hauntedbunkbeds

[hauntedbunkbeds]

Day 28: The Messengers

Day 28, Animals: What? You all know me! You thought we weren’t going to work with animals??? WE’RE WORKING WITH ANIMALS. Just base today’s work around any old kind of critter

The Messengers

Jerry’s white sneakers squeaked down the tile hall towards room 307. He hoped he wasn’t too late. His scrubs swished together with a whisper. He nodded toward Lakesha as she pushed an empty wheelchair past him and she gave him a polite smile. It was nearing four a.m. and the hospital was quiet. He loved this shift. He loved walking home afterward as the sun rose. He loved the quiet, the feeling that these hours were stolen, secret somehow, shared only by the other quiet nurses going through the motions of their shifts, checking charts, delivering pills, whispering so as not to wake the patients.

Jerry reached 307. Mrs. Rosenberg slept peacefully inside. At the vending machine earlier, Mary had told him she didn’t think Mrs. Rosenberg had much time, a day or two at the most.

“Will her family come to be with her?” Jerry had asked.

Mary sighed.

“No family,” she said, pulling a bottle of Diet Coke from the mouth of the vending machine.  

“That’s so sad,” Jerry said. “I may go say a prayer over her, if that’s alright with you.”

Mary shrugged.

“Sure,” she said. She gave the room number.

Jerry slowly pushed the door open. Mrs. Rosenberg was a thin, elderly woman who wore her hair in the tight, white curls of so many women of her age. She had a kind face. That was important.

He sat down in an armchair beside her bed and put his hand on hers.

“Mrs. Rosenberg?” he said quietly. She didn’t stir.

“Mrs. Rosenberg,” he said again, a little louder, and shook her hand a little bit.

This time she woke, her eyes fluttering open, looking at Jerry with blank confusion.

“Hi,” he said with a smile he hoped was friendly and not frightening. “I’m Jerry, another one of the nurses here. I’m sorry to wake you.”

“Is everything okay?” Mrs. Rosenberg asked. She made a move as if to sit up, but her little body did not cooperate, and she just shifted a little in the bed, turning slightly towards Jerry in his chair.

“Yes, everything is fine,” Jerry said. “I just...I don’t know.”

He turned away shyly. Mrs. Rosenberg blinked, still half-asleep, still unsure of his presence in her room.

“Mrs. Rosenberg, do you believe in heaven?” he asked.

He hoped she wasn’t too drugged to understand what he was asking. He hadn’t looked very closely at her chart. Sometimes they were too out of touch, near the end, to be very helpful.

“I do believe in heaven,” she said. Jerry felt relief.

“Me too,” he said.

He smiled, and Mrs. Rosenberg smiled back at him. She patted his hand, which rested on her bed. Her hand was soft and cold, transparent and veiny like a deep sea creature. Jerry set his other hand on top of hers.

“Please forgive me for asking,” he said. “And don’t answer if you feel this is too personal, but...do you believe you will go to heaven?”

“I do certainly hope so,” Mrs. Rosenberg answered. “I have...I have tried my best.”

Jerry gave her hand a nearly-imperceptible squeeze.

An awkward silence fell on the room, punctuated only by the sound of Mrs. Rosenberg’s somewhat haggard breathing. She didn’t have much time, Mary had been right about that.

“I have a very odd request,” Jerry said finally. “And...I hope you won’t think that I’m strange for asking you a favor.”

Mrs. Rosenberg nearly laughed.

“A favor?” she said. “There is not much I can do, in my condition. You understand.”

Jerry nodded solemnly.

“But there is something you can do, I hope,” he said. “I was wondering if you could deliver a message for me.”

Mrs. Rosenberg blinked slowly.

“When you get there,” Jerry said. “When you get to heaven, I mean.”

Mrs. Rosenberg closed her eyes, a gesture of exhaustion and confusion.

“I don’t know how it works,” she said finally.

“I know,” Jerry said quietly. “But can you blame me for trying?”

Mrs. Rosenberg opened her eyes and gave Jerry a weak smile.

“Okay,” she said. “I will try.”

“Oh, thank you so much, Mrs. Rosenberg!” he said, trying to keep quiet through his excitement. “I promise it’s just a little thing. It won’t take much of your time at all, considering the nature of infinity, and all that, which I assume, I mean--anyway...I’m sorry.”

She patted his hand lightly, not quite sure how much longer she should go along with this before pressing the little call button that would bring Mary to her bedside to shoo him away.

“His name is Woody,” Jerry said. He pulled a small photograph out of the breast pocket of his scrubs and held it up so Mary could see it. She squinted in the dark.

The photograph was of a small Jack Russell Terrier mix, a little white and orange dog sitting on a linoleum kitchen floor, staring up playfully at the person holding the camera. He had scruffy fur, bright eyes. A cute dog. Woody.

“Can you please just find him, and tell him I love him? Jerry loves him. Tell him that. And pet his head for a little while, maybe? If it’s not too much trouble?”

Mrs. Rosenberg looked from the photograph to Jerry, who had tears in his eyes. She nodded.

“Of course,” she said. “Of course, darling.”

“Bless you,” Jerry said. He returned the photograph to his pocket and wiped his face. “Thank you. I just...he’s probably wondering where I am and I just want him to know everything is going to be okay, and I’ll be there before he knows it.”

Mrs. Rosenberg nodded. Jerry stood to go, thanking her and smiling as he closed the door behind him. As he did, Lakesha rushed down the hall at a clumsy speed-walk.

“What’s wrong?” Jerry asked, following her, trying to keep pace.

“Car accident,” Lakesha said through heavy breathing. “A little boy. I don’t know if he’s going to make it.”

“I can go,” Jerry said. “ER?”

Lakesha nodded.

Jerry ran ahead, a little smile crossing his face despite himself. He hoped he would make it in time. Woody loved children so much.

[hauntedbunkbeds]

Day 27: Just Listed!

Day 27, Reality-Based: Make something that feels like non-fiction did, but isn’t real at all

Just Listed!

For Sale: Stately Victorian home on seventeen acres.

c. 1852

3,000 sq. ft.

Huge lot! Multi-acre estate

4 bedroom, 2 bathroom

Stunning original details!

Featured on multiple television programs including: Ghost Brothers, Southern Hauntings, Crime Time, Modern Horrors, 10 Most Gruesome Murders (US Edition), and more!

Clawfoot tubs in both bathrooms

Original stained glass on first floor windows

Wrap around porch with stunning country views

Basement off limits

Open House this Friday, June 13, from midnight to 3 AM. Buddy system suggested for those who wish to attend.

Located in the award-winning Littleton School District

Excellent opportunity for first-time homeowner looking for their fixer-upper dream home! Don’t miss out.   

[hauntedbunkbeds]

Day 26: The Sick and The Dead

Day 26, The Middle of a Series of Works that Don’t Exist: We’ve been starting from nothing this whole time. Now today’s prompt is to create something that feels like there’s huge amounts of work behind it, though there is none at all.

The Sick and The Dead

I was lying on the futon in my dressing room when I heard a gentle rapping on my door.

“Mina? It’s Dr. Brad, can I come in?”

“Sure,” I said, not getting up.

Dr. Brad entered, white teeth gleaming, blonde hair perfectly coiffed. Was he a real doctor? I still had no idea, but the shots he gave me before each show felt like pure bliss, so I tried not to question his movie-star good looks. I missed Dr. Tiffany. I still thought about her all the time, but I had to move forward. Her ratings were shit, there had been nothing I could do to save her. One day I’d find her, fix whatever it was they did to her, but for now I had to focus on this season.

I rolled up my sleeve and Dr. Brad prepped my arm with an alcohol swab.

“You excited for tonight?” he asked. “Top five, baby!”

I forced a smile.

“That kid in the wheelchair went viral last week with the whole magic show bit he had,” Dr. Brad said as he found my vein. “But people just loved you so much last season. It definitely works to your advantage that they already know your journey.”

Last season. The worst year of my life. When they announced that I had won, I passed out on stage. The doctors (real ones, not Brad’s or Tiffany’s) told me if I had kept doing the show another week I could have died. I was hospitalized for months. I still don’t know how many surgeries I had. In the end, my cancer was in remission. I was “cured” to use their legal term that terminated the period of time they would pay for my medical care. When I finally got to go home, news vans surrounded my apartment complex. The headlines were generally in agreement that it was a miracle I was alive. No one had ever seen brain cancer reversed like that. I was America’s Sick Sweetheart. I had won The Sick and The Dead, and it saved my life. Or, it had, for a little while.

Brad gave me the shot and I felt instantly more energized. I sat up and pulled off the orange beanie I had been wearing, revealing my mostly-bald head. A few stubborn spots of peach fuzz were attempting a futile comeback.

“Hair and makeup will be here shortly,” Dr. Brad said as he stood to go. “You should do the blonde wig tonight.”

He winked.

“Just a little tip I heard through the grapevine,” he said as he closed the door behind him.

I got up and sat in front of the wall-to-wall mirror, staring at the skeletal version of myself I had become in the past year. I was in remission for two months, and it had been incredible. I was a huge celebrity, making appearances on all the late-night streams, cameos at arena rock shows. It actually wasn’t until after Gregory’s funeral that I knew the caner was back.

Gregory had been runner up. He had contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion. The audience found his story compelling, and he was charismatic enough, but I’ll be honest (and I can say this because I have brain cancer), I’m really hot. Even at my sickest, I just had this sort of supermodel sinewy-ness, like Mischa Barton in The OC. I won’t pretend that I won because I’m especially charming, although I have my moments. I won because I’m hot. Gregory died because he wasn’t.

Gregory was sent home after the show. He knew he didn’t have long, and he wanted to be alone. The contracts we signed at the beginning of the show forbid us from using any of our resources to help the other contestants. The producers said it would “make the whole thing pointless.” We were all so fucking desperate we didn’t care at the time. We just wanted to survive.

Alexis, my makeup artist, came in shortly after Dr. Brad left and caked on enough makeup to make me look alive, but not so much that I looked glowingly healthy. I still had to look sick enough to win sympathy, but not so sick that I repulsed the the audience members who would ultimately vote for the winner. That was what no one else has realized last season. Everyone looked pretty gross. And I mean, they were gross. I was too, it’s just that I was the only one who tried to look Hollywood-gross, and not real life gross. Only one other contestant from that season was still alive when we started shooting season two. The rest had died within months.

Alexis made some final adjustments on my blonde wig. It made me look very Gwyneth Paltrow. I took a quick selfie for Snapchat and headed down the long hallway to the studio stage.

Peach was in the hallway already, leaning against a wall.

“Fuck, I don’t feel good,” she said. Peach was another cancer patient, only hers was everywhere. She was pretty fucked even if she won.

“Suck it up, baby girl,” I said. “If the audience thinks you’re too far gone they won’t waste their votes.”

“How do you look so good?” she asked. She smiled up at me, but it was really more of a grimace. She really didn’t look like she would make it down the hall.

“Make-up,” I said. “Trust me, we all feel like shit.”

Peach reached up to tuck her wig behind her ear and I noticed her hand was shaking. 

“How did you come back to this godawful place?” she asked.

“I didn’t have a choice,” I said. “My cancer came back after they ‘cured’ me, so it was this or die, I guess.”

Peach smiled.

“This or die,” she mumbled, “feels weirdly optimistic. Right now I’m just praying it’s not this and die.”

“We need you on stage in five!” came a voice from down the hall.

“Go ahead,” Peach said. “I’ll meet you up there in a minute.”

That sounded all too familiar. I tried not to dwell on last season, on Eddie, on Jacqueline, on that empty promise I’d heard way too many times.

Instead, I said “Okay,” and made my way upstairs.

Dr. Brad was waiting for us just off stage. The show was taped in front of a live audience, but everyone voted. Well, everyone with access to the stream. Electricity was scarce, but The Sick and The Dead was still the most watched reality TV program in the country. I had done well enough this season to make the Top Five, but I had to really do something dramatic if I didn’t want people to get bored of me, which could happen. And Dr. Brad was right, the wheelchair kid was good. He was funny. People liked him. No one wanted to feel responsible if he died. Whereas, they already saved my life once. Who’s really special enough to get that twice?

Dr. Brad saw me walk over and gave me a huge, fake grin.

“Peach isn’t doing so well,” I said. He nodded.

“Yeah I heard she has a month, tops,” he said plainly.

My stomach sank. I liked Peach. And I was sick of people I liked dying.

“You should send her home,” I tried.

Dr. Brad’s face didn’t change. The stage lights set his whole body aglow. God, it must have felt good to be Brad. To not be sick. To be famous for a show that saves kids lives. I couldn’t even remember what it felt like to not be sick, it had been so long ago now. If I didn’t win this season, I’d probably die within the year. The cancer would spread and there’d be nothing I could do.

“Only the audience can send her home,” Dr. Brad said.

A glittery balloon drop. Our cue.

Time to survive.

[hauntedbunkbeds]

Day 25: The Town Where No One Died

Day 25, Folkloric: Make something new that feels old and True.

The Town Where No One Died

There was once a small town at the foot of a snow-capped mountain where there lived a young girl who always cried. She was born crying, as most were, but in her case she carried on in this way for years and years. Her mother and father were exhausted beyond what they ever thought possible, and on the girl’s fourth birthday they took her up the mountain to where it was rumored an old witch had taken up residence after being banished from the neighboring kingdom.

They hiked for three days, carrying the girl, who was often too exhausted by her tears to walk. On the third night, they finally reached a little hut, and from inside its walls incredible smells wafted out and down the path towards the tired travelers. The father knocked lightly on the door, and an old woman with a kind face leaned out of the hut towards him, squinting up towards his face.

“Please excuse us,” he said. “We have been traveling for many days, and our daughter is ill. No doctor can help us, and we are here to beg you for your help.”

Behind him, his young daughter wept. Her mother had set her down on the path, and the little girl had immediately curled into a ball, crying quietly to herself in the dirt. Seeing this, the witch frowned and let the family in.

Her hut contained only a small bed and table, and various stumps upon which the family sat. The witch fed them little bowls of the most incredible soup any of them had ever tasted as they explained their problem to her in tones of hushed desperation. The little girl sniffled as she ate her soup, the occasional tear streaming down her cheek. It was the quietest she had been since her birth.

“Now,” the witch said, setting aside her empty bowl. “Little girl, why do you cry so?”

The girl looked up at the witch, then at her mother and father, who nodded that she should answer the query.

“Because I was born,” the little girl said. “Which means I will die.”

The witch nodded, pulling a small satchel from a pocket of her apron.

“And you would like not to die?” she asked the little girl.

At this the girl began crying harder.

“But if I do not die, then my mother and father will still die, and I will be left alone,” she said through tears.

The witch again nodded.

“Then you would like that neither you, nor your mother, nor your father, should die?”

“No!” the little girl cried. “It wouldn’t be fair if we weren't to die, but all the others in our village should die. It would still be a tragedy.”

The witch nodded. From the little satchel in her hands she pulled a sprig of what looked like rosemary, but nearly black in color, as if it had been burned. She handed it to the girl’s mother.

“Make a tea of this leaf and make sure everyone in your village drinks of it,” the witch said.

For the first time in her life, the little girl stopped crying.

The journey back to their village was made in complete silence. The little girl slept on her father’s back as he carried her down and mountain and back to their home. On the third night of travel, they made it home. Though it was late at night, the little girl’s mother immediately began making the tea, and soon she lifted a steaming cup to her daughter’s mouth, her husband’s, and her own. It tasted of death, and smelled of brimstone.

Once they had each sipped from the cup, the woman left in the dark and knocked on the door of each person in the village, assuring them it would be well-worth their time to answer their doors to her. By dawn, she was done. Everyone in their little town had consumed the tea. She returned to her home as the sun rose and found her husband and daughter sleeping quietly in their bed, her daughter’s face was dry, a small smile crossed her face as she dreamed of happy days.

The next morning, her father died. 

It had been a complete accident. A whip’s crack startled his horse and he was thrown, breaking his neck. The villagers buried him that night, too stunned to ask the woman why she had given them that disgusting tea that did nothing to extend their lives or stave off their inevitable death. His daughter, despite her every desire, could not bring herself to cry.

The next morning, her father’s grave was empty. The little girl and her mother couldn’t believe anyone would be so cruel as to rob the grave of a man over a witch’s old trick.

“Tomorrow I will return to the witch,” the girl’s mother told her. “And demand that she fix whatever poison she fed this town to fill it with such evil.”

The little girl could not speak, for behind her mother as she spoke, she saw her father making his way up the dirt path towards their little house. She pointed, and her mother turned and screamed.

It was her father, but it was also in every way not her father. He was covered in dirt, his head hung limply on his neck, dangling off to one side, unable to support the weight. He walked slowly, like a drunk making his way home after a shameful night of drinking. As he got close enough to his home that his family could see his face, they could tell that he was smiling.

“Dinner on?” he asked, as he did most nights as he returned from working in the fields.

His wife and daughter remained speechless as he walked past them and into the house.

The wife cooked as she did every night, and the husband acted as if nothing were wrong at all. He did not seem to mind his head rolling back and forth on his shoulders as he moved his body. The wife cleaned him up, and he almost appeared normal.

They carried on this way for several weeks before another villager died. It was an old woman who died in her sleep. As the father had, the old woman returned the next day as if nothing had happened. Years passed, and each villager that died simply woke up the following day to resume their lives. The townspeople adjusted to this strange but welcome phenomenon, and all was well in their little town, until the blacksmith’s house burned down, killing him, his wife and their three sons.

No one dared touch the smoldering remains of the blacksmith’s house. No one dare ask what would happen the next day. But all were present as the sun rose the day after the fire, watching from a distance to see who, or what, would emerge from the wreckage.

The little girl was the first to spot the twitching among the ash. She had not cried in many years, and was turning into a lovely, happy young woman, despite feeling a personal responsibility for the town’s unusual problem of immortality. Today her stomach sank, wondering if perhaps their luck in cheating death had run out.

The townspeople gasped as a bony hand pushed its way through blackened beams, then another. Soon, a creature emerged unlike anything else on earth. It was unclear whether the creature was the blacksmith, his wife, or one of his sons. Bits of blackened flesh hung off charred bones held together with bright red muscle and bits of tendons. On the skull, some tufts of hair remained, and bits of flesh, but the lips were gone, revealing two rows of teeth in a mouth stuck in a permanent scream, the jaw having fallen slack, broken. It stood slowly, hobbling through the wreckage, blindly feeling its way over piles of charred debris.

Townspeople screamed and ran. Men grabbed pitchforks and women locked themselves in their homes with their children. Standing still amid the chaos, the young girl stood, tears streaming down her face for the first time since her mother carried her up the mountain those many years ago.

“I have cursed us all,” she said. Her words were lost in the chaos as men moved in to attack the blacksmith, or his wife, or one of his sons.

There was once a small town at the foot of a snow-capped mountain where there lived a young girl who always cried.

They say she lives there still.

[hauntedbunkbeds]

Day 24: The Happiest Day of Her Life

Day 24, Short & Sweet -or Sour-: The shorter the better! Try to tie up an idea into as small or simple a creation as you can while still doing yourself proud.

The Happiest Day of Her Life

Pachelbel’s Canon in D played as she walked down the aisle toward the man she knew to be statistically the most likely to one day murder her.

[hauntedbunkbeds]

Day 23: Pen Pals

Day 23, Contact: Create a piece about keeping in touch with others

Pen Pals

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to you with a matter of grave important. It has come to our attentions that Duchess Elana DuChamps of the Duchamp lineage has passed away tragically in an accident of sporting. Having our lawyers review her Last Will and Testament, it would appear that all her wealth has been left to you being her closest in kin living today. The totals amount comes to USD $5,238,289.00. We wish to wire these money to you at your earliest possibility. Please respond quickly to resolve this.

Warmest Regard,

Dr. Elliott Wright, Jr.

Dear Elliott,

My name is Dennis. My mom is letting me use her computer for my computer games because I get to play games if I finnish my homework in time. Did you know in school they teached us how to write emails? We only didn’t get to make our own emails because they said we were too little. But like I said I do get to use my moms emails so its okay. What is your favorite color? Mine is yellow sometimes, other times red. Where do you live. I live in the Shreveport. It is boring here but sometimes fun. My favorite game is Club Penguin. What is your favorite game? Please writ me back.

Love,

Dennis.

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for responding so quickly to this dire request. We wish to make matters swiftly for you to receive this funds. Please provide your bank routing number with your account number and you will see funds as quickly as two business days into your bank directly.

Warmest Regards,

Dr. Elliott Wright, Jr.

Dear Elliot,

What kind of doctor are you? My mom takes me to a dentist sometimes but I don’t like it. You didn’t answer my questions that I had asked you. Can you please tell me: Favorite color, where do you live, favorite game. My teacher says you can write emails to your friends to learn about each other. She says its called Pen Pals. I have two dogs named Bestie and Woody. They are very nice but they lick my face sometimes even when I say no. Do you have dogs?

Love,

Dennis

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am afraid our time is running out and we cannot transfer you this funds without the proper information. Please make available the banking information we request of you or we are learning that these money will be seized by local government office and no longer will be available to you. Please do not greatly regret this.

Warmest Regards,

Dr. Elliott Wright, Jr.

Dear Elliott,

You are not doing it right so I will find a different Pen Pal now. I am sorry because we could be friends but you are not answering my questions and you are not doing emails right the way we learned in school. I am very sad but this will be my last email I will write to you. Please practice at your school how to write emails to your friends.

HATE,

Dennis

PS: My mom is making me go eat dinner anyway.

PPS: You are a butt from HELL

[hauntedbunkbeds]

Day 22: The Swamp Thing of Sorrow

Day 22, Tragedy: I know, I know, but give it a try. Don’t do yourself any harm, of course. Just make something a little sad today

The Swamp Thing of Sorrow

Mary grabbed the sleeve of the flight attendant as he made his way down the aisle. He stopped, smiling politely, reaching out for her empty plastic wine cup.

“Another chardonnay, Mrs. Conway?” he asked.

“Yes please,” she said quietly, trying not to wake the man sleeping next to her. “I hate to fly…no offense.”

“None taken,” the flight attendant said in his chipper customer service voice. “I’ll be right back with that.”

He left her alone again. Without her plastic cup to fidget with, she turned to the Skymall magazine that wilted towards her from its pocket on the back of the seat in front of her. She flipped to a random page. Little beds for dogs and cats that looked like they belonged in Buckingham Palace, lush red velvet with gold detailing and tassels, mattress filling designed by aerospace engineers (But how? Was this their side-hobby?).

The young flight attendant returned with a little plastic cup of wine and set it down on Mary’s tray table beside the magazine.

“Shopping for you pet, ma’am?” he asked, nodding at the magazine.

“Oh no,” Mary said. “I have a yellow lab at home, but he sleeps on the floor. Now I’m wondering if that’s animal cruelty.”

“I doubt that,” the flight attendant said. He had a hint of a southern accent that brought Mary back to the years she had spent living in Florida. She had hated Florida and its people so much, but now the occasional trace of a southern accent filled her with a warm nostalgia, though she wasn’t even sure what she was nostalgic for. She took a sip of her wine.

“I don’t mean to bother you,” Mary said. “But I have a small request.”

“Sure thing,” the flight attendant said, leaning down towards her.

“Can you let me see my son?” she said.

The flight attendant blushed slightly, crossing his hands behind his back.

“You know that’s impossible, ma’am.”

“Nothing is impossible,” Mary said coyly.

The flight attendant didn’t play along. He kept his face emotionless.

“On an airplane, lots of things are impossible,” he said.

Mary felt her heart rate increasing, and she knew a panic attack was imminent despite the medication she took that morning before the flight.

It must have shown on her face, because the flight attendant immediately knelt down in the aisle, bringing his face eye-level with Mary’s.

“We’ve arranged for you to see your son as soon as we land, as discussed previously. The airline is willing to uphold its half of the deal, as long as you uphold yours. There’s only an hour and a half left on the flight.”

“This is bullshit,” Mary said into her wine glass. The words burnt like bile in her throat. They weren’t hers, those words, as much as the byproduct of the anxiety that was taking a hold of her. The flight attendant mercifully ignored it and simply walked away, leaving Mary to the sinking feeling taking over her. She lifted the wine glass shakily to her lips and tossed it back in several gulps. She hoped that the alcohol would remove her from the panic, provide some buffer of haziness between herself and…her other self, the dark self that made her feel that the walls were closing in on her.

Just hours ago she had been in Boulder, Colorado, surrounded by families in fleece jackets and Birkenstock’s, and in only a few hours from now she would be in Madison, Wisconsin, where her new boyfriend Scott would be waiting at the airport to pick her up. He’d be wearing his beat-up old Members Only jacket and some ill-fitting jeans, probably chatting up an airline employee like they were best buds from college. It was the first Big Thing she had asked him to do as her boyfriend and it had happened too soon. She didn’t want to ask Scott for Big Things yet because she didn’t really like him all that much, but she had no choice. That was the problem with all of this, she didn’t have any say in what was happening. So much in this life occurs without our consent.  

Mary wished she could wake up the man sleeping next to her just so she could talk to someone about nothing. The flight attendants didn’t want to talk to her. She was a customer, first of all, which meant talking to her was working. Second of all, they were scared of her. She could just tell. When sorrow drips from you like you’ve just risen from a bog, it repels people, it makes them uncomfortable. She was the Swamp Thing of Sorrow, if you got too close, she may take you down with her, carry you like a damsel into the depths of human misery.

Without even knowing why, Mary stood. It was a little bit of everything that made her do it: The oncoming panic attack, the misery, the chardonnay, the loneliness, Scott, her son, who was so close and yet she could not see him. Didn’t they know he was her baby? He was part of her? Few took notice of Mary as she stood. The man beside her continued to sleep.  

“I think you should all know,” Mary said loudly. A few more passengers looked up. Others had headphones on, or were simply too embarrassed for her to watch.

“I think you should all know,” she repeated. “That there is a dead body on this plane.”

A swift flight attendant materialized, placing a hand on Mary’s back and one on her shoulder, guiding her back to her seat, saying something in a low, calm voice. Mary rolled her shoulders and removed herself from the attendant’s grip.

“It’s my son,” she yelled, making her way down the aisle, headed towards the front of plane but also headed nowhere in particular. “It’s the body of my son.”

She was weeping now and the passengers around her were completely silent.

“He fell down a flight of stairs and he broke his neck,” she yelled as two flight attendants grabbed her by both arms. She attempted to fight them off, unsuccessfully.

“He was nineteen,” she cried as she was wrestled to the ground. “And he’s in a box under the plane with all your silly little bags. All your little trinkets. All your memories.”

The flight attendants were dragging Mary down the aisle toward her seat. She let her body go completely limp, and cried, letting the wails take over. She could see only partly through the tears, but one of the flight attendants was bleeding.

“Did I make you bleed?” Mary asked.

“You elbowed her in the nose.”

It was the man who had brought her chardonnay.

“You must hate me,” Mary said.

There was no response.

When Mary landed in Wisconsin, she would let Scott drive her home. She would let him drive her to the funeral home the next day, and she would let him come to the funeral. Then she would break up with him. When the argument ended (it would be short), Mary would go up to her son’s old bedroom and kill herself with a little handgun she bought after watching a documentary on serial killers, to protect her home. She wouldn’t be found for several days. A cousin, bringing over a squash casserole, would find her on a Tuesday. The shock would be devastating, but the following summer this cousin would write a novel based on the experience that her editor excitedly insisted would top the charts.

It didn’t.

[hauntedbunkbeds]

Day 21: The One-Way Street

Day 21: Sci-Fi that takes place in outer space!

The One-Way Street

The little boy and his mother sat out on a porch swing with an old wool blanket over their laps. Winter’s first chill had swept through their little town that afternoon and settled over their fields and in the drafty corners of their home.

“That one,” the mother said, her arm raised and index finger pointed outward into the dark night’s sky.

The little boy squinted.

“It’s the brightest star in the sky, can you see it? One, two, three, and four. It’s the fourth one in that row, and the brightest,” she said.

The little star winked down at them in the darkness.

“I see it!” the boy said excitedly. “That’s where dad is?”

“Well, no,” the mother said. “That one is called The Sun.”

“The Sun,” the boy repeated.

“The Sun is the star that lights daddy’s planet and makes it warm.”

At that, the boy laughed.

“A star keeps him warm?”

“It sure does,” his mother answered. “Behind that bright little star is your daddy’s planet.”

“That seems so far away,” the boy sighed. “How long is it gonna take for him to get here?”

“I don’t know, baby,” the boy’s mother said, kissing him on the head. “Maybe not long now.”

“Tomorrow?”

“No, not tomorrow.”

“This weekend?”

“Probably not.”

The boy gave an exaggerated sigh.

“It takes a long time to get here, baby,” she said. “I want him here more than anything, you know that. It’s just not that easy.”

“Because he’s working?”

“Yep.”

The boy sighed again.

“I wanna meet him so bad, though!”

His mother smiled.

“You have met him,” she said. “When you were first born.”

“He was here?”

“No, we were there, on Daddy’s planet. We had to leave when you were born. It’s complicated.”

“We should just go back there, instead of waiting for him to come here.”

“That’s the thing,” the boy’s mother said. “It’s kind of a one-way street. He can come here, but we can never go back there.”

She looked down at the boy, and saw he had suddenly drifted off to sleep. As carefully as possible, she lifted his little body and carried him inside to his bed. As she closed his bedroom door behind her, she noticed her sister standing in the kitchen making something to eat. She looked up from the cutting board with a disapproving glance.

“You shouldn’t fill his head with all that false hope, Evelyn” she said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Earth,” her sister said with a scoff. “You know they’re never letting another ship off that planet. We were the last. It’s been eight years.”

“There were millions left when our ship boarded,” Evelyn said, barely audible.

Her sister crossed the room pulled Evelyn into a bear hug.

“We would have heard by now,” she said quietly. “We need to look forward, not back. It’s a miracle that we even got five ships here.”

Evelyn pulled away.

“Then I’m just waiting on one more miracle,” she said, heading back outside and leaving her sister alone in the kitchen.

Back on the porch, she took a deep breath of air, indistinguishable from Earth air in every way. It really was miraculous. She followed a little stone path from the porch to the barn where she and her sister kept their tractor and gardening tools. The heavy barn door opened with a loud creak, and she closed it behind her, grabbing a heavy flashlight and following its bobbing beam toward the back of the barn. A small work table sat cluttered with tools and broken pots, and from a small drawer Evelyn pulled a little bag of tobacco and rolling papers. Her sister hated that she had brought her bad habits with her to their new paradise.

“This is our second chance,” her sister had said. “A clean slate. But I feel like you’re not even here. Your head is back on Earth. We need to be all-in here to make it work.”

Evelyn knew she was right about one thing. Earth was home, is home, would always be home to Evelyn. She lit her cigarette and let it dangle from the side of her mouth as she opened a second drawer. From it she pulled a long roll of delicate-looking paper, which she unfurled and sprawled across the tabletop, weighing down the edges with various shards of pots.

She couldn’t help but smile as she looked down at her handiwork. The blueprint was nearly identical to the one she had originally drawn for the ships that had carried them away from Earth eight years ago, only she had scaled it down for single-occupancy. If she could just make it back to Earth, she could use one of the commercial ships to fly back with her husband and as many other people as they could fit. She took a long drag of her cigarette and got to work.

In the sky above the barn, the sun winked down through the dark. Evelyn smiled to herself, All I need is one more miracle.

[hauntedbunkbeds]

Day 20: The Eighteen

Day 20: Science Fiction: Home Based Earth based in this one! Incautious scientists, alien invasions, the technofuture you’ve dreamed of? Whatever you like!

The Eighteen

A Sixteen walked up to me as I stood at the bus stop one morning before school. I could always tell the Sixteens from their actual teenaged counterparts. They dressed like crap, first of all. This one was wearing cargo pants and a black, shapeless t-shirt with a pharmaceutical logo on it, probably swag from some conference. The Sixteens were always giving talks, like they were experts on longevity or something, just because they were the first ones to get the vaccine. It was so stupid.

“What are you doing just standing out here?” the Sixteen asked. He thrust his hands in his pockets and rocked back and forth on his heels. He was shorter than me and skinny, his face shiny and red like he’d just scrubbed it raw. I thought it had been weird being around Sixteens when I was actually sixteen, now that I was older it was even more bizarre.

“My bus picks me up here,” I said, adjusting my bookbag from one shoulder to the other to make it even more painfully obvious that I was a high school student. He looked up and down the street as if a bus might materialize.

“I’m new to the area,” he said, instead of apologizing. He jerked his head toward the house behind him. A McMansion, one of the more sought-after architectural relics from the turn of the century. I would know, my parents lived in one down the street and talked about it constantly.

“The pillars aren’t even weight-bearing!” my father would tell guests with a laugh. “All these decorative elements are just to give the illusion of wealth, and when society collapsed under the weight of its own grandeur, people actually acted surprised!”

Most of the houses in our neighborhood were built in 20 PL (Pre-Longevity), in other words, right around the year 2000. Now they were nearly a hundred years old.

“Welcome to the neighborhood,” I said. It was considered polite to act like you couldn’t tell a Sixteen from an actual teenager, so I should have asked him what school he went to, but I didn’t exactly care to put on that little song and dance at 7 AM on a Monday, so I just turned back towards the road, staring at a squirrel as it rooted around under a Chinese elm.

“My name is Dan,” he said, holding out a hand.

“I’m JJ,” I said.

“I’m a Sixteen,” he said without missing a beat. “In case you were wondering.”

Nope, I thought.

“Oh, okay, cool,” I said. Like, what am I supposed to say? Congratulations?

“Yep,” he said with a long exhale. “I’ve seen a lot.”

That was the other way you could always tell a Sixteen: The stories. God, do they love to tell stories. Every single one starts the same. It was 2024, and I was just a Sophomore in high school! I still remember the day they announced the vaccine. Blah blah blah!

By pure luck, I heard the quiet hum of my bus rolling up the street toward me.

“Well, nice to meet you, Greg,” I said, hopping on the bus as soon as the doors slid open with a slight hiss.

“It’s Dan,” he called after me.

All those Sixteen names sound the same.

When I got to school I found Marti hunched over his tablet frantically typing.

“I heard there’s gonna be a fight later today,” he said without looking up.

“People schedule fights now?” I asked, pulling my own tablet out of my backpack to check the student messenger boards.

“It raises the stakes, man,” he said. “When it’s like premeditated or whatever. Bigger crowd, higher chance of getting caught.”

“I miss Ye Olden Times when people would just cyberbully each other to death.”

Marti laughed.

“Dude how did that even work? Like, just turn off your tablet, man.”

“You mean cell phone?” I joked. Sixteens loved talking about cell phones.

“Oh my god,” I said. “I forgot to tell you. A Sixteen lives down the street from me now.”

“Dude are you serious?” Marti’s eyes went wide. “Let’s cyberbully him.”

“No, man. He seems nice. Like, a nerd or whatever.”

“Damn.” I knew Marti would never harm one of his own, and he was undoubtedly a nerd. Unkempt blonde hair reached his shoulders, which were hunched from too many hours in a VR chair. The Sixteen did seem pretty nerdy, too. He seemed nice enough.

“Man, I wish you could still get vaxxed at sixteen,” Marti said. “I’m already getting fat and old.”

I laughed, patting him on his belly, and we headed down the hall to homeroom.

“No way,” I said. “Sixteens are such brats. It’s best that they’re in their own little world down there.”

“Oh my God,” Marti said. “I just realized it’s almost your birthday. Please let me come with you when you get vaxxed! I’ve never been and my birthday is like, ten months away.”

I hesitated.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“You don’t know?” Marti whined. “I’m like your best, like your only friend, dude. Come on.”

“No, I mean, I don’t know if I want to get vaxxed.”

Marti screwed up his face in disgust.

“How old were you thinking?” he asked. “I mean, I’ve definitely read that Twenty-Threes do well. But like, it’s basically scientifically proven that--”

“I know,” I said quietly, trying not to draw attention to myself as Marti got more and more worked up. “It’s not that. I mean, like, I don’t know if I want to get vaxxed. Like, ever.”

Marti froze. I knew he wasn’t ready to hear it, but he brought it up, and I couldn’t lie to him.

“Dude, no,” he said. “Don’t be like that.”

“Look at the Sixteens, Marti,” I said. We reached our homeroom and took off our shoes, finding two free mats near the back of the room. “They’re stuck in the past. Everyone is moving on and all they want to talk about is the early 2000’s. It’s sad. It just seems like the longer you’re alive, the less of a reason you have to be alive, you know.”

“Please don’t say it’s not--”

“It’s not natural.”

Marti rolled his eyes.

“Your funeral,” he said under his breath as our teacher entered the room. I couldn’t help but laugh.

That night my mom made us chicken alfredo, setting it down in the middle of the table in a beautiful red and yellow dish she had picked up in some South American country, I couldn’t remember which. She loved to travel. Every summer we’d pick a place on the globe and go there. Last summer we went scuba diving to California. It was incredible to be able to see all the roads and buildings preserved underwater, like a real-life Atlantis. We swam across the Golden Gate Bridge.

“Before all this was underwater,” mom had told me when we were back on our boat, “The Golden Gate Bridge was the most popular place in America to commit suicide.”

“Way to keep it light, mother,” I had laughed.

She shrugged.

“I think it’s a conversation more people need to be having. Choosing how you want to die, I mean. Now that people are getting vaxxed, more people are getting to choose how they want to die, if at all.”

“Is that why you didn’t get vaxxed?” I had asked.

She smiled.

“No, I didn’t get vaxxed because I wanted you.”

She leaned over and kissed me on my head.

“We’re jam-packed on this little planet,” she continued. “One in, one out. You know the rules kid.”

She was older now than she had been that summer. Her long hair was pulled back into a thick french braid and streaked with grey, and her eyes had started crinkling up when she laughed. My dad had gotten vaxxed before he met my mom, and he and I were starting to look closer and closer in age. It was weird.

“Hey mom,” I said as I piled some pasta onto my plate. “What if we do a trip for my birthday?”

She looked across the table at me with a smile, but her eyes were conflicted. My father was out working, and it was just the two of us there in our McMansion’s unnecessarily-ornate dining room (or as my father called it, the dining tomb. He had the same joke for bathroom and living room).

“Sure honey,” she said with more than a little trace of hesitation. “What did you have in mind?”

“Norway,” I said. “They’re ranked the happiest people on Earth.”

She nodded. I didn’t have to tell her they also had the lowest vaccination rate. That she already knew.

After dinner I fell into bed and glanced over at my tablet.

I had a message from Marti: That kid in the fight died.

I turned my tablet off. We couldn’t escape it, vaxxed or not. A study had come out recently that said Sixteens had a higher chance of getting murdered than any other vaxxed demographic. One day they’d be an endangered species. One day my mom would be gone, one day it’d be way more than just California underwater, one day we’d run out of reasons to want to live forever, one day we’ll forget why we ever did.

In a couple days I’d turn eighteen. Legal vaxxing age. I pulled my tablet into bed with me and turned it back on. With a gentle brush of my finger in its light I sent out a small query, a death blow, a prayer, a deep exhale: Tickets to Norway.

[hauntedbunkbeds]

Day 19, Reinvent a Classic: Take something you’ve loved or hated for a long time and make it yours

For today’s challenge I offer a re-telling of Air Bud for these modern times.

[hauntedbunkbeds]

Day 18: How to Have the Best Day

Day 18: A How-To Guide: Real or fictional, create a how-to while using your chosen medium!

How To Have The Best Day

1. Wake up on time (Difficulty Level = High)

2. Make a perfect cup of coffee

3. Drink it outside or in a special place

4. Pull out your trusty notebook, diary, or day-planner and write about your thoughts, your future plans, ideas for a novel, or a to-do list for the day.

5. Before you leave the house, don’t forget to put on your favorite outfit.

6. Time to visit the local bakery. Since you woke up on time, they will have all your favorite pastries in stock. You should probably get another cup of coffee to go with breakfast.

7. Walk across the street to your favorite bookshop and say hello to the booksellers. Ask them to recommend you a book, and watch their eyes light up.

8. Sit outside and read while you drink your coffee and eat your pastry. Revel in the knowledge that on this day, nothing is expected of you.

9. Reveling is important, otherwise your best day might pass unacknowledged.  

10. Honestly at this point, you’ve already had the best day. You can do whatever you want from here on out: Go to lunch with your friends, go thrifting, try a new recipe, do research for a trip you want to take, walk through your favorite neighborhood, let your mom cook you dinner. The freedom to choose what you want to do with your day is what makes it the Best!

[hauntedbunkbeds]

Day 17: Basecamp at Everest

Day 17: Kaleidoscope Piece a series of fragments together into something new

(I didn’t have an idea for today’s prompt so I wrote something based on what I dreamed last night and added a line about a kaleidoscope. Hehe oops.) 

Basecamp at Everest

Uncle Frank died on Christmas Eve, but everyone wanted him there on Christmas morning, so we all just agreed, sort of wordlessly, that we’d just keep him home for Christmas. It didn’t seem creepy for some reason. Uncle Frank slept like all the time, so it kind of made sense for him to just be sleeping in his chair while we opened presents. Mom set a cup of coffee next to him. It steamed until it didn’t any more, then she dumped it down the sink when she got up to get herself another cinnamon bun.

“Frank, you want anything?” she called from the kitchen. My brother and I looked over at him, half-expecting an answer.

After Christmas mom kept meaning to take care of Frank. The strong scent of the Christmas tree masked the scent of Frank’s body as it became steadily more rancid, and soon we just kept all the windows open in the living room. The house was freezing, but it helped stop the process of decay that made keeping Frank a hassle.

We started doing more in the living room. Mom moved the TV from the den, and pulled an extra couch up there. My brother and I started doing homework sprawled across the carpet at Frank’s feet. It was nice having him there.

New Year’s Eve came and we drank sparkling cider and watched Dick Clark on the TV.

“He looks even older and deader than you, Uncle Frank!” my brother said. And we all laughed. Except Frank of course.

Mom stopped saying, “I’ve got to do something about Frank” about a month after Christmas. He was part of our routine. It would have felt rude to just pass him off to some stranger who would just shove him into an oven and reduce his physical existence to ash.

Then came spring. We had a family meeting outside. We did almost everything outside that spring. Inside the house, you could not escape the smell of death in any room.

“We need to say goodbye to Frank,” my mom said.

We all started crying, and it was the first time we cried for Frank, and it felt awful and wonderful. Mom was right, of course. Our house belonged to a dead man. That was no way to live.

It was awfully embarrassing for our mother, of course, having to explain to the nice assistants from the funeral home why our rotting uncle sat in an armchair across from a rotting Christmas tree, why our backyard looked like basecamp on Everest, why we let our lives slip out of our own control to avoid changing one single thing, losing one single Uncle, accepting the fact that time marches to a cruel, relentless beat, deaf to protest.

We watched our days pass as the tumbling angles of a kaleidoscope—brilliance, in disarray.

[hauntedbunkbeds]

Day 16: Seeing the Future

Day 16: Romance You’re not constrained by any bounds other than the central love of today’s work.

Seeing the Future

We were walking to a CVS in Florida

From the hospice

when we decided to move in together.

It wasn’t exactly romantic but it was

Sweet. You said you’d take my dad’s dog

So it’d be you

And my dad’s dog and my dog and the dog we got

Together who was still a baby.

Lately I’m getting targeted ads for

Palm reading apps and murphy doors

And wondering what the algorithm thinks of me

That I should need secret rooms,

That I should contain the details of the future

In the patterns of my own hand.

I only saw it once:

In Florida where the ground was live with lizards

Where the girl down the hall from my dad looked my age

Where my dad asked Where’s Ginger?

And I held her up so he could see her,

Here she is.

[hauntedbunkbeds]

Day 15, Comic or Graphic Novel: Today’s task for EVERYONE is to create a short comic. Good luck!

[hauntedbunkbeds]

Day 14: Trash Mansion

Day 14, Non-Fiction: Oh no, you may say. But it doesn’t have to be an essay! Just focus on reality today. Still lifes, memoirs, experiences, memories- Anything real works!

Trash Mansion

I was living in a house we affectionately called “Trash Mansion.” It was an old, five-bedroom house with single-pane windows that shook when the train passed. We grew used to pausing our conversations at the train’s approach, as it would often lay on the horn repeatedly to ensure the tracks ahead weren’t blocked by cars at our intersection. It wasn’t long living there before I could sleep through the sound.

Trash Mansion was wedged between an old thrift store and an abandoned shotgun shack in a neighborhood called New Town. I still don’t know why they call it that. Living there was cheap, and despite my near-constant desire to be alone, living with five people wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. My room was painted a deep, rust orange, with tall windows and a bricked up fireplace. I had a small recording set-up at my desk, and it was in that room that I would record a small album about Halloween that would later spur a three-album set and a radio play.

I was a waitress at the time, which was a job I both hated and loved. I still miss the charm of the old building I worked in, and the incredibly funny and artistic people who worked there with me. Now, I work alone from home, in a house I own, but I still feel nostalgia for that waitressing job and that five-bedroom house. There was something very pure about that time in my life that I still cherish.

I turned twenty-five at Trash Mansion and felt, suddenly, like an adult. I had a small safe that I kept my savings in, and just the fact that I had savings at all was astounding to me. So when, a few weeks after my twenty-fifth birthday, a friend and coworker texted me a picture of a small, wiry puppy up for adoption with the text “I think I found your dog,” I knew he was right. I drove to the pet store the next day, and in the front by the registers they would often keep an adoptable dog or two. He were there alone--a small, sand-colored terrier with a chewed up brown collar, looking out at the customers who walked by with a deeply sad little face. I stuck a few fingers through the cage and he licked them. He had coarse fur and a little salt-and-pepper beard, despite only being a couple months old. I knew he was my dog. I got up and walked away.

I was at a point in my life where nothing held me down. I wasn’t even on a lease at Trash Mansion. I could move away tomorrow with ultimately no repercussions. The desk and bed in my little orange room were my only pieces of furniture. The idea of falling in love with something that needed me to be there for it, to be present and reliable, was scary. It meant the end of some era of my life, some weightlessness I couldn’t name, but reveled in. I took a lap around the pet store, my heart racing. When I got back he was still there, sitting in his cage, staring up at me. I already belonged to him. 

“I’d like to adopt that dog, please,” I said.

The cashier looked confused.

“You know, you can take him out of the cage and like, hold him, right?”

“Oh!” I said. I hadn’t even considered that somehow. I unlatched the cage and picked him up. He was like a warm little potato in my arms and I wanted to cry.

“Yes, I’d like to adopt this dog please,” I said.     

I still think about that lap I took around the pet store and cry. What was I thinking? What if someone had walked into the pet store after me and seen what I had failed to see--not a weight, but a gift, a little creature that wants so badly to be wanted and loved, who has all the love in the universe to give in return. Dog love is not like human love. It is the most pure thing I’ve ever felt.

I held him as I filled out the form, as I handed over one-hundred and fifty dollars in cash (all my waitressing money was cash), as they took the form back to the manager, as they returned.

“Alright! Here’s his paperwork. Congratulations on your new puppy!”

In the car ride home he slept in my lap, curled up like a cinnamon bun, and back at Trash Mansion everyone took equal turns adoring him, but especially Tess, who held him and kissed him and would let him chew at her socks. In a few weeks, she would adopt her own puppy, a weiner dog, and the two would chase each other in circles around our backyard until they got so tired they could collapse in the clover with huge, tired grins.

I named the puppy Houdini. People always ask if it’s because he disappears. No one assumes it is because he is actually magic.

It’s been five years since I lived in Trash Mansion. I know it doesn’t really sound like the sort of place where you finally learn to become an adult, but somehow, for me, it was. I have three dogs now, and an amazing partner who loves them as much as I do. The first time we hung out, he joked that he was more nervous to meet Houdini than me. That’s how I knew he was a keeper.

I suppose all of this is just to say, you never know where you’ll find yourself. Sometimes you’re a waitress living in Trash Mansion. Sometimes that’s perfect.

[hauntedbunkbeds]

Day 13: Oblivion

Day 13, The High Seas: Whether it’s pirates, sailors, or mermaids, today needs to involve being out on the ocean!

Oblivion

Mary had been insistent on the cruise for our honeymoon. We discussed my claustrophobia, my distaste for the ocean, for direct sunlight, for other people, et cetera. Yet our wedding and honeymoon, despite ostensibly being a special occasion for both of us, had morphed into a day all of us would spend at the service of Mary and her wishes. Being impartial on every possible detail of our nuptials, I fell victim to them. By the time it came to planning the honeymoon, I had so many strikes against me that I was powerless in the face of Mary’s determination. So, a cruise it was.

I kept a zip-lock bag of various pills in my fanny pack at all times on the boat, staving off waves of panic and nausea as they rocked me back and forth like the mammoth steel sides of our cruise ship in the black, pitiless ocean. On our first day on the boat, I marveled, like a child, that such a massive thing could stay afloat. Later, Mary would blame the whole terrible incident on me, as if I had jinxed it with my doubt.

The first few days were fine. I read mystery novels on the deck in the shade, ate too much food, drank too many beers. Mary and I got massages and I don’t remember ever feeling more relaxed. At night we had to mingle with other guests, who I disliked without exception, as we participated in games and activities, which I disliked without exception, and sat through stage shows, that I disliked with one exception: The ship’s magician.

It was not the type of magic you would expect from a cruise ship magician--the overly showy type with its cliche sequined props, its tricks pulled right out of a box. The magician was an older Italian man who sat on a three-legged wooden stool and told stories in his thick accent as he ran a deck of cards through his fingers as if it were water. His illusions occurred without preface or conclusion, he let them exist without offering his opinion. It was lovely. I tried to find him after the show to tell him how much I loved it, but he was already gone. Disappeared, as it were.

I wish I could say the engine fire was the low point of the trip. It was our fourth day of the cruise, everyone getting comfortable in their routines, feeling protective over certain deck chairs, nodding politely in the narrow corridors. Word spread of the fire before the official announcement, so panic had already infected the general population beyond what the captain’s gentle reassurances could assuage. I was fiddling with my zip-lock bag, trying to remember if I needed a blue or a white at the moment, when our world went quiet.

Quiet is the worst sound you can hear on a cruise ship, but it never lasts long. One shrill scream broke the silence, following by so many others I was buried in the sounds. Mary held one delicate hand up to her mouth.

“Mary, what happened to your ring?” I said, nodding towards her bare hand. She looked confused for a moment, then looked up at me with a smile that was out of place for so many reasons in that moment.

“I must have taken it off when I got my nails done yesterday and forgotten to put it back on,” she said.

Screams continued from the passengers around us.

“Oh,” was all I could bring myself to say.

We were instructed by the cruise employees (as they rushed frantically across the gleaming decks) to gather in the main dining room for an update on the situation. The quiet of the ship didn’t fully dawn on me until we reached the ballroom, usually so vivid with its gaudy chandeliers and multi-colored lights running underneath the bar. Now it was dark, and no one dared speak. Distantly, we heard pots and pans shuffling around in the kitchen, a chef no-doubt panicking as his walk-in freezers slowly warmed.

Complimentary drinks were served as one of the ship’s employees explained the minor inconvenience that was our ship’s generator failure. Mary nervously sipped from her pina colada, her eyes darting between the other passengers.

We were encouraged to relax for the time being, as panicking would not turn the generator back on. Dinner would be served two hours early. Without power to light our ways back to our rooms, a strict curfew was set.

“Suddenly, we’re prisoners on our own vacation,” Mary griped.

“We’re going to die on this gaudy monstrosity,” I thought to myself. “God is punishing man for creating these eyesores and littering his oceans with them. Like Icarus, we shall fall!”

As the sun set that evening, passengers relishing in their last moments before curfew leaned against the ship’s railings, speaking to each other in hushed tones. More than in the days previously, I saw groups of men huddled together conspiratorially. Alliances were being formed, plans made, perhaps a rebellion against the incompetent staff.

I breathed in the ocean air. It smelled awful. I overheard someone saying our sewage system broke, and was leaking. Mary had gone to meet up with some women she met on the first night who had each dragged their own unwilling partners to this floating prison, and I hadn’t seen her in hours.

“You look rather sad, even for these circumstances,” came a voice from down the railing. He had a thick Italian accent.

It was the magician. He wore a brown tweed blazer and smoked a crumpled-looking cigarette.

“I believe my wife is cheating on me,” I said.

He took a few steps closer and leaned against the railing with his back to the ocean.

“And I hate it here,” I said. “No offense.”

He smiled.

“Me as well, my friend,” he said, taking a drag of his cigarette. “But, it’s just a job.”

I stared down at the black face of the ocean.

“What should I do?” I asked it, or the magician, or no one.

“It doesn’t really matter,” he said, looking over at me. “We’ll all be dead soon.”

I wasn’t sure if he meant later today as ocean water slowly filled our lungs, or years from now in hospital gowns. He flicked his cigarette butt into the ocean.

“In the meantime,” he said. “There’s a second bar to which only the staff has access. Would you like to join me in getting drunk?”

“I’d like that very much,” I said.

Together the magician and I reached a state of oblivion as black and glossy as the night sky’s wavering reflection in that dark ocean water, incomparable depth reflecting incomparable depth, unbearable and divine.

[hauntedbunkbeds]

Day 12: Won’t You Be My Friend?

Day 12, Children’s: Remember: Simple doesn’t mean unimportant! Create whatever work you feel needs making. Just make it accessible and safe for kids!

Won’t You Be My Friend?

H.H. Holmes went to the fair

He built a house while he was there

I think he has some extra rooms

One might be perfect just for you

John Wayne Gacy was a clown

He dressed up for the boys in town

He loves to play, but he’s alone

“Come over,” he says, “Won’t you come?”

David Koresh could play the guitar

He lived with friends from near and far

He’d love to live with just one more

Won’t you come knock on David’s door?

John Wilkes Booth sure likes to play

When he’s acting on the stage

One day he might be a star

With friends like you, he could go far

Ed Kemper is so very smart

His I.Q. is off the chart!

He likes to sculpt, and read books, too

He’d love to read a book with you!