Snail

Obsession over the little things can lead to deadly consequences.

Thomas Waddington, a tenured science professor lived alone in London. His days were spent researching and teaching, his nights were spent reading and preparing lessons for the next day.

Teaching science was his life.

Although he could tell you about the nutritional requirements, breeding rituals, and gestation periods of most of the animals of England, he seldom got a chance to interact with them. The pigeons of Trafalgar square and the rats in the streets were the only living animals he usually encountered.

On the last afternoon of his life, while waiting for a train, he noticed a large snail crawling across a track and without even thinking about why, he jumped down to get a better look at it.

Snails are beautiful creatures on a macro level. Their signature lubricating slime is iridescent and when the sun light hits it, it shimmers with all the colors of the spectrum. A snails texture is not smooth, it lays like feathers over the surface of it’s body and the snail uses the layered bumps for traction as it undulates on its way about its business. It was a new experience for Thomas Waddington and he made a note to memorize the experience for sketches for a future class. As the hypnotic motion of the undulations propelled the snail forward Thomas followed on his knees in rapt fascination. The sun felt perfect on his skin, a light breeze tousled his hair and his mind was utterly occupied with the increasing speedy movement of the snail as it hurried to the other side of the train rail. It was a perfect moment of discovery. Everything else had completely disappeared for him.
Unfortunately, the snail, try as he might, was not fast enough to avoid an oncoming train and neither was Thomas Waddington.

Science was his life. It was also indirectly, the cause of his untimely death.

Harry Mann’s Mirror

When it comes to Ferris wheels keep to your business.

“Mind your own business.” is always a good idea, especially when it comes to the love lives of strangers in high places. Someone should have told Harry Mann.

Harry Mann thought something was different when he saw the young couple climbing onto the Ferris wheel seat previous to his. The young girl was in a state of perpetual blush and the young man’s grin was just too wide as he held her tightly to his side. Harry also didn’t miss that the young man slipped a handful of cash to the ride operator.
The sun was setting as the wheel went around and around to the delight of the squealing children in the few other occupied seats. Suddenly the wheel stopped to let the children off and didn’t move again as the operator seemed to go on a short break with Harry and the young couple on the very top.

Harry felt lucky that he was there at just the right time to see the sunset over the water but he was very aware that he was not alone at the top of the ride.

Although he could not see the young couple, he could hear the giggling of the girl and the creaking of the car as the young couple moved around. He glanced behind him and saw that the young couple was kissing passionately. He wasn’t sure if he should be offended at the public show of affection or curious, but he knew he needed to see more.

He didn’t want to seem like a pervert by turning around and watching. He had no idea how long the operator would be gone. He decided to just enjoy the sunset, but the sounds coming from the car behind him were too enticing.

He remembered that he kept a small mirror in his wallet to check his hair sometimes, so he pulled it out and held it up to get a view. There was almost no angle from where he could get a good look and not be completely obvious, so he scooted to one side of the chair, then the other. No luck. The only place where he could get a good angle was if he held the mirror at shoe level and out about six inches out of the car. He contorted himself to try to balance the chair and still see everything that was going on in the now rhythmically squeaking car behind him.

“Hey!” he heard the Ferris Wheel operator yell from below. He leapt up impulsively and fell to his death. Harry Mann was probably not a pervert, but he was definitely a far too curious guy.

Keep an Eye Out for Cranes

(Based on a true story.)

Cranes are very adept at killing our good friends snakes, so imagine what they can do to you.

In Winsted, Connecticut, locally know for paranormal activity, the specter of a young man with only one eye is seen sometimes seen walking along a fence-line that borders a wildlife area at dusk. Some believe it is the ghost of Charles Alling.

Charles Alling was a cheerful, helpful man. If someone had a problem and he could fix it, he did.

One afternoon he was walking the wooded trail at the fence-line of a protected wildlife park watching the ducks land on the pond, seeing the bunnies scamper off the train as he neared, and stirring the pockets of minnows at the shoreline. He heard unusual noises further up the trail and went to investigate. The noises drew him to a trapped crane flapping it’s long wings frantically. It’s foot was bloodied and raw, caught in the fence. It looked like it had been there a while.

Charles Alling leapt into action to free the bird. The bird however, did not know that Charles Alling had a helpful heart and was convinced that it was about to be eaten. The pain it felt and the surprise appearance of a human being twisting on his already painful foot was too much. Before Charles had the chance to release the bird, it turned, as wild animals will do and pecked at Charles Alling’s left eye, blinding him.

Although he lived a productive life for several years. Charles never regained the sight in his eye. He walked the trail daily, often passing the spot where he lost his left eye.

Some people say that now, roughly a hundred years later, he is still looking for it.

Swerve

Jillian Benjamin always wanted to be the one driving whenever she went anywhere, so it was unusual that she woke up one morning, got ready for work and suddenly decided to start taking the bus to work.
It was a logical decision, it would save money, she wouldn’t have to struggle to find a parking space, and she would never have to worry about shoveling her drive or being stuck in traffic without an excuse for being late.
      The bus smelled of perspiration, and pine air freshener, but also of various intriguing colognes. It was full of people with blank looks in their eyes. She suspected that if she made another snap decision to embark on a life of crime, that none of them could pick her out of a police line-up. They didn’t looked up as she boarded the bus. That was fine, she wasn’t on the bus to make friends.
      One elderly man was the exception. He smiled through ill-fitting dentures and nodded as she scanned the bus for a seat and she cautiously smiled back. He reminded her of her grandfather who still lived on a farm in Iowa. She felt a pang of guilt that she only went back to visit once a year. San Diego was where she intended her next generation to call home and she was hoping the next generation would happen to her and her husband soon.
      As the weeks passed and gas prices rose, more people chose to use the bus and sometimes it was full. Although the extra people changed the smell and temperature of the bus, it didn’t change the attitude of the people. They stared at their phones or out the window and seemed unaware that anyone else existed in the cramped space. It gave Jillian a chance to study people. She studied their clothes and accessories, what they were reading, and she liked to guess what they might be listening to on their headphones. She felt good being that close to other people, but keeping an emotional space between them
      There was, coincidentally, always an open window seat beside the old man. He would smile and nod to it and she would take it whispering, “Thank you.” and no more. She knew he saved it for her but the old man never spoke. They respected each other’s space.
      That is until the day she found out she was pregnant. He was the first one she told. She had to tell someone! Her husband was in a meeting and couldn’t take a call. Her parents and grandparents were on a plane headed to Florida, and her best friend wasn’t answering her phone. She thought she would burst. She tapped the old man on the shoulder.
“Can I tell you a secret?”
He nodded with a little smile and put two fingers to his lips and twisted as if locking a lock to indicate that he would tell no one.
“I just found out I’m going to have a baby!”
    The old man smiled and clapped twice. He held one hand above his head as if he was twirling a New Year’s Eve noisemaker, then touched his forehead and clasped his arms together as if rocking a baby.
      Sign language! The old man was not shy or standoffish. He was deaf and just unable to communicate with her.
      As she crossed over his seat to get off at her stop, something made her lean over and kiss him on top of his head. He looked at her with such appreciation that It made her heart feel full. She never saw him again and wondered if it was because of her impromptu decision to cross that line.
      After a week of his absence she started reading the websites for signs of him. She didn’t know his name or where he lived, only his town and his face, but she scanned local articles online looking for anything concerning a deaf man in his eighties or nineties.
      It wasn’t long until she saw his picture on the obituary page. “Fred Warren, 87 died Wednesday after a short illness.” The calling hours and funeral had already occurred. The news hit her like a death in the family. She had no idea that their silent closeness had meant to much to her.

She started driving her own car again the next day.

It was on an ordinary afternoon three months later that she thought about the last time she saw him. Her car was pulling up on the corner where she last kissed his head when from her left, she barely had time to hear the engine before a speeding car bore down on her.
She braced for collision, pressed her foot hard upon the brake of her already stopped car and then felt the strangest motion. Her car seemed to lift and spin to the left at just the moment it would have made impact with the oncoming vehicle.
She opened her eyes and looked up expecting to see the other car slamming into someone else but what she saw shocked her even more. There, on the bus that was slowly passing in front of her was Fred Warren! He put the thumb side of his flattened vertical hand to his chin, pushed it away from his face, then crossed and uncrossed his fisted hands with his thumbs out. Then he winked as the bus drove through traffic of sight. The offending car also disappeared around a corner and she sat there for a moment in shock.

Had her car moved or had she imagined it? Had she seen Fred Warren, or had she seen his ghost? How was she still alive?
As if to distract her from her question, her unborn child moved for the very first time. Jillian put her hands on her bulbous stomach and sobbed and wasn’t sure why.

Before she drove on, she vowed that when he was born, Noah Warren Benjamin would grow up with an appreciation for the simple act of riding a bus.

The Squeak of the Hinge

       Before I opened my eyes, I felt that Leah was gone. 

       I had been awakened by a scraping metal-on-metal sound like the slow opening and closing of a seldom used iron gate. I convinced myself it was only the end of a dream I could not remember. In our house, no one had been awake at 2:30 in the morning since Leah was a baby; she slept through the night since she was 3 months old. Nonetheless, to assuage my worry or confirm my fear, I jumped up and walked quickly toward her room being careful to avoid the three creaky boards in the century house we had been restoring for three months. If she wasn’t awake, I didn’t want to wake her.
      Her door was open and her blankets were wadded up in the middle of her bed, as they often were on hot autumn nights, only usually she is curled around them.
I thought I saw a tuft of her feathery brown hair. She must have tunneled in. I walked toward her bed to pull the blankets away from her face so she could breathe. I glanced out her window and stopped cold. There was my tiny four-year-old daughter walking calmly down the middle of the empty street.
      “Josh!” I screamed to my husband, who has always been faster than I am. “Leah is in the street!” Before I made it back to our room he was down the stairs. I silently prayed he was fast enough and that a drunk or a teenager didn’t pick this time to race down the brick-paved streets of the quiet neighborhood, as they sometimes did on weekends.
      He was there in seconds, scooping her up without stopping and headed back toward the house. I was still running toward them as he pivoted again to put her down on the sidewalk. He sat down on the cool concrete beside her and buttoned the top button of her nightgown to protect her from the warm breeze that had suddenly gone chilly.
      “No walking in the street, Monkey. Always use the sidewalk!” he said in a voice he only used for her. “What are you doing out here?”
      “I had to get out.” Leah said. “Rachael told me to hurry.”
        “Rachael is wrong to tell you that honey, it’s dangerous to be out in the street in the middle of the night.” He stroked her hair that was still messy from her pillow, it added static, now it stood in all directions as if she was touching a Tesla globe. Normally that would make me laugh but I was still worried.
      “Don’t scare us like that.” I huffed as I caught up with them and then caught my breath.
      “Who is Rachael?” Josh pushed himself up to stand. Leah was barely taller than his knee.
      “She’s my friend.” Leah explained.
“I don’t know her.” I added.
      My mother had been taking Leah to the park for an hour nearly every day that summer, as a favor to me. It was just a block away down our street of wrought iron garden fences and brownstones.
      I was finishing my degree and I needed the time to study.
      There were always several little girls and boys Leah’s age swinging on the swings or climbing one of the two newly installed climbing walls. We would often see kids, who were strangers a minute ago, holding hands or chasing one another as if they had known each other all along.
      I didn’t know many of their names, only the children of my friends, and none of them were called Rachael.
      “Let’s get you back to bed, it’s too early to get up.” I picked Leah up and sat her on my hip as we walked. Josh strode ahead a few feet so he could open the door. He pushed the heavy wooden door, it was silent as he opened it and closed it behind us. (Definitely not the iron squeak I had heard.) He pushed hard until we heard the click that meant the bolt had engaged. Then he locked the deadbolt above the handle and pushed and pulled the handle to be sure.
      “How does she get this open? Damn thing is not easy for me.” He cocked his head to the side.
      I started up the stairs but stopped when I comprehended his words. “Wait, what do you mean, “How does she?” Do you mean how did she or has she done this before?”
      “Last night. She wasn’t in the street though, she was on the stoop.” Josh yawned. “Probably sleepwalking.”
      Leah was looking at him lucidly, as she had since we found her, no sign of drowsiness or confusion. My face held both. She looked up at me and smiled. I kissed her face and walked her to her room. I straightened the blankets, tucked them under the mattress a little tighter than usual and turned to leave.
      “Mommy, do you love me?” She whispered.
      “Forevuh-evuh.” I whispered as I kissed her hair. I stepped back and accidentally nudged her toy box.
      “Beep-beep!” went a plastic motion-activated toy car on top. I picked it up and tucked it against her door on my way out. If she opened her door even slightly, we would hear it.
      The car did not make a sound through the rest of the night and we all slept soundly, without further adventure.

       “Who is Rachael?” I asked my mom, as she sat down to eat lunch with us the next day.
      “I don’t know anyone named Rachael.” She answered. She apparently had the same memory for names as her daughter.
      “Wait, there is a woman at my church named Rachael. Rachael Stevens. She makes peach pies every summer for the rummage sale.”
      “Does she spend any time at the park?”
      “McKinley, down the street? No. She lives closer to Maple Street Park and I’m sure all her grandkids are grown by now.”
      I tried to remember if mom had taken Leah to her church, but I knew that despite her protests to do so, my mom had not taken Leah to church since her baptism. Having both grown up in restrictive religious families, (I’m Catholic, Josh is Jewish.) we were hoping after acquiescing to the baptism that we could let her discover religion organically, and choose for herself when she was ready. So far, the subject had not come up. The closest we got to that was when she asked if people could walk on clouds.
      Josh had said, “Only angels.” and Leah thought he was talking about the one at the top of our Christmas tree.
      “They’re not real daddy, they are like dolls, they can’t walk!” she rolled her eyes and we waited for further questions that didn’t come.
      “Keep your ears open for the name. Some little girl named Rachael has been giving Leah bad advice.” I handed Mom Leah’s jacket in case she needed it and pushed the heavy door closed behind them as they went off on their daily quest to conquer the “BIG GIRL” climbing wall. 

       An hour and a half later they returned. Mom was carrying our drowsy child with her head over her shoulder. I woke her up and gave her some orange juice. It felt cruel, but if she slept during the day she would probably be up late in the night again.
      By the time her bedtime rolled around at 8:30 she was nodding off in her food.

       At 2:30 am, after my own attempts at sleep had failed, I heard again the metallic scraping sound, and a few minutes later, the click of the front door. Josh was beside me, it had to be Leah. I wondered why I had not heard the toy car that I had, once again, carefully placed against the door.
      I ran down the steps, allowing Josh to rest and found Leah heading for the middle of the street. As I approached her, she turned around, looked at me and then ran in the opposite direction as fast as her little legs would carry her.
      “Wait!” I called out, “Stop right now.” But Leah kept running. It was all I could do to catch her but I did so just before she ran onto a cross street on which two cars, coming in either direction, were not slowing down.
      I took her to the sidewalk as she kicked and hit at me, and tried to be as patient as Josh had been the night before, but I first had to catch my breath. As I huffed and wheezed, she stopped struggling. I looked at my little tow-headed moppet and saw a look of real fear in her wide green eyes that I had never seen before. I studied her arms and legs for scuffs or bruises that might indicate why she was so disturbed but found none.

       “What’s the matter?” I asked, but she didn’t say a word. She looked behind me as if I wasn’t talking to her. I picked her up and trudged back toward home stopping along the way to retrieve one of my slippers that had flown off as I panic-bolted to save my reckless sprinter.
      Josh was waiting at the door.
      “Mommy is trying to kill me.” Leah said in an intense, serious voice and she waited for his reaction.
      Josh laughed and winked at me. He had watched the entire episode from the stoop and seemed to find it comical. I did not but had to giggle too at the absurdity. There is no one in the world I love more than my miracle daughter. We had waited a long time for her finally conceiving her in our late thirties and we both sat at her side as she healed from three heart surgeries, during one of which she had technically died and had been resuscitated. She was our world. She had never heard a cross word and had never once been spanked or strictly corrected.
      Leah held out her arms and I gave her to Josh.
“Sleepwalking for sure,” I quipped, “apparently into a nightmare!”
      Josh put her in her room this time and when he got back to our room he looked concerned. “She asked me if I wanted to kill her too.” He shook his head. “Where does she get this shit?”
      “I’m thinking we watch nothing heavier than Looney Tunes for a while.” I answered. It had to be tv, we had never even talked about the concept of death near her.
      “Have you ever watched an episode of Bugs Bunny?” Josh asked. “A guy chases a rabbit with a gun and someone gets blown up at least once a week.” He wiggled his hands above his head like rabbit ears.
      “Say your pwayers, Wabbit.” I said and I jumped on him.
      “Why you wascally…shh”  Josh put his finger across my mouth and we heard a slight plastic rattle sound. Leah’s little toy car was rolling down the hallway toward us. As it hit our doorjamb it beeped.
      “Ok, that’s going to be dangerous in the morning. On the floor. In front of the steps. Before coffee.” Josh said as he picked it up and put it upside down on his tall dresser. “Tomorrow I’m going to get a little alarm for Leah’s door. She can’t be doing this every night. We mighty huntews need sweep.”
      “West and wewaxation at wast.” I giggled and we curled up together until morning.   

       Leah seemed to have forgotten her fear from the night before and she held up her arms for me to pick her up when I went to her room to dress her for breakfast. As I neared the bed I slipped on something and almost fell. It was the toy car. At least it looked like it. I picked it up and went to our bedroom to confirm it was the same toy, I didn’t remember buying her two, but maybe someone else had.
      Josh was still asleep. Three of his dresser drawers were open like stairsteps, the car was gone.  I don’t know how she retrieved it without setting it off, but we had heard nothing. I removed the batteries and put it back on the dresser. It was still on my mind hours later.   

       “Mom, something is up with Leah.” I said in a quiet voice just in case she could hear me. “She keeps getting up in the middle of the night to go outside, she’s climbing around in our room while we are sleeping and last night, she thought that we were trying to kill her.”
      I cut and ate half of a leftover cupcake and put the other half on a plate beside a glass of milk and a bowl of soup for Leah and went to find out where she was. She never missed her lunch with her grandma.
      “Obviously you’ve got to stop trying to kill her, it may affect her self-esteem.” Mom laughed. “And maybe you should let me get her a swing-set.”
      “It’s not funny, Mom. I’m a little bit worried.”
      “You were a sleep-walker too, you know. You used to come into our room and take your pants down to pee on the bed. You thought it was the bathroom.”
      “Those were the pre-coffee years.” I said. She had told that story to my friends several times and they always found it amusing. I was not laughing now that I was the parent. Leah’s sleepwalking was affecting everyone, but at least my comforter was staying dry.
      I walked upstairs and heard Leah talking to herself down the hallway in her room so I paused to listen. She had a great imagination and I always loved her unique take on things. She called a cartwheel a star fish roll, and she called butter, bread frosting. Once she farted in a restaurant and said to the amusement of everyone, “Excuse me, my butt-dog is barking.”
      She was now sitting on her floor singing “Old McDonald” and she didn’t know the words. “Arney Farmey had a farm, e-i-e-i-o and on his farm, he had some cheese, e-i-e-i-o.” Suddenly she stopped singing and I heard her feet pattering across the floor. She peeked out at me as if she expected me to be there. “You’re right!” she called back across the room.
      “About what?” I asked.
      Leah was silent for a second, then her face dropped. “Nothing.” She answered. “Is it lunchtime? Is Gram here now?”
      “She’s waiting for you in the kitchen.” I peeked into the room and looked around half-expecting to see a tea party set up and a stuffed animal or a doll she may have been talking to but her toys were neatly put away.
“Bye!” she yelled to her empty room as she ran down the stairs.

       Mom wore her out again and brought her back asleep. Even at that, at 2:30 am, just like the previous two nights, there was the strange metallic noise and Leah was out of bed and running like the devil to the front door. Josh had put a new lock on it, too high for her to reach, so she scrambled to get a chair from the kitchen and was dragging it back just as we reached the bottom of the stairs.
      “What are you doing?” Josh asked. He was a bit perturbed from two nights of interrupted sleep.
      “I’m sorry.” Leah cried and she sat on the floor sobbing and shaking. “Please don’t burn me alive.”
      “Jesus! I thought you were not letting her watch tv.” Josh turned on me and picked Leah up from the floor. She sobbed quietly in his arms.
      “She hasn’t BEEN watching tv!” I defended myself. I had spent two hours playing “Go Fish” with her that evening instead of letting her have screen time to keep her awake until bedtime. “Leah where do you get these ideas?”
      “Rachael told me.”
      “Who is this Rachael?”
      Leah went silent and almost immediately fell  back to sleep on her dad’s chest.  
      “Do people sleep talk too?” I asked Josh.
      “She does.” He took her to her room and tucked her between the sheets.

       The next day I decided to go with Mom and Leah to the park to see if I could identify this disruptive Rachael. I listened to the mothers as they instructed, cajoled or chatted with their kids. Among the girls there was Jerisha, Emma, Tondi, two Sophias and three Bellas, but no Rachael. Perhaps she was home for the day.
      “Excuse me.”  I asked a group of mothers congregated near the bathrooms, “Do any of you know a little girl named Rachael?”
      The mothers looked at each other and shook their heads. 
      “No Rachael here, is she missing?” one of them asked.
      “No.  She’s ornery. She told my daughter I was going to burn her alive. I’m trying to find her to tell her to knock it off.”
      An older lady accompanying her grandson stared at me with shocked eyes. It was a gruesome thing for a mother to say or a child to worry about, and it must have been odd to hear it stated so bluntly in a park. The mothers all stared at me as if I had done it. I wished that I had worded it more delicately.
      Some children came running in a small herd to use the bathrooms. Others needed help with the drinking fountains and the mothers dispersed without another word.
      The older lady continued to stare at me intermittently but she said nothing as the children played. As Mom called for Leah, the lady put her grandson in his stroller and buckled him in. When we walked down the sidewalk on our way home the lady followed.  She waited while mom walked up the stairs. I hesitated and, as I expected she would, she called out to me.
      “Excuse me Miss, do you have a moment?”
      “What can I do for you?”
      She waited until Mom went inside and I closed the door behind her. “Do you live in this house?” She pointed to the soot-coated brownstone my husband and I had spent the last three months restoring. It had been empty for 15 years before we bought it so we still had a lot more work to do.
      “I do. Did you know the people who lived here?” I asked.
She was of the generation of people who knew all of their neighbors. I had been hoping to find someone like her.
      “You know, I meant to talk to you when I saw you were looking at this place, I almost did when you came back for the second time to look it over, but I doubted myself.”
      She looked down at her shoes as if ashamed.
      “I didn’t know the people who lived here, but I know about them. 15 years ago, they were all anyone talked about. The last people who lived here had a little girl the same age as your daughter.”
      “Oh really?” I said, as a car full of teenagers drove by much too fast. It occurred to me that this was going to be a sad tale, probably of a hit and run accident. I braced myself for it and quickly resolved to talk to the city planners about getting a “Children at Play” sign or a speed bump.
“Yes.” The old woman continued. “One day that sweet little girl, whose name was Rachael, stopped coming to the park and people began to ask about her. The parents were going about their business as usual and when anyone asked about her they always said she was inside sleeping or at her grandparents. Months went by like that. Rachael was just gone without explanation, but the parents were still here. Someone must have called Children’s Services. They came and when they couldn’t locate her they called the police. They found the remains of little Rachael in the furnace downstairs. She had been burned to death.”
       Suddenly I knew what the metal on metal sound was: the rusted hinges of the ancient coal furnace in the basement.  I knew why Leah wanted to get out. I wanted to get out too. We scheduled movers and moved in with my mom that weekend. We found a new house a few months later and never went back.
      No one wants to live in that house anymore. It’s been 16 years and it still sits vacant. Leah has completely forgotten about the house and her friend Rachael.
I wish I could.

A Simple Task

How many souls are trapped forever behind cemetery walls?

Sometimes all I have to do is whisper to the right person, and stand by to give a little push and tug at just the right moment.

It was a simple task. Brett would take off his clothes, drape a sheer curtain over his head and walk from one stone column to the other past the iron gates of the graveyard at precisely 10:15. A ghost tour led by his college roommate, Jeff, would pass by and someone among the plump women in polyester pants, and the teenagers clad in black, would take a video of the “paranormal occurrence” on their phone. If it went viral, Jeff would make more money and he would get a cut.

He needed it. He had just been kicked out of school for exposing himself to some children at a visitors day party (which was what gave Jeff the idea for the naked ghost prank.) It was not the first disgusting thing he had done. He felt lucky not to be in jail and that Jeff had hired him for a percentage. This idea was a good one.

He arrived at the cemetery at 10:00 and concealed his car behind some brush on a hill next to an algae-crusted pond. He climbed the stone wall, hurriedly disrobed and hid on the opposite side of the gate.

Soon several dim, wobbly flashlights could be seen coming around the corner of the massive gray church. He waited until he heard voices, crouched, threw the curtain over his head and stood to make his debut. A crunch of gravel in the opposite direction of the tour caught his attention. His car was rolling toward the pond! He leapt up to try to catch it and ran just one step before the curtain caught on a headstone and yanked him back. He lost balance, striking his head against the wall as he fell. His body landed fully concealed between the thick, overgrown bushes and the wall. (A collapse of a minor wall support later in the year would conceal his body forever.) The last thing he heard was the gurgle of his car sinking into the murky water and the excited cries of those who watched it submerge.

Several members of the ghost tour had their cameras trained on the car and the video went viral.

Jeff’s ghost tour immediately sold out. By Christmas he was able to buy a chair cart and add more ghost sites to his tour. He always saved the cemetery for last.

“Is this the pond in the ghost car video?” a young woman in thick, black eyeliner, asked.

“Yes, this is the graveyard of St. Mary, Queen of Heaven where a car appeared from nowhere and disappeared again into the water. The owner’s body somehow disappeared into a land-locked pond. His car was recovered but he has never been seen again. Sometimes you can hear the gravel as his….”

“Look!” a woman shouted from his left. “It’s a naked ghost!”
The specter disappeared as quickly as it had appeared but someone yelled. “I think I got that on video!”

Jeff smiled and felt certain that, wherever he was, Brett wouldn’t be asking for a cut.

My Neighbor’s Meat

I’m trying to fit in and act like a normal girl in the 21st century. Sometime it’s like my old life of casual cannibalism wants to find me. Perhaps it has.

Illustration Vector Hand Of A Man In A Meat Grinder

I don’t really know my neighbors but we are friendly. I know their first names.

Mrs. Alexander lives in the first apartment past the lobby. She keeps track of everyone, which doesn’t annoy me as much as it should. She peeks out, I wave and say hello. Sometimes I give her a cookie or a muffin if I’ve just gone to the bakery. I figure if an ax murderer ever comes for me, she’ll be my first line of defense or the best witness at the trial.

Don and Lisa are directly above me. They have super hot sex so loud that the sound comes through my bedroom ceiling (and I’m there for it.)

Tim lives in the other apartment on my floor. He’s cute and he smells really good, but he’s guarded. When his cat gets out, she scratches at my door and I let her in. When he realizes she’s gone, he collects her and goes right back to his place. He calls her “Three”. I call her Jones, after the cat in the Alien movie series. Sometimes I call her Miss Jones. We’re survivors she and I, looking for any opportunity to escape.

There are three other apartments in the building. I don’t know who’s there. Maybe they’re empty.

Last Thursday when I got off of work, I didn’t go to the bakery because I’m broke, so all Mrs. Alexander got was a smile as I walked up the stairs.

Just as I was unlocking my door, Tim pops out of his apartment and asks if I can watch his cat for a few days. I guess it was some big family emergency or something so his sister can’t do it.

I said, “No problem.” and he gave me his key.

He said, “Food’s on the counter.” and took off down the stairs. His door didn’t close all the way, so I went over to snuggle with Miss Jones before she escaped and to explore Tim’s apartment.

It’s uncomfortably clean. Spotless. A bachelor with a cat is supposed to live in a mess, like I do.

Her food bowl was already full and so was her water and Tim has cable so we just sat on the couch and watched tv. So many commercials, all about food that I can’t afford! Torture!

I got up to go back to my place and open a can of soup when I saw that Tim had left a white deli wrapped package of thin sliced steaks out on the counter. Now, if I had come over tomorrow instead of tonight, that meat would have spoiled and he would have had to throw it away, right? I’d tell him that I threw it away and remember to take out the trash. I fried one up and ate it. It tasted funny like it had already started to spoil so I put steak sauce on it, it’s steak, I’m going to complain?

It was a big pack, so I took the rest home and put them in my freezer. I ate them all week. They made use of the horseradish and soy sauce that were the only other things in my refrigerator.

I brought Miss Jones over to hang at my place. She is more comfortable there.

Tim pops out of his apartment on Wednesday, as I’m opening my door again and instead of telling me about his trip or thanking me, he just puts $100 in my hand and takes Jones back to his place.
A few minutes later I hear a knock on the door and it’s him.

He says, “What did you do with that package that was on the counter?”

“It was rotten, so I tossed it.”

“Oh, thank God.” he said. “I was afraid you had eaten it!”

Now I’m getting nervous.

“It really stank.” I lied. “I didn’t open it. What was in it?”

Tim hesitated. “That was human thigh tissue. I work in a genetics lab and I didn’t have time to return it before I had to fly off to see my dying dad.”

“I’m sorry.” I said. It was the first time he had ever told me anything and I wished he hadn’t.

“It was expected, but thanks.” He paused for another minute and looked closely at me. “You know about that package… it was from a serial killer. I’m doing research on the genetics of psychopaths, that’s why I don’t talk a lot. Most people think that’s really creepy.”

“Because that is really creepy.” I said, holding back vomit that somehow subsided. “But a job’s a job and you gotta eat, right?”

“Yeah. True. I’ll see you later.”

Still no thanks. The annoyance tamped down my horror too easily and I closed the door and realized I was absolutely starving.

There was one steak left in the package. I had eaten five. I was used to the taste and to be honest, I kind of liked it.

What would you have done? Yeah, Ya gotta eat.

When I Say Dance…

On Friday the 24^th of June 1374, a group of religious pilgrims passed through the town of Aachen, Germany. During their stay, I whispered and they danced. To onlookers it seemed to be raptured flailing. They claimed to be overwhelmed by the spirit of God.
As I recall, Germany at the time was a territory of the Holy Roman Empire.
Faith was rewarded by jealous and competitive rulers, and heresy was punishable by death.
Some believe that fear of being thought a non-believer caused people to act unnaturally. Acting unnaturally was seen as a sign of a heretic or someone who was possessed by evil.

Imagine what they thought, when I passed by.

Strangely, the unnatural enraptured movements of the faithful passing through town would not be criticized. These were after all the most religious people leaving behind their homes and families, committed to a holy pilgrimage. Who could be humbler?
Soon the movements of the pilgrims were mimicked by people who were afraid to be thought less righteous, and spontaneously the dance became unexpectedly wildly contagious.

Most residents of the town began taking the movements out of the churches and dancing in the streets one after another. They danced for weeks without stopping, sometimes to music created by their feet and hands, sometimes to songs children sang. The 1300s were the time of the deadly Black Plague that spawned the popular children’s song Ring Around The Rosie. (“Ashes, Ashes we all fall down.” I love that song.) Provecial hymns were written and sung, perhaps to make sense of the flailing of the dancers or to cover the sounds of their moans and involuntary shouts and screams.

These songs and rhythms spurred new dancers to join in and soon hundreds of people were afflicted by the dance fever. Their dancing was uncontrolled, erratic and wild, it filled streets, markets and other public places. I adored it so.

Many of those effected by the mania danced until they fell to the ground, foaming at the mouth and passed out from exhaustion. Those people often got up as soon as they recovered only to rejoin the frenzied dance. Some died of heart attacks from the stress and some died from injuries received while dancing uncontrollably in dangerous areas like bridges and on top of buildings where they didn’t dance long.

More than 100 residents of Aachean died during the weeks of hysteria. It was suuuuuch a party.

They tried to say the reason for the dance was that respected members of the church showed signs of what would later come to be known as Parkinson’s disease or another similar affliction brought on by air and water pollution from chimneys of homes. All homes and businesses were heated by coal or wood burning fireplaces. A reaction the smoke and soot was called “St. Vitus’ Dance” or alternatively “St. John’s Dance.”

The disease and the tremors and erratic motions were subconsciously mimicked. Those actions mounted and spread. By the time pilgrims left on their journey in small close numbers, the movements had become habit.

Many believed that the curse of St. Vitus Dance was punishment for sins committed. (No, no, no, it was just a prank.) Children afflicted with tremors were thought to have been cursed by the sins of their parents. (Maybe they were.) Some think that religious fervor was one way to make the movements acceptable.

Whatever the reason, the mania spread beyond Aachean to other towns, where other peculiar religious anomalies were occurring.

Subsequently, the dance was abandoned as a form of worship and soon considered a curse.
Hapless dancers and those concerned with their welfare found their way in mass to shrines set up in honor of the Saints. Ironically, more often than not, those shrines were places where new waves of the epidemic would start.
(Hmmm.)

The dance spread all across Germany.

Protestantism soon found a foothold in Germany. It bored me. I moved on. Protestantism removed the depth of reverence for the saints in the country’s population, and the dance slowly disappeared and became a folk tale.

The dance returned in 1518 when I briefly visited Strasbourg, France. Four hundred people found themselves unable to stop dancing. That outbreak lasted for six weeks.

My dear friend Hans Christian Anderson immortalized the curse of uncontrolled dancing in the story “The Red Shoes” in 1845 leading to a short revival of the mania.

The Plague Retreats, I Arrive.

Coincidence?

I’m no longer subterranean.

I’m sure you can relate.