~ Shark Week ~

   When I was a little girl, I knew that one day I would be attacked by a shark, while swimming in a lake. Totally possible. We have all heard the urban legends of mysterious people dumping sharks, piranhas, stingrays, alligators, horses, old people, all into our local lakes. Well, here is an actual reporting.

Guntersville, Alabama, 2012, a shark was found dead at the Guntersville Lake boat landing. Story of the decomposing shark spread, creating quite the stir. Hoax stories circled around as fast as fish can swim. People all wanting to believe the long told urban legends.

Naturalists from the area tried to identify the shark but only could speculate, due to the advanced decomposition. Some think that it is a dead Bull Shark, that are known for having the ability to swim from saltwater to fresh. Others believe that it is a Fine Tooth Shark that was dumped by someone from the shark rodeo a week earlier.

Whatever the case maybe, it does make you think twice about jumping in a quiet, still, lake.

Happy Shark Week Everyone!

• Failure At 25 •

I remember reaching my 25th Birthday and being completely devastated. Not because of my age, long gone are the days of my teenage years. Thank goodness! But, because I had failed in a personal goal I had set for myself.

Dostoevsky had his first book published when he was 24 years old. Me, the ever competitive against famous dead people, had set out to do likewise. I tried. Oh, sweet mercy, did I try. I had finished the next great American novel. Oscar Wilde, my muse at the time, cheered me on as I deliciously weaved prose, words, and satire all in this masterpiece. This book was the unicorn that was going to take me to that glorious finish line.

Naivety got the better of me, I'm afraid. Oscar Wilde bid me farewell, as I was left to reality and the dreadful query letter.

I never reached my sought after goal. I failed. Dostoyevsky still was the reigning champion and I was left with an inbox of rejections. Well, said I, perhaps the public wants something else. If witty satire isn't the popular flavor, perhaps I should try something more gruesome.

Hello zombies!

I had dabbled with the idea of writing about zombies. But of course! How silly, death and carnage is what American's want! Move over Mr. Wilde, embrace me George Romero. I became a zombie writing fanatic. In my 25th year I had three published short stories.

Population: Zombie
YouTube: Punching Zombie
Big Game Hunting: A Zombie Short Story.

I laughed at my dead friend, Dostoyevsky. Take that! You may be the father of existentialism, but I am the mother of brain eating monsters.

George Romero and I waved goodbye to Dostoyevsky and Wilde. Toodle-oo! As we merrily skipped down the blood splattered road to publication.  



 

Enjoy Life

 

~ Juicy Character Snippets ~ Pill's Revenge

    • Continued •

    Over the course of a few months, our fat hero and his plans to get paid by doing nothing had become thwarted. Winston returned to the clinic twice a week with his sheet filled out with the words, "No improvement," written all over it. 

The doctor's conducting the single blind study became increasingly interested in our dear Winston. They steadily increased the drug's dosage, in determined thoughts that his weight ultimately played the part of blocking the drug's effect.

By keeping him longer each time, he had no choice but to swallow the wretched pills and keep them down. By the end of the third month, Winston was choking down enough pills to treat an elephant.

Sitting at his desk, pen in hand he contemplated what to write on his drug assessment sheet.
   
    "Bahhhh," he burped, and smacked his chest a couple of times as acid threatened its escape.

The constant stream of drugs had been disagreeing with his system. He found himself growing more sluggish and resorted to rolling around his room with his office chair. The wheels at this point had deeply abused the hardwood flooring. Giant circles of craved groves circled from his bed, to his desk, and looped to his bathroom, in a grotesque figure eight.

   "Bahhhh."

He burped again.

    "Insufferable!" he bellowed. The putrid smell of stomach acid seeped through his mouth.  "The Vampire doctors have had their last laughed! My quality of life has diminished!"

He rolled to the bathroom and refilled his water glass. He chugged it down like a hippo bathing its young.

He refilled.

   "I don't even need the money!" he cried, and wheeled madly to his desk.

The frowny faces mocked him. He grabbed the pen and clutched it against his chest, "I'll show them."

Writing in bold words, Winston wrote, "Cardiac heart failure." 

: Top 10 Favorite Books :

My love affair with books started when I was a young girl. Oh, the delicious literary heroes that paraded themselves in fiction. How dare they!

The mastery of language goes beyond rich syllable words. It is the telling of a story, a story that only the writer can tell. Here is a list of my top ten favorite books, in no particular order. These books truly have a story to tell.  

 

 

1. The Idiot, by Dostoevsky.

 

2. The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas.

3. The Man Who Was Thursday, by G. K. Chesterton.

4. A Confederacy Of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole. 

5. To Kill A Mockingbird, By Harper Lee.

6. Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy.

7. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde.

8. The Hobbit, by Tolkien.

9. A Tale Of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens.

10. The House Of Mirth, by Edith Wharton.

 

- Zombie Humor -

¦ Creature of the Day ¦ Wendigo

Wendigo- A demonic creature, believed by the Algonquian people, that has physically transformed from a human into a monster by the means of cannibalism.

~ Now for a literary snippet. ~

 

 

    Local reports of missing hunters had caused a hush to fall upon the village. School children sing the old songs of men turning into monsters, terrorizing one another. Little did they know, the truth behind those silly rhymes and the hidden danger that is hunting them.

 

   Deep in the forest, the wendigo clawed out of its dark cave. Smelling of rotten flesh, the foul creature felt the strength of the freshly consumed victims fill his body. The unquenched hunger for human flesh returned, consuming the monster. He needed more, always more. Breaking into a run he slashed at trees, savagely. Saliva dripped from his sharp teeth, as the craving grew into a maddening frenzy.