McKenna Speaks (Part 2)

Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.

At the end of this post you’ll find links to the other blogs featuring this challenge. Check them all out, see what words they got and how they used them.

I’m using: reconcile, abracadabra, book, learn, celebrate

They were submitted by: https://Bakinginatornado.com


This is a continuation of part 1 of McKenna Speaks which you can find here. I really enjoy a tiny subgenre of stories online that are essentially wholesome demon stories. I'm not sure if the intent with this was ever to symbolize that the very kind of people we demonize are not necessarily what we make them out to be through our beliefs or religion, but that is why they mean so much to me. People like me are often demonized for being queer and looked down on, and so many of us are the kindest people you will ever meet, and it is certainly not just my community who deals with this. The prompt I got for Secret Subject Swap last week kind of fit perfectly for that meaning and this genre, so I excitedly dived into telling my own story about a heartwarming demon. It kind of took on a life of its own, though. The more I wrote, the more I enjoyed it, and in doing so, the entire thing ended up being far longer than I would have guessed going in. I won't apologize for that because I absolutely feel like I created something beautiful here, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. The words I received for Use Your Words this week could not have fit better with what I was already writing so here we are. I didn't even have to make it fit. I love when things work out so perfectly like this. Also, thanks to Ash from the blog More Than Cheese And Beer for essentially being my editor on this piece and for always making me laugh.

Content warning for ableism and abuse

To summarize part 1 for you in the briefest way possible: McKenna is a young child who is nonverbal and autistic. Her mom hears her talking one day and finds her with a demon who she banishes out of fear. We see the dad come in later and it is obvious he is not at all accepting of McKenna. We left off when McKenna's mom discovers how her child accidentally summoned a demon because she accidentally does it herself. The father is just about to walk in on that scene.

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Chet burst through McKenna's bedroom door and stopped dead in his tracks stammering and stuttering and unable to form an actual question about what was going on.

"Wha--, wh-wh-who, w-w-w-what?"

Tiffani looked back and forth between the demon and her husband trying to figure out what to say and to who or if maybe she should just make a run for it and let them settle things when she noticed McKenna running into the room smiling ear to ear making a beeline for her "fren."

She squealed a little as he reached down and scooped her up in his arms not a claw catching on her skin as if he could retract them like a cat. "FURFUR! YOU BACK TO TELL ME YOUR STORIES?" she yelled so full of excitement she couldn't possibly turn her volume down.

His gravelly voice made Tiffani's insides squirm when he replied, "Yes, tiny girl. But, your mother summoned me, so I shall answer her question before you get your stories."

"Aw, man! I don't want to waaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!"

"Tiny, I will tell you an extra one if you let me conduct my business with your mother. Do we have a deal?"

"DEAL!!"

Mckenna wiggled down out of his arms and ran about the room getting some of her dolls and plushies lined up on the side of her little white four poster bed against the wall for "story time" while Tiffani marveled at the conversation that just took place. Her baby. Her nonverbal tiny baby had things to say. Real things. She had interacted with someone with both words and emotions. It was everything she had prayed for... Tiffani was lost in the wonder of those moments when she felt a sharp pain across the top of her back and fell to the floor.

"WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE TO OUR DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH?! WHO IS THIS?!"

She felt Chet's hands in her hair pulling her to her feet. The demon pulled McKenna to him shielding her from view as Tiffani stumbled and felt some of her hair rip out into Chet's fist. She pulled herself to her feet again and twisted to face him. "Get. Your. Hands. Off. Me."

He pulled her face toward him and sneered. "Not a chance. Not until you tell me just what the hell is going on in my house."

"You know what, Chet, if I knew myself I would surely let you know just so I wouldn't have to see your ugly ass for the rest of the night, but I don't, so here we are. If you want answers, you're going to have to get your greasy womanizing hands the hell off me so I can get them, you goon."

The shock registered on his face. She had never dared talk to him that way, but it didn't last long before it was replaced with more rage. He backhanded her across the face making her lose her balance. She crumpled on the floor, shocked herself. He might have been terrible since McKenna was born. He may have thrown things in anger and had to fix holes he punched in the wall. He may have worn her down until she was afraid to say no, but he had *never* actually physically hurt her. Not like this.

From her spot on the floor, she could still see the action. Furfur was standing his full height and had McKenna in one arm wrapped in a wing to stop her seeing what was going on, but it didn't muffle her cries. She sounded terrified begging Furfur not to let her daddy hurt her.

Chet was headed in their direction screaming about delivering his child from evil and getting her to the church. Before he could get there, though, Furfur conjured (the best word, she guessed) a ball of light or maybe it was fire. Whatever it was did not at all look like it was good news.

"I do not recommend you attempt to take this child out of my arms. You will not live long enough to hurt her if you do."

Chet stopped mid-stride and watched as the ball grew hotter and redder. She could feel the heat of the thing from her spot on the floor across the room. He stood there 2 feet from it, skin turning pink, mouth open, and eyes wide. Furfur smiled creepily and bellowed out a laugh as the ball disappeared. When his laughter finally died down, he didn't utter another word; he simply pointed at the door. And out Chet went. But, he did turn back looking down at Tiffani and warned, "this is not over. You WILL be answering for what you've done as soon as I make sure I run off this thing you've given our child to." The door slammed, and she just stared, tears streaming down her stinging face.

She jumped when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Furfur apparently felt sorry enough for her to offer to help her up. She took his hand...and felt, well, nothing. Nothing strange. She thought she would certainly feel the evil coming off him. She knew the stories. The church talked about demons so much. In fact, in bigger places the priests were taking exorcism classes. How could he feel so normal?

He knelt down and let her see that McKenna had cried herself to sleep. She looked so comfortable there on his shoulder, at home. Or surely at peace at the very least. Tiffani looked from her to him and back again wondering just what the hell was going on.

"Sit down, mother of Tiny. You still get your 1 question."

She sat at the Hello Kitty table watching as he tucked McKenna in. He knew all the rituals--which plushie slept on which side, to take the larger pillow and put it on the open side of the bed, and turn on the little unicorn nightlight plugged in beside the night table. He even pulled the quilt up just right (which meant past her armpits but not quite up to her neck or she would throw down). He absolutely knew her child, knew her quirks, and Tiffani had no idea how to feel about it.

He crossed the distance from the bed to the table and sat across from her. She hadn't really noticed his smell until he got close--burnt musk (which was not pleasant). He folded himself miraculously into a small enough shape to relax at the table and watched her intensely.

Tiffani thought a lot about what she wanted to ask. "Confused" didn't even begin to cover how she felt. This whatever-he-was had acted in ways that contradicted everything she knew. She wanted to ask about God, about life, about how he came to befriend her daughter, if he stole McKenna's soul to help her talk... But, there was one question she kept coming back to that shown solidly and brightly above the others.

"Do you love her?"

"That is what you want to know of all the knowledge in the universe?"

"No. No, of course not. But...I mean, I think right now for me in this moment it is the most important."

"In that case, the answer you seek is 'yes.'"

"But how?"

He laughed knowingly making Tiffani sigh in exasperation. "You get but one question. Does the 'how' change anything?"

She connected with his eyes for the first real time since all this began, searching. "It could change everything I know, to be honest, but, no, my questions about my faith are not as important as knowing my daughter is loved and safe. But let me tell you, I want her soul safe, too. I want her to be loved for who she is not some version of herself you created with...with a magical 'abracadabra' or whatever it is you do. She deserves that, you know--genuine happiness, to be loved unconditionally by the people who look after her, to be celebrated..." She faltered on that last word. The sobs that had been building thundered out of her body, loud wails of absolute mental fatigue and anguish. The demon never moved, never looked away in embarrassment, never violated her boundaries. He did, however, take a handkerchief out of his pants pocket and pass it over wordlessly and waited her out almost as if refusing to make her cry alone. That can't be right, she thought as she pulled herself together. These are supposed to be the most evil, selfish, violent creatures to exist.

"I am not required to explain this to you. You had your one question. I do, however, want you to know, I cannot lie in answer to a summoning question. She is loved without conditions as you say. I have not harmed Tiny in any way. She speaks because she wants to, when she wants to, no other time. I do not want to see you suffer this as it would cause Tiny great distress, so understand I will be at her call as long as she would like me to. I have no words of explanation for it. I believe when she called accidentally her first time, she needed someone to hear her, and I took the time to learn how to listen."

Tiffani nodded through more tears and tried to get up from the table. Her hip had taken most of her fall earlier, and she was beginning to feel it. The demon was at her side in an instant, though, and helped her to her feet then over to McKenna's bed. He stepped back intuitively giving them some space as she leaned over to kiss her little angel on the tip of her nose.

Quietly the gravelly not-quite-human voice from behind her said, "I shall stay the night to see Tiny is safe from that man you call her father. It is my belief you should stay as well."

So she did. Hesitantly. She was torn between the stories she had heard in church, what the word "demon" was supposed to mean, and what this actual demon in front of her was like. But he made her feel...safe. At the very least she wholeheartedly believed he would not let Chet hurt "Tiny" as he affectionately called her daughter. As soon as she climbed in bed and snuggled against the child with these thoughts whirling in her head, she was out.

Gray light was filtering through the windows when Tiffani was shaken awake. She sat up in a panic startling the demon who already had McKenna cradled like a newborn in one arm.

"Something is wrong. The man left and has returned with someone else. The air feels off. Get ready. He is coming soon."

"Wait. Is your name really Furfur?"

"You ask this now?"

She frowned at his amusement. "It just seems like something I should know, ok?"

He nodded affirmation, "Essentially, yes."

Whatever that means, she thought, as she heard Chet's footsteps hit the stairs. She had no idea what to expect.

He slammed through the door without knocking and swaggered inside exaggerating his steps, hat cocked, looking like he was on the set of an Axe body spray commercial. Behind him, Father Wayne from their church looked on the scene with a horrified expression and signed the cross over himself.

Father Wayne had welcomed them with open arms from the very first time they had attended services. His sermons often ran over time. It wasn't unusual for the first Sunday Service to cut into the second Sunday Service, eventually becoming a single, three hour service of monotonous scripture reading with the occasional self-deprecating jokes about being a bald, overweight, middle-aged man. He was prone to heavily preaching on the submission of wives to their husband, conveniently forgetting the rest of the verse regarding a husband's responsibility to his wife. He insisted on pre-marital counseling sessions for newly engaged couples where he gave the ladies 1950's era advice on how to be a good wife, advice which he persistently extended, unsolicited of course, to Tiffani which she attributed to Chet's not very discreet indiscretions. His sermons were peppered with intolerance disguised as God's Word, and while not everyone in the congregation agreed they often wrote it off as a result of him being a "devout Catholic from another time." But, he had welcomed them unconditionally, and something about the unvarying tone of his sermons often lulled McKenna into a nap. Chet always eyed their child sleeping on the pew between them with irritation, but Tiffani was grateful for the opportunity to worship in the Church with other believers and regarded Father Wayne as a slightly misguided but gentle Man of God.

"When Chet told me you were consorting with demons, I just couldn't believe it, my child. But here you are right in front of my eyes in the presence of true evil and allowing your daughter to be ruined by it."

"But I'm not 'consorting' with anything, Father. McKen---"

Chet interrupted as he always did. "We can see quite clearly with our own two goddamn eyes, you bitch." He glanced behind him at the priest sheepishly. "Sorry, Father."

Father Wayne stepped forward and crossed himself again while Furfur hissed and covered his face with his wings. "BEGONE FOUL BEAST IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, SON, AND HOLY SPIRIT." And just as before, the demon disappeared like he was never there leaving McKenna with no support. She hit the ground hard, head bouncing off the hardwood floor, and immediately began screaming.

"Get the child and hold her down, Chet!" the old priest said, elevating his volume above McKenna's wails. Tiffani looked in horror as Chet dragged the child towards the priest and put his knees over her shoulders while Father Wayne opened a book, a Bible maybe?, laid it on the floor beside him, and knelt down to hold her feet. McKenna screamed even more and bucked wildly on the floor obviously in pain and terrified.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY DAUGHTER?!"

Chet turned and glared at her. "This is OUR daughter or did you forget when you laid down with the Devil, Tiffani? And I'm undoing your evil. I'm taking back OUR daughter. Watch and learn how to be an actual parent. Tough love is a fact of life, baby. Suck it up."

"Tiffani, as your Priest, it is my duty to help your family and your child in any way that I can. Chet has asked me for my aid. We have agreed exorcisms must be performed. I called Bishop Bachman a few hours ago for permission upon which he agreed after Chet laid out the facts of your, uh, sexual relationship with this infernal invader leaving you and your child open to possession--if I could verify for myself that this was the case. As I live and breathe I cannot fathom why you would turn to dark powers to fix a child when our Lord was doing his work. How dare you question his timing? You know, I have an incontinent cat at home. You should try living with that! But I get on my knees and pray daily for assistance from our Lord in helping me care for Humphrey rather than doing sodomy with the Devil's brood. Count yourself lucky we no longer burn people like you at the stake. Now run along and get your chores done before it's your turn."

Satisfied, they both turned back to McKenna while Tiffani sat dumbfounded and more confused than ever. Incontinent cats? Sodomy with the devil? She had not a clue what was going on here as Father Wayne began a prayer.

"May Thy mercy, Lord, descend upon us. As great as our hope in Thee.

We drive you from us,
whoever you may be,
unclean spirits,
all satanic powers,
all infernal invaders,
all wicked legions,
assemblies and sects."

McKenna screeched and growled--nothing new--and clawed at Chet's legs trying to get up. She punched herself in the face and scratched anything she could dig her claws into. It was quite a show, but it was nothing out of the ordinary when she was overwhelmed by the unexpected, afraid, or just overstimulated. McKenna absolutely would not stop trying to hurt herself and anyone around her until she was worn out completely and who knew how much damage would be caused by then.

"In the Name and by the power of Our Lord Jesus Christ, may you be snatched away and driven from the Church of God and from the souls made to the image and likeness of God and redeemed by the Precious Blood of the Divine Lamb."

Mckenna growled again. "It's working, Father. It's working," Chet said almost giddily, but when McKenna managed to get one of her feet loose and kick the old, bald priest in the face, his expression darkened again. Chet reared back and slapped the child across the face splitting her lip and quieting her screams and movements for the moment, maybe knocking her unconscious. "I told you not to spare the rod, babe. She throws these tantrums because she is spoiled as shit, and it's your fault."

Father Wayne had gotten her feet restrained once more and glanced at her bloody lip with slight concern before continuing on, but Tiffani had seen enough. She ran for McKenna's drawings still on floor near the table where she dropped them what seemed like a lifetime ago already. The priest recited his prayers while she frantically searched for the page with Furfur's summoning symbol. She pictured him in her mind holding McKenna so sweetly as shaky fingers traced the design. The paper grew hot, but she held on this time pushing her will and thoughts into the rising shape. Fix this, stop them, make this stop, help Tiny, I need you, please let this work, Tiny needs you.

Furfur rose into his usual shape, wings extended to their full size, but Tiffani felt different this time. She could feel him taking up space in her mind, feel his energy. His voice echoed in her head, "Mother of Tiny, did you push your will into the summoning?"
"My name is Tiffani," she responded in her head.

He sighed out loud and in her mind. "This name obsession again?" He chuckled, and it almost instantly put her at ease. "Tiffani. Did you mix your will with the summoning?"

"Yes. I don't know why. I just....she needs you."

"It is good. I cannot stay here long in the face of such prayer alone. Keep doing what you are doing."

"Why not?"

"Mothe....Tiffani, we do not have time for such long stories now, but if we get our Tiny back, I will tell you the history of my kind. Deal?"

She nodded and pushed her need to help McKenna at him hard enough to make him stumble. His eyes widened a little. "Don't underestimate the power of a mama bear needing to protect her baby," she said out loud this time.

He strode forward, grabbed Chet by the collar and threw him through the bedroom doorway. Father Wayne stood up simultaneously pulling a small cross and vial out of his pocket. He uncapped the vial and tossed the contents on Furfur, who howled in pain and rage, and began praying more intensely.

Little tendrils of smoke rose from the demon's fur where the water hit him, but he was otherwise unfazed even as the priest began shouting the prayers up towards him.

"Most cunning serpent, you shall no more dare to deceive the human race, persecute the Church, torment God's elect and sift them as wheat.

The Most High God commands you, He with whom, in your great insolence, you still claim to be equal.

God who wants all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth."

The demon laughed viciously and leaned down to look eye to eye with the priest. "How DARE you talk to me about TRUTH. Do you tell your flock the truth of why you left your last church? How you filled its pews with the blood of innocents you whipped in His name? Even children? How you were relocated as punishment for your actions?"

The priest stopped mid-sentence, eyes wide and head shaking. He never said another word but turned and walked out of the room stepping over Chet as he went. In the quiet afterwards, Tiffani heard the slam of the front door and the familiar rumble of the priest's truck starting then fading as he pulled out the driveway.

Chet groaned from the hallway. Furfur's voice echoed in her head once more, "what about him?"

"I have never wanted to hurt someone so badly in all my life...but I could never live with myself if he were seriously hurt. Or worse. Can you get him out of here long enough for me to get things sorted so we can leave?"

He nodded. Tiffani went to check on McKenna as the demon made his way over to Chet. She was breathing, bloody but alive. Tiffani felt the tears begin to roll as she heard the demon telling Chet to get out and stay gone, or things would be a lot worse for him the next time. To Chet's credit he was actually smart enough to heed the advice and skulk out but not before he shouted a parting shot of "demon whore" to Tiffani and got a backhand from Furfur for his trouble. That was definitely going to leave a bigger mark than McKenna's split lip.

He'd never leave them alone, though. Not really. And to reconcile would mean McKenna would grow up in a house with a man who didn't understand her and couldn't possibly love her the way she needed. Leaving with her baby was her only option for now.

She watched as the demon picked McKenna up ever so gently and carried her to the bed humming an unfamiliar tune. He sat with his wings against the headboard and his Tiny cradled in his arms while Tiffani started packing suitcases and and called to transfer what little money they had in their joint account to a secret savings she kept from selling crafts and the occasional odd job. Furfur held McKenna the whole time occasionally leaning over to kiss her forehead, clean and ice her lip, or move a stray hair from her face. When Tiny finally woke up, she hugged the demon tight then scooted out of his lap and ran over to hug Tiffani--something she had not willingly done in years.

McKenna didn't say a word from the back of the car as they drove down the Interstate, windows down, a classic rock playlist of Furfur's (Demons have spotify. How appropriate.) playing through the speakers. For once, McKenna's silence was oka--not something that Tiffani felt compelled to fix. She was going to learn to listen to the other ways McKenna communicated, and she knew just the person--uh, demon--who could teach her how.

She glanced over and couldn't help but smile at the demon's long arm reaching back to hold up a tablet so McKenna could watch old episodes of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. He'd only been doing it 2 hours or so...if that wasn't love, the kind of exhausting love of a parent who would do anything to keep their child content and safe, she didn't know what was.

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Links to the other “Use Your Words” posts:

Baking In A Tornado https://www.bakinginatornado.com

On the Border https://dlt-lifeontheranch.blogspot.com/

The Bergham Chronicles https://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com

The Blogging 911 http://theblogging911.com/blog

Cognitive Script https://cognitivescript.blogspot.com/

Part-Time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/

Southern Belle Charm http://www.southernbellecharm.com

Wannabe Linguistics https://wannabelinguistics.tumblr.com/

Hit Number 9

It's Secret Subject Swap Day! This month 15 bloggers submitted and were given prompts to interpret in our own style. Today, we are all posting those interpretations simultaneously. At the end of this post you'll find a list of all the participants so be sure to check them all out.

My prompt is: No one knew what lay beneath the....

It was submitted by:  http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com

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Lydia stands over him, shovel in hand and grinning ear to ear. There would be plenty of time for congratulations for a job well done later, though. For now she needs to get to work. She has to be long gone before daylight which only leaves her 3 more hours. 4 tops. She starts on the digging making a mental list as she goes. Everyone saw the together which was what she intended, but she still needs to plant the note (the one that says the two of them ran off together that would give the neighborhood the juicy story it so desperately needed), clean up her kitchen, pack enough to make the story look believable, and disappear. The disappearing was the easy part. She just had to get through the next few hours without fucking up.

Earlier that day Lydia had crossed the well-lit suburban street she had been living on for the past year with her famous seafood casserole in hand. She was wearing her matching pink paisley oven mitts on her hands to shield them from the heat of the deep violet, oval-shaped Le Creuset casserole dish. It’s one of the most expensive pieces she owns and perfect for neighborhood pot luck parties. Likewise, the beige A-line skirt, pale green button-down shirt, and navy cardigan she had on were nondescript and pretty much a standard uniform for the ‘burbs. Altogether, it was a perfect costume for the evening no matter how much she hates the way she looks in these conformative atrocities.

As she deepens the hole she’s digging, she figures she probably looks remarkably better in these paper coveralls that she could ever look in a beige skirt. She laughs to herself and replays the events of the evening as she tends to do when a stint in suburbia is over. She’s a bit of a perfectionist and needs to analyze what she might have gotten wrong, where she can improve on the process.

When she got to Gloria’s house, her hands were otherwise too occupied to be able to reach the doorbell, so she tapped lightly on the door with one knee hoping someone would hear without her having to bang harder. She needed to keep her unassuming, unobtrusive image intact, so kicking the door until one of these pretentious assholes answered her was out of the question.

Gloria’s husband, Bill, answered and offered to take the dish out of her hands.

“Now, Bill, you know if I let you take this and you drop it, you’re going to have to give me a kidney to sell on the black market just to start making things even. “

He laughed heartily never once suspecting she might be serious and held the door open for her as she stepped into the foyer of the house.

“Gloria and the other women are in the dining room setting up the buffet. You sure you don’t want any help with that?”

She smiled and thanked him for the offer then headed towards the dining room, a well-disguised fox among the hens.

The cackling from the henhouse could be heard well before she made it to the dining room and already had a tinge of a slur to it. These particular hens have a penchant for wine—all except Heidi from the end of the street. She isn’t allowed to touch a drop. Heidi doesn’t like to admit in public how much control her husband has over her, but the women talk about it nonstop when she isn’t at their monthly gatherings. Heidi isn’t all that good at hiding truths. Or black eyes. If you happened to take a look at her medical chart as Lydia had done, you’d find that Heidi seems awfully clumsy--always falling down the stairs or running into doors. One time, she even missed a book that her darling husband Lloyd happened to toss to her resulting in quite a nasty split lip.

Lloyd is an alcoholic or at least he was. No one knew this in the neighborhood besides his wife and now Lydia. Not really. They had some suspicions, but it wouldn’t matter if they did know…the only thing they’d ever do about it is gossip anyway.

Lydia had put her most charming smile on her face as she made the right turn into the dining room from the hallway, “well, hello, lovelies!”

“Lyd!” the raucous and muddled voices of the women in her neighborhood had replied out of sync and far too loud but warm and inviting all the same.

She can’t help, even as she digs, feeling a little bit of camaraderie with these ladies despite the fact that they remind her far too much of The Stepford Wives. These women aren’t bad people; they just can’t think for themselves. They’ve done what people expected them to do or told them to do all their lives. It’s all they know. So, she doesn’t blame them for not noticing what was painfully obvious about the relationship between Lloyd and Heidi. She didn’t blame them for not doing anything about it. That’s why she was here. People like her were needed to take out the trash. That’s her justification for the last several years of her life anyway.

She set her casserole on the buffet and slid her hands out of the mitts. Her smile never wavered as she took the lid off the dish and deposited both the mitts and it onto the bar separating the kitchen and dining room--the parking lot for such things at these neighborhood gatherings. She had barely set them in place before Gloria was shoving a glass of wine in her direction. It took her all night long to finish that one glass, but she did it. Before too long, most of the people there were too drunk to notice that she hadn’t poured herself more…except Heidi who was too worried about not pissing off Lloyd to give a damn.

Oh well. That poor woman won’t have to spend her nights walking on eggshells anymore.

The hum of the party buzzed all around her as she sipped her wine and pretended to make rounds. She’s more of a watcher than a mingler when she’s in character, but she always makes sure to smile and nod and pretend to give a shit about the small talk and latest gossip when someone stops her. She’d rather avoid these neighborhood functions altogether, but she has an image to keep up. When she’s living among others, she can’t afford to be the subject of petty gossip because she didn’t show up which assuredly would happen in her absence. It’s what Stepfords do.

Blend. That is the crux to her mission. Fit in. Don’t do anything to stand out or seem suspicious.

No one knew what lay beneath the bland façade. Not this time or any of the other times. And she wants to keep it that way. When she is carrying out one of her hits, she is vanilla, boring, an average stay-at-home divorcee living off every drop of alimony she can squeeze from her dog of an ex-husband as far as anyone else is concerned which is perfect. That’s the way she wants things.

She’s finished with the digging, rolls him into the hole she has created, and begins the process of filling it back up. He groans a little which isn’t a shock to her. She didn’t hit him all that hard with the oversized pepper mill that lived on her countertop. The 32 inch tall piece made of beechwood and stainless steel had weight to it and with the calculated arc of her swing, she probably knocked him with the first blow to the temple, but she hadn’t kill him. Yet. She liked it better this way. He’d spent his entire life making other people suffer. It was his turn now . It was just unfortunate to her that said suffering would be so short-lived.

She had actually tried to take the prolonged route in the beginning of all this…her 3rd hit. She couldn’t stomach torture, though. It didn’t make her feel like she was turning the tables on these men that way…it felt like she had become them, like she’d become her own monster of ex—the real one, not the story she created. She didn’t want to be one of the Lloyds of the world. She wanted to eradicate them. It was one thing to take out the trash but something else entirely to be the trash.

She begins to toss the dirt on top of him. Shovelful after shovelful thumps onto his chest and spreads out filling the thin but fairly deep death chamber she had just finished digging. In a way she hopes he wakes up long enough to know what’s going on. It was all too easy to get him to her house-- to seduce him in her stupid navy cardigan of all things--for her to have much sympathy for the man. She had winked at him across the room and suddenly there he was hovering over her. She had laughed at his idiotic jokes even the racist ones while her internal rage grew to epic proportions. The two of them had spent half the party seemingly enthralled in conversation, flirting, and touching like no one else was in the room. When she told him she was headed home and that he should stop by for one more drink, he was chomping at the bit.

In a flash, he had instructed Heidi to go home without giving her so much as a hint of an explanation for why he wasn’t going with her. He didn’t have to and he knew it. Heidi was that beaten down, that worn. Maybe she even thought herself lucky that she wouldn’t have to deal with him for awhile. The number of drinks he had at the party was one ingredient of a perfect storm that would probably end with Heidi back in the hospital for one of her numerous accidents.

With Heidi out of sight, Lloyd hadn’t even bothered to cover his tracks. He had brazenly followed her right out of Gloria’s door and across the street, and when she paused to unluck her door, he had the gall to run his hands down her back to give her ass a good squeeze. He had whispered something in her ear at that moment, the stink of the booze on his breath hanging heavy in the air like a rain cloud. She was far too livid by then to really pay attention to the words, but she had gotten the gist of it.

When she finally had the door open, his hands were all over her, exploring and pulling at her clothes. One of the buttons on her shirt popped and plummeted to the floor. She pushed him away a little then moved towards the kitchen, “follow me if you want that drink, big boy.”

He did.

She had been at the counter making their drinks when he rubbed against her, spun her around, and leaned in for a kiss. That had been her cue—she grabbed the peppermill while he was otherwise preoccupied and cracked him in the right temple. Once, twice, and a third time after he crumpled to the floor for good measure.

The dirt is piling higher and higher now. His body is mostly covered. He has to be feeling the weight of it by now, but he hasn’t really come to yet. Fuck, she thinks. I’ve left my Le Creuset at Gloria’s. Well, forget it now. There’s no going back for that thing at this point. It had been with her for years making rounds at neighborhood functions for the better part of a decade. She screwed up. How could she have forgotten something that was such a staple to the image she needed to create? She’d have to spring for a new one before she moved on to the next place, the next hospital she volunteered at, the next hit.

But, first, she was going to have to take a few days to rest—once she got where she was going, of course. These late night trips into the woods dragging bodies and digging were hell on her body.

She pats down the last shovelful of dirt then. The job is done. She takes a few handfuls of forest

debris scattering it all on top of the freshly turned Earth hopefully making things less obvious just in case someone happens to walk this way. She did her homework prior to picking this location making sure to watch the place from a nearby tree stand. She hadn’t seen anyone out here, but you never know. She’s learned a lot about this whole process over the years. One of the earlier bodies had been found by local hunters. The investigation hadn’t really progressed much that from what she read in the papers, but she certainly couldn’t afford to be connected to any of these places or these people—especially the dead ones.

With that done, she heads back to Lydia’s house one last time to clean and throw some things in the few pieces of Vera Bradley luggage she had managed to collect over the years as part of the image. Tomorrow, she’d be someone else, somewhere else, but she would be damned if she’d be wearing that godawful beige skirt again anytime soon.

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A little dark, but the prompt and the last few episodes of The Walking Dead inspired it. Carol would be an excellent Lydia, don't you think? Anyway, hope you enjoyed. Be sure to check out all the other bloggers below. Happy Reading :)

Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts.  Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:

  http://www.BakingInATornado.com                          Baking In A Tornado

http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com                       The Bergham’s Life Chronicles

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com                         Spatulas on Parade

http://dinoheromommy.com/                                      Dinosaur Superhero Mommy

http://themomisodes.com                                          The Momisodes

http://morethancheeseandbeer.blogspot.com             More Than Cheese and Beer

http://www.southernbellecharm.com                         Southern Belle Charm

http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch                        Confessions of a part-time working mom

http://thelieberfamily.com                                       The Lieber Family

http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com                        Someone Else’s Genius

http://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com                             Climaxed

http://stacysewsandschools.blogspot.com/                 Stacy Sews and Schools

http://sparklyjenn.blogspot.com/                              Sparkly Poetic Weirdo 

http://singlemumplusone.blogspot.com                    Searching for Sanity

http://www.silenceofthemom.blogspot.com                  Silence of the Mom

Indigo Blues

This is my very first time ever participating in the Use Your Words challenge. I think I'm going to have to keep this up. Despite what you're about to read, I had a lot of fun with this piece and with making the words fit together like a puzzle. So, this is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.

My words were submitted by  http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com and are: 

Indigo ~ graphic ~ hindsight ~ fountain ~ thirst ~ under the bridge

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Sometimes I feel

Like I don't have a partner

Sometimes I feel

Like my only friend

Is the city I live in

The city of angels

Lonely as I am

Together we cry…

She hears the song playing on a nearby radio and is immediately thrown back to the past in graphic, vivid detail. Her former husband loved this song, Under the Bridge. Every time it came on, he’d blare the radio until the speakers would nearly blow and (often drunkenly) belt the lyrics at the top of his lungs out of sync and off key. As annoying as it was especially when she was trapped in the car with him and thought surely he was going to rupture her ear drums with the higher pitched parts, this is one of her better memories of the man. Hearing this song makes her nostalgic for the good times, for the man she knew before the booze took over, before the pain, before she ended up here. When she remembered him singing along at impossible volumes to his favorite tunes, she was remembering what it was like to be loved and to love someone more than she ever thought possible.

In hindsight, she should have known that things weren’t good when he stopped turning the radio annoyingly loud and singing along, when he stopped telling her to listen to this motherfucker play during his favorite parts. When the music stopped giving him chill bumps, he stopped being himself. No one who loves music that much could ever turn it off like a light switch; no one could go from full on to nothing at all without it indicating a deeper problem. Somewhere along the way, though, that’s exactly what seemed to happen.

Surely, it must have been a slow progression, but it seemed to her to have happened all at once. One day he was the same old man she had loved since high school. One day he was a completely unrecognizable monster. It was impossible for her to pinpoint the exact moment the beast erupted from her husband’s skin in a Kafkaesque metamorphosis. But, that monster was all she had left one day--a human-like creature with a short temper, a penchant for violence, and an unquenchable thirst for alcohol. Music didn’t resonate with him anymore, and she became more or less a metaphorical and literal punching bag. Her own metamorphosis left her a shell of her former self covered in blacks and blues, scars both mental and physical, and an overall deflated quality that spoke volumes about her state of mind.

She looks down at the faded indigo jumpsuit she’s wearing with a frown on her face. The song she heard that took her back down the road to the past has long since faded, but her travels have yet to be over. Remembering the good times conjures memories of the bad as well which always leads her to think about why she’s here locked in this prison every day hustling to get a few stamps to write home and maybe for an occasional piece of candy. Being in prison blues didn’t do a thing to curb her sweet tooth.

Her mind is flooded with fuzzy Technicolor images of fights that ended with broken bones and shattered teeth, nights of name-calling and fear. No matter how hard she tried to forget the thrown ashtrays, the cigarettes stubbed out on her skin, the names hurled like daggers in her direction, those memories wouldn’t leave her. There was no point even attempting to forget the night that led her to where she’s standing right now, where she had been for years now, where she would spend the rest of her life. There was a big part of her that hoped she’d be able to erase it forever, but there was an even bigger part of her that felt the torture of these memories was the universe punishing her for what she did. Maybe her whole existence was meant as a punishment for transgressions in a past life. It sure fucking seemed that way.

She doesn’t even realize that she’s weeping openly, a no-no in this place, when she thinks back on that night. She had spent a couple hours in the kitchen putting together her recipe for shepherd’s pie, his favorite meal. It was his 43rd birthday. She wasn’t working and couldn’t afford a gift (not that she could have gone out to get him one without consequences) so she decided to make him his favorite for him to make up for what she couldn't buy. He was supposed to be at work that day. He was at work that day until he was canned for coming in hungover again. After that, who knows…but obviously he had been drinking. He came in stumbling and slurring hours after he should have been home with a huge fountain drink in one hand and a burger in the other. He seemed so jovial for once, laughing and joking around with her. And, after a few shared laughs, she let her guard down. Mistake.

“I don’t know why I bothered making this huge shepherd’s pie if you were just going to go get fast food, Tommy.”

That’s all it took. Just that one little sentence to set him off. He whirled around on her then and before she knew what happened, he had thrown the entire drink in her face before pelting her with the remainder of his burger. From the smell, he had definitely poured out the soda in favor of far more booze than mixer.

She has replayed this moment in her mind over and over and over again. He had done so many things to her over the years that she had never quite been able to figure out what made her snap that night, what finally pushed her over the edge, but there’s no reasoning that makes total sense. She guesses now that in part it’s because she wasn’t much of a drinker at all. The reek of cheap bourbon in her face mixed with the ketchup sliding down her faded black tshirt after she’d worked so hard in the kitchen that afternoon followed by the sound of his booming laughter sent her into a rage she’d never felt before. He tottered off into the living room to pass out in his chair like he always did, but instead of getting cleaned up and letting it go like she’d done time and time before, she sat there stinking of booze and grease, seething.

This is where her memory gets tricky. She remembers standing in the kitchen and feeling that rage take over her whole body. She remembers gritting her teeth and finally wiping her face dry, but after that everything is a blank until she was standing over him covered in blood with the largest knife from her kitchen in hand.

She shudders there in her cell thinking back to him laying there lifeless. Her Tommy.

Her attorney tried to fight for her saying it was self-defense. She had been in the emergency room for falls and for “walking into doors” more times than she could count. The neighbors had called the police so many times when things had gotten really bad, on nights when she couldn’t stop screaming from the pain. She never filed charges though. She never admitted to the cops what Tommy was doing. Hell, she couldn’t even fully admit it to herself. This was the man she loved,after all, for her whole life. They’d been together since she was only 16.

But, the prosecutors contested self-defense. If she was really in danger, they said, she would have gotten out. If she was really being abused, she would have had the man thrown in jail. Why would anyone stay, they asked, if it was really as bad as her attorney made it sound. They painted her as a mooching nag that finally had enough when her husband was fired from yet another job and let him have it. The jury bought that version of things. Obviously, given her prison blues.

She stands there a moment longer, remembering. For a long time she was bitter about things, but that wasn’t going to change anything, so she learned to let it go like she used to let things slide with Tommy.

She loved that man—despite what she did. That’s what made her stay, part of the reason anyway. There was always a piece of her that could hear a song and remember the good times or look at him across the table and get a glimmer of the man he was before things changed.

That night, though… that night was the end of her hope. And, she guesses that spending the rest of her life in prison is better than the prison she was in.

____________________________________________________________________

Hope you enjoyed it. I've really been focusing more and more on my fiction lately. Be sure, too, to check out all the other bloggers who linked up today to see how everyone has interpreted their words. Thanks for reading!!

http://www.BakingInATornado.com                                 Baking In A Tornado

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/                          Spatulas on Parade

http://stacysewsandschools.blogspot.com/                        Stacy Sews and Schools

http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com                      The Bergham’s Life Chronicles

http://batteredhope.blogspot.com                                   Battered Hope

http://eileensperpetuallybusy.blogspot.com/                    Eileen’s Perpetually Busy

http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com                             Someone Else’s Genius

http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch                    Confessions of a part-time working mom

http://www.southernbellecharm.com                            Southern Belle Charm

http://singlemumplusone.blogspot.com                        Searching for Sanity

http://sparklyjenn.blogspot.com                                  Sparkly Poetic Weirdo

http://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com                             Climaxed

 http://www.eviljoyspeaks.wordpress.com                       Evil Joy Speaks

Remember That Time...?

It never fails, and I always sort of dread it--my mom will be sitting at the table with us during a family dinner

me...in that other life

or holiday or special occasion and she’ll tell a story from my childhood or maybe my brother’s back from times before my parents were divorced. There’s never that look of familiarity or recognition on my face during these stories and she’ll ask me if I remember what she’s talking about perhaps because she sees my blank look or perhaps out of habit.

I never do.

My parents separated when I was in 7th grade in my 13th year of life. Their relationship was tumultuous at best plagued with problems from the start. My mom was young when they met and from a problem home where she’d suffered abuse of every sort and had already been through so much shit in her life that maybe my dad didn't seem all that bad. He was, though… Drug and drink-addicted, mean, sexist, violent, and a bit of a criminal—growing and selling the substances he loved most, making ‘shine, and really not giving a shit about the law in any sense. The world was his oyster, and rules were for assholes.

this was his nickname for a reason

It’s not surprising, I suppose, that he didn’t exactly make for a stable childhood.

I don’t have many memories from that time in my life before age 13. I have stories shared with me by my mom and my brother. I have clips and hazy images of fights, of heartache, pain, and suffering. I have residual feelings of fear, of not knowing what it was going to be like when my father walked through the door likely already drunk from sticking around after his welding jobs were done on the farms where he worked and having a few while he talked shit in his way with the “guys.” There are fading voices in my head that echo the names I was called when I was younger. And I have memories of what it was like when I lived with him for a year and a half before I turned 16 during which time I was beaten, raped and blamed, turned onto drugs and alcohol, and saw him beaten, high, drunk, arrested, in jail, and so fucked up on cocaine that his nose would bleed and he couldn’t move...not to mention the various women that were in and out of his life who were inevitably even more fucked up than he was.

I still flinch when someone raises a hand in my vicinity even for something so benign as a high five.

There have been so many times in movies and on tv that you see someone suddenly remember what they have forgotten with a little help. They unlock repressed memories and suddenly recall all the horrible things that happened to them that were buried deep within the recesses of their minds. It’s not like that for me though. In high stress environments, storing memories is low priority for a child’s brain and eventually affects their ability to remember things for the rest of their lives. It’s not that anything is locked away to be forgotten until some day in the future when the key to the box magically presented itself; there was simply nothing there to forget. There's no box, no key to unlock it. I cannot forget what I never stored in the first place...it's just part of having that kind of life as a kid.

As a mother, I strive so hard to make sure my son will be filled to the brim with memories. We haven’t

always had the easiest life. There have surely been struggles for us, but no matter what we have made the best of our time together. I like to imagine the two of us sitting at a dinner table surrounded by family with me asking him if he remembers the time we turned boxes into miniature cars for a night at the “drive-in” or the time he peed in the cat’s bowl or when he got his first vinyl record. I imagine he'll smile and share my laugh at old times without the blank looks, the questions, the empty files where memories should be stored. I imagine that he feels secure and warm instead of so alienating, so abnormal and weird. I want that for him...those nostalgic laughs that light up our eyes when we relive those shared moments over a cup of coffee while the grandkids play in the living room making memories of their own.

My hope is that his life is so filled with warmth and laughs that there’s too much for him to possibly remember it all.

The prompt this Sunday for Sunday Confessions with More than Cheese and Beer was Forget. I hope you'll check out all the other linkups on her blog and the anonymous confessions on Facebook!