03:17
Hi.
Are you like me?
Sleepless
and
Alone?
No,
I’m not lonely.
I am simply
alone.
The world is asleep,
except for me
and now
you.
Welcome,
I suppose,
to the Witching Hour.
I’m glad you’re here,
actually.
See,
I’m the kind of person
Whose mind is filled with
Bees.
Except the bees are nocturnal,
apparently.
No,
They don’t sting
But they are noisy
and excitable,
irritable.
Maybe,
If you have some nectar,
They’ll calm down
and the buzzing
will be replaced
with honey.
So,
Are you like me?
I hope not.
I hope your mind is full
of clover leaves
and linden trees.
Thank you,
For being,
at least,
a little like me:
Sleepless
but
Together.
Can I be a writer?
Can I be a writer?
Are my words up to snuff?
I write and type and pen
And draft
But will it be enough?
Can I be a writer?
Did I just write too much?
I trim and cut and chop
***backspace***
But have I lost my touch?
Can I be a writer?
I’d like to think I can.
I’ll fail and cry then stand
And try
If only for one fan!
Marco Polo
One...two...three...
Bubbles stream from my nose
As I sink
Four...five...six...
My legs cross under me
And I sit
Seven...Eight...Nine...
Recently, I’ve learned I can open my eyes
And I see
Ten...Eleven...Twelve...
I release a slow breath, watching it float away
As I sigh
.....Fifteen….
Voices are poor swimmers-- sunbeams, less so
I bathe in light and silence
...Twenty....
I am weightless
….Thirty….
I am ethereal
….Forty….
My stupor is interrupted
By my lungs
...Forty-one…
I have no bubbles left
...Forty-two…
My legs unfold
...Forty-three…
My feet push off
Obeying my lungs, more than my mind
...Forty-four…
I close my eyes
...Forty-five...
And I surface.
Vases Don’t Break Themselves
“Now why would you lie, Matilda? You know that isn’t right.”
Matilda turned her eyes down towards her feet, unable to meet Mama’s gaze.
“Matilda,” Mama chided, “look at me when I’m speaking to you.”
She raised her chin, slowly, but she could only bear to glance at Mama’s downturned mouth and furrowed brow for a split second. Her eyes fell back to her purple shoes. Shoes couldn't frown.
Mama heaved a heavy sigh-- so heavy in fact, that it tickled the hair on the top of Matilda’s head.
“Matilda, honey, I’m not angry with you. But next time, if you break something, you have to tell a grown-up.”
This sentence sent a jounce through the young girl, and she snapped her head up.
“Mama, I didn’t break anything!” she insisted.
“Sweetie, it’s okay if you did,” consoled her mother, “What’s important is that you didn’t get hurt. When something glass breaks the pieces can be very, very sharp. That’s why it’s important to be honest; if I didn’t find the vase, somebody could have stepped on the glass.”
“But Mama, it wasn’t me, I swear!” Matilda stomped her little purple shoe for emphasis, but Mama only sighed again. Matilda didn’t like it when Mama sighed-- it just made her feel worse.
“Well, the vase certainly didn’t jump off the table on its own, now did it?” To this, Matilda had no response. “One of the most grown-up things you can do is own up to your mistakes. It feels much much better than lying.”
“But I’m not-” she began, but paused when she heard Mama sigh yet again. “Okay, Mama,” she conceded, “I’m sorry I knocked over the vase. I just wanted to see the flowers a little better,” she mumbled, shuffling her feet.
Mama was right, lying did not feel good.
Mama smiled, and pulled her daughter into a snug embrace. “See? I’m proud of you, honey. Now go run along and play,” and with that, she was dismissed.
Matilda dragged her feet all the way back to her room, a dreadful knot in her stomach. She closed the door behind her and flopped onto her bed, bunching up the neatly made purple sheets.
A snuffling sounded from under the bed, and Matilda rolled over wearily, just in time to see a snubby wet nose poke out from the frame. A fuzzy pink and purple head followed, as the creature wriggled and rolled its way out from under the bed.
The little beast tumbled out, chubby legs and stumpy wings flailing. Once it had rolled itself to its feet, it fixed its shiny blue eyes upon Matilda and chirruped happily, curly tail wagging. Its long purple tongue slurped at the remaining flower petals stuck around its mouth.
Now, it was Matilda’s turn to sigh. The creature chirped again, flapping its wings. Matilda smiled despite herself.
“You are so lucky I covered for you!”
Brain-Mush
They took a CAT-scan of my brain, and they told me it was mush.
“Mush?!” I exclaimed.
“Mush,” they confirmed.
“Surely it can’t actually be mush,” I insisted.
“It is indeed mush.”
“But that can’t be! How does that even work? How am I even alive??”
They shrugged. “Your brain is mush,” they declared, one last time, before I was discharged from the hospital.
I had been given absolutely zero instruction as to how to de-mush my brain. And though they didn’t say anything about my mush-brain impacting my quality of life, the knowledge that my brain had liquified into what I imagine to essentially be gray-matter mashed potato was not comforting.
I had to de-mush my brain myself, I decided.
Now, one consequence of mush-brain, I quickly discovered, was that novel ideas were entirely unattainable. Try as I might, I could not force myself to produce a single original thought.
I squeezed my eyes tight and tried to concentrate. Think, think, think! I willed myself. Then, suddenly, a thought!
From the murky recesses of my mind, an image slowly surfaced. I balled my fists and held my breath as the image became clearer-- I saw a man and a woman, relaxing on a patio under a striped awning. They seemed vaguely familiar. Then they spoke,
“We love our Sun-Setter Retractable Awning!”
Huh?
I shook my head and blinked. A commercial?! All that brain power, for a commercial?
I tried again. This time, my brain only returned snippets of this month's radio hits.
Again. I pictured a billboard for hair restoration.
I sighed, defeated. I would have to try a different approach, since it appeared thinking was getting me nowhere.
I opened up my laptop and hopped online.
“How to de-mush your brain,” I typed into the search bar. I was met with several articles about unlocking 100% of my brain, one article about mushroom soup, and one very questionable link I did not bother clicking.
I decided to phone a friend. Just because I couldn’t generate ideas didn’t mean nobody else could.
They picked up on the first ring. “Hey what’s up?”
“My brain is mush,” I stated, skipping the formalities.
“Haha yeah, I get that,”
“No, literally. My brain is literally mush.”
“Uh, I mean we all have those days-”
“I just got back from the hospital. They scanned my brain and told me it was mush but they didn’t tell me how to fix it. How do I fix it?”
“Oh! Wow you mean literally literally, not figuratively literally,” they said, finally grasping what I was trying to say.
“Yes.”
“Is that even possible?”
“Apparently so.”
The line went quiet for a second as they turned over the peculiarity of my predicament. If they had more questions regarding the medical feasibility of brain-mush, they did not ask, and for that I was grateful.
We settled on a handful of strategies to attempt to de-mush my brain. The first was acupuncture.
“Well, the idea with acupuncture is that your body doesn’t see something’s wrong,” my friend explained, “and so when they stick in the pins, that kind of signals your cells to fix things there.”
I went to acupuncture. I closed my eyes so I would not look at the pins and needles. After a couple hours, I opened them. I paid the woman and left.
Though I still couldn’t think original thoughts, I had to admit my joints felt much better.
The second plan was exercise.
“Okay so if acupuncture doesn’t work, a friend of my cousin’s is a yoga instructor. The first class is free,” they told me.
I went to my friend’s cousin’s friend’s yoga class. The studio was small, but not cramped. I focused hard on my breathing as I followed the instructor’s fluid movements. My movements were not nearly as fluid, but in the moment I felt quite spiritual. I released my breaths and let my mind wander.
My wandering mind supplied a constant stream of insurance company jingles for the duration of the class.
Our third and final plan was less of a plan and more of a joke, but by this point I was desperate. I placed one ice pack on each of my temples, and I wrapped an athletic bandage around my head to hold them in place. Opening the freezer, I pulled out a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream. I grabbed a spoon and made my way over to the bathroom.
There was a kitchen chair that I had placed in front of the sink. Before I sat down, I turned on just the cold water. I sat, shoveled several scoops of ice cream into my mouth, and threw my head back so that my hair caught the running water. I let the ice cream fully melt on the roof of my mouth before adding another bitterly cold scoop.
Several minutes passed.
I developed an excruciating headache after the third bite of ice cream, and abandoned re-solidifying my mush brain altogether.
For the next few days following my failed series of schemes, I mostly lazed about in bed, wallowing in the devastating knowledge that my brain was now, and would always be, mush. I scrolled on my phone aimlessly, the blue light of the screen the only tint to my pallor skin. When laying on my back bored me, I would roll over to first my left side, then my right. I only got up to eat and use the restroom.
On the sixth night of the sixth day of my misery, I raised my head to roll over from my left side to my right, when I noticed a peculiar dampness on my pillow. I shone my phone light over the spot, and felt bile rise up my throat.
There, staining my pillowcase, was a puddle of what seemed to be gray applesauce, if applesauce smelled like rancid meat. I felt something warm ooze down the left side of my neck, and my hand shot up to meet it. I drew it away, and to my horror found the same slimy substance stuck to my fingertips.
I booked it to the bathroom and fumbled for the light. As it clicked on, I saw my reflection staring at me in shock, gray ooze dripping from its ear-- my ear. I gripped the edge of the counter with white knuckles to keep myself from tumbling onto the floor. Taking a few deep breaths to compose myself, I reached for a towel. I ran it under warm water, and dabbed away the slime with a shudder.
Exhaustion hit me like a truck then, and I promptly curled up on the bathroom floor and fell asleep.
When I awoke the next day, I was too horrified and disgusted by the last night’s events to even return to my room, much less to grab my phone. I walked outside, trying desperately to clear my mind of the sickening memory. I walked all around town. I walked to and from the library three times. The librarian was taking a lunch break outside when I passed it on the second lap, and kindly informed me of the weekly community events.
By my third lap, it had gotten dark, and my stomach was growling instantly at me. I walked into the library and spotted a sign promising free snacks and drinks during that night’s workshop. My stomach urged me into the room behind the sign, a small common area with tables and chairs and several other library-goers. The snack table was all the way on the other side.
Before I could cross the room however, the librarian from earlier stood up at the front and asked us all to take our seats. Gazing forlornly at the plates of cookies, I reluctantly lowered myself into a chair, stomach groaning in protest.
As it turned out, the class was a creative writing workshop, and the topic of the evening was “Stream of Consciousness.” The librarian supplied us all with a pen and notebook, which were donated by the village, and asked us to bring our notebooks with us every week.
I stared blankly at my equally blank notebook, twirling my pen nervously. It had been almost a full week since my brain was pronounced mush; the last thing I needed was to be reminded of that fact. Besides, I still wasn’t sure if it was appropriate for me to grab any snacks yet. The librarian must have seen my fidgeting, because she appeared next to my table before long.
“Are you stuck, dear?” The librarian was a sweet old woman; she called everyone dear.
I nodded sheepishly. I didn’t want to have to explain to her why I was stuck.
“That’s okay now! I just wanted to remind you, that for this activity you just have to write anything that’s on your mind.”
“Anything?” I echoed.
“Anything,” she said with a nod and a smile. “It’s a great exercise to flex that brain muscle!” she laughed.
I wrote one line:
Man, am I hungry.
That was an original thought, right? Granted, it wasn’t much, but at least it wasn’t a hardware store slogan or something.
I put the nib of my pen to the paper again, but this time I closed my eyes, inhaling deeply. When I opened them again, I started scratching words into the paper, cautiously at first, and then scribbling with enthusiasm by the end of my sentence:
They took a CAT-scan of my brain, and they told me it was mush.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thank you for reading, and for a fun challenge prompt!
email: ksurjancev.media@gmail.com
Ask Whiskers: Advice for all Nine Lives
Dear Whiskers,
I can’t help but feel that my family doesn’t appreciate all the hard work I do. Even though I do everything right, I’m always getting scolded! Every day, they say “Mittens! Get off of the table!” or “Be quiet, Mittens, it’s not dinnertime,” or worst of all, “Mittens! For God’s sake it’s 3 o'clock in the morning-- knock it off!”
Don’t they know I wake up every morning at 3 o’clock for their sake? It’s almost like they don’t want me to protect them from the Faceless Man. The other day, it almost got the baby! Thank goodness I was awake to hear her crying--when I got to her room, I saw it reaching for her with slimy gray hands, its featureless face splitting open to reveal rows upon rows of needled teeth. I jumped into her crib in the knick of time. But then, the rest of the family barged in and accused me of attacking her! Can you believe it?!
What’s more is the Faceless Man knows I’m the one taking the heat for its misdeeds. So now, it’s taunting me, I swear! This morning, I caught the thing trying to knock Nana’s urn down from above the fireplace. It stood next to the sofa in its usual attire-- an oversized trench coat, work boots, and a bowler hat-- and was nudging the urn along with an iron poker. I leapt upon the shelf and thwarted its efforts of course, but when Todd saw me pushing the urn back into place, he threatened me with a newspaper!
A newspaper! What am I, a fly? Even though Nana told her son that I was saving her ashes, he still acted like I was some sort of vandal! He chased me around the living room for almost twenty minutes, despite Nana’s shouting to “leave the poor cat alone.” Oh, how I miss when Nana was alive-- Todd always listened to her back then.
The worst part of all this is I can hear that dreadful creature laughing at me. Last Tuesday, it uprooted all the plants while the family was out. I repotted each and every single one before they came home. And what did I get to show for it? Well, when Lucille saw the muddy paw prints on the rug, she screamed; Todd swore; the baby started crying, and Emily whisked me away into a bathtub for crying out loud! The whole time she had me in there, I could see that abominable figure looming over her, even as I hissed and squirmed. Its chest was rising and falling in time with a noise like razor blades on gravel-- a despicable excuse of a laugh.
Luckily for Emily, once the shampoo came out I was able to slip away. I gave that horrid Faceless Man the chase of the century, before Lucille finally nabbed me and stuck me back in the tub. She was mumbling something about me getting mud and soap all over the place-- not a word of thanks, mind you.
I just don’t get what I’m doing wrong here. Ever since I’ve taken this family under my protection, I’ve only been sworn, shouted, and swatted at. I’ve never experienced something like this in all my three lives! I refuse to leave them defenseless, but I feel so unappreciated. What’s a faithful cat like me to do, Whiskers?
Mittens, 4, Chicago
Dear Mittens,
This certainly isn’t the first time I’ve heard a predicament like yours, and it certainly won’t be the last. Believe it or not, my own family still doesn’t quite grasp the magnitude of what we do!
The last family I was with was similarly ungrateful. I had taken in two adults and their son, Wesley. Now, I was particularly fond of Wesley. He was a sweet kid, who, like most kids, had the tendency to put his schoolwork off to the very last minute.
As you may or may not be familiar, such poor habits tend to attract imps-- nasty little buggers who live for panic and thrive in chaos. For as long as people have been around, imps have been around, wreaking small havoc wherever they get the chance.
Anyhow, I tirelessly defended Wesley’s work from the likes of the imps. I rolled on his notebooks; I sprawled across his keyboard; I even knocked all his pens under the bed to hide them. All of this was done in a mighty effort to keep those malevolent beings from desecrating his hours of labor.
Then, one day, the unthinkable happened: Wesley locked me out of his room! He had some sort of assignment due that very night, and I could hear the imps hooting and cackling maniacally within. I mewed and yowled and scratched desperately at the door, but to no avail. When he finally opened the door, the damage had been done: his computer glowed royal blue, and the clock struck midnight. I could see tears welling up in his eyes.
Ohh how I tore into those imps. I surely made it into their history books (if they even have such a thing), for such an onslaught had never been seen. They surely never bothered poor Wesley again. And I can assure you I was never locked out of his workspace thereafter.
My point is, it’s important to remember that the humans’ senses aren’t quite as keen as ours. While we might know that such disturbances like doors slamming or glasses breaking or babies crying are caused by the Others (like your Faceless Man or some impudent imps), humans are so oblivious that they blame things like the wind, or electricity-- or even us!
The only advice I can give here is: be patient. At the end of the day, I am sure your family will express their gratitude through tributes and affection, even if they aren’t quite aware of why they’re supposed to be grateful. At the very least, I am quite sure Nana understands much more of your motives now than she ever did before!
Even so, rest assured that you are doing the right thing. Pay no mind to any naive or petty accusations-- humans are notorious for believing only what they see. I applaud your hard work, and you should be proud, too.
Wishing you all the best in your endeavors,
Whiskers
P.S. I’ve tangled with a few Faceless Men back in my fifth life. From experience, I’ve found that tying their bootlaces together incapacitates them for about a week at a time. Cheers!