Heaven, a Short Story by Jennifer Weigel
I don’t really know when or how I got to this shindig, but it’s been the most awesome party ever. Last thing I recall, I swerved to avoid hitting a deer on the highway, but now here I am. And I’m running into people I haven’t seen in forever, including my best friend from junior high school, David… We’d fallen out of touch ever since my family moved halfway across the country from Providence, Rhode Island. Hell, I heard he was really sick, like REALLY sick – cancer or somesuch, but he looks incredible. Glowing. So I guess the rumors were wrong.
David’s a real hottie now, with his brooding dark eyes and brown hair that sort of swoops over his right eye. And he’s really into me, it’s written all over his face. Plus, we’re blissfully chill together. It’s not like we have to say much of anything, especially with my favorite band playing on the radio, Talking Heads piped into all of the rooms in unison. When we first ran into each other, we were both joyfully surprised, and the awestruck silence never really wore off as we continue to drink one another and the party itself in. Everything here is just so dreamy, it’s unreal.
Just like heaven.
There’s a little kitchen with an island and we’re toasting champagne and cutting up this huge sheet cake that’s part white, part, chocolate, part yellow. I even got a corner piece of the white cake covered in icing roses, and all pink so they won’t stain my tongue weird colors! In fact, there’s no blue or black icing at all. The message on the cake is a little weird, just a reminder You Are Loved, but it brings all the warm fuzzies all the same. It’s almost too pretty to eat, but damn is it some good cake – perfectly spongy and not to dry. It’s all just so sweet.
Truly heaven-ly.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” David asks.
“Yes. Everything is so perfect, I never want to leave,” I reply. “This is the best, most exciting party ever.”
“You don’t have to go anywhere,” he replies. “We can just hang out here and have fun forever.”
We wander back out into the front room with our cake and champagne, which never seem to be depleted. I have a nice buzz from the fizzy alcohol, but am not feeling especially tipsy or out of it. Just warm – I can feel it rising to my cheeks. We adjourn to the sofa, which has been left vacant as if waiting specifically for us.
Heaven sent.
The house itself reminds me a lot of my childhood home. Same avocado 1970s décor. Same wood paneling. Same orange and brown stripey floral motif sofa, though this one isn’t near as scratchy as I remember that fabric being back in the day. And the cushions have just the right amount of fluff – you don’t sink too far as you sit on them. It’s all just so warm and inviting and strikes all of the nostalgia chords in my heart for simpler times, when David and I would just hang out.
He smiles as he wraps his arm around me. Feeling safe, I lean my head on his shoulder as we watch the sun set over the far horizon from the bay window in the living room. The scene is a spectacular picturesque pink and purple show streaked with light and just the right number of wispy clouds to draw out the colors as the fading sunlight shimmers behind the silhouetted evergreen trees. It would make a wonderful painting. Absolutely breathtaking.
Straight out of heaven.
I glance over from the sunset to meet David’s gaze. My eyes lose themselves in his, falling into a soft focus. He is just so dreamy. His skin is clearer than I remember. And his brown hair is still so perfectly flipped over his right eye in a cute coy way that doesn’t seem at all out of place. I admit I had a crush on him in junior high, but it was nothing like this. This is that fantasy on steroids. Beyond my wildest dreams. We lean towards one another and he whispers in my ear.
“May I kiss you?” he asks sweetly, the scent of champagne and cake wafting from his warm and inviting lips.
“Please do,” I sigh.
Our lips meet, slowly at first. Tenderly. The trepidation soon dissolves and the kiss becomes more intense, harder and then wet and sloppy, tongues exploring one another in the dark recesses of our joined mouths. I close my eyes and succumb to the moment…
I seem to have arrived at a really happening house party. And there are people here I haven’t seen for years, including my best friend from junior high, David! We’d fallen out of touch since the move and I heard he had cancer or the like, but I guess the rumors were wrong…
Here’s the song Heaven by The Talking Heads that inspired this creepy little story. If for some reason the YouTube doesn’t load in window, follow the link here.
And feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.
I have recently begun exploring Fibonacci poetry and penned this as a consideration for the Lovecraftian terrors while considering that Kansas was once an inland sea. It is also based on the beloved and enigmatic painting of Christina’s World by Andrew Wyeth.
She
stares
ahead;
the landscape
yawns ever further
spanning the distance between us
and that deep unthinkable unknowable abyss.
This plain was once an inland sea,
a vast ocean filled
with terrors
beyond
our
ken.
Time
stands
still for
none of us.
It marches towards
our inevitable decay.
Our fragile flesh succumbs to the horror of the void,
cradling our fallen progeny
and yearning for home.
Christina,
hurry
back.
Now.
It
could
happen
anywhere…
The farmhouse beckons
from its horizon vantage point,
thousands of blades of grass groping like tiny tendrils.
The ancestors grasping at straws,
hoping to evade
inevitable
collapse,
their
loss.
Stars
fall.
Panic
sounds beyond
our comprehension.
Their silent screams fall on deaf ears.
We cannot interpret their guttural languages
or understand their diminutive cries
this far from the tide.
Slumbering
depths still
snore
here.
The
ebb
and flow
roil and churn
with water’s rhythms,
caress the expanse of grasses
covering this now fragile and forsaken ocean.
The landscape gapes and stretches wide,
reaching to grab hold
of her dress,
earthbound.
Lost
her.
I hope you enjoyed this jaunt through Christina’s World into pure terror. Feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website. Or go on a trip to the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve.
So what better follow up to Invisibles Among Us in Nightmarish Nature than Monstrous Mimicry? Further exploring the leaps that critters will go to in order to eat and not be eaten. This time we’re focusing on those creatures that want to intentionally be mistaken for one another.
Insects Pretending to Be Insects
This is a pretty common subgroup in the mimicry set. Featuring such celebrities as the Viceroy Butterfly, which looks an awful lot like the Monarch. Why? Because everyone knows Monarch Butterflies taste nasty and cause indigestion. Duh? Though it appears the Viceroy took further cues from this and is not all that tasty in its own right either. Dual reinforcement is totally the way to go – it tells predators not to eat the yucky butterflies regardless. But some bugs go a bit further in this, imitating one another to seek out food or protection. Various wasps, spiders, beetles, and even some caterpillars impersonate ants for access to their nest or because ants aren’t as appetizing as their buggy counterparts to much of anything outside of the myrmecophagous crowd (as shared before, here’s a fun diversion with True Facts if you have no idea), though some also have nefarious plans in mind. And similarly, the female photoris fireflies imitate other firefly signals luring smaller males to try to mate with them where they are instead eaten.
Kind of Weird Mimicry: Insects Pretending to Be Animals
Moths are pretty tasty, as far as many birds and small mammals are concerned, so several of them find ways to appear less appetizing. Using mimicry in their larval form, they may try to look specifically like bird scat or even like snakes to drive away predators, with elaborate displays designed to reinforce their fakir statuses. And once they emerge as moths, they continue these trends, with different species flashing eye spots to look like owls, snakes, cats, and a myriad of other animals most of their predators don’t want to tangle with. But other insects pretend to be larger animals too, with some beetles and others producing noises often associated with predator, typically towards the same end – to deter those who might otherwise eat them.
Animals Pretending to Be Animals
Similarly some animals will mimic others. Snakes may resemble one other, as seen in the Milk versus King versus Coral Snakes and the popular rhyme, Red with Black is safe for Jack or venom lack, but Red with Yellow kills a fellow for all that it isn’t 100% accurate on the Red-Yellow end (better to err on the side of caution than not – so assume they are deadly). Fish and octopuses will imitate other fish for protection status or to conceal opportunistic predatory behaviors. And lots of animals will mimic the sounds others make, though Lyrebirds tend to take the cake in this, incorporating the vocalizations into mating rituals and more.
Really Weird Mimicry: Animals Pretending to Be Insects
Some of the weirdest mimicry comes out in animals pretending to be insects or small fish, where a predator will flick its strangely formed tongue that looks like a fish or water nymph to draw in more tiny critters that feel safe with their own, only to find themselves snapped up as dinner. Snapping turtles are notorious for this, disguising themselves in the muck to make their big asses less obvious and reinforce the ruse. Even some snakes do this.
Weirder Still
Then there are things that pretend to be plants. Like orchid mantises. Or sea slugs that look like anemones (some of which eat anemones and have stingers to match). I mentioned a few of these in the Invisibles Among Us segment last time, because some are highly specialized to look like very specific things and others just aren’t. Essentially, nature loves to play dress up and be confusing and adaptive. It’s like Halloween year round. And who can really argue with that?
Here’s a fun video from Animalogic exploring some of these themes. And feel free to check out more Nightmarish Nature here.
This prose poem considers sinking into self, how ongoing struggles with mental health and well-being have led me to take actions that reinforce the patterns therein, especially regarding depression and existential angst, succumbing to cycles that are familiar in their distress and unease. For these struggles are their own form of horror, and it can be difficult to break free of their constraints. I know I am not alone in this, and I have reflected upon some of these themes here before. My hope in sharing these experiences is that others may feel less isolated in their own similar struggles.
She withdrew further into herself, the deep, dark crevices of her psyche giving way to a dense thicket. She felt secure. In this protective barrier of thorns and stoicism, she hoped to heal from the heartache that gnawed at her being, to finally defeat the all-consuming sadness that controlled her will to live and consumed her joy. She didn’t realize that hope cannot reside in such a dark realm, that she built her walls so impenetrable that no glimmers of light could work their way into her heart to blossom and grow there. That by thusly retreating, she actually caged herself within and without, diving straight into the beast’s lair. And it was hungry for more.
Feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.
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