Lucid Waking

           “Honestly, I’m scared. I’m scared of what I don’t know. I’m scared of being alone.”
           “Everyone is alone sometimes.”
           She rubbed her tears out of her eyes. “But I want to end up perfectly fine. I don’t want to have to compromise with, like pink underwear or something.”      
           “That’s all you’re worried about? Pink underwear when you do your laundry wrong?”
           “Well, that and running out of money. Having the wrong supplies, not being able to deal with peers. What if I need hydrogen peroxide and don’t have any? Or what if I need another pair of pants? A buggy room? Being in the wrong place at the wrong time? There’s a lot that can go wrong.”
           He put his hand on her shoulder. “I’ll be there.”
           “But there’s nothing you can do against all of this. You’re imaginary”       
           He shook his head. “You’re right; I can just support you and tell you that it’s going to be ok. Sometimes that’s all you need.”
           She rubbed her eyes again and sniffed.
           “Besides, you’re not going out of state, if the worst happens, you’ll have to wait until the day is done and your parents can fix it. All of these problems you may need a little outside help with, nothing more.”
           She leaned over and gave him a hug. “I’m just scared.”
           “Of course you are,” he said brushing his hands through her hair, “you’re going somewhere new.”
           The radio turned on and she woke up to her mother stumbling through her room.
           “Wake up,” her mother said, “today’s the big day!”
           She groggily got up and wiped the sleep dust out her eyes with a kleenex. The butterflies in her stomach went wild, but she just suppressed them and got ready to go. Breakfast was difficult, but she managed to swallow a decent amount of food to get her through the day. After grabbing her bags and instrument, she got into the car and took a deep breath.
           “Just think of it as a new movie,” she heard him say. “And it’s all scripted. Nothing bad is going to happen. Just relax.”
           “Do you want some music on?” her mother asked. She managed to squeak out a yes before focusing as hard as she could on something else.

So that starts my hiatus. I’ll be back on July 28 with a new post and lots of stories to tell. Until then, wish me luck.

Filed under: End of Childhood, Realistic Fiction by Bri
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Yes, I took Thom to see the mermaids. I didn’t think it was such a bad idea at the time, especially since his mother had drawn them so perfectly in her drawing. It’s a little hard to see unless you look really carefully, but she’s perfectly smooth on top and the scales also sort of fade off closer to the upper stomach area, not waist. Even the gills are there, just barely visible because of the hair. I was curious.

Thom was keen on the idea, too, so I didn’t think it was a problem if we went. I had to do a couple spells, but nothing too bad. I knew I had to get to see Shark in order to get a few things straight. For once I was glad we met Lily along the way. Lily had helped me in the past escape from a shipwreck and ever since then, she thought that I owed her. She would constantly tell people we were friends while following me just in case the situation would arise where I could help her. The shipwreck? I was on a cruise with my first family when the ship hit an iceberg and sank. My family was lost, but I managed to survive with a little help. I’m a fairy remember? We live for a long time and I was only twelve at the time—practically a baby.

Anyway, Lily was distracted by Thom, so I had time to go see Shark. She was the head of the military brigade—as much as you could call a group of mermaids a civilization. Their government was extremely loose and almost non-existent, but there were a few situations of organized combat. I can imagine there haven’t been many. Shark monitors who comes in and out of their village and has a wicked memory, so I know that she would remember Emily if she had come.

Shark wasn’t happy to see me, but she’s never happy to see anyone. And after I asked her about Thom’s mom, she told me she did remember her coming once, but that I should talk to Anemone. Anemone is the elected official. She would have never accepted the job of being chief, if she wasn’t already the mermaid everyone went to for trouble. Anemone said that Emily had been there once when she was younger. She was scuba diving a little too close to their village and accidentally saw them. Anemone mentioned Emily would have been fourteen at the time, so completely intrigued by anything magical, she followed the mermaid as far as she could. There was no interaction, Anemone said to me. I asked about the demonic shark. I thought since I was there, I might as well kill two birds with one stone. Anemone laughed and told me it was a story. Shark had made that one up trying to prove to little children not to wander off on their own.

How can there be children in a colony of females? Mermaids reproduce like fish. The men just come out of nowhere and… well, you get the point.

So, I go back to Thom and he’s having a grand old time and we spend time playing tag and exploring a couple coral reefs, when I hear nothing. Usually when you’re underwater, especially with the mermaids, you always hear something, even if it’s just the subtle swish of water when a school of fish turns. But I didn’t hear anything. Then, Emily’s voice is heard straight through the water calling us in. If Thom hadn’t also heard it, I wouldn’t have said anything. It was strange that we could hear her through several miles of water and nothing else was making a sound to me. Even Lily and Thom laughed silently. I still didn’t hear anything, but Thom waved goodbye and started swimming upward, so I followed him. When we got up to surface, we were at the shore. And that’s when I saw the second fairy. My guardian was standing behind Emily, who was at the pier, waiting for us. She didn’t seem happy at all, but she stepped into Emily’s body and used her as a puppet. The best way to describe it is to imagine that Emily is doing everything that my guardian is doing. Thom and I see Emily making us dinner and taking us to bed, but it’s really my guardian. She tucked Thom in first and then came to see me after sending Emily’s body to bed.

Nothing really drastic happened, I was just severely reprimanded and told not to go into other people’s business. I think it’s because the fairies have had a hand in Thom’s dad’s death, but I can’t really prove anything and the farther I get into my theory, the more and more I get stopped. I wonder if I did it myself with out Thom I wouldn’t be bothered so much, but he’s sort of the human normalcy that I need. I like him and he helps me without knowing it. He’s a sort of experimental control that I can compare my experiences to. He’s not stupid, but it’s hard to guess magical means to things when you haven’t dealt with magic your whole life and you don’t know how to use it.
I did learn that the mermaids were connected in someway to this family. Emily was even involved with them at some point. I just wish the fairies weren’t so secretive, so that I can settle this curiosity and find a way to end this family’s pain.

Filed under: End of Childhood, Fantasy by Bri
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My mom loves stories. She has to; she’s an artist. She met dad while working on a children’s book with him. Ever since then, she’s helped write novels and illustrated other books and covers. She does it now for a company, but she used to do it just for dad all the time. The last book she did with him was probably the biggest project I had ever seen. Dad wrote down all of the stories he told me about his disease and made it into a children’s book. He gave it to mom when he died and she did large oil paintings for every page and then published it. The paintings are still in the basement. The book is on its own shelf in my room. My friends think its stupid that I have little shrines for my dad’s books, especially that one. When I’m with them I agree, but when they’re gone I apologize to dad for it. I really miss him and I wish I knew him better. I’m glad he wrote down the stories so that when my memory gets a little fuzzy on the details, I can pull out the book and reread them. It’s like visiting dad at the hospital when he was still alive.

If there is one thing mom is very possessive about, it’s those oil paintings. There was one time when Josh and I were just sitting down there talking, when mom comes home and finds us. She doesn’t start yelling, but she gets really stiff and tells us to get upstairs and start our homework. It was summer vacation, but Josh got us out of there really quick. I think he knows mom isn’t too keen on his powers.

Josh is a psychokinetic. He’s also a changeling, so he knows all about different dimensions and all the magical people that we can’t see. I think he was brought to our family because we believe in fairies, but that’s only a theory of mine. Josh can read people’s feelings a bit and some of their thoughts, which can be useful and disturbing. Examples: at school he found out that one day the Jenny Elmwood had a crush on me (that was good), but that same day he found out Mr. O’Malley was worried about his diarrhea. Mr. O’Malley was a good teacher, even if he was an old coot.

Josh’s really interested in dad, so whenever mom’s not around, we go and look at the paintings. There was one story dad told me about how he was scuba diving and he got bitten by a vampiric shark but was saved into turning into one by a mermaid. Dad said he was in the hospital because he hadn’t recovered from the bite. I remember him telling me that it took a while to heal from almost being turned into a vampire shark. My mom painted this red-eyed shark descending into darkness and above the shark is this very pretty mermaid with bright blue hair holding dad under his arms. Mom was very tasteful and didn’t have any blood, but I always sort of imagined it after gazing at the shark for a long time. It seemed the sort of thing that would appear from the demonic figure.

Josh asked me whether or not I wanted to actually meet the mermaids. I asked him if we would meet the shark and he assured me (without laughing) that we wouldn’t. Where there are mermaids, he had said, there are no sharks. Dad only got hurt because the mermaids came at the wrong time.

So we went down to the shore after phoning mom and telling her we were going swimming. Josh had never done magic like you see in the movies with the wiggle of his nose or loudly spoken words. He would just tap you and you would feel different. This time, he tapped me on my nose and when we went into the water, I could breath it like air. It was weird taking my first breath of water because for sixteen years I had been avoiding accidentally inhaling water. But you know you have to, so you push all thoughts out of your head an instinctually breath in. It’s more frightening than liberating, but the fear is followed by relief that you aren’t dying and in pain. It’s only then that you realize you’re actually breathing water and not suffering the consequences. And then, you try not to think about it because you’re still trained not to breath in water if you can help it. Josh did the same thing to himself, presumably, and then swam off downwards. The problem with swimming underwater is the resistance. You just can’t go as fast with the water all around you. You’re constantly pushing as hard as you can and hitting something a head of you and all around you. Water in the ocean is more like jell-o than it seems. Josh seemed to be having trouble as well, so he pulled back, tapped me on the wrist, and did the same for himself. Next thing I know, I push with all my might against the wall of water, only to find it break and send me shooting ahead like I was flying through air with no gravity. It was like I was running through the water.

Josh managed to pull ahead of me the rest of the way. There comes a point when you’re running where you feel like your head is going to burst with your lungs, which are pulling in oxygen so hard, it hurts. It was at that point that we reached the mermaids. They look more like fish than people, but no lore yet has gotten it right. We’ll take Lily for example, because she was the one who helped us out after disclosing that she was friends with Josh. Josh didn’t seem pleased. But anyway, Lily had fish scales from about the waist down to her tail, complete with dorsal, pelvic, and anal fins. Her pectoral fins were attached to her arms. Her upper body was completely smooth, like a fish with no scales. She also had gills behind her ears. Josh told me that mermaids were based off different species of fish, so I wasn’t really surprised that although she was boring and dark gray, Lily had a row of small sharp teeth when she smiled. Barracuda.

We spent some time with the mermaids, but I’m not really sure what we did after that. I heard my mom calling me after a while and my fingers felt dry and wrinkly. I was tired of swimming and I think Josh was too, so we swam back to the shore and after a tap on our noses, went back inside. My mom was sitting on the veranda when we got back, just staring out at the sea. When we told her we were back, she gave us each a hug and gave us dinner, but she didn’t seem worried we were gone or ecstatic that we were back. After we had gotten ready for bed, she smiled and wished us good night, but she didn’t seem entirely…there. The next day when I woke up, everything was back to normal. I don’t know what happened in the middle and Josh won’t say anything about it, but she didn’t seem hurt and she didn’t hurt us, so I guess it’s all right.

Filed under: End of Childhood, Fantasy by Bri
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I was on the veranda in my swimsuit, completely clueless as to how I got there. He said I had just walked onto the pier early that morning and when the tide rose, I had walked back to the porch. He didn’t mention why he was in his swimsuit either.

The last thing I remember was going to bed the night before, wishing them good night, and starting my dream with a trip to the shore on the sand (not the pier) in the mid morning sunshine. It was weird I was in the same swimsuit that I found myself in the next night, but it’s my favorite, so I suppose my mind had connected the two.

Thom was really silent and Joshua didn’t say anything. They both sort of exchanged looks without cluing me in on their secret. I truly don’t understand either boy, although they are teenagers and a mother isn’t supposed to understand her boys. Especially when one just showed up on my doorstep. My husband had died leaving Thom and myself alone until Thom was ten. One day I arrive home after picking Thom up from school and this boy with skin the color of mocha was sitting on my porch. I asked him where his mother was and he tells me in perfect French, that I was his mother. I think he mistook my surprise for misunderstanding so he said it again in Spanish and what I think was German and a slew of other languages. But he didn’t change his tone, and he didn’t get angry with me. So I took him in. He told me his name was Joshua, after the tree. Joshua trees are so ugly, but this boy was anything but. His eyes were slightly slanted, too, and a golden brown like perfect toasted marshmallows. It was strange, but in time, I saw him as a son and overlooked his differences.

Anyway, the boys are sixteen. But, really, Joshua does bother me sometimes. He’s a perfect gentleman, but he seems a little mischievous and I’m afraid he does things to Thom that I don’t know about. Thom’s my son and I hate to know he’s doing things that no normal teenager does behind my back. If he can assure me that nothing supernatural is going on, I’d feel better. Not that I want him having sex and doing drugs, for heavens sakes, I’m his mother! But I’d like to be able to help him and save him when things go wrong and if I have to deal with real demons and dragons, I can’t do that.

His father was the type with a wild imagination. He used to make up stories around his cancer and every visit to the hospital he had a different disease. hTom used to love seeing his father and it hurt me almost more to see Tom’s pain when we didn’t visit the hospital to listen to the stories than waking up to an empty bed. I guess Joshua is really an answer to that. He also has a wild imagination. The only problem is, I can’t tell if he’s making it up or telling the real truth. I used to dismiss it as his being a wonderful storyteller but after finding myself in the most odd assortment of dress without any memory of getting there and no alcohol in the house, I’ve started to wonder and worry about my baby boy.

Filed under: End of Childhood, Fantasy by Bri
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           Il y a une pêche qui habitait avec autres pêches dans une petite ville. Mais cette pêche était bleue. Elle était different. Les autres n’aimaient pas cette pêche, alors elle habitait dans sa maison seul.
           Un jour, un artist s’est promené et il a arrivé à la village de les pêches. Tout les pêches qu’il a vu étaient jaune et orange. Il aimait les pêches, mais elles étaient tout la même. L’artist voulait quelquechose qui était different pour peintre. Il était poli, mais il a continué marcher.
           Finalement, il a arrivé à la maison de la pêche bleue. Elle faisait le thé quand l’artiste s’est frappé sur sa porte. Elle a souté quand elle a entendu la porte. Elle l’a ouvri et suddenment, elle lui a offrert du thé. Il était supris, aussi.
           –Excusez-moi, mais vous êtes très jolie, il a dit.
           –Mais je suis bleue, elle a dit.
           –Mais, vous êtes parfaite pour mon peinture. Je regardait pour quelquechose qui était different.
           Elle a rougi. « Eh bien, je suis differente. »
           L’artist et la pêche se promenaient à son atalier. Après l’artiste l’a peintu, elle a retourné chez elle très contente.

           There was a peach who lived with other peaches in a little village. But this peach was blue. She was different. The other peaches didn’t like this peach, so she lived in her house, alone.
           One day, an artist was walking and he arrived at the peaches’ village. All the peaches that he saw were yellow and orange. He liked peaches, but they were all the same. The artist wanted something that was different to paint. He was polite, but he continued to walk.
           Finally, he arrived at the house of the blue peach. She was making tea when the artist knocked on her door. She jumped when she heard the door. She opened it and suddenly, she offered him some tea. He was surprised, also.
           “Excuse, me, but you are very pretty,” he said.
           “But I’m blue,” she said.
           “But you are perfect for my painting. I’ve been looking for something that was different.”
           She blushed. “Well, I’m different.”
           The artists and the peach walked to his studio. After the artist had painted her, she returned to her house very happy.

Filed under: Fairy Tales and Fables by Bri
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The ghoul in the corner
Sits with a grin
At the people around her
Sipping their gin

She knows not about them
Nor them about her
And as she feeds on their souls
She can’t help but wonder

If these people would be better
Without her in their life
To sweeten the good
By worsening the strife

But watching them drink
She shrugs off her doubts
They’ve never known happiness
Through their drinking bouts.

The ghoul in the corner
Sits with a grin
At the people around her
Drowning in gin.

Filed under: Poems by Bri
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We do what we love
No matter the cost.
Although tolerance is hard,
Its just until we’ve reached a better spot.
But those times end
And through thick and thin
I have my love of what I do
‘Til the end.

Filed under: Poems by Bri
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            “I can pick up corpses with the best of them,” she said.
            “God, Helen. You’re such a braggart.”
            “Ladies will you settle down?” David said rolling his eyes as he dried a glass. “I think you both have had too much to drink.”
            Dave’s Bar was located in a prime location in the heart of the city about half a block away from the church. Occasionally the pastor would visit to preach about the morals of drinking, but David was a very good Christian who would go to church every Sunday and perform all of the expected duties. He even closed on Lent to help all of those in need, as he said it.
            “No really,” Helen said. “You haven’t lived until you’ve picked up ant corpses from under the pews. It’s one of those things that the pastor’s wife is a stickler about. If its summer and they’ve been having too many ants, she’ll have her husband tell all of those people who have confessed to sins to clean up the dead ants after she sprinkles baby powder like she’s baptizing the place. That’s why I never go to confession when the season’s changing.”
            Helen was a young girl who was chased out of the nunnery at the said church because she had been found pregnant one day. She was very pretty with silver-blond hair and aquamarine eyes. Quite possibly she was older than she looked and said she was. Although she had a quick tongue, she was the nicer of the two women.
            Sylvie had been going to the bar since before David worked there. She was graying a little in her auburn hair, but her hazel eyes sparkled with youth. “I don’t go to confessions at all,” she said downing another shot of rum. She didn’t talk much, mostly drank; in fact, she could easily drink a bottle a night.
            “Well why not?” David asked, putting away the glass. “You have a duty as a good person to cleanse your soul of your wrong-doings.”
            Sylvie laughed. “You do realize how many confessions I would have to do to make up all of this alcohol consumption,” she took another sip, “and the infidelity, heresy, pride.”
            “Come off it; you can’t be that bad,” Helen said.
            “I was seventeen when I had my first kid. The father took off like a rocket. At twenty-two I got married for the sake of the family. At twenty-four I caught him cheating on me with a little redheaded snot. He, however, refused to sign the divorce papers for the sake of my kid. At twenty-six I met someone else. At twenty-seven he took me to court with photographs of my boyfriend and me. I lost custody of my son. After praying devoutly for two years, at twenty-nine I gave up and became an atheist. At thirty, I moved into town and became the local alcoholic. Thus, my sins.”
            The counter was silent as David finished putting away the bottles and glasses. “I’d better wish you a good night.”
            “Well,” Helen said, giving him her glass. “It doesn’t seem to matter how many sins you have, there are always ants plaguing the church. But I admit, that’s a whole lot of ants to pick up.”
            Sylvie looked at her, flabbergasted.
            “Good night.”
            David watched her go and laughed. “As much as she hates the church, now, she still thinks like a nun.”
            “No,” Sylvie said putting on her coat, “she thinks like the pastor’s wife.”

Filed under: Paradise Lost, Realistic Fiction by Bri
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If summer were a person
she would have long blond hair
and smell of flowers and sunshine
bringing smiles everywhere

Her one true beauty, though
Would not be her radiant smile
but the gift, for me, would have to be
the freedom I get this one while

Filed under: Poems by Bri
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            Mika leaned against the edge of the balcony and looked at the glowing night sky. She never thought of New Chicago as pretty even though the city did what it could to keep down light pollution. She never liked the restrictions on flying altitudes because there was always someone who would break the rules and come barging onto her balcony at the worst times. She hated the automatic breakfast machine that she had to buy because she was constantly on the run. She hated that computers had taken over everything.
            “Something wrong, Mi?” a metallic voice called from farther in her bedroom.
            Well, she hated most computers. “No.”
            Cooper Clark, fighting model F16 was put out of commission in World War III in 2052, only twenty years before the war actually ended. Now, conflict had sprung up again between Saudi Arabia and the United States, but currently it was only a cold war. Mika didn’t like it, at any rate. She was general of the fighting ranks of robots (who were the only things actually shooting at each other, these days) and took the old ones under her wing after they were too damaged to fight. One of Cooper’s legs was copper, unlike the rest of his chrome body and clinked a bit. She was only an amateur at that point for fixing robots, and he was her first one from her battalion she had ever fixed. He was in pretty bad shape, but his mental facilities were working exceptionally well since she fixed him.
            “They made us a little too human, didn’t they?” he said, moving next to her and taking her hand.
            Mika smiled. “I hate this.”
            Cooper laughed. “You’ve always been so cynical,” he turned his back to the noise outside and leaned against the balcony. “But at least homosexual marriage is acceptable now. It was just approved on the news this morning. And relations between Saudi Arabia and the U.S. have been a little better.”
            “You know how everyone is. Backstabbing.”
            Cooper sighed. “How’s that job, you’ve got?”
            “It pays.”
            “Mika, you should be doing something you love.”
            She laughed. “You said so yourself: I don’t like anything.”
            “Why don’t you move this whole operation to Montana or Minnesota? They’re still keeping land under reserves. More people are actually going to the cities to avoid weather and whatnot. With global warming, it doesn’t matter where you stay on this continent; the climate has sort of leveled out throughout the world. Places are opening up all over that area. You’d like it better.”
            “I’m sure wherever I go, the government would have work for me.”
            “Is that what you’re worried about?” He leaned over to her and brushed her short velvet hair out of her face. “Don’t worry about that.”
            She sighed and faced him, without speaking. He grabbed her hand and stood up. “Let’s go back to bed.”
            She smiled and followed him in. She locked the glass doors and closed the curtains after they were inside. She shut off the lamp and sat down on the easy chair in the corner, gracefully lifting her legs onto the ottoman before leaning back and closing her eyes. She had a lot on her mind lately, but Cooper was right. It was probably better for her to go to the country than stay in the city. She sighed and pushed all thoughts out of her mind so that she could go to sleep.

Filed under: End of Childhood, Science Fiction by Bri
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