Wordzzle (yes! actually accomplished one!)

Hey guys. I'm sorry I haven't been blogging recently but there's a lot more school work this year, and I've been pretty much swamped since August. However, I was allowed to stay home from school due to an asthma-related cough, and I FINALLY was able to do a wordzzle for the first time since...I don't want to think how long. Anyway, it's a cute story.

Wordzzle

Milo shrieked as he landed on the bedside table. “All decks, red alert!” he called loudly. “He’s dead, Jim! So you think you can—AWK!”

Paula reached to the table for her glasses and spritzed the macaw with the water bottle at the same time in one practiced movement. Jamming on her glasses, she asked, “Who’s dead?”

“He’s dead, Jim! Engage. KHAAAAAAAA—AWK!”

Paula relaxed. More Star Trek quotes. She climbed out of bed gingerly, aware of the bird perched precariously on the end of the bed. “And how is my lovely African violet today?”

“I am Captain Jean-Picard of the USS Enterprise,” Milo growled. “We received your distress call. Please state the nature of your emergency.”

Paula shook her head in dismay. She had inherited the parrot from a loving but totally Trekked member of her family. 20 years ago, the macaw and her uncle had watched an episode of Next Gen entirely by accident and the next day they signed up for a con and never looked back. Before the Encounter, as she referred to it, the bird had a wide repertoire of show tunes. Now the only things Milo would say were Star Trek quotes and the occasional TV commercial that caught his fancy. But hey, as they say, laugh and the world laughs with you. It was better than him repeating sleazy soap opera catchphrases.

Following Paula into the bathroom, Milo observed the shower head with a beady eye. The water was warm; Paula, eyes closed, reached across for the bath brush and was rewarded with a nip and a squawk, informing her that she had missed her target. The pain ended her morning zombie trance, and as she stepped out of the shower, Milo stepped in and waddled under the shower head, fluffing and preening ferociously.

After the morning bath ritual, Paula placed Milo on the kitchen table and looked him in the eye, speaking calmly, using the even tone one would use with a mental patient. “Milo,” she began, choosing her words carefully, “I have to go somewhere for a little while.”

Milo cocked his head. “Report, Dr. Crusher,” he said, and edged away from her hand. Paula shrugged, and continued.

“It’s called a party. I’ll be gone about four hours. I’ll put on the National Symphony for you if you like.” She picked her purse and gently walked to the door. There was a flurry of feathers and rapid wing-beats, and the macaw stood firmly, yea, angrily in front of the door.

“YOU MAY NOT PASS,” the bird boomed. Paula gave him a sideways glance. Not Star Trek? “Resistance is futile,” the bird continued. Paula nodded resignedly. That was more like it.

The doorbell rang; it had to be Chris! Paula felt butterflies rise in her stomach. Milo turned his head towards her, as if sensing her intentions. To think that Paula would hold hands (oh, the horror) with another bird/human was repulsive, even somewhat frightening, to Milo. Honestly, Paula wasn’t interested in Chris that way, but the poor kid didn’t have any family in the area, and it was his birthday, after all. Oh, and Paula could make a mean cheesecake.

Paula gently picked Milo up and placed him on his favourite perch—the refrigerator—and opened the door for her friend and colleague. “Hey, Paula,” Chris said easily. “And how’s my buddy Milo today?”

The bird gave him a death glare. “Fire all phasers, Mr. Sulu.”

Mini

I’d always been afraid of monsters in my closet when I was growing up in rural Pennsylvania.I had no reason to be afraid; my days were fun-filled and generically G-rated. The highlight of my day would be to make a strike in the bowling competition and head over to the diner with my girlfriend from Philadelphia. She was always really polite about the stains on the menus. But at night, sure as the sun sets in the west, I’d start having a dream about a monster of some kind. Usually it’d be a cop pulling me over, and when I did, he’d pull me from my truck roughly and...well, I’d usually wake up in a cold sweat right about there. The nightmares didn’t stop until I was out of college. Even then, when I saw a cop, I’d keep the door locked until I saw a badge.

Maxi

The family my husband had to grow up with didn’t treat him roughly as a child, but they still remained monsters in his closet for years to come (for reasons I can explain.) I occasionally hear him crying in the night, and I’ll reach over to hold his hands. Part of his mental trauma, I think, was the era in which he grew up. I’m surprised I’m not more affected myself.

The virus which caused humans to act like zombies was discovered twenty years ago by one of the most brilliant scientists on the planet, Richard Pennsylvania. Soon after his discovery, however, a crack team of special-forces commandos invaded the lab where it was being kept and having its affects studied in mice, and took everything, including the refrigerator and the decorative African violets. When Pennsylvania returned the next day to document a few more tests, all he found was a cryptic note taped to the door: “laugh and the world laughs with you.”

It took the a cryptologist about two hours to analyze the note, and found it referred to old-fashioned latitude and longitude coordinates. The Air Force rushed there, but it was too late. Whoever had taken the virus had already poured it into New York’s water main.

The zombie virus did not react quite as people expected, however. Instead of going after brains, they went after whatever they wanted most in their lives before they “died.” For example, my husband’s mother hunted obsessively for boys, about ten years old, with blond hair like his when he was that young. His father hunted for cheesecake, after being denied all products containing sugar since he was diagnosed with diabetes. Others might hunt bath brushes or bowling balls.

I think what scared my husband most was his sister. She was five years old when she contracted the virus; she hunted for butterflies all day. Eventually she became so weak from not eating he took her to a diner and handed her a menu with “chicken” crossed out and “butterflies” pencilled in.

I don’t have any family still alive, so I may have been relatively isolated from the pain, but my husband definitely still has dreams about his parents and sister. I try to help as best as I can, but it’s up to him to deal with his own monsters of the mind.