Meet me again in Dreamland

She was about 17 or 18.  Popular, pretty, smart.
Perhaps too smart.
That's why they came for her, in the dark, searching outside the second story bedroom with lights and small flying drones, peering inside the two small windows on either end of the housetop.
They'd been by before, rising over the house across the street with their huge moon-colored ship, hovering without sound, suspended over the neighbor's house...waiting.
She'd seen them, the only one on the block to see that huge ship. No one spoke of it, no one in the tight little neighborhood had been awake.
Or perhaps, they slept in induced sleep, caused by them.

After the sighting came the calling.
Through dreams and echoing in her head to the point where she thought it madness.
But always, always quiet and urgent.
What would happen if she ignored the summons?

She did.
She hid.  She kept away from windows at night, not wanting to see that big ship, not wanting for them to see her.

They called.
She refused to answer.  She refused to allow them into her mind.

In dreams, they got her, but not for long.
Her mind refused to allow them control and she would awaken and force the thoughts from her mind.

Nights without sleep. Long summer nights of hiding.
Threats against her and her threats against them eventually must have worked.

The ship stopped hovering. Perhaps they had been seen by someone else. Perhaps they picked on someone more susceptible to their calls.
They are now only hauntings of her willful mind.
But, they are gone.

Refreshing

I have two daughters.
The first one came after the loss of three boy babies. I prayed, I promised God, I stopped doing things that were no longer important to me in a crazy attempt to have a live child.  All I asked was for the baby to be healthy, happy and strong.
She came out perfect in every way.
She's a scientist now and I'm very proud of her.

When she was five months old, one morning, only one morning in her baby life, she went back to sleep after rattling the crib bars and another miracle happened.  We got pregnant again in the quiet of that one morning.

I didn't think I could have a second miracle, but Someone was smiling at me.

Daughter #2 didn't open her eyes for me for a whole month...the month she was supposed to be born but surprised us early. She was perfect in every way, just early. And vastly different from the first baby. I couldn't go by anything that had happened with #1 to figure out how to handle #2.

This one was so interested in tactile sensations.  She adored color and played for hours with toys that the other one eschewed. They did play together, but it was odd to watch.  The younger one established the scenarios for their play and the older one followed along. The older one, who could read before she was two, would share books with her sister. I guess it was a mutual thing, this sharing, and sometimes it wasn't mutual.

The younger kid displayed talent in the ways I could thoroughly appreciate.  Singing like an angel, artistic to the point where she can draw just about anything...just ask her.
She has drawn the covers for my newest books and novellas.
She is responsible for my new website.  It is her gift to me and my stories.

Cold cream

But Sally wiggled out of Maggie’s arms. She went closer to the sink and turned the jar around so that the label faced out where she could see it.  The three glamorous women on the label smiled seductively back at her.  Sally smiled.  Maggie thought she was trying to match their expressions…which was something for a seven year old redhead to do, but she managed to achieve at least little girl coy with her look.

“Ah, that’s us, isn’t it?  You, Lulu and me.  Blonde, redhead and brunette.”

“Momma!  Yes, that’s us!  Did you think of this before you had us in your tummy?”  Lulu peered through her glasses, her big blue eyes sparkling with mischief.
Maggie stood slowly. How to answer this?

“Yes. Your father and I planned on having two beautiful girls, one with lovely blond hair that curled better than Shirley Temple’s hair and the other with flame red hair that danced gloriously in the summer sunshine. Yes, we planned it quite well.  Of course, I had to be the brunette, to make things even.”

Jergens cold cream

“Am I going to be beautiful when I grow up, Momma?”  Lulu stood slightly behind Maggie as she rinsed her face in the bathroom sink.

Maggie turned to her daughter and smiled. “Of course.  You’re beautiful now. What makes you think you wouldn’t be beautiful in a few more years?”
The child reached up to the sink and snagged the pink lid to the cold cream jar. She looked at the top then turned it over and found a dab of Jergens there.  Lulu touched it with her index finger then applied the goo to her cheek. By this time, Sally had joined her, standing slightly behind Maggie, but all three were in range of the mirror.
She watched as Sally boldly stuck her finger into the white jar and scooped out the tiniest amount of cold cream. She applied it to her cheek, smeared it around and grinned up at Maggie.

“Oh, my beautiful girls!”  Maggie knelt and hugged them both.  “Here, let’s get this rubbed into those rosy cheeks of yours and then off to bed.”

On third thought

Another one of those eye-opening showers this morning. I kept thinking about the times I should have kept my mouth shut rather than express my opinion because my opinion was invariably met with far more than eye-rolling. In fact, quite a few people have excluded me from friendship because of what I think and feel.

Some of the times I actually do regret what I might have said to a particular person about something I knew to be wrong. Lots of blindness when it comes to what is right nowadays.  And I've said so.  And thus lost people who had been friends.

But, ya know what?
After years go by and the truth turns out to be exactly what I said, no one has come back and apologized.  And, of course, I had nothing to apologize for.

And doesn't that make me sound like a raving bitch?

Yes, yes it does.

On my tombstone, I have already declared that this should be written in granite:
                                She was right.

You know that Mermaid Arms story? The one I've been writing forever? Yeah, that one

There is a slight problem with the Mermaid Arms.  I will attend to it. All I need is another month.
The conference is this Friday.

Crap!

More True Confessions

You know that book I've been working on for seven years?

I'm just about ready to write the last chapter...but I can't get all excited yet because I have to glue all the miscellaneous parts together. God knows how long that will take, but I am giving myself until the middle of March to do it.

 

The Mermaid Arms...remember that title.