And both times, it had been a messy affair, ending with the taking of several human lives. With suitably grim expressions, we made our way to the large red and black tent where we were informed of Frankie Jean and Monkey’s loss. They split us into two scouring teams. One would hit the local skinhead hangouts and the other would search through the local chat rooms and websites to see what they could find.

I was in the group searching websites and chat rooms along with Kylie, Dennis, and Tom. We were a silent bunch as the laptops were pulled out and we set to work. I couldn’t help thinking as I slogged through the millions of inanities that constituted online “life” of how alive Frankie had been, despite having died some ten years earlier. She’d always had a bright smile and a friendly wave even at her scariest, and now I’d never see that again. I didn’t stop clicking, afraid I’d miss something, but I did ask how long the others had known Frankie.

Dennis had been there when she’d risen, paying his respects to his older sister who’d passed not long before. She’d been young, terrified, and certain she was in Hell. Funny, I’d never thought of her as a religious person. But I supposed one didn’t need outward signs of a religion to believe in it. He’d taken her back to the Cirque and she’d been given to the Roundings as most of her family was in the west and could potentially recognize her. Kylie had met her not long after Dennis, as they’d already been together and he’d brought the young woman back to their trailer. I thought about asking if they always rescued strays but knew the answer to that before I asked it. Of course they did. That was their way. I suspected if I’d asked, they too would turn out to have been strays once. It seemed to be a Rounding family tradition.

NaNoWrimo, Day Eighteen, 25530 words

2010-11-18T04:43:00.000-08:00

“Well…” his voice didn’t carry well from that height. I’d have to make sure they were all clipped with microphones for the show. “I’m supposed to help distribute treats for the guests…”

“Done!” I cried. With a few words, a curtained ring dropped over the trapeze, a little hand reached out and waved, and when I blew at the count of ten, it raised to reveal an empty swing.
“Hmm…” I said speculatively to the audience. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but doing magic always makes me hungry. I could really go for some…”

“Popcorn!” Robert bawled from the sidelines. “Get some nice hot popcorn!” Perhaps he didn’t need the mic. I could hear him from where I stood. But to make them all appear to be the same person, they’d have to have them. Maybe I could just forget the batteries in his.

“That sounds good! How about I save you the trip?” With another flourish, an empty popcorn bag sailed through the air on an invisible wire and into my hand. “Very good!” I made a show of pretending to munch a piece thoughtfully. “Now, you’ve been on the trapeze and you’ve been able to feed our hungry guests. What else do you have in store for us, Roland?”

“Well…” Robert mused, drawing it out a little longer than absolutely necessary. “I am due for a turn in the clown car….”

“Done and done!” The curtained circle appeared to raise itself from the floor once more and I blew in his direction. The circle dropped to the ground and one of the food vendors’ children picked it up to look under it. Not a bad touch. I’d have to remember that. “Now…if I were a clown car….” I gazed to where the clown car marker was and Ronald jumped off the chair in full makeup and wig, looking as surprised as he could.

I counted another ten beat for applause and bowed a little. “Ah, Roland. There you are. You’ve been a clown, a trapeze artist, and you’ve fed our guests. What else is on your agenda tonight?”

Ronald nodded towards the marker for the wheel of death. The spotlight lit on it and then back on me so Rollo could get into his place. “The Wheel of Death?” I made a show of looking very concerned. “Are you sure that’s what you want to do?” He nodded enthusiastically, and all but jumped into the center of the curtained ring. “I’ll bet none of you knew Roland here was a daredevil?” I head the ‘ting’ of a makeup case dropping down the secured chute near the marker and grinned. “Neither did I. But, let’s give the man what he wants!” I raised the curtain, spun it around a little and blew on it. It fell to the ground and with a musical sting, Rollo in clown makeup and a motorcycle helmet was on his mark, waving wildly.

“Not too shabby, Roland!” I smiled at him broadly, and then at the audience. I faltered a little as I realized there actually was an audience, but continued after a second’s hesitation. “I – I think I can probably get you one more place tonight before my magic gives out. This is pretty tiring. Where’ll it be, Roland?”

“Well, my last act is always the Human Cannonball..” Rollo offered.

“I can do that. I can do that indeed. Now, stand right there in the Ring of Death and with the magic words…Eeksy, Ooksy, Muffin, Top! I quickly blew in that direction and by the time the spotlight made it over there, Rollo was gone.

“Hey, Roland?” I called, letting my shoulders sag a little. A cheery voice called out from the marker of the cannon and Rich jumped on a small trampoline with a wave and a smile to indicate the cannon firing. He landed two feet from me and I gave one last wide grin to the audience. “Congratulations Roland, you’ve made it through a whole bunch of teleportation. Not an easy feat, even when it’s being done by the master of time, space, and six other dimensions.”

I took several bows, along with Rich, and then the other four came out for their share of the applause. And there was applause, much to my delight. It’s always easier to raise applause from the marks. They come into our tents willing to suspend their disbelief for the time they are with us, and thus are easier to please. Circus folks will not applaud tomfoolery, but they do appreciate a well executed and shown act. And that’s what I’d just pulled off with no warning at all.

NaNoWrimo, Day Eighteen, No word count change

2010-11-18T03:46:00.000-08:00

We trooped into the main tent where I used chairs to mark off the spots where the wheel of death, the clown car, and the cannon would be. Now it was time to work on timing and patter.

“Lay – deees and gen – tell – men!” I began, in my best imitation of Tiana. “Chee – yiiiiildrennnn of allll ages! I know none of us have enough time in this world for all that we want to do, but I’d like to show you how you can! No snake oil here folks, for one thing, I don’t hold with snakes.” I heard a derisive snort from the darkened bleachers, but I kept going. “Do you all see this guy here?” I indicated Roland, who was standing a mere ten feet from me, with a grandiose wave of my hand. “He’s not tall folks, but that helps him get everything done, with a little bit of magic, of course.”

With a sweeping gesture, I motioned as if I were rolling back a set of long sleeves. “Nothing up my sleeves, my good people. Not that this little guy or a host of them would fit.” I paused and counted to three for laughter. “Roland, my friend, how are you feeling tonight?”

“Great!” He enthused.

“That’s great to hear. What do you need to get done tonight, Roland?”

“Well, our regular trapeze guy is sick, so I’m supposed to help out there…” he began.

“Easily done!” I snapped my fingers and raised a curtained hoop up to cover him. I lowered it once, to show he was still inside, then circled around it, tapping it three times. “And with a bit of magic…” here I blew on the curtain and it fell over to reveal the apparent lack of contents, “Hey…where’d you go?” I made a show of looking concerned as I did a mental count for a musical sting.

A spotlight I hadn’t counted on shot up to the trapeze where Rollo was sitting in the black leotard and waving wildly. I nodded my thanks to Frankie behind it and indicated Rollo with another flourish. “Roland, my friend,” I called up to him, “I think you’ve made it to the trapeze. What else do you need to get done?”

“Well…” his voice didn’t carry well from that height. I’d have to make sure they were all clipped with microphones for the show. “I’m supposed to help distribute treats for the guests…”

NaNoWrimo, Day Seventeen, 25528 words

2010-11-17T19:53:00.000-08:00

Well, I thought, that would make for an interesting few days as long as I don’t blow it. Fortunately, I didn’t. What I did find, at the end of the third day was that I’d been assigned to the Cirque, and I loved it. My stage name was Mister Magnifico. It wasn’t my first choice, but Tianna thought it would sell to the marks. She did let me keep my tagline, which I thought was quite kind of her. The following week was spent having costumes and props made up by the talented fingers of the dozen or so creative souls who catered to that sort of thing. For the most part, this was an extension of seasonal work for them, but they were bright and funny and I was very hard put not to remember that I wasn‘t living in the traditional sense when I was with them.

The prop makers and I discussed the various tricks I would be doing, and how that affected my outfits. Somewhat wider than the norm sleeves were needed for hiding things up. My hat had to have a false bottom to hide an animal in. It wouldn’t be a rabbit. Everyone had seen a rabbit out of a hat. And flying creatures were too hard to maintain in that type of space. I remembered reading about a magician in the early nineties that had attempted a dove out of a hat only to break the creature’s neck when the false bottom fell in. Perhaps a turtle. No one had seen a turtle out of a hat, had they? Ah well, it was the same concept. The top would have to be able to hinge inward too, to get the creature in and out. And so the discussions went.

I enjoyed it all very much, and especially learning new tricks from Curly and Slim, the so - called Gentlemen Jugglers and Magicians from the Rounding side. While they were a two man team and had developed most of their repartee to use that, they also had a nice little selection of acts from their solo days and were more than happy to pass it along. The one thing they advised was that I devise a grand finale that I hadn’t read about elsewhere or perhaps a new twist on one that I had. As long as I could put my own stamp on it so Tianna could advertise the exclusivity of it. Nothing to draw a mark in like a little bit of privilege, I mused.

NaNoWrimo, Day Seventeen, 25111 words

2010-11-17T17:53:00.001-08:00

Pulling out the deck with a flourish, I showed the deck, face up, to Frankie and Patricia, allowing them to choose one card. It took a bit of bickering and back and forth before they settled on the nine of spades, handing it to me with matching solemn expressions on both of their faces. I matched their solemnity and signed the back with the silver sharpie so they could prove it was unique and I hadn’t switched it in the middle. After all, they had picked the card themselves.

Holding it up to the pair, face first, I looked at it thoughtfully, then carefully tore the card along the lines in the back. To the women’s delight, they could indeed hear the card ripping and watch it as I tore it into four more or less equal pieces. I showed them each piece, front and back so they could see my signature was still there. Rubbing my hands together, I used a variant of the words I’d heard Kylie use that first night “Iggledy, Pigglety, Raggedy, Ook!” While they’d been watching my hands, they hadn’t realized I was reassembling the card between them. I stopped, had each of the women blow on my still - clasped hands to make the magic work properly, and then opened them to reveal the whole card with my signature neatly in place. They were delighted, and Frankie made a show of putting the card neatly in a small metal cigarette case that she was using as a wallet. With a woman on each arm, we headed off to orientation.

The orientation was like an orientation for any company anywhere. Well, except for the fact that we were almost all walking dead. In the general scheme of things, I supposed that was a minor detail. A smiling girl in a t - shirt identical to the ones Frankie and Patricia were wearing handed me a notebook with the orientation schedule on the front. Curious, I let the women lead me to wherever it was we were supposed to be going as I read the schedule.

Day 1 Training schedule: Orientation
Training class will begin at 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. each day for the next three days. Please come to training prepared. Dress in the t - shirts you will be receiving shortly and bring a smile with you.

11:00-12:00
Introductory speech from Tianna and Kerisa Roundings, current Ringmistresses of the two shows.

12:00-1:00
Video on safety in the work place. Just because we’re mostly undead doesn’t mean we don’t have to be safe. Learn the how - tos and whys.

1:00 - 2:00
Code of conduct hand out. Video on sexual and verbal harassment. Discussion about video

2:00-3:00
Break for an hour lunch.

3:00-4:00
Video about the Rounding family and the variety of shows we produce.

5:00-6:00
Meet with the Paymaster to discuss advancement opportunities, and reasons for termination.

6:00-8:00
Touring the facilities.

I blinked as I read the one o’clock time schedule again. Sexual harassment? Really? I guess my question was obvious because Patricia was laughing and nodding in confirmation. I’d never really thought of a zombie as a sexual creature, but apparently this could be an issue. But then again, it might just be for insurance purposes. Curious now, I went on to read the schedule for the other two days.

Day 2 Training schedule: Interacting with the living

Training class will begin at 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. each day for the next three days. Please come to training prepared. Dress in the t - shirts you will be receiving shortly and bring a smile with you.

11:00-12:00
Practical application of animal handling. Not all of you will be doing this, but all of you should know the basics.

12:00 - 2:00
Practical application of wirework in and out of the tents.

2:00 - 3:00
Break for lunch

3:00 - 4:30
Video on living and undead relations, and how to keep your status quiet

4:30-5:00
Discuss the video and answer questions.

5:00-6:00
Discussion of emergency drills. What constitutes an emergency, and how do we handle it? Also, what do we do when a co - worker catches on fire?

6:00-7:00
Discussion with the paymaster of pay scale, insurances, and where to cash your company check.

I found myself laughing quietly. They couldn’t be serious. Could they? I raised an eyebrow at Frankie in inquiry and she nodded. Apparently she’d been through all of this before … possibly even several times … and it wasn’t a joke. I would never have guessed circuses had to do this sort of thing as well. Really, it reminded me of the training session I had to take when I got hired on at McDonald’s in high school. But they didn’t discuss setting your co - workers on fire. Or how to handle it without an ambulance. I assumed there’d be a lack of ambulances. After all … we were dead already. What more could a hospital do for us. From sheer perverse curiosity, I checked the page for day three.

NaNoWrimo, Day Seventeen, 24325 words

2010-11-17T05:24:00.000-08:00

They didn’t think it was the world’s greatest idea around two when we got together, but they did (at the very least) see the humor in it. Hordes of zombies doing the Monkees walk. There was some consideration of invading that way (I believe the thought was that no one would take us seriously till it was far too late), and in the end, we just chuckled over the concept and took care of the needful things we had to do.

Morning dawned bright and warm, and Tom was knocking on my door around nine. He gave a nod to my newly “re - decorated” apartment and we were off. In the end, I hadn’t purchased much. As the guys had reminded me, I had to be able to take everything I purchased with me on the trailer. And until I purchased one of my own, I just didn’t have a whole lot of space. I’d settled on a few sets of lined royal blue curtains with suns, moons, and stars on them, a dark scarlet bean bag chair, a toothbrush, and a small wicker chest to hold my magic items in. The guy at the checkout counter hadn’t even batted an eye as he’d rung me through, and I could only guess that he’d seen our kind before. Circus folks, not zombies. Though, I’m pretty certain he was unaware that for our troop, one was the other. Mostly.

We walked into the circus housing area and I was in awe. While I’d seen the lion’s den last night and helped put our four horses (Merry, Christmas, Silver, and Belle) up, I hadn’t seen the entire area. As we weren’t expected to clock in for another out, I set off to explore what would be my home for the next six months or so. If having supper with almost three hundred zombies had been an experience, walking into a building about the size of four University stadiums placed in a cube and having it be occupied zombies was simply jaw - dropping. Dennis had been a little off in his assumption of five hundred zombies. What I was looking at was closer to two thousand at a low guess.

I leaned against a wall to take it in and heard a giggling behind me.

“Ooooh!” a voice called out, “he leans soooo gooood!”

There was more laughter, and I turned around to see a tall African - American woman in blue jeans and a cherry colored tee - shirt that advertised for one of the local businesses. I smiled at her warily and stood up straight as she approached.

“Whooo - eee!” Commented her companion, a pale faced girl in a similar outfit. “I think we’ve got us some fresh meat Frankie.”

I had horrific if momentary visions of being shanked and left to rot over a metal toilet, then cleared my head. “Um … sort of. My name’s Jeff, and I’ve been with Cirque since Utah. Who are you two?”

This certainly changed their tune, and both broke into much friendlier expressions. “Oh thank goodness. I thought you were wanna – be hired help. If Tianna picked you up, that’s a completely different animal.” Frankie responded, light shining in her honey – colored eyes.

“I’m Patricia, and this is Frankie Jean.” The pale girl answered with a relaxed smile. “We’re with the Roundings. I’m a contortionist, and Frankie here does knife throwing. What do you do?”

I made a mental note never to upset either of the two women in front of me. It wouldn’t end well. “I’m a magician. Still working on getting my midway act together right now, but I’m hoping to get into the big top.”

Frankie laughed, and it was a charming sound. “We all do, honey. We all do. If you’re good, and the fact that Tianna picked you up says volumes, then you’ll get there. She doesn’t tolerate mediocrity. You got something on you to do a trick?”

I had, actually. Having little to do last night without a hooked up cable box, I’d spent the time preparing two full decks of cards for just this eventuality. One for the trick and one to replace the cards I’d be handing out. Truth of the matter was that I’d destroyed them in spectacular fashion. First I’d taken and separated the face of each playing card from the back. I’d purchased four decks, just to be safe, and was glad I had after ruining the first few in the attempt. But I got it eventually and with much patience, I’d separated two full decks, placing them in four piles.

Once this was done, I spent a few hours daintily tearing each of the card backs into four pieces, being as careful as I could not to make the tears noticeable. Despite the fact that it had gotten chilly, I opened all the windows and set on the ceiling fans for the next part. Not that breathing chemicals bothered me anymore, but the smell might. So I put on a mask and took my time spraying each torn piece with re – mount spray and reassembling them. The gloss from the spray hid the tears I’d made and I was pleased to notice that it didn’t take them long to dry. Once they were re – assembled, I’d attached the faces with glue stick, being careful not to allow bubbles or anything else to show the presence of glue. Like fine dining, magic is all in the presentation. I’d left that morning with one deck in each pocket and a silver sharpie to sign the backs of the cards, as a matter of verification. If Tianna thought I was as good as all that, I’d better live up to the hype, or I’d be out on my backside.

NaNoWrimo, Day Sixteen, 23321 words

2010-11-16T18:39:00.000-08:00

It was exactly two days later that we made the wintering grounds off Red Ember Road. There was a permanent circus facility set up there and behind them were the apartments for the employees and summer people. I loved it. Stepping out into sunshine and eighty degree weather in November is a blissful thing. But before I could relax, I had to help put the circus to bed. It rather reminded me of being five. I had had a little circus train set that I’d enjoyed playing with very much and before I went off to do something else, my mother always reminded me to put the little men and plastic animals to bed. Smiling, I helped Dennis bring his lions into their enclosure, and I couldn’t help singing a little as I did so.

There's a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza,
There's a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, a hole.
Then fix it, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,
Then fix it, dear Henry, dear Henry, fix it.
With what shall I fix it, dear Liza, dear Liza?
With what shall I fix it, dear Liza, with what?
With a straw, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,
With a straw, dear Henry, dear Henry, a straw.
The straw is too long, dear Liza, dear Liza,
The straw is too long, dear Liza, too long,
Then cut it, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,
Then cut it, dear Henry, dear Henry, cut it.
With what shall I cut it, dear Liza, dear Liza?
With what shall I cut it, dear Liza, with what?
With an ax, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,
With an ax, dear Henry, dear Henry, an ax.
The ax is too dull, dear Liza, dear Liza…

Dennis cleared his throat and gave me a look as I finished putting Crumpet in with the others. I guessed correctly that he hadn’t appreciated my singing. Ah well, at least the lions had enjoyed it. Or hadn’t mauled me for it. They’d let me walk out alive. That was the important bit.

The studio apartment that was assigned to me was absolutely perfect. It had a spacious shower - sauna combination, a partial wall to hide a bed that was already there, pots, pans, and an assortment of dishes that didn’t match in the slightest. For a bachelor pad, it wasn’t a bad gig at all. I went through the cupboards and closets and made a list of things I would need. After it got dark, a few of the guys were going to the Super Wal - Mart for supplies and to cash their paychecks. I even had one, though it was only a few hundred dollars. It would be enough to get me started.

I had a brief mental image of rows of us doing the walk from the old Monkees television show as we went through the super store, and I grinned, reminding myself to bring it up to Bill and Tom later.

NaNoWrimo, Day Sixteen, 22820 words

2010-11-16T04:16:00.000-08:00

The motor home erupted with merriment, and I knew I’d found my trailer. As the evening went on, we became a little more raucous, but it was all in good fun. Chalk it up to young guys being guys and without the civilizing influence of women. The television eventually lost its appeal, and we began discussing living family members. Tom told us about his Aunt Raeleen. Raeleen was a good gal, he admitted, but not entirely all there in the mental department. She claimed to be an empath, so much so that she could actually feel the pain of people dying in foreign wars halfway across the globe. She also claimed to have had a prophetic dream the night before every major disaster since 1962. We greeted this with a slightly puzzled silence until he explained she hadn’t been born until 1975.

Bill mentioned that his grandfather’s name was Samuel, and before the cancer had gotten him, he’d been a perpetrator of the worst types of puns. The ones that build up and build up and are so bad that you end up running from the room at the end. Curious, we begged him to share one. Not just any pun, but a real stinker. He looked thoughtful for a long moment.

“I don’t have a real stinker. But this one comes to mind…These friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they opened up a small florist shop to raise funds. Since everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across town thought the competition was unfair. He asked the good fathers to close down, put they would not. He went back and begged the friars to close. They ignored him. So, the rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town to "persuade" them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store, saying he'd be back if they didn't close up shop. Terrified, they did so, thereby proving that only Hugh can prevent florist friars.”

There was silence for a long moment, as we contemplated fleeing the bus into the night, but since it was moving, that didn’t seem to be the wisest decision, so we just looked at him. He shrugged and reminded us that we’d asked him to do it. We had, so let it go. But it really was a pretty awful pun. As we were settling in to watch some campy fifties movie or other, there was a happy yelp from the back and a small dog the color of a head of beer came trotting out, dragging a spiky looking blue plastic ball. His appearance was greeted with cheers and he dropped the ball at Jose’s feet. The young man grinned and threw it into the back of the bus. With a happy little bark, the pup was off, bounding off the cabinets on the side and tail wagging wildly.

“Who was that?” I asked, amused at the picture.

“That’s Estornuda.” He responded with a grin as the bundle of fur - wrapped energy bounded back into the room and dropped the ball at Tom’s feet. “Sneezy.”

Tom picked it up and made as if to throw it, palming it at the last second. Sneezy darted halfway down the hallway before returning to the man and yipping at him in a most annoyed manner.

“He told you, buddy.” Jose laughed. “Better throw the ball this time, yeah?”

This certainly beat watching television. We spent the better part of the evening throwing the ball for our four - footed roommate before I decided to call it a night. The beds were set up in a bunk configuration and there turned out to be six of us sharing the bus. One guy sleeping in the bunks, one driving, and I took the only bunk that wasn’t personalized with photos or other things. I’d have to get some of my own blankets and pillows later, but for now, this wasn’t bad at all.

Morning dawned and we were still rolling along. We were close to Florida, and there would be no more stops along the way. According to Jose, we’d be there from mid - November till April. Five and a half months in the same place. There were, he informed me proudly, real accommodations there. The Roundings owned a few apartment complexes, and as long as one showed up to work every day, employees could live there for the princely sum of a dollar a month. They didn’t make much money on it during the winter, except for the people who decided to winter over, but they let the rooms the other six months of the year and that was where the cash came in. Two more days, he informed me with an enormous grin as he finished shaving. Then they would be home and he would get to see his sweetheart and babies.

I think I looked at him dumbfounded. I hadn’t imagined anyone would leave their families behind to run away with the circus. He read my look and laughed. He wasn’t ready to be a father yet, he admitted, but his girlfriend raised dachshunds like little Sneezy who was curled up in the corner. She trained them as show dogs, and while he loved his little buddy, there were a full dozen of them at home missing him something awful. Before I could object, he’d whipped out his wallet and was showing me pictures of dogs, naming them off as he went. I didn’t remember a single name, but agreed to go visit him at his girlfriend’s home to meet them all sometime over the winter.

NaNoWrimo, Day Fifteen, 21874 words

2010-11-15T19:16:00.000-08:00

More stuff that doesn't fit in well with the rest of the story, not yet. A little bit behind as I'm using dictation software to save my hands a little wear and tear. I'm finding it difficult to train myself to speak the words instead of simply typing them.

At the halfway point, I see that I'm 3,126 words behind. Approximately 2 days worth. I'll simply have to vocalize just a little faster.

NaNoWrimo, Day Fourteen, No Change in Word Count

2010-11-14T18:10:00.000-08:00

No writing today. Between taking my boy to the Seattle Aquarium for the very cool Family Science Weekend (courtesy of my awesome lil' sis) and trying to take care of the housework that didn't get done from yesterday while I was attempting to run a medieval event, well...

Tomorrow.

NaNoWrimo, Day Thirteen, 19704 words

2010-11-13T10:03:00.000-08:00

Chapter Six

The next morning everything appeared to have blown over, and we ran through our last day in Lucedale with hardly a ripple. It was nice to visit a town of about three thousand people. Especially when all of them had come to the circus at least once if the take was any indication. But I was ready to move, and it seemed the others were feeling the same. By the time the last show in the midway was shut down, we had the main tent taken down and the animals put up. In three hours we were ready to roll. Traditionally, Rollo told me as we headed for the trailers, the group stayed the night. But being so close to the wintering grounds, the need to go home was strong. Not that they really considered anyplace home, but Talladega was as close as they got to one. Some of them had mates in the other circus that they wanted to see. Others had friends in the city proper that they hadn’t seen since spring. For me, it seemed to be nothing more than a fresh start.

Being from the western part of the country, I suspected I’d probably end up in the circus proper. I wasn’t so sure I wanted that. I wanted to stay here with these good folks. If they’d let me. I made a mental note to talk to the ringmistress, Tania. This time I’d be traveling with Bill and a few of the other bachelors, and I relaxed, imagining a bus full of guys hanging out in their underwear, belching, and not terribly concerned about healthy meals. We got underway, and Bill introduced Tom (our werewolf) and Jose, one of the mid - way cooks. The three men were sitting in front of a large lcd screen watching television and munching on pork rinds and peanut brittle.

There were a pair of empty barcaloungers in front of the screen. One was covered with a sickly green naugahyde, the other in a funky blue plushy material. I went to sit in the green one and Jose held up a finger. I couldn’t, he told me solemnly, sit in the green chair. I would mess up Rich’s ass groove. I understood at once. There was nothing worse, I knew, than coming to your favorite chair only to find that someone had destroyed the perfect symmetry of your backside’s resting place. It wasn’t a kosher thing to do to another guy. I gingerly sat in the blue chair, relieved there were no springs popping up in uncomfortable places, and turned my attention to the moving pictures.

Apparently, it was re - run night. Or there was absolutely nothing on. When I sat down, I was treated to (in rapid succession), part of an episode of MacGyver “Of course I can save your daughter! I’m going to need one boot, three silver pipe cleaners, a squirt gun filled with acetone, seven animal crackers … three pink and four white, and one apricot pit to get us out of this box first!”, a singing contest with some guy who thought he was a decent singer “Blame it on the a - a - a - a - a - alcohol…”, and a cooking show “Today, we’re going to learn how to make my Uncle Mac’s gluten - free peanut butter cookies…”, before they finally settled on a talk show. The episode was entitled “I was abducted by aliens, and now I’m pregnant!”

Three of the women were very visibly expecting, and then the host brought out the fourth guest … a man who had much the same stomach as the women with the uncomfortable expression brought on by making a fool of oneself on television. The guys I was sharing the motor home with began to hoot and holler, laughing uproariously. Hey, if zombies could exist, why couldn’t guys get pregnant? Then the boyfriends came on, and all hell broke loose. Even the expecting guy had a boyfriend and the hissing between that pair was worse than any of the catcalling and hair pulling that was going on from the other three. Next they brought the doctor out. He confirmed that all three of the women were pregnant, but two of them were pregnant from the same boyfriend and the other had an unmatched sample. As to the pregnant guy… the doctor just shook his head and confirmed that yes, the man was pregnant and the father wasn’t the boyfriend. But then, that was only doable because he was actually a hermaphrodite and…

I don’t think I could have laughed any harder if I wanted to. Especially when one of the young ladies in question stood up and said, “I don’t believe you all are questioning this! Aliens are real! We all had nosebleeds after we were abducted. And everyone knows that a nosebleed is the primary symptom of an alien abduction and probing!”

NaNoWrimo, Day Twelve: Pieces out of Place

2010-11-12T19:05:00.000-08:00

Nothing that goes with the story in a linear fashion today, but I did get 2,452 words written for the next chapter. You'll just have to wait to read it.

NaNoWrimo, Day Eleven, 16427

2010-11-11T03:01:00.000-08:00

“Ugh!” I exclaimed as I caught the smoke from the flaming pink stick, “those things’ll kill you, you know.”

She shrugged, slender shoulders gleaming in the moonlight. “So you guys’ll just wait around till I rise up again.” The tone was nonchalant, and I snuck a glance at her under the guise of watching for potential threats. She didn’t seem angry or distressed anymore and she used the cigarette to motion me towards the sleek black and chrome home she shared. “Come on,” she said after another drag. “I think we’d better hash this one out before you get run out of here all tarred and feathered for that little stunt you pulled.”

My eyes widened at the prospect and I followed her quickly, recognizing an olive branch when I saw one. I started to apologize, but she told me I wasn’t to talk until she’d had her say. Wordlessly, I nodded and sat with her on the little steps. She’d been born with her extraordinary number of arms to a mother in a little town somewhere in Assumption Parish, Louisiana who was too poor to have the surgery done to correct it. When it was realized that she had full mobility of them, her mother dropped her off at a church, sure she was a spawn of the devil and the result of having sinned or something to that effect.

Fortunately, the priest at Saint Josephine’s was a kindly soul and considered the infant’s extra limbs a miracle. He had her made a ward of the nuns there and she was raised with a full religious education. When the other children made fun of her awkward appearance, they reminded her of the elegance of the spider and how many more things it could accomplish in the service of God than man with his two hands. It hadn’t, she mused, gotten her any closer to God, but it had made her quite fond of spiders. When she’d turned eighteen, she had sought out the advice of a medical expert to remove her other four arms. He wouldn’t do it. After eighteen years, he’d advised her, it was far too risky to do it. It would have been better to have had the procedure done when she were a child or infant when things hadn’t settled into their final configuration.

She’d cried all that night at the knowledge that she wouldn’t be normal for the rest of her life. That she would be on the outskirts of society due to a simple accident of birth. That so - called normal people would shun her or pretend she was quite all right and ignore her limbs as if they were an obstacle to overcome. They were just her, and she was convinced that no one would ever accept her. But when she’d taken her concerns to Father Edward, the old man had smiled at her. Why, he’d asked her, would she want to break what was already fixed? God, he’d explained, had made her the way she was for a reason.

That didn’t make her fixed at all, she’d raged. It made her in need of fixing. If God was so perfect, why hadn’t he made her the same as everyone else? Why couldn’t she be closer to perfect too? Father Edward had laughed this time, and she’d nearly thrown his decanter of coffee at him. How dare he laugh at her? Didn’t he understand she needed the spiritual guidance he would have offered the least member of his flock? How could he not see that?

“Dear child,” he finally said when his mirth had passed, “What makes you think he didn’t?”

This had stopped her. It was obvious to her, obvious to everyone else. Six arms wasn’t normal for a human being. Her attempts to explain this made him chuckle anew. He wouldn’t answer her, but he gave her a sheet of paper. It was the receipt for four years of paid schooling at the University of Maryland. She would study Arachnology and see what made spiders so special that she had been chosen to look like one. She’d never figured that part out, but she had found peace within herself after a fashion and she’d accepted it. When she’d gone to the Rounding Circus one evening after graduation, she’d immediately understood what the performers were were. Realizing she would be better served as one of a pack of freaks instead of a solitary one, she’d talked to Brigit, the Ringmistress at the time for the Eastern division. Brigit had been delighted at the thought of an educational show and an employee who wasn’t terrified of what the family members were. But to keep her from being recognized, she would only run the remaining half of the season with her company. Come winter, she would be given over to the Cirque.

“That was ten years ago,” she finished with a shrug, tossing her cigarette into the nearby gravel and crushing it with an elegant twist of her boot heel. “And here I am. And here you are.” She paused, looking at the sky considering. “Not everyone gets a second chance, frat boy. What are you going to make of yours?” I didn’t answer her, but I didn’t need to. She opened up the door to her trailer and ushered me inside.

NaNoWrimo, Day Ten, 15537 words

2010-11-10T04:58:00.000-08:00

The rest of the day went by in a blur, and it was well after midnight when we had cleaned up the last of it. I wasn’t tired, not in the bone - weary way I should have been after such a long day, but sleep would be welcome, and so when the word was given, I found my way to the trailer and stretched myself out to rest on one of the couch like benches that framed the main eating area. I don’t remember dreaming, but suppose I might have. I’d like to think I did. One more tie to my humanity…whatever was left of it after rising from the grave. Everything was set up, so I spent part of the next morning working up a small act. It would be easier to start as a midway performer with the types of tricks I was familiar with. Cards, small items that vanished up sleeves, simple illusions … I had a faint memory of my mother scolding me for the amount of time I wasted on these “magic” acts as a kid. It would never net me a job, she was forever saying. I looked at the coin I was making vanish and dropped it at the thought of her. She’d had two years to realize I was dead, I chided myself. No use trying to tough through it after two days. But I’d have to do it in front of the marks. No one wants to see a sobbing man – child. I didn’t want to show a false face, either. Upon thinking about it, I had to laugh a little bit at my own narcissism. The hundreds of marks weren’t here to see me. They didn’t even know I existed. And that was how circus folks got along. With that in mind, and my momentary crisis temporarily averted, I got back to work. If I were to have a decent show, I would have to know more than a few tricks. They would also have to be portable, and not rely on mere slight-of-hand. I couldn’t be sure of my dexterity quite yet.

I traveled with Tracy and Eileen the two days it took to get to the next town. They were as comfortable in their own skins as Dennis and Kylie were. I couldn’t, however, stop myself from staring at the extra sets of arms as they assisted Eileen in the numerous household chores she insisted on to keep her busy while the bus was moving. It was as we were arriving outside of Lucedale, Mississippi that she finally snapped.

“Jeff, look, I don’t mind having you here, but I do mind being stared at like a freak.”

“Um…” I was certain I should apologize, I just wasn’t entirely sure I could provide a specific reason if I was pressed. From the look in her eyes, I’d need one. And it certainly wasn’t the time to bring up that she had called herself a freak.

“You got a problem with my extra arms?”

As my brain was puzzling this one out and coming to the conclusion that I truly didn’t mind her arms, my mouth had engaged. And without any sort of censor in place what came out was, “No…but wouldn’t it be easier if you had them fixed? I mean … you’d find shirts easier and …”

It didn’t get any further. She slapped me, hard, with each of her six hands. Anyone who’s told you girls can’t hit hasn’t met Eileen. Her slaps had the force of a truck – driver’s blow and with the fury written across her face, I thought it was better if I stayed on the ground where the initial onslaught had put me. Her voice was crystal – clear and colder than I’d imagined possible.

“Get yourself fixed first, frat boy. Fix being undead, and then I’ll consider it.”

Tracy was watching from the driver’s seat and opened the door to indicate I should go. I did, quickly, but not quickly enough to avoid hearing Eileen’s desolate soprano sobs before the door closed and Tracy’s murmured words of consolation. Sometimes, I’m just a world – class tool. Word went around the buses quickly, and I didn’t see a friendly face anywhere that evening. Perhaps this wasn’t the place for me, I thought morosely. Or perhaps I was just enough of an idiot to screw up the only place that would have me undead. There weren’t any offers of a place to crash, so I racked out under one of the buses after supper. Not an ideal choice, considering they could all take off and leave me, but I didn’t see a whole lot of other options.

It was around midnight when a boot kicked me lightly in the ribs. I rolled out of the way, tensed for a beating, but it never came. Instead, Eileen’s face was peering under the bus and she was extending an arm. When I hesitated, she sighed and rolled under with me. I couldn’t move into the open fast enough, and stopped when I heard her laughter. Had she just driven me out into the open for the others to beat on me? I whirled around, looking for potential assailants, giving her time to get out from under the bus and light a cigarette.

NaNoWrimo, Day Nine, 14648 words

2010-11-09T12:07:00.000-08:00

“Oh, yeah. I’ve got my Bachelor’s in Arachnology from the University of Maryland. Come on this way and I’ll introduce you.”

While I pondered this, I followed her out the back flap of her tent and to a sleek black motor home. Unlike the one I had crashed in the previous two evenings, this one wasn’t a converted bus. It had aerodynamic lines like something out of a fifties science fiction movie and what wasn’t black was elegantly accented by chrome. I patted the side admiringly as I followed her in through the side door. The interior of this wasn’t as elegant as the outside, but what caught my attention was the series of terrariums along the side wall. There were ten of them, each housing a tropical setting and containing enormous, fuzzy spiders in all colors. Eileen went to a back area and began pulling out small cases like one might use to transport rodents as I gawked at the surely deadly insects.

She returned, carefully luring nine of them into separate cases and naming them as she did so. I didn’t catch all the names. I didn’t catch anything beyond the fact that they were all tarantula variants, female, and apparently friendly as far as spiders went. When I noticed her leaving the last one in it’s cage, I took a closer look. This one was a little smaller than the others, with bright golden fur. A closer glance showed a second one in the same terrarium and I squatted down. Eileen placed her head down next to mine and smiled.

“Those two are Sarah and Jareth.” At my blank look, she prompted, “From the Labyrinth movie?” When this didn’t clear up my lack of understanding, she sighed. “What are they teaching you kids these days? These two are Heteropoda davidbowie, and there’s maybe 500 of them in the wild. You … um … do know who David Bowie is, right?“ I wasn’t sure I could do anything but nod, and this seemed to satisfy her. “Because they’re in a protected habitat here, I’m working on breeding them for possible re - release in future generations.”

“You can do that?”

“Sure. I’ve got the degree and the license for it.” She stood up again and picked up a cage with each hand. “Get the other three and help me get the girls to my tent, will you? I leave them here between shows so they don’t get any funny ideas.”

This, at least, was a little more familiar. I was a gopher, not a biologist, and I really didn’t like spiders. Regardless of my inclinations, I picked up the silver tray and headed out of the motor home a half - dozen paces behind my hostess. Focusing on where I was putting my feet so I wouldn’t go sprawling and freeing the little death dealers I was transporting, I was startled by the nearby roar of a motorcycle. Fearing the worst, I froze and looked up in time to see a slender figure on a small motorcycle pull up. It looked more like a dirt bike than a real motorcycle, but it worked for the woman astride it. She was almost androgynous in her blood red leathers, and the amused look on Eileen’s face allowed me to relax. This wasn’t someone interested in causing havoc amongst our little family, so it had to be someone from it. I placed a pleasant smile on my face and waited for the reveal. The rider took the scarlet helmet off with classic commercial - style movements to reveal Tracy, and I remembered the comment about riding the ring of death. Ignoring me, she kissed the other woman gently and took four of the spiders who didn’t seem agitated in the least by the commotion.

With a quick turn, she was on her way back to the tent. “I got these ones, babe.” She called over her shoulder in that lovely contralto voice of hers. “Why don’t you take the other girls from the new boy over there and let him get some lunch?” Lunch, I realized, sounded marvelous. I hadn’t eaten since dinner the night before and while I was hungry, I was more interested in the socialization aspects of the meal. I couldn’t imagine where a bunch of zombies would eat meat in peace while the outside world milled about their eating tent. The answer turned out to be “in their trailers.” Rollo dragged me along to a different trailer where a full dozen performers were contentedly gulping down a quick meal in relative peace. Four of them looked exactly like Rollo and these were introduced as Ronald, Robert, Roger, and Richard. He was part of a set of quintuplets, I remembered belatedly, and determined to do my best to keep them all straight.

NaNoWrimo, Day Nine, 13844 words

2010-11-09T03:53:00.000-08:00

Chapter Four

The next day was much busier. I didn’t have an act worked up yet, so I spent my day helping on the midway. Mostly I was running errands. Getting toys for the few games, running full cash pouches to the trailer and the like. As it was a rainy day, there weren’t a whole lot of visitors and I got a chance to take a look around the place to see what everyone else did when they weren’t performing. Kylie’s tent looked like something out of the Arabian nights, glitzy and shining with many stripes of all colors of the rainbow, silver thread apparently patching them all together. The sign in front said “Lady Winter’s Tent of Mysteries.” I chuckled at the sign and then gave a genial nod to the happy looking couple coming out. A brunette I didn’t know was running a stand for horseback rides, and Bill was running the strong - man game.

I was passing by a green striped tent when a voice called out from it, “Hey, new guy, give me a hand with this, will ya?” Eager to oblige, I went around to the front of the tent and entered. I didn’t see anyone and looked around a little closer. “False back, just slide through the middle,” the voice advised.

This time, I did see it and entered the small back area. I should have realized it was there after seeing Kylie’s tent, but for some reason it never entered my mind that the pattern should be repeated in other tents. Inside the small changing area was a woman with four arms. I blinked in astonishment and she waved an extra pair at me from where they had been fiddling with something behind her back. Six? I needed a minute to fully understand what I was seeing. No question about it, she had six arms. I wasn’t sure whether to be astounded, sickened, or just amazed. Despite the extra arms, she was quite pretty, with her features set in the classic Bettie Page mold. Her eyes were laughing at me as she watched me taking her in like a slack - jawed yokel.

“I charge most folks a twenty to come in and gape that way, you know.”

I blinked quickly and turned a faded pink color. “Sorry, I’ve never seen anyone…”

She grinned. “Well, let’s say I’m handy to have around.” She waved all six of her hands at me to underscore the pun and then put two sets of them on her hips. “Would you give me a hand with my top, please?” Again, I found myself in the position of just staring at her. “Look, here’s how this works. Nobody in the world makes shirts with six arms and I don’t sew, so all my tops have to be custom made to tie in back. Generally, I have Tracy do this but she’s running her circle of death for the mundanes right now. Unless you’re terrified of the little woman with more than the usual complement of arms, you’ll have to do.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so I went around and hooked up the four sets of delicate golden chains that held the back of her shirt together. It was rather like a cross between a halter top and a hospital gown, but shorter , and when I came back around, it fit as nicely as any shirt could…if a person had six arms and a rather nice chest. She shifted a little, adjusting her fit in them, and gave me a ‘thumbs - up’ gesture with the hands she‘d been using to hold her long hair out of the way. The other hands were occupied with putting on makeup and jewelry. As she finished the myriad details a woman had to attend to before she showed her face to the outside world, she introduced herself as Eileen, better known to the outside world as Araña, the Spider Girl. When I asked if she was a zombie like the rest of us, she just chuckled softly to herself. Not everyone, she explained was undead in the Rounding family, though they made up most of the staff. There were some honest to goodness freaks in there. Ones that the doctors didn’t kill off or mutilate under the guise of kindness and the misguided opinion that it would be, “better that way.”

I think I sputtered something about her showing herself off in this manner to be wrong … or maybe it was illegal … or something like that. I knew it was illegal in Michigan. I’d read that online somewhere. She tilted her head to one side as if considering my intelligence level in an unkind manner.

“Look … it’s Jeff, right?” I nodded dumbly. “It’s not what you’re thinking. I’m not going to go out to the audience, take off my top and shake the girls around while men gawk at me and their wives pass out in shock and horror. This isn’t the nineteen twenties and I have more dignity than that. I’m ESPECIALLY not going to sit on someone’s lap and feel them up with a few sets of my arms. For one thing, I don’t get off on that. It’s gross, and people try and return the favor. You should see the ones who ask for that kind of crap. What I do is go out and show off my pets and talk about them some. It’s educational and family friendly. And you should see some of the little ones who come in.” She smiled fondly. “I love kids. They’re honest, and won’t avoid looking at my extra arms. They’re also not ogling my chest.”

“Sorry”, I muttered, looking at her face again, “Pets?”

NaNoWrimo, Day Eight, 12881 words

2010-11-08T18:52:00.000-08:00

He let us into the back of the truck and I noticed the floor and ceiling were made of a solid material. It was enough to keep the lions from feeling … caged in for lack of a better term, but still keep them safe from the outside elements. The four largest beasts ignored us until they were finished with their carcass and then came over to make their introductions. Only one of them had a mane, and this great fellow was the first to say hello. I’d never been next to anything quite that large, and the tawny eyes that inspected me were far more intelligent than I would have given them credit for. My companion got down to the cat’s level and opened his mouth wide, puffing out air as he did so. The animal put a paw the size of a dinner plate on his shoulder and returned the favor, allowing Dennis to put his entire head in his mouth. The man reached up and scratched at the lion’s nose carefully in a show of how gentle the creature was.

With a snap, the cat chose that moment to close his mouth around my fellow zombie’s neck and all but grin at me in a very Cheshire cat fashion. I heard a rumble from inside the mouth and then he was spitting Dennis out with a loud and satisfied rumble. Fearing the worst, I looked over at the long haired man, only to see him laughing. As smoothly as one of his beasts, he rolled himself upwards and launched at the creature with a bellow of his own. I had the feeling that this was a common occurrence so I sat myself down to watch the pair wrestling like cubs on one of the nature shows that my mother insisted I watch as a kid when she wanted to get some housework done.

While I was enjoying the show, two small shadows approached, and I found myself the subject of investigation by a pair of lion cubs. They were cute little buggers, with needle – sharp teeth that they used to great advantage as I quickly found out. Their claws weren’t much better, but I knew better than to make any sudden movements. While I might have the weight advantage over these cubs, should I move in a potentially threatening manner, their mothers would get involved. I allowed one to use my arm for pouncing practice and the other crawled into my lap. As absorbed as I was by their antics, I hadn’t noticed the lionesses moving closer to me until they ringed me. There wasn’t any appearance of hostile intent from the golden trio, they were simply keeping an eye on their cubs. I slowed my movements a little more, just to make sure they knew I wasn’t a threat, and waited to be pulled out of this mess.

In a little while, Dennis approached with the male lion. He introduced the beast as Mufasa, and the cubs as Crumpet and Scone. At the disparity in the names, he shrugged. He hadn’t gotten to name the adults, and Kylie had insisted on naming the little ones, so he took no responsibility for it. The lionesses were Cleopatra to my front, Nefertiti to my left, and Isis to my right. I didn’t snigger over the idea of lion being named for a Ibix – shaped goddess. For all I knew, the beast would take offense. It was quiet here, peaceful, and despite my rocky beginning of the after - death experience, this wasn’t too bad at all.

NaNoWrimo, Day Eight, 12281 words

2010-11-08T02:58:00.000-08:00

A knock - knock joke, a magic trick, something. But I had to prove that I was worth having picked up. Well, I supposed I wasn’t just going to be kept around for giggles and my boyish good looks. I thought back to my party tricks from my living days and grinned, noticing the muscle - man zombie had a beautiful watch on.

“Excuse me, sir?” I asked him at my most charming, “Might I see your watch for just a moment?” He nodded and handed it over. “Most appreciated. Hmm…would you let everyone know what time it is?”

I held up the watch so he could look at it and he read out the time, seven fifteen. “Thank you, thank you…now, what is your name, please?”

“Bill.” He said, in a voice befitting the beefy body.

“Bill, I’m pleased to meet you, I surely am” I stuck out one hand to shake his and very subtly moved my fingers with the other as I continued my spiel. “My name’s Jeff, but everyone calls me Spoon. It’s a long story and not entirely appropriate for mixed company…But please, call me Spoon if you’d like.” I got some laughs at this and went to put the watch in my pocket. “Oops, don’t want to do that!” I placed the watch face down in his meaty palm. Now, Bill, I want you to focus on a number of minutes for me. Any number from one to sixty. Don’t be shy, just think about it.” I paused for a heartbeat or two, realizing everyone’s attention was on me and it had been two years since I’d done this trick. “You got your number?”

“Yep.”

That’s wonderful, Bill, now, think about that number, and close your hand around your watch like so. There’s a good guy. I’m going to wave my hand around your cupped one.” I matched action to word at this one. “Am I touching your hand at all?” He shook his head. “You still thinking about that number?” He nodded. “All right, Bill. At the count of three, I’m going to press one finger against your fist and you’re going to open it up and you’re watch is going to be as many minutes ahead as you were thinking. Are you ready?” He nodded one last time.

“All right then, One … Two … Three.”

Bill opened his hand and proclaimed “Hey! That’s my number! I thought of twenty five minutes and you made my clock move twenty five minutes ahead. How’d you do that?"

I just grinned at him. "It's easy, when you're the master of time, space, and six other dimensions."

There was a long pause, and then a single pair of hands clapping as I took my bow. It was the red haired woman, and this seemed to be the signal for the others who applauded me and couldn't wait to be introduced from there. The cleanup was communal as well, and I met more zombies than I could have ever hoped to keep track of. Tracy placed herself to my left and helped keep me from being too overwhelmed. I appreciated that she did that, though I was too busy talking at the time to do more than nod at her gratefully. I’m sure you’ve all heard the saying about many hands making light work? It’s that way in the circus too. Dinner was cleaned up far faster than it was made, and then sawdust was being placed down to cover the blood spatter. Within an hour, it looked like an empty circus tent, and no one would ever have guessed that a mob of zombies had just finished eating there. The old – fashioned ring was set up as were the bleachers and now all that it needed was an audience and a few acts to make the scene complete. Maybe some cotton candy, I thought with a grin.

I noticed as everyone left the confines of the ring, they touched the inside ridge. I looked at Dennis curiously and he explained that it was for luck. Tradition. Not wanting to muck with something like that, I touched it too and followed him out into the night. It was calm and peaceful, with a few clouds wandering lazily across the horizon. He watched them for a minute and frowned before realizing I was still there and called me to come meet his pride. That didn’t make a whole lot of sense, until we approached a truck with barred sides. He made an odd noise as we approached, between a growl and a chuckle, and six tawny heads popped up from their dinner and repeated it back to him. Lions. Dennis had a lion act. That would explain the use of the word pride, and his utter calm. Anyone who worked with wild beasts had to have that almost unnatural serenity about them. Of course, there wasn’t much natural about our kind if I thought about it.

NaNoWrimo, Day Seven, 11451 words

2010-11-07T11:24:00.000-08:00

“Help first, then we’ll eat and I’ll introduce you around.”

It sounded like a good plan to me, so I offered my assistance to a slender young woman in blue jeans and a black tank top that was preparing vegetables. She handed me a knife and a basket of mushrooms and indicated I should slice them into the tins that already held varied types of greens and tomato wedges. As I did so, she took a peeler and meticulously created curls of an odd looking brown vegetable into them. She was fast too, and each of the curled bits was perfect and identical to its brethren.

“They’re carrots.” She explained as she finished her batch. “And you can quit staring.”

I looked down at my own tin and realized I wasn’t even halfway done with the mushrooms. Grabbing the next tin, which contained radishes, she began to cut them with finicky little slices at apparently random angles, letting the chips fly into the salads. After a few minutes, she turned out a perfect little radish rose and began the process again, putting twenty of them into each of the four tins. No wonder she didn’t want to talk to me, I thought gloomily. It would be like Emeril trying to create a dish with the assistance of a five year old. Maybe ten. I didn’t remember being able to hold a knife like that at five. We worked in silence, creating a salad that held more colors than anything I’d seen outside of a restaurant in my living years. I noticed there was the least amount of salad and asked her about that.

She shrugged and told me I’d just have to wait and see. Precisely ten minutes later, a series of little bells was being rung around the tent and an enormous man with a chef’s hat walked into the tent, pushing an elegant silver cart. Grabbing a seat, I waited anxiously to see what deserved such ceremony. The large man brought the cart over to a table near the center of the circle of tables and presented it to a red – haired zombie with a decorum that most servants would have envied. With a swift movement of his large hand, he removed the domed cover from the cart and a beautifully pink stack of brains was presented. I nearly fell out of my seat with need for them, and a small hand was placed on my upper leg.

I looked up to see my salad – making companion shaking her head solemnly. Her eye fell out as she did so, and she snatched it in mid – air, placing it back in in a fluid movement as if this were a common occurrence. Perhaps it was. The red haired woman made quite a show of picking out her brain, and then the cart was wheeled around with everyone taking a single brain. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to hold out, but I made it until the cart reached me with plenty of the sweetbreads left. I took a small one, to be polite, and the girl next to me took quite a large one. I regretted my choice a little as the cart moved on, and she winked at me.

With a swift tug on my hand, she pulled me to my feet and we wheeled our own carts around with the salad, making sure to serve ourselves last. Then Dennis served the meat with theatrical aplomb and we could finally eat. Zombies, I discovered, are not neat eaters. I tried. Really I did, but the combination of good meat and fresh brains was too much to resist. Soon I was as covered in gore and meat shreds as if I worked in a slaughterhouse, and I didn’t much care. Between bites, my companion introduced herself as Tracy, the Daredevil Mistress. When I raised an eyebrow, she promised to show me after supper was cleaned up.

I rather liked the communal food experience. It wasn’t like eating in the school cafeteria or in a restaurant, but almost like having an enormous family gathering where all the family actually liked each other. There were ribald jokes going about as well as people entertaining in the middle of the circle at some signal I couldn’t determine. Except for the blood and tissue everywhere, it might have been a normal scene. Then I chuckled to myself. No one would be afraid of zombies again if they saw this. Or maybe they would. Especially if they saw the way we ate. I’d wondered about the camping stoves until I noticed another guy stand up and pull a large cast iron pot off each of the burners. When he took the lids off, I smelled something wonderful and familiar. It took a minute to place the scent. It was cherry cobbler, I decided, and I was more than happy to have that as well.

It was while I was finishing up my third bowl of cobbler that Tracy nudged me and indicated the red - haired woman who nodded at me once when she realized she had my attention. Before I could ask what I was supposed to do, Tracy hissed that I was supposed to perform something.

NaNoWrimo, Day Seven, 10574 words

2010-11-07T04:41:00.000-08:00

“And that was that.” Kylie was sitting on the chair opposite me and I jumped about a foot. I hadn’t even heard her come in. “Old Georg left with three of us risen in tow and started his journey in some of the harshest weather he’d experienced in his life. Having spent most of his life in a Swiss village, he was used to snow, but it was nothing like the winter they had that year. If he wasn’t simply exaggerating, the snow was deep enough to lose Laz in, and once he did.”

“How did you know where I was in the story?”

“I’m familiar with the look. It’s an ‘A-ha!’ moment, isn’t it? Learning that zombies are real. Makes you wonder about the other childhood terrors, doesn’t it?” Her dark eyes scanned me, waiting for the other realizations to hit.

They did. “Are there?” I tried to sound cool, but my voice squeaked at the end, betraying my concern.

“Are there what?” she asked, playing coy.

“More than zombies?”

“Sure. We travel with a werewolf. He’ll tell you it’s just a combination of being hirsute and some rare virus or other, but you should hear him howl at the full moon. Can’t knock the kid though, he’s a whiz with computers.”

“You guys have…” I was stunned.

“Sure. Most of us do. I write the blog for Cirque for those who are interested. Of course, I have to edit some of the more interesting bits out. Like the zombies and the other realities that breathers don’t want to acknowledge.

“Vampires?” I asked.

“Possibly.” She admitted with a shrug. “Personally, I’ve never met one, though Kelly over on the Rounding side claims they’ve just picked one up. We’ll get to meet him in a few weeks and see if he is what he claims.”

“Fairies?” This last inquiry was barely audible.

She looked at me with a half - laugh. “Aren’t you a little old to believe in fairies?” She chuckled softly before continuing. “Like the vamps, I’ve never met one, kid. But … as the Bard is oft mis-quoted as saying,” Here she took up a noble stance and held a crystalline skull in her hand, “There are more things in your heaven and earth, Horatio…”

“Jeff.”

“Hmm?” This took her a minute to process. “I don’t recall a ‘Jeff’ in Hamlet.”

“My name’s Jeff. Jeffrey Abraham Wilkens the ...fifth, I think. My friends called me … Spoon.”

“Hey, you remember! That’s great! Do you know how long you were buried?” I shook my head and she frowned. “Okay, let’s see. Today is November the fourth, twenty - ten. What’s the last year you remember?”

“Fall. I’d just started school in New Mexico. October…I think…two thousand and …eight?”

Her frown deepened. “Two years? Anything after a year tends to leave you a brain – hunting mental cantaloupe.”

I tried harder. “There was a hospital.”

“Ohhhh! That would explain it. It would also explain the lack of wiring and broken bones. All the healing was done there. It’s amazing what those machines’ll do.”

We talked the better part of the day about the mundanities of zombie living. There seemed to be a hundred and one things in my new life that she took for granted that would never have crossed my mind to ask about. When it was her turn to drive, Rollo rejoined me and we started catching up on some of the movies I’d missed over the last two years. Turned out there were a few good ones and a lot of crappy ones, but it killed time until dinner. He was an amusing and knowledgeable movie companion, full of little details and factoids that made the movies much better, though there was nothing that could be done for most of the superhero flicks. I’d grown up on the comic books, and sat in stunned silence at what was portrayed on the screen that had been hidden beneath the mottled red tapestry. We came to a stop just outside of Bentley, Kansas around six in the evening and Kylie pulled the traveling home over in a publicly owned camping ground.

Dennis wandered back and invited us to help with supper. I didn’t think there’d be enough room for all four of us to cook in the little kitchen and decided to skip out on this one. Instead he led us out the front door and to a large red and black – striped tent where prep tables and six large propane stoves had been set up. Inside, almost everyone had gray – green skin and that dirt smell that I was fast becoming accustomed to. I saw an enormous amount of vegetables and what must have been four cows worth of meat cut into portion – sized slabs. It was fresh, and my mouth was watering. Rollo grinned at me and patted me on the arm.

NaNoWrimo, Day Six, 9755 words

2010-11-06T12:39:00.000-07:00

I flipped through a few months of terse entries and stopped when a new name caught my eye. Laura.

December the Twenty - first

It has been six months since Lazarus has come to live with us. He is a most excellent man - servant and a great friend to Liesel. I have deemed it unwise to allow him all the duties of his station, after all, I have a great fondness for my neck and his shaving it might cause irreparable damage. Liesel was gone again this morning, and the back porch held another risen, much as it had six months ago. This one was a young woman of color, and I gave her the name of “Laura.” Much as I love this home here in Raleigh, it may no longer be safe to remain if Liesel is going to be bringing home more companions every six months. To that end, I have made an appointment with my solicitor, Mister Weatherbee for tomorrow. I will tell him I am ready to sell Foxhaven, he has often hinted that he knew of others willing to purchase the grand home, and we will travel, the three … no … excuse me … four of us. We shall see if we can find other risen and if they can be created into their own society. There are many places in this young and prospective nation that will surely have few people and our histories will be unnoticed. I do suspect that should the local folk here discover that I am cohabiting with their beloved deceased ones, I will be strung up from the nearest tall tree.

For now, it is off to bed with me. A man with a family to maintain needs his rest.

December the Twenty - Second

Mister Weatherbee arrived promptly at nine in the morning as we’d planned. It is always a comfort when one’s solicitor is on time. He himself was a rounded man with long black hair tied into a neat ponytail and merry green eyes. He spent quite a bit of time observing the elegant trappings of my beautiful mansion and I could almost see him mentally adjusting his bill to a higher amount on account of it. It didn’t matter how much of a fee the man wished to extract then. What mattered to me this morning was keeping Liesel and her other brethren safe from detection. Escorting the man to the living room, Lazarus brought us a tray of tea and cakes that I had prepared earlier before he quietly took his leave of us. The solicitor looked puzzled as if trying to place the face, but seemed to forget the matter when I began speaking.

“Mister Weatherbee, so good of you to come on such short notice. My lovely sister’s health has taken a turn for the worse, and the doctors say it will be better if we move her someplace drier. She has been ill for so long, that I would give anything to make her well again. She is, after all, all the family I have left.”

“Well, we certainly wouldn’t want anything more to happen to Miss Liesel.” He assured me, earnestness radiating from every pore. “She’s had such a tragic life already. Do tell me, Mister Rounding, how may I help you in this matter?”

“I wish to move within the week. I need for you to arrange for transportation to Kansas for us and the sale of my home. I shall miss this city, but when it comes to dear Liesel’s health…” Here I shrugged and sighed wistfully. “Though I shall miss my magnolia blossoms, and the friendliness of the people in this beautiful southern climate.”

“I understand, I do.” The lawyer hastened to tell me. “I believe I can help you with this. Simply get your house packed, and I will do the rest. For a nominal fee, of course.”

“Of course.”

We talked of a few inconsequential things, and by the time I escorted him from the house, he believed he had gotten quite a bargain. I knew I had. And that was all. By New Year’s Day, we shall be crossing the states and beginning our mission of mercy to find other risen. I shall have to come up for a name with these creatures that were once human. I like the word “Zombie,” but Liesel just growls when I use it, so I suspect I shall have to keep thinking.

NaNoWrimo, Day Six, 9006 words

2010-11-06T03:35:00.000-07:00

Chapter Three

Rollo, it turned out, was a midget. Fortunately, or perhaps otherwise, he wasn’t the one I tried to squish in his cannon. That was his brother, Ronald. The truth of the matter was that Rollo had four brothers, all identical. They’d been born at the start of the roaring Twenties, in a farmhouse in New Jersey, and had been celebrated. After all, there were no fertility drugs back then and the fact that all five boys and their mother had survived was considered to be a miracle. When the Great Depression hit, their mother began making money by showing the boys as a local attraction. It kept them all fed and in shoes, and it wasn’t a bad life. Unfortunately, they were the grand marshalls in a winter parade in 1942 when the float they were riding went off the road and into a pond. By the time they could be rescued, all five were dead. In a tale as amazing as their lives, they’d risen after a year, and had taken up with the Roundings. Concerned that they might be remembered for their minor brush with celebrity - hood, they transferred over to the Cirque.

“And here we is.” Rollo concluded around the thick ham sandwich he’d made during his narrative. I noticed after sixty years, his Jersey accent was still pretty thick, and asked about it. “Eh.” He said, then dropped his voice. “Look, kid, I coulda learned to talk fancy like these two, but then nobody’d know who I was, see?” He sounded like a bad parody of a gangster flick and I was hard put not to smile. Instead, I managed to nod thoughtfully and looked at the red volume in my hand. Catching my glance, he nodded and took another bite of his sandwich. “Georg’s diary, huh? Well, it’s good readin. Old Georg, he knew a thing or two ‘bout us, iffn ya’ know what I’m saying.”

I thought I might, so I excused myself to read. No one was in the little library, so I flipped the light for the brass sconces and began to read.

June the Sixteenth

With the addition of meat to her diet, Liesel is progressing amazingly well. I do not doubt that she will be able to pass herself off for a society woman soon. At least … long enough to walk around the town square. She is becoming very restless of a night, and I hope this will pass.

June the Eighteenth
She used several new words in English today including “brother,” and “meat.” She needs a staggering amount of it, and will not eat it when it is cooked. I have had to make arrangements with several butchers for daily deliveries as she can easily consume a full deer in a day, and I do not wish the butchers to take too much of a prurient interest. The brains seem to do her the most good as she is quite active after eating them. She is picking up skills quickly and insisting on dressing herself. I have had to have several dresses made without the buttons as she cannot or possibly will not make the delicate movements necessary to feed them through the buttonholes that today’s fashions seem to require.

The modisse was most distressed at the simplicity of the gowns I had asked her to make, but when she met Liesel, she immediately understood her to be a simple soul and the necessity of such dresses. The clothing in and of itself did not cost much as it does not have the fripperies most women insist on and my lovely Liesel is pleased to be able to dress without my assistance. She cannot yet style her own hair, but I feel it is only a matter of time.

June the Twenty - First

Liesel scared me immensely by not being in her bedroom when I awoke. The little scamp had taken the time to place the outside key neatly in its hole, however the effect was rather ruined by the door being opened. I admit to having horrific visions of her eating the neighbors or possibly their pets by the time I arrived at the back door to begin the search for her. Instead of terrifying the neighborhood, she was on the back steps with a very tall gentleman. He had a similar gray - green complexion to my Liesel and I understood the cause of her restlessness. Somehow, she had discovered another of the risen and brought him home to me to “fix.”

My first concern was that he might be recognized if he were from the area, but I could not very well turn him away. Not when Liesel now had a companion of her own kind. Perhaps they will be able to breed in the future? Time to think on that later, I suspect. Hopefully, this will not become a trend as a house full of Risen might put me rather on the list of neighbors to avoid. They do seem to be communicating in some fashion, and Liesel is most insistent the man share her meals.

I believe I shall call him Lazarus.

NaNoWrimo, Day Five, 8142 Words

2010-11-05T16:31:00.000-07:00

“Wait? This branch? There’s more?”

“It’s almost five hundred of us when all is said and done.” I mouthed the words ‘five hundred’ with eyes widening until they felt as large as dinner plates. “Don’t worry.” His words and tone were reassuring as he took in my expression and Kylie giggled merrily. “We’ve got a good relationship with the police down there. We don’t even usually have to spring our folks from the pokey. They just wander on home by themselves. After all, who’s going to believe anyone who tells them they saw a zombie ambling down the street or checking out the wine section at the local supermarket? And what police chief’s going to want the trouble of filling out the paperwork for eaten prisoners?

Dennis smiled indulgently at his wife before he answered. “There are two Rounding circuses now, and to keep the confusion to a minimum, we call the one that travels the east half of the country the Rounding, and the one that travels the west half of the country is known simply as Cirque. As each of us is different, so the shows are different. We have a rather extensive midway to add to our show, and each of us has a couple roles to play. The Roundings consider themselves a cross between a small traveling show and a theater. They’re pretty good, and we trade acts back and forth when it suits us. Either way, we gather in Talledega for the winter to catch up, repair stuff, and pick up new human labor.”

I nodded, to show him I conceded the point and his face broke into a smile. Excusing himself, he opened the door to another of the little rooms and I was astounded to see a library in there. It was small, true, but three of the walls were covered with bookshelves and books from floor to ceiling. The fourth wall had a fireplace, a large scarlet tapestry depicting a dragon formed of Celtic knot - work, and a pair of Victorian – looking sconces for light. The stuffed chairs from the back of Kylie’s midway tent sat at just the right distance from the fireplace and the room would easily have been at home in any of the Regency romance novels my mom had loved so much.

I stopped at that thought, tears threatening to overwhelm me. I never had asked how long I’d been gone and the memory of my mom curling up with a stack of cheesy romance novels burned in my check like a live coal, threatening to leave me a shell of my former self. The fact that I was undead, perhaps, made me but a shell of my former self, but I didn’t want to consider that right now. Dennis pretended to be interested in the books on the shelf and Kylie had vanished. I didn’t blame them. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be around me while I dealt with this either. I looked down at my grayish feet until the moment subsided and I looked up. The long haired man was in front of me, offering a book bound in red leather.

“It’s Georg’s journal. We all keep a copy with us for the new generation. Good stuff in there, you might want to read it.” And with that, he called out to someone named Rollo that he was going to spell him for a while in the driver’s seat.

NaNoWrimo, Day Five, 7566 Words

2010-11-05T11:26:00.000-07:00

What had happened overnight? Had his conditioning simply paid off? He didn’t believe so. While he was reading the most up to date books on healing the troubled mind, nothing he had done so far had proven effective. Had she eaten something that had helped heal her mind a little? Frowning, he took the coffee with him and stepped onto the back porch. It was open, and the color drained from his fine Swiss features. He had done his best to keep Liesel from wandering the neighborhood in fear that she would be seen or attack one of their neighbors. What he saw on the back porch almost made him retch.

It was a cat. Well, it used to be a cat quite recently. The brains had been scooped out and most of the meat was gone. Some of the bones were even cracked and bare of marrow. Being a vegetarian and an animal lover, this sight was grotesque beyond reckoning. But he couldn’t help but notice the enormous mental strides the young woman had taken overnight. Against his better judgment, he went to the local butcher and ordered a deer’s worth of venison and some sweetbreads. He had to stop three times to keep from being sick at the smell and texture of his paper – wrapped bundle, but when he made it back to their home, Liesel was waiting for him at the kitchen door.

“Gehern?” She asked hopefully. Then, to his utter astonishment, she repeated the word in accented English.“Brains?”

He nodded and presented the gruesome package to her. Her fingers, which had been incapable of any but the rudest approximations of movement, opened the package with a delicacy that would have done any maiden proud. And then she fell upon the brains with a savagery that he would never have attested to any human female. Neglecting her hands, she ripped into the grayish flesh and devoured it in as disgusting a manner as any beast or cannibal could have managed. Finishing that, she ate half of the deer and fell asleep where she crouched, face down in the venison, blood coating her face and beautiful golden hair.

Had he been any other kind of man, he might well have decided to kill her there and free himself of his obligation to her. But Georg was honorable, and having spoken of his blonde savage as family, he felt the need to protect her as one might any half – witted cousin. Not having any servants to assist, he bathed her clean of the blood and placed her back into her own bed. She did not arise until evening when he was in the library with a post – supper glass of brandy, puzzling over his next step.

She appeared in the doorframe as silent as a ghost, and spoke softly so as not to startle him. Her words were slow but understandable, and she looked healthier than she had even that morning. She would not be mistaken for a fully alive woman yet, but some of the deterioration seemed to have reversed itself, though the ashy pallor to her skin was still very much in evidence. It made him feel quite ill, but he made a note to arrange an account with the butcher the next day and have fresh meat brought daily to help his sister improve. He would have to sit with her while she fed, of course, to keep her from absolutely losing herself and rampaging through their fine neighborhood, but if he could manage that, things might very well be all right.

Once he’d fed Liesel again and cleaned up the blood spattered over their entire kitchen, he wrote in his journal, “Things going well, Liesel might just make a full recovery.”

As much as I was enjoying Dennis’ discourse on the history of the very unique family I’d found myself adopted into, I had to interrupt here. “So, how many of us are there?”

“Roundings?” He thought about this.

“Surely there can’t be that many. Somebody’s going to notice a hundred zombies milling around in a concentrated area, right?”

Kylie giggled from the sink. She turned to look at me over her right shoulder, suds from the dishes she was washing decorating her cheek. “Not a hundred. We couldn’t even run this branch of the circus with only a hundred of our kind. Who’d feed the lions? Who’d drive the mobile homes?”

NaNoWrimo, Day Five, 6824 Words

2010-11-05T04:20:00.000-07:00

Both the doctor and his apprentice stared at her in surprise. Why in the world would she be saying that? The only living brains in the room were theirs and hers…Feeling a chill that had nothing to do with the dank quality of the room, they secured her in the room and left to discuss their options. Feeling assured that she was a monster in some way, the Doctor was convinced he was in the right to take her life. After all, if he had brought her into the world after her death, he surely had the right to take this life from her. He was like God … no … he was equal to God. And Georg decided that that was the last straw. Firmly believing that the lovely blonde would recover once she’d had some time, he decided that he would run away with her that night to the Americas. His cousin owned a ship heading there at morning’s first light. He would gladly take them to that promised land. His companion could recover at her own pace and perhaps they would together figure out what had allowed her to come back from Heaven. Without, he told himself firmly, resorting to the finality of cutting her into pieces.

He dosed the doctor with laudanum in his milk and come the dead of night, he took the blonde woman to his cousin’s ship, the Greta Green. It was an odd name for a ship, but his cousin was an odd man. Prosperous, but odd. They were soon en route to Raleigh, leaving Switzerland and Doctor Frankenstein far behind them.

I hated to interrupt the flow of this story, but I was pretty sure I was familiar with it and it wasn’t quite the way Dennis had told it. Actually, it wasn’t anything like Dennis had told it, and I called him on it. I watched as the pair exchanged a smile before Kylie turned her attention to me.

“You’re referring to Shelley Clark’s book?” When I nodded, she chuckled. “Partly literary license, and partly the fact that she came on the scene after Georg and Liesel had fled.”

“Who’s Lisel?”

“The blonde risen. She hasn’t been named yet, but she will. As to the story you’re thinking that you’re so familiar with, the doctor was so angered by the defection of his assistant and his construct that he determined to only raise males from the dead from then on. To make it less likely that anyone would recognize his victims, he used parts. A hand was taken from one of the victims, a head was taken from another, a knee from yet a third, and so on. Sadly, the combination of the stitching and the lightning never worked quite right again, and this was the point of Miss Clark’s tale as the Doctor told it to her over drinks.”

“But …” I began again.

“Hush now.” And with that, the tale continued.

Georg and his “sister” Liesel found the city of Raleigh much to their liking. The warm weather was a lovely contrast to the cold of their Alpine home, and with the savings Georg had managed to put aside, they were now living in a beautiful home by the name of Foxhaven. The story that he put about, that Liesel had been traumatized by the death of their parents brought the pair sympathy and a pass from most of the society events. After all, his first responsibility was to his poor sister who was lovely, despite her traumas. In the safety of their own house, Georg spent his time attempting to increase Liesel’s vocabulary with the simplest of words and concepts in their new language.

One morning, as the sun rose brightly over the city, he brought her a cup of coffee, naming it before he handed it over.

“Good morning, Liesel.” He’d hoped she would have gained a few words by now, but she seemed increasingly resistant to learning them. “Coffee?”

She tilted her pretty blonde head and for a moment, a spark of intelligence appeared there. “No.” The young man was astounded. After nearly six months, she’d managed a word in a language not her own. Quickly he asked her if she was sure. The response was slower this time, but it was there. “Yessss.”

NaNoWrimo, Day Four, 6102 words

2010-11-04T11:20:00.000-07:00

He was, as near as the young man could tell, attempting to bring the dead back to life as slaves or worse. He was convinced that had a body even the slightest flicker of life to it, it was possible to bring it back with a combination of absinthe and lightning that would trick the body’s humors into acting as if the body was alive once more. The teenager was convinced that such a thing must surely be against church doctrine. But the Doctor paid him to fetch items and do as he was told, not to think for himself, so he kept his mouth shut and his eyes open. Just as Georg was readying to put out the candles for the evening, the doctor entered the door with a bag slung over his shoulder. Inwardly, he groaned, knowing the next command.

“Georg, to the lab. Quickly now, before this one dies the final death on us.”

Feet heavy, he trudged the forty - four spiraling steps up to the master’s laboratory where he was laying a beautiful young blonde onto the marble slab that served as a work table. She did look as if she were merely sleeping, and Georg almost cringed at the thought of what would happen to her should his master’s experiment succeed. Attempting to keep his professional demeanor, or as professional as a seventeen year old can be, he brought the lightning rods and the absinthe from their respective cupboards and waited for Doctor Frankenstein to place the equipment where it needed to go. The timing, the doctor was fond of saying, was everything in an experiment like this, and as he poured the green liquid into the girl’s mouth, he instructed Georg in the precise timing of placing the rods.
She would, Georg thought glumly, be burnt to a crisp like the others, and that was a shame. He didn’t know her name, but she was lovely enough, and should have had a full life with children and a husband. She didn’t deserve to meet her final fate like this. No one did. He opened his mouth to tell Doctor Frankenstein so when the hair on the back of his neck stood up. It was too late, the lightning was entering the rods and the victim. It was then the assistant noticed the rod that had slipped. Rather than sitting upright on her bosom, it had fallen lengthwise. He reached for it, only to see the arcing lightning and he was blinded. In a few minutes, there was a noise. It was thin and weak, but there. She was choking. Automatically, he turned the girl onto her side and she proceeded to vomit the green absinthe all over his clothes.

The Doctor was practically dancing with joy and crying out “She’s alive! She’s alive!”

She was indeed alive, but there were no signs of intelligence in those curiously blue eyes. Of course, having just been brought back from the dead might account for that. Had she been dead too long? Had the lightning struck as the last flicker of life had died? Or was she always lovely but stupid? This last almost sigh aloud. He’d seen many lovely women without a brain in their heads and many ugly ones with many. Why couldn’t the lovely ones have a thought for more than clothes and beaus? His thoughts wandered on in this vein for a while until he realized the doctor was speaking and he should most likely be listening. He’d brought someone back from the dead, who knew what his next plans might be?

“…and after that, we will have to find out why that worked when none of the others have made it back. Could this young woman be stronger willed? Could she have more of one humor than the others? I believe a dissection is in order.”

“What?” Georg couldn’t believe his ears. Having succeeded in his plan, he wanted to kill his newly formed creature. And was discussing it with the woman in the room. Had she a lick of sense at all, she would have been screaming, calling them both monsters, running away as if all the demons in the world were after her. Instead, she simply sat there and looked at them without a care in the world or a thought in her head.

“But of course. How else are future experiments to succeed? We have raised her from life, we shall raise her again! And again!”

His heart froze in his chest. He could not, no he would not allow this madman to kill the woman before them. She might be stupid, and only somewhat alive, but she deserved more than that. If only she would say something. Do something that would prove she deserved another fate. She was watching him, and almost as if she had divined his thoughts, she opened her mouth and spoke.

“Gehern…”

NaNoWrimo, Day Four, 5278 words

2010-11-04T03:21:00.000-07:00

Chapter Two

The morning made things seem a little better. But then, it always does, doesn’t it? A little bit of sunshine, a moving vehicle, the scent of French toast frying on a griddle … The consideration of moving vehicle made me sit upright. Why was I in a moving vehicle? What was it Kylie had said last night? Last night in town and something about Talledega. I frowned and put on the jeans that were hanging on the hook by my bed. They were a little worn, but clean, and still warm from the dryer. Fortunately for me, they fit nicely. A shirt was underneath the jeans and I opened the door carefully. Another trill of tinkling bells announced my presence and a cheerful male voice called out “Good morning! There’s about ten minutes of hot water left for a shower and breakfast is ready.”

A shower sounded wonderful, so I went into the door indicated and found a small but fully functional bathroom, complete with antique - looking shower stall, commode, and sink. The shower felt heavenly, and I emerged feeling more like my old self. An examination in the mirror showed scabs where the wires had been, and a slightly grayish tinge to my skin, but that was all to indicate that I might not be numbered one of the living any more. I finished off the French toast gratefully and smiled at my hosts, being careful not to crack the newly - formed scabs off.

They were a normal enough looking couple. Dennis was a small bear of a man in workaday clothing. He had longish brown hair with purple streaks and a few day's worth of beard scruff to make him remarkable He was genial enough for having taken a stranger into his home unannounced. Why had they done it? Kylie had said something about tax purposes, but that couldn't be all, surely. It was then I remembered the smell and noticed that Dennis had it too.

"What's with the earthY smell?" I asked without preamble.
Dennis shrugged. "It's what we are. How we smell. Breathers can't usually smell it and good thing. They'd be spooked, there'd be exposes on television, obnoxious talk show hosts would show up ...” he shuddered exaggeratedly, then went on, “Believe me, it's easier this way." He paused for a long moment to finish up another bite of his breakfast before he spoke again. "Besides, the Roundings have always been zombies."

If he'd calculated the precise second I would have been worst put to spit out my food, he couldn't have done a better job than he had with that off - hand remark. I spewed the fried toast back onto my plate and looked chagrined at the doing. I apologized, but the pair of them were chuckling and Kylie was handing me a damp paper towel as if she’d expected it. She assured me a few times that it was alright and elbowed her partner in the ribs when she thought I wasn't looking. Zombies or not, they made a comfortable pairing, and I listened to the unfolding tale they shared.

The year was 1642, and in a dank keep in Switzerland, a smallish young man was waiting for his master to return home. His name was Georg Rounding, and at the age of 17, he was apprentice to the most famous man in this Alpine village, Doctor Victor Frankenstein. This was a position of great honor, and the village elders looked to Georg with respect. After all, the doctor had not taken on an apprentice in many years, and for him to have taken a country lad with no medical training meant there was something surely there that needed respecting. What these so - called wise men and women did not know was that the doctor was a twisted man who was using corpses for experiments. At the time, this wasn’t such an unusual thing. The Church was still queasy about allowing the dead to be desecrated for such things as dissection. But a doctor needed to learn human physiology somehow, and so back alley deals were made. It was an open secret, and the elders knew of the corpses being delivered to the home in the dead of night. It made, they believed, for a better breed of doctor. But Georg knew, and were it not for needing the coin his apprenticeship provided, he would have told all and sundry of the vicious and twisted things Doctor Frankenstein was attempting to accomplish.

NaNoWrimo, Day Three, 4522 words

2010-11-03T19:36:00.000-07:00

As she smiled and opened her mouth to talk, the little bell rang over our heads. With a rueful smile, she motioned me to quiet and stepped out to talk to the customer … or mark as she insisted on calling them. This time I was better able to appreciate her patter.

“The spirits bless you, lovely young ones. I am Lady Winter, and I am here to convey messages from the otherworld. Do not fear…I know all and see all, and will be happy to tell you what I may.”

There was a trio of giggles and the scent of lovely fresh meat. I shook my head and forced myself to listen as she read the palms of each of the girls. One would be an artist and fortunate in love, another would be a caretaker with many children, and the last was to marry very rich indeed. They giggled and gawped and must have crossed her palm with the appropriate amount of cash before they left because she fawned over them. Maybe that was part of the schtick too, I thought with a sudden wave of exhaustion. You would think after sleeping and zombifying for … however long it had been, I wouldn’t be tired. But running for your life and having wires and cotton pulled out of you like a demented manikin does wear a guy out. Or so I guess from the fact that I fell asleep in the chair and didn’t wake until the morning sun hit my face.