Category Archives: Shories

October 10, 2017

“Crawling”

By Polypsyches

Raven didn’t just drop out of school. Not right away, at least. She actually enjoyed some of the classes she was taking that semester, and Acid Monsoon needed to ride out the contract they had with Lucrezia Romanov.

“But then you’re leaving?” Declan asked.

“Wouldn’t you?” she countered.

“No. Actually, I wouldn’t. I would stay in college, get my degree and then—“

“College can wait. You know it can. I mean, come on, how many twenty-five-year-olds have you had class with since you got here? I can always come back, but you know this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity thing.”

The worst part was, he did know it. This was Acid Monsoon. The bigtime. And they wanted his girlfriend. It would catapult her to fame. And then? Then she could take him with her.

But no, he’d remind himself. That’s not how these things work. She’s going to run off to fame and fortune and leave me pining here in the dust.

“Baby, no,” she’d reassure him. “How could I leave you? You’re the one who found me. You were the first person to really, you know, understand me.”

He knew now, though, that that just wasn’t true. He didn’t understand her nearly as well as he thought—as she thought—that he did.

And that really freaked him out.

But what freaked him out even more was the jealousy. He was in love with this woman, but rather than being jealous of all those men she’d be hanging around, who’d be hanging aorund her, it was her he was jealous of.

“Of course you are,” said his new friend Jeffrey from college. Jeffrey was kind of a smart-ass, calculating and detached. “She is getting what you want, what you’ve always wanted. What she wouldn’t have wanted, if it wasn’t for you.”

“Are we going to break up?“ It was a question that he didn’t want to ask her; he felt weak asking it of her, like he’d lost something, like he was giving up on the relationship.

But he felt even worse when she answered so casually that yes, of course she would stay with him—they would make long distance work because they loved each other.

It made him feel worse because it made him realize he didn’t trust their relationship, he didn’t have faith in it the way she did. Why did he think that? Did he not trust her, or did he not trust himself? Either way, what did that say about him?

“I’m sure a long-distance relationship could work out,” said Jeffrey when he confided in him again.

“Have you tried it?”

“I’ve never really had occasion.”

“It just makes me feel…” That was really all he had to say, yet he felt like saying more.

“I know,” Jeffrey consoled him.

“Why does it have to be this way?” was Raven’s question to him. “I mean, why does this even…”

“I’m sorry. I can’t tell you why, because I’m not even really sure myself, but I don’t feel comfortable with this. I don’t feel comfortable and goddammit, it is… it’s tearing me apart. I feel weak and I feel… ashamed.”

This, by the way, was around about the time that Declan wrote what would become the #1 hit “Tears on Weekdays”.

“Listen to me,” Raven told her boyfriend. “I am not goign to cheat on you out there. OK? I love you. I have always loved you. Distance? All that gets in the way of is sex. I can handle that, I can handle… not having sex for a while. Can you?”

He couldn’t. He knew he couldn’t (or thought it, anyway) but still he smiled at her and kissed her and agreed. Better to lie now and risk fucking up later than to just give up, right?

To be fair, it took three months for Declan to break down and sleep with this girl Michelle they went to school with. That was five days longer than it took Raven to throw herself at Caspar June—not that the one had to do with the other. They were both young and bad at communicating, so they both felt awful afterwards.

But they both recovered and moved on.

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October 10, 2017

Dead Man Walking

By Polypsyches

This is a story about a young man who doesn’t seem to know that he’s a zombie. The weird thing about it is, no one else seems to realize he’s a zombie, either. They think he’s just another bum. After all, thre are always plenty of those walking around Asheville, right? And they all have a tendency towards drunken stumbling, don’t they? So why not?

He stumbles into a bunch of people this way.

When he stumbles into Lee Stevens when he’s on his date with Leigh Stephens, Lee finds himself helping his new fiancée fend off this smelly attacker and, faced with her heaving bosom in the aftermath, promptly proposes to her.

When he stumbles into the shop run part-time by Frank Keppler, he finds Frank abjectly defending himself against Otis Ratson and the two hold a brief truce to chase away the smelly intruder, but afterwards Otis promptly turns on Frank again to accuse him of letting riffraff into his shop.

Some people do think there’s something rather odd about the man, like Hannah Andersen, whose mother, upon detecting the smelly miscreant, tried to distract her away and told her not to stare at the nice man.

Hubert Poste, while walking his usual mail-route, noticed the smelly bumbler, but only as an obstacle to be avoided on his way around the bend, so didn’t take note of him.

But Paul Ericsson sure thought it was peculiar. He was driving the hearse back from the crematorium when the smelly jaywalker stumbled out right in front of his car. As he watched it pass without looking at him, Paul muttered absently “Dead people ought to stay in the ground!”

In the middle of town, next to the phallic symbol known as the Vance monument, the Reverend Toby Richards pro-claimed and de-claimed at the top of his lungs how we should re-claim our faith in the cross of Our Lord and the smelly attendant no doubt fascinated by this wondrous display of limb-tossing, stood rapt before him, the only traveler to do so. Therefore Rev. Richards did take a passing interest in the boy. He was, after all, clearly of the faith.

But after some time, Rev. Richards observed that others who might very well join his new smelly acolyte were discouraged from doing so, no doubt by his ill-favored look. So, he took the young man around the shoulders and, ignoring how the mouth seemed to edge towards his throat, whispered surreptitiously, that his faith was clearly strong enough, he should go find his own flock.

Elizabeth Keppler, meanwhile, was walking around with her boyfriend, George D’Arcy, and, upon seeing the smelly traveler approaching, used him as a metaphor for the decrepit nature of their own relationship.

When the smelly subject of so much–and yet so litte–controversy passed by in front of the Flying Frog, he caught the eye of Professor Blackford Appleton-Mecklenburg III, a local Anthropologist, who likewise used him as a metaphor, but he rather preferred to apply him to the decay of modern society as he sat conversing with a star pupil of his.

As inevitably must happen in a fairly small town like Asheville, though, he did finally run into someone he knew. Johnny Carnage had met the smelly young party-goer at a private event some months before and recognized him, but didn’t remember his name.

“Yo, dude,” he said, but received no response. “Hey, shit-face, weren’t you at that thing? Hey, man, you got any weed?”

But the smelly young junkie just stumbled on unabated and Johnny Carnage realized that he was probably too smashed to function.

That was when it occurred to him that he didn’t want to be that way, he didn’t want to be That guy who didn’t answer when you called because he was too blitzed, so he left with this enlightenment and had forgotten it by the time he arrived at his dealer’s house, whither he had been bound.

Finally, though, having been unable to feed himself all day and thus consumed with hunger, the young man who still did not fully realize his condition, partly because he lacked the brain to realize, fell to the ground, panting, at which point Zoe Harding walked out of Rosetta’s Kitchen and saw her boyfriend on the sidewalk. “Zack?” she cried. “Oh, my God, Zack, are you OK?”

“Awarangragar,” moaned Zack.

“Oh my God, look at you. What happened to you?” She knelt down to inspect him and saw the open wound still flowing with a trickle of blood from his wrist. “Oh my God,” she repeated herself. “We’ve got to get you to a hospital, come on!”

“Arrawa!” said Zack, and Zoe lifted him up, but no sooner had she cast his arm over her neck that Zack found his mouth pressed against the side of it and in a blinding flash of insight, the smelly dead man finally understood why he was walking. At first, Zoe probably thought he was playfully nuzzling. But then he broke the skin.

And then there were two to stumble and be smelly.

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October 5, 2017

“The Battle Rages On”

By Polypsyches

Thomas Murphy went to war. He didn’t like being called “Tommy” after that. Truth be told, he never really liked being called “Tommy”, especially since “Tommy Murphy” sounds kinda lame, but he tolerated “Tom”. Tom Murphy.

Well, he didn’t die. I know you’ve been holding your breath for that one, so I’ll take pity on you. He survived, he even came back all in one piece. Physically, at least. But he’d seen things.

Even before his brother went off to college, when he’d get furloughed and get to come back, when he’d get leave, Declan could tell that he was different. More serious. More chiseled. Didn’t take the nonsense.

“Hello?” he would answer the phone, instead of his usual “Hey, man.”

“Hey, man,” Mickey answered, “What’s up? It’s Mickey, don’t know if you remember or if you recognized my voice.”

“What’s up, Mickey?” “What’s up?” Not “‘Sup?” or even “Hey, man.”

“Hey, man, I just wanted to talk to you. You wanna maybe come over and hang?”

“Well, I’m busy right now.”

“Yeah, no, it’s cool, just let me know.”

Truth be told, the new no-nonsense Tommy scared Mickey out of his mind.

“You ever hear from Kyle?” Declan asked him.

“I don’t talk to Kyle,” said Thomas Murphy.

“Is it ‘cause of what happened?”

“I just don’t talk to him. You know? I got better things to do now than listen to him go on about… I don’t know. All his college bullshit.”

That was while he was in, though, while Corporal Murphy was in the army and Kyle Niedermeyer was off “doing his own thing” in college, turning himself into a molder of young minds.

But now they were both back.

“Tommy,” Kyle said when his old friend showed up at his door one day. He was wearing a shirt, in case the unexpected visitor happened to be a student or something, but it wasn’t much of one.

Corporal Murphy didn’t correct his friend’s pronunciation. “Hello, Kyle.” The “Sir” was silent.

“How you been, man? Jeez, it musta been, like…”

“Lotta years.”

“Yeah.”

“Four? I guess.”

“Since graduation.”

There were only so many words in the English language.

“You wanna come inside?”

“No, I can’t stay,” Tommy lied.

“OK.”

“Have you heard anything from Aly?”

Kyle frowned, scratched his head. “I don’t know, not in a while, I guess. Why? You try talking to Jasper, maybe? He probably knows how to get hold of her.”

“No, no, that’s all right.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to come inside?”

Corporal Murphy was fidgeting. It was making Kyle nervous. A little.

“Do you still play?” asked the soldier.

“A bit,” said Kyle. “Not like I used to.”

“You ever think about…”

“What? About getting the band back together?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t know if the world can handle more of the Elk, man.”

For the first time since he got here, Tommy cracks a smile, almost like he’s himself again, but no.

“Listen, man, if you wanna talk to her—“

“I wanna talk to you.”

“OK.”

Pause. “I just don’t know how.”

“You think maybe you could start by coming inside?”

A hesitation.

“Hey. Tommy.”

“It’s Tom.”

“Tom. If you’ve got something to say…”

“No, forget it, man. Just forget it.”

But there are some things you just don’t forget.

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October 3, 2017

Pronouns and Antinouns

By Polypsyches

Toebal Riek understood the idea of sunlight. Even though he had been constructed inside a laboratory far enough inside the Castle that he never got to see it, he knew what it was because he was programmed with a basic understanding of how the world works—at least according to the Benecorts.

“What pronouns should we use for Toeriek?” asked one of the scientists while constructing him. The language they were speaking was an offshoot of pre-Cortian in which all nouns were given a grammatical gender, either masculine or feminine. No neuter option.

“Probably best to assign him male,” said the lead scientist. “We don’t want our machines getting the idea that they can produce new life.”

And so, Toeriek was raised on the impression, given the masculine pronouns used for him, that he was biologically male. Despite the fact that he was actually a sexless robot.

But now, Toeriek was free and enjoying the outside world. Female sunlight fell on the male leaves that grew from the female branches of male trees that thrust male roots into the ground, which was usually female, unless it consisted of barren rock or any kind of artificial flooring. Male animals flitted through the underbrush (most animals were assumed to be male unless the beast’s gender was known, except predators, who were always treated as female, usually even if they did have male parts), while birds (a completely different class of nouns) each of which Toeriek would have called “she” if he’d been leaning towards English, flew through the male air while male droppings fell from their female excretion organs. It was all very wonderful.

Until his gaze fell upon something he could not classify.

Human beings, in his pre-Cortian language, were classified as female—being the world’s most effective predators—unless they exhibited identifiably masculine behaviors. This has produced some hilarious circumstances among translators in both directions, as it means many women will be treated as male for language purposes if they are seen to throw a punch, wear certain kinds of clothing or interrupt their interlocutors to make the same point in different words; and men would often be treated as women if they kept quiet or were vegetarians.

So it confused Toeriek when he came upon a young human in the woods whom he could not immediately classify. The human was short and somewhat stout, had short hair, smooth skin, a touch of fur growing on arms and legs, but not enough to be conclusive, and she carried herself (again, as a predator, assume it is female) with an unsettling combination of grace and swagger.

“Hello,” said the human. Somewhat awkwardly.

On the basis of that word, Toeriek decided the human must be an English speaker. This was good, because English was one of the languages Toeriek happened to have stored in his memory banks.

That being said, all of Toeriek’s interactive and humanizing programming was written in his pre-Cortian offshoot and thus, even if his English did come out flawless, he would still only be translating into it.

“I say,” Toeriek said by way of greeting, “what an attractive afternoon we are having this day.”

He could tell immediately ased on the confusing human’s facial ticks that his vocabulary might be problematic.

He feigned clearing his throat, then ventured, “Might I inquire as to your sexual organs?”

“Oh, God,” the human replied. Toeriek dutifully ran this response through his data-banks, but while both “O” and “God” were listed as possible pseudonyms for sexual organs, the respective entries were in opposite categories.

Toeriek decided on a more subtle approach. “What is your name?”

“I’m sorry,” said the human, “I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but are you a robot?”

“Robot” was listed in the data-banks as an only moderately offensive word for what Toeriek was. “I am an android,” Toeriek enunciated. “Now, what is your name?”

“Brooklyn Bailey,” the human said. “Why do you ask?”

“I really must classify you,” answered Toeriek. But neither of the names did any good. The name “Bailey” seemed to possibly have a tendency to be feminine, though not exclusively, but even so, it was presented in the position of a family name, which offered no help. And Brooklyn seemed to be the name of a place. This wasn’t working.

“Oh my God,” Brooklyn Bailey repeated. “You’re a robot and even you think you’re entitled to know what’s in my pants?”

“I must know,” Toeriek verified, “my tongue depends on it.”

“Ew!” cried Brooklyn Bailey, and Toeriek could tell the human was exhibiting indications of disgust. Though he did not know what he had said wrong, he seized the opportunity to gain more ground.

“I am sorry to disgust you,” he began. “Please, does your sexual aversion stem more from homophobia or from a rational distrust of what appear to you to be male advances?”

Language, he finally pieced together. Not tongue, “language”. 

He explained the slip of the tongue, but the human was still not satisfied.

“Jesus Christ!” said Brooklyn Bailey, “What does it matter what gender I am!”

Toeriek calmly explained his linguistic predicament.

Brooklyn let out a groan which Toeriek felt went on far too long to be entirely natural. “Fine. Look, I don’t care what you call me in your language, I don’t speak your language; if your language defaults to female, fine, whatever, I guess that makes up for all the Earth languages defaulting to masculine, but I speak English, so when you’re speaking in English, to me or to anyone else you’re talking to if you’re talking to anyone else without me—which would be kinda creepy anyway, because I don’t know you, but here we are—you refer to me as they. OK? They/their/them, those are my pronouns.”

Toeriek stored this in his memory banks, which meant that from now on, he would refer to Brooklyn Bailey only by their preferred pronouns.

“Thank them,” Toeriek said to Brooklyn Bailey. “Do they want me to leave now? I am enjoying their conversation.”

Brooklyn Bailey rolled their eyes and sighed, then proceeded to re-explain second person with the patience of a gender-neutral saint.

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October 3, 2017

Primitive Reptile Brains

By Polypsyches

I don’t know what happened to me. From the moment I saw her, though, I don’t know. Something happened to me. Was it hormones, maybe? Some kind of pheromones in the air? Something she exuded. I don’t know.

That kind of thing doesn’t happen to me a lot. Just ‘cause I see a pretty girl, I mean, what the hell is beauty, you know? That’s just not how I fall in love, when I fall.

I guess love wasn’t really what heppened to me there, though. But I think what really did it for me was when she looked at me. How she smiled. Beautiful women like that just don’t smile at guys like me. Not how she smiled. They sure as hell don’t talk to us out of the blue, but even if they did, that smile.

I knew something was up. Didn’t I? I thought I did. I remember thinking “This can’t be real, it’s gotta be some trick.” So why did I…

No. I know why. I didn’t fucking care. Of course it’s a trick, I figured, that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy it. Right?

Phoenix, she said her name was. Phoenix Drake. I didn’t think that was real, either. It sounded tailor-made to yank in dorks like me, obsessed with Fantasy. I guess I just appreciated that she cared, you know. That she made an effort. Or, I don’t know, maybe she was into it, too. Maybe that meant she was really…

But why me?

I never would’ve asked her back to my place, let alone invited myself to hers, you know? Did I think there was anything… sinister about… You know, she just seemed so genuine, you know? The way she smiled. Those wide, wide eyes. The way her eyebrows stayed up while I was talking.

“Wait,” I finally said. I didn’t say it till I was on her threshold.

Her look when she turned back was so curious.

“What’s going on here?”

The new smile on her face was different. Then she was biting her lip.

“I just thought maybe… you wanted something a little more… private.”

She leaned in close enough to me I started breathing in the air she was breathing out. There was something off about it. It was like, wet. Or maybe salty, something so… slick.

But her eyes were so innocent.

“I shouldn’t be doing this.” By the second time I chickened out, we were in her room, this quaint little tenement room in Baker’s Crescent, at the Arcade. By then, I had my shirt off and she was in… just the most beautiful corset.

And she gave me this look. So vulnerable. So hurt. Made me feel guilty for making her feel unwanted so suddenly. She raised her hands, as though to cover herself, her cleavage, but ended up touching herself instead. I think she asked something like “Don’t you want me?”

I guess you could say it finally tipped her hand. “Hold on,” I said, “You’re not…” She looked maybe late twenties, but… “You are over eighteen, aren’t you?”

She tucked in her chin and looked at me through her eyelashes.

“Well, actually,” she said, “I’m more than five thousand years old.”

“I’m serious,” I protested, though reeling at how perfect that answer was.

“Just relax,” she told me.

I think what might have happened then is that I got another dose or something? Everything stopped mattering as she leaned in and pressed her entire body against mine.

I shouldn’t say that. I shouldn’t blame. I know that I’m an adult. I know I should accept responsibility.

But no one deserves to be treated like this.

Once I started moving inside her, I realized something was wrong.

I know how I look and I confess it had been a really fucking long time, but I wasn’t a virgin or anything. I know how the inside of a woman’s vagina is supposed to feel. She had none of the soft fleshiness—I couldn’t even feel a pelvic bone down there. Instead, she was… I’d almost say “rough”, but it was like there was a hard tube ribbed on the sides (Ribbed for her pleasure, my brain told me.)

I looked into her eyes. “What are you?”

Now, only one eyebrow was up as she smiled and wrapped her legs around me to prevent my escape.

Suddenly, the whole room collapsed. The walls fell down and we were in some kind of lab and there were eyes. That was all I could see at first. Like a dozen pairs of eyes moving around the room with quick, darting movements. No. Not all pairs. Some didn’t become pairs of eyes till they turned. Then my vision adjusted.

“Relax,” she whispered. Then she licked my ear.

“What do you want?” I tried to ask. But whatever they had me on was working too well. One more dose and I groaned and spent myself inside her.

I remember hearing them tittering, hissing and croaking in what I can only assume was their native inhuman language.

I know you don’t believe me. I know it sounds like I’m saying I was abducted by aliens or something… But I wasn’t. I was lured into a sexual relationship with lizard people living right here in my hometown.

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September 28, 2017

“When the Levee Breaks”

By Polypsyches

Everyone in town would remember Hurricane Frances. It rained so much in those two days the first week of October that the dirty water at the reservoir overflowed and contaminated all of the clean water. At least that’s what they told us at school. As usual, my condition didn’t deliver the details on the parts of the story that were actually pertinent. all I got was a bit about the college kids.

Declan and Raven were both in their sophomore year and for them, once the news broke, that meant school had to shut down. They didn’t panic. They didn’t evacuate or anything like that. But the water didn’t run, so the school closed and they set up portapotties for people who didn’t want to go home for the week, or couldn’t.

“What you thinking, babe?” Declan asked. She sure as hell wasn’t going back to her parents’. Over the summer, she’d elected to stay with him. Awkward, considering his parents, but they were amenable, so they worked it through. Yet that didn’t hold her appeal as much as staying in the room that his roommate was evacuating.

Strange things were happening in town, though.

Having SchadowFreud come to play in the area back in the day, that was one thing, but SchadowFreud wasn’t where Anastasia Borgia had gotten her start. And her successor as the lead female vocalist of Acid Monsoon, Lucrezia Romanov… she wasn’t exactly living up to their dreams.

“Do you think we should go?” Declan asked.

“Where?”

“Acid Monsoon. Didn’t you hear?”

“Hear what?”

“They’re playing in town.”

“No, I didn’t hear that. When did that happen?”

“Everyone’s been talking about it.”

But of course, Raven didn’t actually talk to anyone.

“It’s okay,” said Declan, “we don’t have to go.”

“No, it’s okay,” said his girlfriend. “I don’t really feel up to it, but you should go.”

I don’t know quite how to get into what happened next. I saw the whole thing in my vision—of course I saw it really only as it was going on. If I’d seen it the night before, maybe I could’ve convinced Declan to stay home and accompany his girlfriend out to the portapotty when she needed to go. As it was, all I could do was send him an ominous text he’d get four hours later telling him he needed to get in touch with Raven.

I saw the whole thing well enough to remember it afterwards, but Raven doesn’t remember it. Not well. At least that’s what she says. She claims all she remembers is going out to the portapotty and that something happened. And then her talon ended up covered in blood.

Have I talked about Raven’s talon? It was one of those cheap-yet-fancy Goth girl affectations: a three-inch claw that attached to her finger. It wasn’t designed for self-defense—wasn’t meant to be, anyway. When she did use it, it was usually in kinky games with Declan that I blush to even think about, but she happened to have it on her, so when “whoever it was” attacked her, it must have been some kind of instinct that kicked in.

She insists to this day that she doesn’t remember the guy’s face. But I have an excellent memory and I’ve gotten pretty good at drawing, to boot. I won’t say how, but I managed to get the young man in question found and properly punished.

Raven, meanwhile, was super-charged. Different people react to that kind of assault in different ways, I guess. Even through time: three years ago she’d have probably locked herself in her room, shut out Declan, shut out everyone, but something about having blood on that talon…

Once she stopped to think about it, that would scare her, what it said about her that she was so full of rage—but she’d won! She’d won and she needed to celebrate and her boyfriend was unreachable at a concert.

It was too late to get tickets herself. They had wanted to call the even a “Hurricane Concert”, playing on the irony of Acid Monsoon’s name, but after they figured out what was going on in the town, they renamed it their “Broken Levee” deal. But there were still a couple of bars that were open. And one of them never let a Thursday night go by without hosting karaoke.

I won’t say what song it was she was singing when the band walked in. Let’s just say you’ve never heard of it, but they had. The concert had been a success and the bar was their afterparty and they heard our girl Raven doing her thing and they just fell head-over-heels. Even “Lucrezia” agreed she sounded good before she realized what she was actually agreeing to.

Caspar June, the front-man, had a note sent to her inviting her over and she was deep into talking to them by the time Declan finally called her.

“Hey, how’d you like the concert?”

“Not bad, I’m at Weaver’s Pies, listen I got a weird text from Kassandra.”

“Jasper’s sister?”

“Yeah, she said I should call you—are you okay?”

“Why would Kassandra want you to call me?”

“Well, she is kinda psychic, so why don’t you tell me?”

“Oh! Actually, I do have something to tell you!”

The assault from earlier didn’t slip her mind, she just didn’t want to talk about it. But she did want Declan there. She was hoping he could share her glory. If only that had been the case.

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September 26, 2017

The Death of Hurricane Frances

By Polypsyches

It had been raining for three days. That was what Vyxen O’Connell noticed. She didn’t watch the news—she preferred to get other people’s spin on it—and she really didn’t care about checking the weather. So she didn’t even really know there was a hurricane.

Of course, as hurricanes go, it was pretty unimpressive. I mean, obviously, if Vyxen didn’t even—not that she was the most observant person, but still. It didn’t rip up trees from their roots. It didn’t flood houses, that she could tell. It just rained. A lot. And she liked that.

But at the end of that one particular day, Vyxen O’Connell was walking home from class just as the reain was about to let up and she happened across an old woman on the ground by the side of the road, curled up in a ball in a coat—a coat made of leaves.

You don’t just see a coat that’s made of leaves and not stop to help somebody.

“Excuse me,” Vyxen said to the old woman, “do you need my help?”

“Bless you, child,” said the woman in the leaves.

Vyxen took the old woman by the hand and suddenly, there were fingers made of wind with a strong grip clutching at her hair and the woman, whose face was a cloud, pulled herself close in to Vyxen, peering at her face. “I know you mock me,” said Hurricane Frances. “You shouldn’t even be out of doors, even this far inland, but I have a little surprise for you.

The hand that Vyxen held was turning blue, and not from the grip.

The old woman whispered in the voice of the wind, “I promise you,” she said. “You will notice me here after I am gone!”

Then the hand in Vyxen’s burst like a water-balloon and the old woman in her coat of leaves fell back down to the ground, blending in with the rain.

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September 21, 2017

“Wrong”

By Polypsyches

I actually think it’s kind of a miracle that it took until high school for Lucy to start dating. I don’t know whether it was a self-confidence thing or if she actually genuinely felt a close connection to every guy she ever met, but she could never stop talking about them.

Most embarrassingly, though, she just would not shut up about Jasper.

“He is so cool,” she told me once before leaning in and whispering, “Do you think he might have had sex already? I mean, he is in high school.” We were in eighth grade.

I knew that he had—I am who I am—but I still lied and said I didn’t.

Then of course Ellen Portnoy happened. And my niece. Lucy managed to be devastated and fascinated at the same time. So full of every emotion, as always. And then of course Ellen dropped out of the picture so suddenly and Lucy didn’t know what to do with herself.

“You think about sex sometimes, don’t you?”

Thought about it? I didn’t have to. I knew exactly what it was going to feel like, be like, how it was going to taste and smell and sound, I’d had visions of it for years. I didn’t knew for sure who it was going to be with. (I assumed Angus—at least I did back when I was certain that he was my mysterious redhead.) But I mean, I knew what it would be. “I guess,” I fudged to Lucy, but then realized my mistake.

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I mean, I always have, but… it’s like more and more, it’s almost like it’s becoming real. You know?”

A few months after Jasper went off to work at the steel mill, I had a vision that made it a little too real for me, too. It was another one of my awkward my-family-are-having-sex visions, only this time, it wasn’t limited to family.

“Hey,” Lucy asked me not long after, “can I come over and study at your place this weekend?”

I knew what she was trying to do. She knew Jasper had weekends off, that he spent them around the house with his kid. She was triying to insinuate herself into—

“Would that be so bad?” Trevor asked. “I mean, I know he’s your brother and all, but like, why do you care so much?”

I cared because much as I liked hanging out with Lucy, the thought of her becoming my sister left me slightly queasy. Or, I don’t know, maybe I didn’t want my niece getting too attached only to—

“Come on! What is the problem?”

“I don’t want you dating my brother!” I finally blurted.

“Who said anything about dating your brother?”

“You have. For years. For years you’ve been talkign about letting him take your V-card—“

“Oh, honey, that ship has sailed.”

Some psychic I am. Assuming she was telling the truth.

“I just want things… separate,” I finally managed to confess. “It’s hard for me when it’s all… muddy.”

But there was no stopping them. I knew it. It had been in my visions.

“She’s sixteen,” I reasoned with Jasper.

“So? I’m nineteen, and in the state of North Carolina—“

“Don’t give me that bullshit! She is a child!”

“Maybe that’s what I need right now!”

“Are you listening to yourself?”

“Look… I don’t know what to tell you. She makes me happy. And I… I think I make her happy, too.”

Wouldn’t it be ironic, I found myself thinking, if Jasper and fucking Lucy McDermott were the ones to live happily ever after?

But I knew I was just being jealous.

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September 20, 2017

“Hey, Jude”

By Polypsyches

Kyle Niedermeyer went off to college when I got to seventh grade and by the time I was a junior, he came back as a teacher.

No one else could believe it. I mean, thsoe of us who had older siblings passed on the legend that was the Elk—to have one of their number in a position of authority? It was too much.

Except, of course, for me. Not only was I the only one not to gasp that first day when he revealed himself, I’d already brought along a nice shiny apple to give to him.

“Sucking up to the new teacher?” he asked me with a smile, careful to make sure everyone else was out of earshot.

“Do you remember me at all?” We’d only met once, which was enough for me, but his eyes narrowed. “Kassandra,” I helped him along. “My sister was in love with you?”

“Oh, shit,” he said, “Llywelyn?”

I don’t think of myself as much different through time. Physically, I suppose, with my hips and my breasts filling out, though very little in the face. It’s hard to really change when you know ahead of time pretty much exactly who you’ll be changing into, or so I still thought at the time.

“It’s great to have you back,” I said and he was gracious about the plattitude. “Does that mean you’ll be getting back together with Miss Kelly?”

There are only a handful of times when I’ve destroyed someone’s world with a revelation. I keep thinking I’ll cherish or even enjoy it, but the awkwardness makes that hard.

“I beg your pardon?” he asks.

“Don’t worry,” I tell him. “No one else knows. I’m kinda psychic?”

If I cared, I could prove that to him further, but there’s something more pressing. “Look, I know you’ve seen her wearing a ring, but she doesn’t love that guy. She still has feelings for you. And you still have feelings for her, which is why you came back. So you should… you know…” I looked down at my gift to him. “Give her an apple?”

He raised one eyebrow, then the other. As he reached for the apple, I bolted for the door.

There, I told my Psychicism. I did what you asked. What more do you want from me? What more could I possibly do? But there is always more to be done, isn’t there? Maybe I should just accept that.

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September 14, 2017

“Heart-Shaped Glasses (When the Heart Guides the Hand)”

By Polypsyches

There are a number of hard-core revelations that people have once they get to college. Or so I have witnessed from my eagle-eyed view. Some of these revelations are carnal. The lack of “adult” supervision opens up a whole world of possibilities, not just sexually, but alcoholically, marihuanically, and even at the cafeteria. You would be amazed at the amount of pizza an 18-year-old boy can consume without actually exploding.

Then there are the academic revelations. You soon discover that everything you have ever been taught is wrong—or, at the very least, skewed—whcih can be very uncomfortable. It can leave you unmoored: if those weren’t the causes of the Civil War, what else have they been lying to you about? What other lies have they forced you to write in term papers and short answers on tests?

“Are you okay?” Declan asks her.

“I’m fine,” Raven lies. “I just don’t know if I like it here.”

It wasn’t the classes. “I really like that Astronomy Lab. I mean, like, I wish there was an actual lab with, like, telescopes, but I mean, I don’t know.”

“Not too much math?”

“I don’t mind the math, actually?”

“You wanna take more math?”

“I wanna take more music.”

They were both taking music theory. Together. It was fun.

“Theory isn’t enough, though.”

They were doing a musical in the drama department…

“I don’t wanna do that kind of music. Something is just… off. I don’t know.”

“How long have you been with that guy, Declan?” Her name was Natalie—Nattie for short—and she was dressed like a lesbian.

“Since sophomore year. In high school.”

“Is he the only guy you’ve uh…”

“No.”

“But you’ve been dating him this whole time?”

She shrugs. “Pretty much.”

“Do you love him?”

“Look, if you’re hitting on me, just please just come out and say it.”

Nattie looks shocked. “I wasn’t… I mean…”

“I know I come off as damaged and vulnerable, but Declan is a great guy. I’m trying. I’m happier with him than I… It’s not his fault that I’m fucked up. It’s thanks to him I’m not more fucked up right now, so just, please.”

“OK.”

She threw Declan up against the wall outside his dorm room, pinned him, hovered over him, breathing him in. “I don’t think I like college much,” she confessed.

“I think you do.”

“I like the classes. But why do we have to hang out with all these douchebags?”

“We don’t,” her boyfriend of three years promises her.

“You promise?” He does.

But that was never gonna last, was it?

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