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Stacy came through her front door and dropped her bag in its spot next to her sister’s. 

Carol was laying out on the couch. She glanced over when she heard the door close.

“Sup,” she said casually. 

“What are you doing, lazy ass?” Stacy quipped. 

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“Enjoying my day off like God intended,” Carol replied. “Lola’s out in the garden.”

“Thanks,” Stacy said. She moved to the back door, kicking off her heels and switching to her garden sneakers along the way. 

Her little girl, Lola, all of four years old, was out in the postage-stamp-sized garden. She was patting down dirt with the children’s trowel that had come in her Easter basket. 

“Whatcha planting?” Stacy asked. 

“My garden,” Lola said casually. There was dirt dug into her fingernails, ground into the knees of her jeans, and even in her blond little curls. It made Stacy smile to see the kid a mess. It wasn’t a healthy childhood if you didn’t get covered head to toe in mud, she thought. And there had been enough around Lola that wasn’t healthy. First the divorce, then Carol’s miscarriage. It was good just to see Lola playing. Just being a normal, healthy, muddy kid. 

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Lola was digging another hole. She picked up something small and white, and dropped it in. For a moment Stacy thought it was a pebble until she plunked herself down and looked closer at it.

It was a tiny bird’s egg. 

“Oh, Lola, where did you find that?” Stacy asked. She reached into the hole to retrieve the egg before Lola could bury it. 

“It was in that bush over there,” Lola said, pointing to the overgrown hydrangea near the back fence. 

“No honey, you can’t bury bird eggs. They have to stay with their mommy bird and grow up with her,” Stacy said. “Are these all eggs?”

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“No,” Lola said. She looked up, confusion on her tiny face. “But that’s how you get birds.”

“No honey, their mommy sits on them until they hatch,” Stacy said. She started looking harder at the holes her daughter had dug. Out of one, she noticed a tuft of dark fur sticking out. She started brushing away the dirt until she saw more matted fur.

She pulled her hand away, horrified. “Is that an animal?”

“I wanted to grow more kittens,” Lola said. 

“Oh, oh honey,” Stacy whispered. She got up fast and pulled Lola away from the mounds of dirt. There were so many.

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“You can’t bury dead animals and get new ones,” Stacy explained. 

“I know, Mommy,” Lola said. She gave her mother a look that encompassed all of the exasperation a small child could hold. “It only works if they’re alive.

“That’s how Aunt Carol told me to do it. She did it with the baby, and she’s going to grow a whole bunch of them. That’s what she told me when I saw her out here. Don’t you know anything about gardening, Mommy? How did you grow me?”

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2 Comments

2 Comments

  1. J.M. Faulkner

    March 21, 2022 at 9:49 am

    Nice twist 🙂

  2. Jennifer Weigel

    March 21, 2022 at 10:42 am

    Very poignant. Gardening and burial practices aren’t as far from each other as some would like to think…

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Original Creations

Simple Pleasures, a story about getting away by Jennifer Weigel

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-Mountains-

A serene mountain landscape yawns; monumental evergreen trees fingering a brilliant azure sky stroked with wispy clouds.  The air is crisper and fresher here, wafting its piney fragrance along the meandering deer path that bends and swerves down the gradual slope…

-Reset-

-City-

A bustling urban environment beckons, its diverse, brightly-clothed denizens laughing with one another, casually parting as you stroll through their midst.   Sunlight dances through the crowd, reflecting off of towering buildings, cars, and bicycles.  Sounds swell together as though breathing life into all interconnected within this rich tapestry of time and space.  The street is a cacophony of alluring smells, and the savory scent of kosher all-beef hot dogs…

-Vegetarian-

Fragrant cumin zing of vegetable samosas…

-European-

Perfume of freshly baked baguettes embraces you in a warm hug as you sit at a small metal café table, savoring an espresso…

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-Caffeine Free-

Lavender cremosa…

-Non-Carbonated-

Limonade…

-Reset-

-Beach-

The warm sand squishes between your bare toes as the soft ocean waves lap at your feet, beckoning you to wade further into the cool water…

-No Swimming-

The woven rope hammock stretched between two perfectly-spaced palm trees sways slowly as you lounge in its cradle, sipping a Mai Tai…

-Non-Alcoholic-

Iced lemonade in a highball glass through a red plastic straw…

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-Eco-Conscientious-

Paper straw, the citrusy elixir providing respite from the steamy…

-Less Hot-

Warm breezy summer…

-Spring-

Spring air, children…

-Nature-

Birds…

-Silence-

You close your eyes, hammock gently rocking you to slumber.

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We here at My Universe wish to thank you again for choosing our services.  We know that there are many post-cataclysmic alternative realities available, and we appreciate your business.  Please enjoy your respite from the societal collapse, and remember us next time you need to unwind.

Pineapple getting away from it all
Pineapple getting away from it all

And feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website. And if you really feel like getting away and helping clean up the beach a bit, check out this relaxing video from Dylan Clark titled Seagrass. Or maybe that wasn’t so relaxing after all… 😉

Portrait of myself with dark makeup and crow skull headdress, backlit by the sun.
Portrait of myself with dark makeup and crow skull headdress, backlit by the sun.

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Original Creations

The Scent of Blood: Comic Book Art by Jennifer Weigel

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Somehow I came across an older Midnight Panther comic book, Feudal Fantasy #2 from the late 1990s to be precise, and I thought I’d reappropriate it into a new story as a collage. Anyway, this is what evolved. Honestly there wasn’t a lot of content to work with, but that isn’t surprising seeing as how that wasn’t really the point of the original… And sorry, I saved the erotic bits for another project, though even that was pretty tame in this one – just a bunch of boobies.

The Scent of Blood comic book art
The Scent of Blood comic book art

Images: Black and white line drawings of wide-eyed anime women and men in various states of undress, looking cute, being coyly pensive, and hack ‘n slashing.

Text reads: I like… men who are dying. We ought to just kill everyone involved. The scent of blood!! I never see his face, he always wears a mask. What a waste of time. I don’t like this. The horny bastard. What a pig!! -Slash- Sounds like it could be fun.

Ferryman comic book art

Images: More black and white line drawings of wide-eyed anime women and men kissing and hack ‘n slashing.

Text reads: Mercenaries of glorious Edo, if you can make the flowers that bloom along the rivers during spring drop their petals, then do so. I’m the Ferryman of the River Styx. Whssh.

OK, OK – here are some boobies since you stuck with this so long. And here’s a link to some more of my comic book collages, in case you are interested.

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Portrait of myself with dark makeup and crow skull headdress, backlit by the sun.
Portrait of myself with dark makeup and crow skull headdress, backlit by the sun.

And feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.

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Original Creations

Bonus Black Friday story: Zombie Apocalypse by Jennifer Weigel

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Black Friday.

You can’t beat the deals.  So many of us.  Waiting.  Readying.  Checking the time.  Counting down the seconds.  You better believe I earned my place at the start of the line.  I’ve been camping out here since late Wednesday.  Yeah, yeah, the holiday was yesterday.  Whatever, I had my family’s full endorsement.

Because that new high-definition television beckons.  The best in zoning out technology.  All channel access.  Cutting edge entertainment.  Bleeding edge.  That blade is sharp, baby.  Like a razor.

But this kind of escapism is costly.  A reality check says it’s not in my family’s budget.  We don’t make that kind of money, and so here I am.  Among all the others vying for the same prize.

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Only one will get there first.  Only one available.  Must have TV.  Must have T.V.  Must.  Have.  T.  V.

An employee approaches the door.  Nobody noteworthy.  A soon-to-be-casualty.  No more.  No less.

We rise and lurch into place.  Ready…

On your mark.

Get set.

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Go!

Black Friday Dealz... Must Have TV... Zombie Apocalypse
Black Friday Dealz… Must Have TV… Zombie Apocalypse

Original images generated with Nightcafe AI art generator.

Portrait of myself with dark makeup and crow skull headdress, backlit by the sun.
Portrait of myself with dark makeup and crow skull headdress, backlit by the sun.

And feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website. Or if you just want more zombies, might I recommend either Elvis or the Fashionistas?

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