Haunted MTL Original – Wherever You Go, There You Are – Kelli Allen
“Wherever You Go, There You Are” by Kelli Allen
Wherever you go, there you are
-“Where I lay my head is home.” –L. Ulrich and J. Hetfield
He allowed the slick glass bottle to slip inside, felt the gin burn his tongue, and swallowed.
“Such a good boy,” she cooed.
C licked an arch blooming sweat under his nose, “What’s happening?”
The creature coiled inward against the pillow of her spine. Miss G silently gave the quieting mass within her a small blessing, a meant purr pushing past her lips through the final six syllables.
“Ssshhhh,” she exhaled. “Take another pull, C. Just like that.”
He tried to memorize the fire blooming his throat raw—keep track of how long it took to lick his lips clean around.
Miss G walked two long fingers from his nipple to the steer-head brass buckle posting guard above a zipper that strained, teeth nearly leaving an imprint in the salty air.
“We don’t wait long and this night has been long enough, too long. It’s time to begin.” She hummed as nail tips skirted cotton.
A third set of eyes began to blink in the wet dark. Their lashes extended outward to tickle Miss G’s lungs, retracted again, and the unwinding started slow.
“I have known you through every life I have lived,” Miss G said, her mouth moving fast, her hand paused beneath the belt now undone.
C caught her wrist in his own warm palm and felt the room open wide. He watched her tongue dart around her teeth. He heard the other sounds past his breathing, past her words. He heard the first crashing waves against his skimmer when he was a boy. He tasted brine and ash and raw meat.
Miss G focused her expression, twisted the thin wrist free, and spit brackish foam in a thin line into the space between her own open jaw and C’s memory-dazed face. The slick formed first a bridge, and then a roping necklace connecting her neck to his.
***
Through any much distance, they looked like drunk lovers, arms guarding the other’s waist, heads tilted close with temples touching as they stumbled in an uneven pace from the dune’s peak and down toward the darkening water.
From far away, anyone might guess that Miss G was suddenly overcome with lust, with urgent need to be held, pressed rough into the millions of crushed shells under their feet. She slipped C’s encircling arm and pulled him with her into the kelp dotting the cool evening sand. From a passing glance, they were locked in a kiss, tongues certainly hard at work in convincing the bodies to go further, take more.
Miss G’s skin lay in a deflated mound near the shore’s crocked edge.
The creature eases the soft spiral into its new home. First, lowering its tail into C’s expanding throat, it unwinds down past the pliable chest to fill C’s belly, two pincers extending toward the round ball joints of his shoulder. A nice fit, a comfortable fit.
Soon, the tide will lap its long tongue over this shell, this beast with too many hearts.
Kelli Allen’s work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies in the US and internationally. She has served as Poetry Editor for The Lindenwood Review and she directs River Styx’s Hungry Young Poets Series. She is currently a visiting professor of English Literature at Northeast Normal University in Changchun, China. She is the recipient of the 2018 Magpie Award for Poetry. Her chapbook, Some Animals, won the 2016 Etchings Press Prize. Her chapbook, How We Disappear, won the 2016 Damfino Press award. Her full-length poetry collection, Otherwise, Soft White Ash, arrived from John Gosslee Books (2012) and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Her collection, Imagine Not Drowning, was released by C&R Press in January 2017. Allen’s new collection, Banjo’s Inside Coyote, arrived from C&R Press March, 2019. www.kelli-allen.com
So, as you may have noticed, we have a special fondness for spiders here on Nightmarish Nature. Well, they are kind of the spokes-critters for horrifying animalia, perhaps because they are so freakishly different from us. Or maybe it’s because I find them a little disconcerting for all that I try to take the “you mind your business, I’ll mind mine” approach, at least if they stay outdoors. Or just because I really like to draw spiders for all that I prefer not to find them sharing my home (though I’ll gladly take spiders over other bugs or mice or larger critters who didn’t get an invite).
Anyway, this segment is devoted to the largest Giants Among Spiders, as if you didn’t have enough to worry about already. And the top place is contested based upon body mass or leg length. Most of these are tarantulas, which globally take top place among the large arachnids.
Goliath Birdeater Tarantula
The Goliath Birdeater Tarantula of South America is the biggest brute of spiderdom, weighing in at over 6 ounces. They build funnel burrows and are known to eat birds (although rarely), mice, lizards, frogs, and snakes, but largely any big insects including other species of spiders. They have urticating barbed hairs that they fling at would-be attackers as an irritant to escape. And people even eat them after they singe the bristles off. Here’s a National Geographic video showing this spider in action, in case you wanted to see a giant spider take out a mouse.
Giant Huntsman Spider
And with the longest legs, we have the Giant Huntsman Spider of Laos, with a leg-span of 12 inches. Their legs have twisted joints and they move in a crab-like manner, which furthers their impressive appearance. ‘Cause they’ve got legs, and know how to use ’em. They prefer to live in underbrush and cave entrances. These are like the big relatives of their Australian cousins, which we’ve all seen online and developed a healthy aversion to.
Brazilian Salmon Pink Birdeater & Brazilian Giant Tawny Red Tarantulas
Next we have two more South American species: the Brazilian Salmon Pink Birdeater, which boasts one-inch fangs, and the Brazilian Giant Tawny Red, believed to be the longest-lived spider with a lifespan of up to thirty years. Both are in the tarantula family and have urticating hairs, a word you probably never read much before today unless you are in the hobby. So apparently South America is not the best travel destination for you if you struggle with arachnophobia, though I suspect you’d figured that out already. (I wouldn’t recommend Australia or Southeast Asia either.)
Face Size Tarantula
And finally the Face Size Tarantula, which has a very terror-inducing name reminiscent of the Face Huggers of Alien-glory. Anyway, these spiders have an 8-inch leg-span and live in India and Sri Lanka. They look kind of like big hairy wolf spiders with stripey legs, sometimes with pink and daffodil coloring.
If you enjoyed this eight-legged segment of Nightmarish Nature on Giants Among Spiders and their larger than life kin, please check out past segments:
So here is our last installment of our AI journey exploring the idea of Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad wolf being one and the same. All of these are based upon the AI generated art and prompts using NightCafe and then created as posters in Canva. Feel free to check out Part 1 and Part 2 of this exploration if you missed them.
A non sequitur I know, but I couldn’t resist. If you picked up where we left off you’ll get it.
Seriously?! Again with the cropped off head cop out…
Finally! That was a journey. And not even worth the result, in my opinion.
Anyway, here is a bonus montage I made out of a bunch of additional Red Riding Hood prompts for an article that never happened…
Prompts for Montage:
1.) What if Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf were one and the same being?
2.) Her wolf face peering out of her red cloak, fangs dripping with the blood of another victim, lost in the forest and never found.
3.) Little Red Riding Hood closes in for the kill, lunging from her red cloak, her wolf fangs dripping with blood.
4.) I am Little Red Riding Hood. I am the Big Bad Wolf. I am coming for you.
5.) Howling within, the rage sears forth from the red cloak, discarded in the deep woods. Red Riding Hood succumbs to the lycanthropy.
6.) Heaving breaths. Dripping blood. Red Riding Hood is not what she appears. She is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
7.) Her red cloak masks the fangs hidden below the surface.
8.) It starts with a long sighing breath. Waiting. The wolf within stirs.
9.) Red Riding Hood trembles. She succumbs to the lycanthropy.
10.) The wolf bursts forth from within. It takes over Little Red Riding Hood’s mind, her body, her being.
11.) Red Riding Hood howls. She is ravenous with hunger for blood. The wolf within has taken over. Mind, spirit, body. She feasts on the blood of the moon.
12.) Big Bad Wolf Red Riding Hood ravenous blood moon feast
13.) Blood moon beckons. I. Little Red Big Bad Riding Hood Wolf. Freedom howling night curse.
14.) Beware. Bewolf. BeRedRidingHood. Betwixt. Beyond.
15.) I pad quietly as the forest dissolves around me. Red Riding Hood and Wolf, one and the same.
16.) Wolf within howling dark recesses of the mind, Red Riding Hood lost
17.) Red Riding Hood HOWL wolf bane true existence polymorph within-and-without.
18.) Red howl Riding Wolf dark existence brooding within
So thank you for joining us on another AI art journey. You can still catch the last AI art journey on Haunted MTL here. To see more such devolutions into AI generated art, check out the Will the Real Jennifer Weigel Please Stand Up? blog.
Continuing our AI journey from last time exploring Little Red Riding Hood herself as the Big Bad Wolf… All of these are based upon the AI generated art and prompts using NightCafe and then created as posters in Canva.
How very… Phantom of the Opera predatory… this is definitely not what I had in mind. Maybe something more cutesy?
Ugh. Maybe not.
Wow, that seems like such a cop out, cropping off the head so you don’t have to depict it. And I don’t want to lose the Little Red Riding Hood reference completely.
So no surprise there, I knew that was too many references to work.
And we continued to devolve, join us again next week for the final installment to see how this ended… And again, if you want to catch the last AI art journey, you can find it on Haunted MTL here. To see more such devolutions into AI generated art, check out the Will the Real Jennifer Weigel Please Stand Up? blog.
