Of Monsters and Mice: the mostly true story of my life
You know how the saying goes: “Whatever can go wrong… will go wrong.”
It's an apt slogan for my existence thus far.
But perhaps that oversimplifies the thing. The phrase shouldn’t end there. A more accurate descriptor might go something like this: “Whatever can go wrong…will go wrong…. except when it doesn’t and goes bafflingly, marvelously right in the most awkward way humanly possible.”
Yes, that’s a better way to surmise my life thus far, because as I sit here and clatter away at the keys, I’m aware that calling my life a failure is a falsehood. I’ve got some pretty great things going on. I’ve got cute kids, a dedicated husband, a home, and a day-to-day existence so sickeningly sweet it’d give your neighborhood pessimist cavities. Alas, you’re not here to read about that part– that part is boring. The things that go right usually are. And hey, I’m here to tell ya that boring isn’t always a bad thing. Boring leaves some space for peace. If you’ve found that (peace, I mean), please let me know– ’cause I’m still searching. So, let’s dive in, why don’t we? I suppose we should start where all good stories do…
At the beginning.
It began before I can remember. It began with a woman much stronger than I, a woman who overcame, a woman who inspires me to be the best version of myself every single day (It’s my mom, duh). Yes, my mother. She is a rare woman. She is the strongest person I know, but not in that harsh, horrible kind of way. She is strength in her gentleness, in her caring spirit, in her meticulous cleanliness, in her arms that encircle with warmest embrace. She is the reason I’m writing this. I hear her soft alto whispering in the back of my mind even now, “You have got to write a book about your life, Pearl– No one would believe it!” But before there was me, there was her. There was him.
He was handsome. He was tall, and lanky but well-muscled with darkly tanned skin and striking blue eyes. His teeth were a little crooked, but he couldn’t help that. He was meticulously well-groomed, almost as if he were trying to make up for something…and, well… he was. His childhood reeked with the hallmarks of parents still caught in the lingering strife of the great depression. Everything you’ve ever heard about the worst-case scenario of growing up poor? It was true for him. He wore it wonderfully well. He drove fast cars and rode motorbikes and blared rock and roll from his custom record setup. He womanized and fist-fought and was recently divorced– twice over. He was a man on a mission. He was a man with something to prove. He wanted so desperately to be what the world had always told him he never would be: a success. A family man. And so, when he saw mama from across the roller skating rink, her auburn locks glittering in the light of the disco ball- so beautiful, so alone... and wrangling three small boys, he just couldn’t pass up the opportunity. He’d tried to start a family with his first two wives, and had one kid by each before the relationships ended, but here was a woman with kids in tow, and boys nonetheless. Instant family. And he could be the hero. They were married less than a year later.
Mama says he showed his true colors for the very first time on the night of their honeymoon. She’d thought she’d found her knight in shining armor, but instead, she’d leapt headfirst into her worst nightmare. When they got married, there were already five kids between the two of them. Mama’s first marriage had ended in divorce, too, and she liked to think of her family with her new husband (my dad, if you hadn’t caught on) as their own little Brady Bunch...But with a darker bent that mama happily swept under the rug, along with the rest of her baggage. The abuse escalated with each day of the marriage, and I think Mama might’ve fooled herself into believing that giving him another baby would fix it. Along came my brother, and she saw a different side of the man with striking blue eyes. She saw him love with reckless abandon.
He loved my brother more than anything he’d ever seen, more than any of his other children, certainly more than my mother or me. But the abuse didn’t stop. Instead, it escalated. Now she wasn’t just doing things wrong with the house, and her clothes, and her hair… Now she was tainting his precious son. She did what she must– she got pregnant again because he didn’t hurt her so badly when she was pregnant. And thus, I came screaming into the world with a tuft of violently red hair upon my brow, more bruises on my infantile body than seemed humanly possible, and a fire in my soul that smoldered, but didn’t burn. And of course, the undeniable truth that guaranteed a torturous existence: I was female, and my monsters equated that to being less than dirt. So begins our story.
I didn’t want to go, but I’m glad I did
I didn’t want to go, but I’m glad I did
She sent me the invitation
Certain she didn’t want me to RSVP
She was following protocol
Instead of stalking me
My friends said I should attend
To let others see what she missed
I would have settled for an explanation
And a sincere, goodbye kiss
I donned my best suit
And straightened my tie
My business shoes took the polish
I became candy for her unsettled eye
I could have walked the distance
Lured by the sound of the church bell
Will my consternation make today her day?
Is my confusion an easy tell?
I kept to myself
Greeting no one on the floor
They also did likewise
I was there to ignore
Only one wanted to see me
Scrutinizing my thinly veiled pain
I didn’t give her the satisfaction
She only saw my stoic restrain(t)
So, I sat through the song
And, I stood through the march
Then, I listened to that question
Remaining silent. Remaining starched.
By 1 pm
I was ready to go
I confirmed what I already knew
There was no bar set too low
Her marriage was over
Before it began
Some people provoke jealousy
Some people refuse the sham
The groom to be
Became the groom that ran
The bride that hedged
Became the bride left stand(ing)
And I happily departed
Exactly as I arrived
Bachelor status confirmed
Cuckold status denied
The Slippery Slope Remains the Undefeated Champion
The Slippery Slope Remains the Undefeated Champion
The lessons of history
Are forgotten
Are ignored
Are deemed irrelevant
And thus,
Are required to be relearned (again and again)
The payments for this tuition
Are paid in the blood of millions
Too busy to care, too apathetic to know to care
President Washington warned of the dangers of foreign entanglements
President Eisenhower told of the military industrial complex
Martin Niemöller spoke of no one being left to speak out for me
And still, the ignorant remain blissfully ignorant
Hitler killed millions, Stalin more than Hitler, Mao more than Stalin
Socialism and Communism (vote your way in, shoot your way out)
Killed more than all three combined in the 20th Century alone
George Santayana forewarned of the consequences of failure
But, TikTok is more fun
You may wonder which message was lost, but I don’t wonder as to why
Rules for Radicals and Mein Kampf are blueprints
1984 is fiction
The difference becomes moot when everyone is literate, but no one wants to prove it
Once the door becomes the slightest of ajar to the narrative and not the truth
Appeasing the shouters, the leeches, and the looters
Once men actively seek a benevolent master over personal freedom
Then the slippery slope becomes more than a placation
It becomes a daily expectation
It becomes easy to do nothing else
And such is how slaves have always been made
Dead by Dawn
I was home alone when they came. My boys were trekking up Mount Kyanjin Ri in Nepal and I was getting a little staycation. No cooking, minimal cleaning, reading, writing and sleeping without being awakened by earthshaking snores or multiple visits to the bathroom that didn’t coincide with my own.
I always thought I would have a heart attack and die if someone broke into my home in the middle of the night. Alternatively, I saw myself grabbing the surprisingly sharp pocketknife I keep by the bed and shocking said invader with a nicely placed jab to the neck…or wherever my flying fist might land.
I did neither.
It was my third night alone and I was sleeping like a baby when a hand covered my mouth, startling me awake for the seconds it took another set of hands to put pressure on my carotid arteries. At least, I assume that’s what he did. All I know is one second I was ready to bite a hand and scream, the next I was waking up in what appeared to be a one-room cabin. I was laying on a cot, hands and feet bound, while seven men sat watching me.
“I hope you don’t think you can actually get a ransom for me. We own a small business. We don’t have major profits. We pay our bills and have no debt. That’s it. You seriously chose the wrong side of town. You know we live on the blue and pink-collar side of town, right? I mean, you saw our house. What were you thinking?”
I babble when I’m nervous. Needless to say, I was nervous.
“You have been chosen,” said the only un-bearded fellow.
You can imagine where my mind went but all I said was, “Is this some kind of religious thing?”
“No,” replied a different guy.
“Kind of,” said a third.
Right. “What have I been chosen for?”
“To kill us.”
I giggled, also a nervous habit. “Great. Give me a gun and the keys to a car.”
“It is not that simple.”
“Of course it isn’t.”
“We were sent here long ago as punishment. We had to live and suffer as you humans…”
“Whoa, what. Wait. You humans? Um, I am sure I don’t really want to know, but, if you are not human, what are you?”
“There is no word for us that you would understand.”
“Fallen angels?” I said, giggling again while my skin had goosebumps and a sheen of sweat.
“More like gods, than the angels that come to your mind.”
“Well, if you are gods, how did you get sent here?”
“We angered the Creator. Our punishment is eternal damnation. Eternal damnation is living and suffering as a human without end. We cannot die.”
“Then how am I supposed to kill you?
“It is the night of the seventh moon in the seventh year of the seventh century since we were relieved of all that made us gods and forced to be but men.”
“Okay.”
“On this night alone, and not again for another seven hundred of your years, the barriers between this plane and ours will open for seven hours – from now until dawn. In that time, if we are killed, we will finally throw off the chains of our earthly imprisonment and return to our true existence.”
“And if I kill you, I get to go home?”
“Yes.”
“So, give me a gun.”
“As I said, it is not that simple.”
“Yeah, I remember. So, what’s the deal?”
“We cannot just let you kill us. We must run away from you, and we have to try not to die. You have to catch us and stab us seven times with this dagger,” the un-bearded one said, pointing to a very pointy knife with a bejeweled handle that I hadn't noticed on the cot next to me.
“Well, I guess you’re stuck here because there is no way I can do that. Have you looked at yourselves lately?” They were seated, but it was obvious they were all in the over six feet, six pack, I eat steak for breakfast and bench-press your mom group.
’While the barriers are down, you will be able to tap into energies and powers you’ve never dreamed of. But you must figure it out on your own or else it would be considered cheating, and we will continue to rot in this hell.”
“Tell me how you really feel.”
“I did.”
“Oy. Anyway, I have never killed anyone, and it is not on my list of things to do. Couldn’t you take me home and get someone else to do it? Why not hire a contract killer or something.”
“We cannot hire someone. That would be cheating.”
“And this isn’t?”
They looked at each other.
“You have been chosen by the Creator.”
“You are fricking kidding me. You must have really pissed him, or her, off.”
“Clearly since we are here.”
“No, I mean, I am the last person in the world to choose to kill someone. Seriously.”
“If you do not kill us, you will die.”
“As I said, last person. I’ve been suicidal since I was 12. Get it over with. Just shoot me now.”
“You do not want to die.”
“Maybe, maybe not. But I definitely don’t want to stab seven men.”
“If you do not find and kill at least one of us an hour for the next seven hours, you will lose a finger each hour. If you do not kill us all by dawn, those you have killed will rise as we have ever done these last seven hundred years we have tried to die in the many wars that have plagued the earth, and you will be beheaded – by seven strokes of seven angry immortal men.”
“That sounds horribly painful.”
The only one who hadn’t spoken looked at me with haunted eyes and said, “It is.”
I wasn't certain we were talking about the same thing.
“Fine, I guess I have no choice. Untie me.”
They looked at each other with a sense of hope or dread, not sure which. “You must free yourself. And you must do it without one of your fingers.” As he said this, one moved quickly to flip me on my side and, using something that must have been made for cutting off fingers, he snipped off my pinkie.
I was still screaming when they left the cabin.
I wasted fifteen minutes of the first hour whimpering. Then I started to think. Okay, if the walls are down, so to speak, and those guys were supposedly like gods, I must be able to tap into some powerful energy.
Why would I be chosen? I thought. Well, because it had to be someone who didn’t want to kill, who had a healthy fear of a painful death if not death itself…what else? Maybe also someone who wanted to believe in other worlds and beings or varying layers of existence… who wasn’t power hungry.I suspect someone who sought power would have a field day figuring out what powers he could get tonight and how to hold on to them.
I just wanted to get home so I could see my boys again. I might even take off from work and hop on a plane like they’d wanted.
A half hour had gone by before I thought, so, if the walls are down, on this amalgamated plane, my pinkie is not gone and the bindings on me do not exist.
And it was so.
I took a deep breath. OMG, I thought. I wanted to think myself anywhere but there, but figured I would end up fingerless and headless, so instead, I grabbed the dagger and went out the door. I thought myself into the form of an owl, carrying the dagger in my claws. I flew above the surrounding forest and began my hunt.
I found the first within minutes. I landed in the branch above where he hid, retook a human form and landed a death blow before he knew I was there. And then I added the six to complete the seven stabs.
And yes, I meant “a human form.” Why take my normal, five foot seven, 120-pound form when I could be six foot six carrying two hundred fifty pounds of pure muscle?
I thought myself into owl form and set off to find the other six.
I found all but one within the first three hours, but I hunted all night for the seventh, flying miles of circles around the cabin. I finally flew back to the cabin to rest and think. As I was landing, I saw him through the window. He was sitting, looking at the door, a gun in his hand.
Hmmm, I thought. Either he doesn’t want to go back, or he has to make a good showing.
I flew up to the roof. I heard him speaking.
“I know you are near. I can feel you. You will not be able to kill me, and my brothers will come back, and we will have to stay here. We will take your head and we will have life still. I don’t want to return to the ether. I have grown to love this world. I do not want to leave it.”
Great.
I wondered how to get in the cabin without being seen. Then I thought, why go in the cabin? If there were no air in the cabin, he would suffocate and die. Bingo!
I could hear him choking from my perch on the roof. Within moments, there was silence.
I flew down and peeked in the window. He was on the floor, unmoving. I thought restraints onto his wrists, just in case, and removed the gun from the room. Then I entered, dagger at the ready. As I stabbed him for the seventh and last time, his body faded away or perhaps it was just me, for I found myself standing over my bed in my home. Alone.
The dagger was still in my hand.
Beyond Words
..all the letters of every word on every page of every book sing like a siren on an uncloudy day, a song called your name.
confirms suspicions something real sleeps just beyond reach, left behind in the ashes of a tree on some long ago beach and swallowed by the waters of memory flowing onward until we find our way back to where we are perfectly imperfect enough to remember again.
drunk on words with dreams of fever and rain in the river down for the rising
it's your voice i hear my darling dear
at the dawning of the day at the dimming of the light
whispered through remember
tomorrow…
Carve Your Name into My Heart, pt 2
As always, Tucker was more aware of his hunches than I was. Before we hefted Birdy's little body between us for the hike down the hill to the road, he walked closer to the apple tree where Birdy had spent her last moments on Earth. Brushing away the windswept, caked snow from the trunk of the gnarled little tree, Tucker waved me over.
'Jimmy
Dewdrops and Daffodils and Ducklings All Play
In the absence of the mockingbird,
I am feckless in the pleasure
of a sweet songbird’s prayer.
Tone deaf to a world
that cannot hear the emotion of the only breath I take anyway.
Huh.
Not even the raven,
with her sad, solemn caws that scratch at the mind like a feral bobcat,
could stir even a word
to break from between my chapped lips.
Dry and brittle and decaying like a misplaced mirage.
Though, perhaps,
I could be the baby dove of a woodwind gadget.
And if I could,
I would imagine it to be majestic and grand,
but vintage in its charm and flesh –
sailing under the opposite of my wing that carries my heart’s little fiddle.
So simple is this time,
here and now,
yet, I’ve never so desperately needed my own self
more than in this moment
that I am drowning in presently.
Just spare me from the commands of that cardinal
who sneers at me from upon his fancy branches!
Do not let him peck at my naked toes!
For when he is spiritless
in his mockery of an agitation
onto the ugly and destitute,
(the ones unlike him),
an energized, triangular bombing-pattern details itself,
headfirst,
into an unopened storyline
of an adventure that awaits beyond this time.
The mockery that echoes
has dumbfounded me
as I misguided myself into a daffy paranoid state yet again once more.
So,
I will not fear my ascendence -
it is, of course, a fanciful dream sung out for me
that will only be awakened for eternity
in the aviary of the skies above me.
Let the morning light take me.
