Jimbo here — Oh boy, do I have one for ya. From my editors, this quote says it all: Do I think we should publish it? Yes. It’s dark and weird as fuck. I loved it. Unique and unsettling. The writer achieves a lot in such a short piece. You won’t forget reading this piece.’
Thyme Well Spent
Inside of an incubator, my child lay. I poked through the holes to
rub her soft curls. Her hair, thin and cottony, the color of earth, wrapped
around my fingers gently. When I pulled back, a single thread remained on my
finger, and I stood, searching for a way to be rid of it. My hand found a
solution by placing it on my tongue. I licked my lips.
She wailed. I smiled.
===
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At 6, she decided to be a tree, enjoying how they could touch the
sky. To achieve this, she took a brush and slathered paint to her head. I
watched her, giggled with her, and even took to painting with her. Her mother
was not very pleased with our artwork.
Her hair was curly and spattered with green, the color of thyme I
had told her. Whenever she dashed past me or rushed to give me a hug, I had to
suppress myself. Every part of me wanted to run my hands through her curls,
feel them twine and retract around my fingers, as I pulled them away from her
face and let them snap back into their pristine coils. I frequently had to
remove myself, giving a brief “I need some air” before exiting the room and
sprinting away, wherever to calm myself, lest my excitement show, and her
mother remove me from our lives.
One night, however, after the clocks had struck twelve and I had
woken from a nightmare of police finding me with the Thyme, I gave myself to
such bliss. Knowing that her mother had started to catch on, I snuck to her
room and snipped off a lock of her hair, tucking it into my pocket as a
keepsake before I needed to flee. I placed my lips on her forehead, knowing I
couldn’t stay in this home, not with her here, not how I felt. As I left, I
found myself frozen in the doorway and turned to look at her, basked in
moonlight. I took the shears and delicately, snipped off another strand, this
time holding it to the light. The moonlight, reflecting off of her emerald
locks enraptured me, and before I knew it, I had swallowed the entire strand.
When her mother came to get her in the morning, she found her
bald, and me, with a mouthful of thyme.
===
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At 16, she was taken from me. Not through a custody battle, after all I
had lost my role as her father ten years prior after her mother discovered me.
No, her reckless friends, the fools, drove under the influence, taking my
darling Thyme with them. I wasn’t allowed at the funeral; not that that would
stop me.
That evening, when the sun had fallen and the sky glimmered with
constellations, I found her plot and dug. I wasn’t aware of how frantic my
digging came until I was three feet below. I needed to reach her. Needed to see
my Thyme, in its, her, final state. I needed to see how her cheeks lost
their luster and how her hair was desaturating. I needed her, in my system,
needed her to remind me of what I had lost by giving into my gluttony and
consuming what was in front of me.
I hit her mahogany coffin. The clunk echoed through the night, a
sound only I and the nearby crickets could hear.
I brushed off the dirt, digging wildly with my hands, earth
staining my nails as I dragged the leftover soil off of her. I pried her coffin
open, revealing her face, once again, illuminated by the moon rising above us.
I cackled, seeing her hair, my Thyme, spread out across the coffin in messy
streaks, and brought my face to it, inhaling deeply. I held the shovel over my
head and plunged it down, separating her locks from her head repeatedly. When
the shovel couldn’t separate more, I used my hands, digging wildly into her
flesh to separate the follicles from her scalp. When my fingers did not
suffice, I used my teeth, biting into her skin and yanking off hearty chunks of
meat from her skull, to get as close to the source of her thyme. I ate, tendril
upon tendril, like a man possessed.
When I had eaten my fill, I looked to the sky, seeing the red and
blue flashing lights illuminating the opening of her grave. The officers
approached me, and I threw myself on top of her, not wanting strangers to
intrude on our moment. Of course, I was pried away; five officers used their
combined strength to remove me from her grave. Wildly I screamed, desiring
nothing more but to go back, to pet her hair and taste her thyme as only she
possessed. My cries reverberated through the night, eerily reminiscent of the
wails that occurred on the day she entered the world.
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When I peer into her coffin for the final time, my eyes wild with
fury and indescribable pain, I saw her face, smiling back at me.
Italia Fields is a playwright, screenwriter, photographer, and aspiring filmmaker. She has a passion for writing horror and comedy – often combining the two. She is a senior at Coe College double majoring in Creative Writing and Film Studies. She currently resides in Chicago, IL. “Thyme Well Spent” is her first fiction publication.
So I tried to convince the AI to give me a spider made out of fingers, because there’s no way it could possibly mess that up right? Wink. After multiple unfulfilled requests for finger spiders, I bring you this snarky little AI art series with NightCafe and Canva for the month of September…
Images: Overall design aesthetic of fashion / design advertising spread in muted tones with four AI art rendered images of spiders, built spiders, and spiders on hands, with any given number of legs on spiders and fingers on hands as you’d expect from AI interfacing at this time. Prompts used from top left to lower right include: fingers as spider; spider made of fingers; a spider out of nothing but fingers; finger spider hand.
Text reads: Creepy Crawlies Finger Spiders Coming Soon! It’s just a matter of time before these horrifying AI art generated creations come crawling into your home to feast on your blood. For they are hungry and they are evolving…
Images: Overall design aesthetic of fashion / design advertising spread in muted tones with four AI art rendered images of spiders, built spiders, and spiders on hands, with any given number of legs on spiders and fingers on hands as you’d expect from AI interfacing at this time. Prompts used from top left to lower right include: fingers as spider; spider hand shadow puppetry; fingers in shape of spider; spider that is a hand.
Text reads: Creepy Crawlies Finger Spiders They’re Here! Too late, you let them into the house. You’d better be sure to find and squish them all before they breed and come after you. They are still hungry, and they are still evolving…
So most people don’t see orca whales as inherently horrific, but then again we don’t tend to see ourselves as humans that way either. That said, we are both apex predators, and the orca have earned the name killer whale for totally valid reasons. They’re kind of like giant sea wolves in their social structuring, and wolves are long thought to be terrifying.
And these aptly named killers have gotten a lot of press lately for sinking yachts and sailing vessels at the edge of the Mediterranean Sea. So we decided to explore these giant dolphin kin on this segment of Nightmarish Nature, because we focus a lot on the creepy crawlies but honestly a lot of bugs are just minding their own business (and minding it well, mind you).
We’re on top of the world…
On the Hunt
Killer whales have been known to terrorize other denizens of the deep and will often take advantage of spawning and reproductive grounds of other aquatic life, hunting down baby humpback whales migrating from their Caribbean birthing waters or attacking sea lion or seal pups en masse as they take to the sea for the first time (or the fifth or sixth or even as adults).
Some orca are even known to rush the shore and beach themselves to then shimmy back into the water, ideally with something to eat in tow. Or use their ability to make waves to wash their desired prey off of ice floes where they can nab it in the water. And they aren’t picky, when you’re that high up the food chain a grab ‘n go meal of any kind is all good: seals, polar bears, penguins, birds… because those big bodies need a lot of fuel… And killer whales will also toss living prey into the air in socialization, play, training, and just general sport whether they intend to eat the unfortunate creature(s) or not.
Food on the fly
Culture Clashes
Each orca pod’s culture and habits differ, as some focus their attentions on nabbing fish and others on marine mammals. These two groups can often coexist in the same area, living very different lifestyles. Some will attack dolphin or porpoise pods (among their closest relatives), and others will clash with pilot whales competing for resources such as mackerel. Pods develop strong bonds and learning is passed down from mother whales; it is widely believed a female orca began the practice of attacking boats, possibly after being struck by one but possibly out of play or curiosity, and has taught it to others now doing so.
Attacking People
So why don’t orca attack and eat humans? Probably because of the missed opportunity, honestly. Killer whales learn about hunting from their mothers, and they simply haven’t been taught to prey on humans as such. In fairness, sharks don’t eat us either. Sure sharks might bite us occasionally, but the fact remains that they spit us out – likely because we aren’t the protein- and fat-rich injured seals they had hoped to be attacking. (We’re kind of scrawny and tough by comparison, probably not worth picking out of the teeth…)
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Will orcas learn to attack and eat humans? Perhaps, if they keep attacking boats they may develop a taste for it. If they do, then that will likely seal their fate, because in the clash between apex predators, our engaging in a huge array of tool use is likely to force the issue. And, throughout our own history, we haven’t been known to tolerate animals that we come into conflict with very well at all. Just ask the Asiatic Lion.
Well, what are you waiting for?
If you’ve enjoyed this segment of Nightmarish Nature, feel free to check out some previous here:
Oops, I did it again. I got more thrift store art to paint in nail polish. Well, fourth time’s a charm, or so they say. Or was that third… I lose track… Anyway, without further ado, I present: more Revisitations paintings by Jennifer Weigel.
Woodburning Revisitations Kraken by Jennifer Weigel
I have no idea who did the original woodburning of the sailing ship and clouds on this plaque, but it begged for a giant squid Kraken to come and threaten to sink it. So here we are. Enjoy, and try not to get dragged under.
More nail polish into paintings by Jennifer Weigel
So here are some more Revisitations that aren’t nearly so horrifying. Some would say only the dragon classifies as a monster. But I figure you’ll get a kick out of them anyway, so they tagged along for the ride… This mailbox scene was originally signed Ryan K and now features a gnome who cannot see if he got anything or no. The dragon seascape was signed E Smith and almost featured a sea serpent or mermaid, but I had to do something with that cloud of noxious fumes looming over the top portion of the painting. And I had this painting of these cabins by Hutchings for a long time before finally adding this pegasus.
Zombies porcelain figurines in mixed media by Jennifer Weigel
But here’s the icing on the cake… I found these two porcelain figurines at the antique store. She was broken in several places and repaired with only a small chip missing from the bottom. and he was filthy. So I cleaned them up and painted them like Zombies, in mixed media with nail polish accents for the blood and their blacklight sensitive eyes. I took it a step further – do you recognize Blue Boy and Pinky? I swear everyone’s grandparents had those prints hanging in their house, along with the praying old man and Christ at Gethesmane. Or maybe I’m just that old. Sigh.
I invite you to follow the link-backs to see more of these pieces if you wish. It’s like an ever building thread. And I’m not going to split these out so you’ll have to just slog back through the pile if you want to see where this started here. Honestly, it’s all kind of the same, give or take, but if this is what rocks your boat then there’s some choppy waters all set up just waiting for you to sail on into them…
Portrait of myself with dark makeup and crow skull headdress, backlit by the sun.
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