We were just moseying along through the woods when something flew fast and low over my head. It was screeching as it flew over. I felt the burst of air as it passed by, which gave me the willies. The whole incident did. The screeching was blood-curdling, especially as it was a few inches over my head. I would have stopped to ponder what had just happened and exactly where we were, but we saw - and heard - another one coming through. We heard it first, and by now Ben was paying rapt attention. He studied it as it came closer, though its flight was more like a Concorde than a biplane, so he didn’t have much time.
Maybe it was the same one, we had no idea, but it was definitely flying right at us, screeching again. We ducked, as it flew lower this time, but at least we had a chance to get a look at it. It was, without question, a flying monkey. Believe me, I know how bizarre that sounds. But you weren’t there. When, exactly, monkeys began to fly, and what else might dive-bomb us were questions I pondered for the very first time.
The monkey landed in the bushes twenty feet away. If I was not mistaken, it didn’t have wings. Instead, it had on a black cape. And I’m pretty sure that it was wearing a mask. Talk about bizarre. Again, I wondered just what kind of place was this? And why didn’t the monkey want to be recognized?
Ben wanted to chase it down, but I wouldn’t let him, as I thought staying together was a better plan. What was happening? Where were we? Suddenly I knew nothing.
I was about to loosen my grip on him and take a step when two of them came flying in from different directions. One skimmed my hair and I thought it was going to get tangled up and then bite me. They both screeched as they passed over, just like before. I was dry-heaving from the sheer panic of the thought of one of these monsters getting stuck in my hair. I was now officially at a loss. For words, for appropriate actions, you name it. This was definitely NOT in the brochure and I had no idea what to do. Getting out of there was the best that I could come up with.
Maybe it was my imagination, but as I looked around, I swore I could see the beady little eyes of flying monkeys in all of the trees and that their screeching had taken on a ominous sound. Their screeching was human-like. That made no sense, because I know for a fact that monkeys lack the components to emulate human sound. Of course, I was pretty sure monkeys couldn’t fly either…. So what sounded like 1,000 monkeys chanting “Beth, Beth, Beth, Beth, Beth” had to be something else. Something with a logical explanation like….well, I don’t know what, but it couldn’t possibly be screaming, flying monkeys chanting my name. Of that I was sure.
Ben didn’t seem so sure. He was craning his neck and looking all around to determine where the sound came from. It seemed to come from everywhere, all at once. And the smell. It was distinctive. It smelled of a pine forest, rather nice except for the association of the terrifying monkeys. I was expecting them to grab us both and take us to the witch.
Suddenly there must have been twenty or more monkeys in the air. This looked like a coordinated attack and while I wouldn’t have expected monkeys to be able to plan such a thing, here I was in the middle of it. They came from all directions, screaming and chanting my name all the while. This was starting to get really weird. Ben was about to go ballistic, and I struggled to help him stay calm, as I didn’t see what was to be gained by attacking one monkey out of an army of them. At least I had something to focus on aside from the surreal situation we were in.
I screamed when something touched my shoulder, expecting this was it- one of the monkeys finally had me - and I was about to learn my fate. It was a tree branch. What a relief. Now to grab Ben before he did something brave and stupid. Aren’t males pathetic? Always trying to be brave and save the day?
I latched on to him and we decided to make a run for it. How far to get out of the clearing? Maybe another thirty feet. We weren’t sure what getting into the bushes would get us, but it had to be better than being sitting ducks in the clearing. We were still surrounded by the screamers and the occasional monkey flew by, but we reached the edge of the clearing without too much difficulty. It was pure fight or flight at this point. And we had chosen flight. At least so far. We may have to fight yet, but so far fleeing was our best option. We had just gotten to the edge of the clearing when Ben snapped. I think one monkey too many had buzzed him and he turned around, snarling. He grabbed the monkey, it was still in the air. I was surprised at his reflexes. Rather cat- like, I’d say, which is just a bit ironic.
Now that he had a monkey he began to shake it wildly. The monkey went limp. It didn’t stop screaming, however. The third or fourth shake, one of its arms (paws?) went flying. He was actually dismembering the monkey. It was screaming the whole while. The flying mask went off in the opposite direction. Still screaming, the monkey’s innards started to fly. Except they weren’t bloody, they were white, cottony balls of fluff flying all over as Ben whipped his head back and forth.
Only then did I see the pack of fourth graders, Mrs. Meisenheimer’s class, leaving the clearing to head back to class, recess - and one of their toys - finished for the afternoon. Ben had scattered the pieces of the monkey all over the clearing. All that was left in his mouth was a plastic motion-activated voice box, still screeching. And then, even that flew out of his mouth, hit a tree and fell silent.
Copyright, Antigone Lett, 2007
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Lewie the Hero
It was a dark and stormy night. It was so dark, and so stormy, that from his hiding spot underneath the coffin, he couldn’t even see the glow from his Indiglo watch. The light was sucked right out of the air, like a furball going into a Dyson vacuum cleaner. As he lay there waiting, he heard a faint noise coming from above.
The sound so startled him, and was so close, that he jumped and struck his head on the mahogany of the 350-pound coffin. That left a mark. On the coffin, too. At least now he could lie still, between the pounding in his head and the fear that threatened to liquefy his bowels, he was afraid to move.
He heard it again… a tiny, scratching sound. It seemed louder, but maybe that was amplification from his hearing aid being pressed against the coffin. He hoped. He hoped it was a mouse in the wall, but that’s not what it sounded like. It was definitely a creature trying to scratch through something. He decided to ignore the noise and finish his job. When you worked in funeral parlors, there were lots of creepy things about, and you just had to ignore them and carry on. Or you would never get any work done. You might not get too much sleep either.
Lewie Potts crawled out from under the casket. His hearing aid didn’t come with him. He realized that he was running very late and had to get to work so he could get home. Working alone at the funeral home, he didn’t really need his hearing aid anyway, as there was no one talking to him here. He fished the device out and stuffed it in his pocket.
Lewie took inventory. Four caskets to clear. That shouldn’t take too long. Three of them were sealed, those take the longest. He checked his watch under the light of the flashlight and saw how far behind he was.
The scratching was growing louder, more insistent. And there were ghostly vocalizations also. If Lewie could have heard them, he would have run for the door, but lost in his silent reverie of the previous evening’s dinner (crab- he loved crab), he was oblivious. In fact, he was salivating, just picturing the three sticks of melted butter and the mound of Alaska king crab legs.
Lewie pulled out his tools and got to work. It was the sealed caskets that interested him the most. Opening them after being sealed was truly an art and he was a master. It’s a tough skill to call out on a resume, however.
It was almost like finding buried treasure. Lewie never got over the thrill of discovery, even though he came up empty, or nearly so, at least half of the time. But the other half…well, it usually wasn’t that exciting, but it was the promise of the unknown that gave him that thrill again and again. Lewie truly felt badly for the rest of the schmucks of the world who didn’t love their jobs.
The first coffin yielded easily. He was in and out in thirty seconds. He thought that she looked good. Good for being dead and all. He now had a mental image to go with the phrase “death-warmed-over.” It changed with every coffin that he looted, however. She was old, maybe eighty-five, and likely wouldn’t have done her own makeup quite so heavily. At least he hoped not. There was no way that she would have chosen the mint green eyeshadow. In the light of the indiglo, Lewie decided that she was probably a looker once. Fifty years and about a million heartbeats ago, anyway.
There were eyeglasses, dentures, cheap rings (a family member must have swiped the good ones already), and a pair of mittens for reasons he couldn’t fathom. Lewie could write a book on the stuff people put in caskets. Maybe he would someday. But they all had some kind of value. To Lewie- not to the coffin resident. Well, they might have had value to them once too, but probably not anymore. Probably, because he didn’t know for sure what came next, and if they were still aware of what was happening on earth.
The scraping and crying from the coffin intensified. It was very hard to miss. Unless you were clinically deaf. Then you could probably miss it. It was loud enough that it seemed that the resident must be alive and that they heard Lewie moving around and were trying to get his attention.
It didn’t work. Lewie was oblivious to the fact that one of the coffins was livelier than the others, and was making all sorts of racket.
He moved on to his second coffin, running extremely late now. He froze for a few moments, picturing that pile of crab legs. However, he was a hard worker, and despite the distraction, he shook it off and unsealed the next coffin. This one was better sealed, and he had to work a lot harder to break the seal. He hated that. The blowtorch always lit the funeral parlor up like a Christmas tree. And left singe marks all around the coffin if he moved too slow. He was afraid that he had scratched the wood…no one would ever notice that- after tomorrow- that is. Damn!
He was peering at the scratch, trying to figure out how he could fix it when the coffin lid came flying up and a youngish woman rocketed out of the coffin screaming, with blood running down her arms and face. She smelled like burnt polyester.
Lewie stared at her. She seemed to be yelling at him, but he couldn’t understand a word. He realized that the hearing aid might come in handy, so he inserted it and then was able to fully understand her, excepting the hysteria.
Gloria was so grateful that he had set her free. She was convinced that he heard her from outside and came in to rescue her. He didn’t go out of his way to set the record straight, but did ask, ”Do you want to go to the hospital?”
Gloria said “No…I just want to get some food- I haven’t eaten for days in that box.”
Lewie said “Don’t you want to call your family to tell them you’re okay?”
She said “No, those bastards are the ones who put me in the box to begin with. Can you seal it back up? They’ll think I’m gone for good and I can finally be free. Hurry up and seal it so we can go get something to eat. I have to think about my future. I hope you have some money.”
Copyright Antigone Lett, 2007
The sound so startled him, and was so close, that he jumped and struck his head on the mahogany of the 350-pound coffin. That left a mark. On the coffin, too. At least now he could lie still, between the pounding in his head and the fear that threatened to liquefy his bowels, he was afraid to move.
He heard it again… a tiny, scratching sound. It seemed louder, but maybe that was amplification from his hearing aid being pressed against the coffin. He hoped. He hoped it was a mouse in the wall, but that’s not what it sounded like. It was definitely a creature trying to scratch through something. He decided to ignore the noise and finish his job. When you worked in funeral parlors, there were lots of creepy things about, and you just had to ignore them and carry on. Or you would never get any work done. You might not get too much sleep either.
Lewie Potts crawled out from under the casket. His hearing aid didn’t come with him. He realized that he was running very late and had to get to work so he could get home. Working alone at the funeral home, he didn’t really need his hearing aid anyway, as there was no one talking to him here. He fished the device out and stuffed it in his pocket.
Lewie took inventory. Four caskets to clear. That shouldn’t take too long. Three of them were sealed, those take the longest. He checked his watch under the light of the flashlight and saw how far behind he was.
The scratching was growing louder, more insistent. And there were ghostly vocalizations also. If Lewie could have heard them, he would have run for the door, but lost in his silent reverie of the previous evening’s dinner (crab- he loved crab), he was oblivious. In fact, he was salivating, just picturing the three sticks of melted butter and the mound of Alaska king crab legs.
Lewie pulled out his tools and got to work. It was the sealed caskets that interested him the most. Opening them after being sealed was truly an art and he was a master. It’s a tough skill to call out on a resume, however.
It was almost like finding buried treasure. Lewie never got over the thrill of discovery, even though he came up empty, or nearly so, at least half of the time. But the other half…well, it usually wasn’t that exciting, but it was the promise of the unknown that gave him that thrill again and again. Lewie truly felt badly for the rest of the schmucks of the world who didn’t love their jobs.
The first coffin yielded easily. He was in and out in thirty seconds. He thought that she looked good. Good for being dead and all. He now had a mental image to go with the phrase “death-warmed-over.” It changed with every coffin that he looted, however. She was old, maybe eighty-five, and likely wouldn’t have done her own makeup quite so heavily. At least he hoped not. There was no way that she would have chosen the mint green eyeshadow. In the light of the indiglo, Lewie decided that she was probably a looker once. Fifty years and about a million heartbeats ago, anyway.
There were eyeglasses, dentures, cheap rings (a family member must have swiped the good ones already), and a pair of mittens for reasons he couldn’t fathom. Lewie could write a book on the stuff people put in caskets. Maybe he would someday. But they all had some kind of value. To Lewie- not to the coffin resident. Well, they might have had value to them once too, but probably not anymore. Probably, because he didn’t know for sure what came next, and if they were still aware of what was happening on earth.
The scraping and crying from the coffin intensified. It was very hard to miss. Unless you were clinically deaf. Then you could probably miss it. It was loud enough that it seemed that the resident must be alive and that they heard Lewie moving around and were trying to get his attention.
It didn’t work. Lewie was oblivious to the fact that one of the coffins was livelier than the others, and was making all sorts of racket.
He moved on to his second coffin, running extremely late now. He froze for a few moments, picturing that pile of crab legs. However, he was a hard worker, and despite the distraction, he shook it off and unsealed the next coffin. This one was better sealed, and he had to work a lot harder to break the seal. He hated that. The blowtorch always lit the funeral parlor up like a Christmas tree. And left singe marks all around the coffin if he moved too slow. He was afraid that he had scratched the wood…no one would ever notice that- after tomorrow- that is. Damn!
He was peering at the scratch, trying to figure out how he could fix it when the coffin lid came flying up and a youngish woman rocketed out of the coffin screaming, with blood running down her arms and face. She smelled like burnt polyester.
Lewie stared at her. She seemed to be yelling at him, but he couldn’t understand a word. He realized that the hearing aid might come in handy, so he inserted it and then was able to fully understand her, excepting the hysteria.
Gloria was so grateful that he had set her free. She was convinced that he heard her from outside and came in to rescue her. He didn’t go out of his way to set the record straight, but did ask, ”Do you want to go to the hospital?”
Gloria said “No…I just want to get some food- I haven’t eaten for days in that box.”
Lewie said “Don’t you want to call your family to tell them you’re okay?”
She said “No, those bastards are the ones who put me in the box to begin with. Can you seal it back up? They’ll think I’m gone for good and I can finally be free. Hurry up and seal it so we can go get something to eat. I have to think about my future. I hope you have some money.”
Copyright Antigone Lett, 2007
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