I suddenly felt very cold. The small room felt like it had an AC unit on the fritz. Massages always made me slightly uncomfortable. Just something about being mostly naked with a stranger touching me gave me the heebies. But admittedly, I could barely walk, feeling like an old man with too much back pain. Just waiting there face down with nothing but a towel covering my butt felt awkward as hell.

I heard the door slide open followed by a bunch of noises emanating from that direction. Noises, I can only parse as kissing smooches followed by a cartoon rendition of a bubble popping.

That's not what I wanted to hear nearly naked on an alien massage table. The sound came closer and became more frequent. It was freaking me out. I hazarded a glance up from the face hole to see a creature the size of a gorilla filling up the room with tentacles like a damn Cthulhu monster. Each tentacle was brimming with saucer-like suckers, way too many to count. It's face was like someone enlarged a catfish, painted it saturated purple, stretched it's lips a foot out from it's eyes, then gave it way too much lip enlargement plastic surgery. It was the perfect cross between a duck face selfie and that look you get when you have way too much sour candy.

It's comically long mouth smacked making the kissing sounds which I could only imagine it was trying to speak to me about how I was about to be it's lunch.

It came closer, it's lower tentacles squashing and popping as it snaked forward.

I shrieked and tried to launch myself off the bed, jostling the small wheels across the tile like floor with a squeak. But immediately, to my horror, two tentacles shot out from its mass and stuck to my upper back. It expertly slammed me back down into place. I just barely had time to tuck my chin to avoid jamming my nose in on the edge of the bed's face gap.

"Holy shit... I'm going to get eaten by this horror fest."

A few of it's tentacles pressed on my back so hard I thought it was going to crack a rib. It felt like enormous slimy spaghetti noodles and mini toilet plungers squirming around my back and upper arms. My body shuddered in disgust.

It smelled like fish that had been rotting in the garbage bin for a week. A light ooze dribbled down my sides.

The kissing sounds stopped.

I cocked my head up as much as I could to try to reason with it.

"Look I can't understand you, I don't know what you..."

One big kissing sound rang around the room.

More tentacles dropped down on different parts of my back, suckers sticking to me like super glue, and they began undulating. The up and down motion caused more pressure with each motion. It felt like it was trying to exercise my soul out through my spine. I wheezed. The air was forced from my lungs over and over like I was a damn human bagpipe.

My hands scrambled for anything I could use as a weapon. I had to get this thing off me and escape. My vision blurred washed with waves of darkness.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

"Oh..."

My back and shoulders popped as loud as fireworks during the finale of the fourth of July.

The alien thing took the pressure off me. I looked up too stunned to move still. It pushed in a panel on the wall and rolled out a large towel from a hidden compartment. Then laid it on the foot of the bed. It looked at me for a moment through it's beady fish eyes and paused.

"Uh, thank you I guess."

I sat up slowly and turned to facing it, making sure to keep my butt towel covering me. The ooze snailed down to my lower back.

I quickly grabbed the big towel, and started drying myself off. It was heated and immediately warmed me up from the chilled room.

The creature blinked, and made two more kissing sounds. It then slithered backwards until the sliding door opened with a hiss behind it, and it disappeared down a bustling hallway. I reared my arms to my hips and flexed my back with no pain.

"Oh, hell ya. Despite the near-death fright of my life, I'd totally give this place a solid four stars."

Summer is like pink lemonade. Yes, I have just compared a drink to summer. No, I am not weird. pink lemonade can be sour or tasteless like some dull long humid days in the summer in which you wish school would just begin so you would be occupied, but of course when this action came into play you would be sincerely dreading your thoughts because school was dreadful and awfully dull in your opinion. This drink can also be too sweet the taste is overpowering and strong, like when you do entertaining things to often in summer that it begins to become a routine a drawl on slowly like a slug slowly inching to his goal. When your cup of pink lemonade has the perfect ratio of sweetness, tartness and taste you have had an exceptional summer day, with the perfect balance of every single ingredient. So, remember next time you are at the grocery store or making a decision pick the right pink lemonade.

In the dark silence echoing with the rumblings of wind screaming to get out of a lippped sewn mouth, I sit.

It felt like it had something to say but did I even care? I had talked to the winds for days now.

They said Nothing concrete in return .

I called them by their directions and evensliced them with daggers thrown to ground them into the terrestrial .

This is a familiar and old ritual that I have done religiously for 20 years.

This is part of the ritual to slow down its force... but I feed the spirits and the winds as well.

I libate them heavily, so they forget; Forget thier anger; forget their need to attack.

I try to soften all.

It usually works. It did this time .

Yet I sit in the dark, unprepared for the mundane.

I am magically supplied And complete.

However, I could personally use more light and something to eat…

My black cat surfaces from her hidden lair -a sign that the Storm is near done.

A Flash flood warning breaks the silence as the creaking of the old cypress wood Moans in response.

M

Folks, I love being a part of this community! My book, “In The Throes Of Beauty” is available for preorder at the following link. I’d love it if you’d preorder a copy so I get credit for the sale. Only 17 days left on my preorders which end on 9-27. If any of my Prose family are interested, please preorder before the deadline. Books ship the week of 11-22.

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