HauntedMTL Original – Georgia Sunrise – Zachary Crain
Georgia Sunrise by Zachary Crain
Tiana Wolfe spent every summer of her childhood with her grandfather. He was a tall man, at least it looked that way from the perspective of an eight year old girl; and he had a kind, rosy face. While reflecting in her adult life, he seemed to have a mythical aspect to his personality. He was wise, telling her stories from decades past with a shocking twist, and an archetypal lesson contained in each one. Words flowed warmly from under his peppered grey mustache, and he ran his hands across his handsome cheeks and his empty scalp as he spoke. She could recall nestling her head into his sweater every night as they sat on his front porch. He always wore a dark blue sweater she had gotten for him on his sixty-third birthday, reading:
My Paps
Love, Te-te
Their days together would always follow the same loose, comfortable schedule, that consisted of only what they wanted to do. Tiana would rise whenever was comfortable for her, which was usually around 9:30am, preferring a long night’s sleep. She would eat whatever she wanted, usually either a small bowl of Mini Wheats or two scrambled eggs (Paps had taught her to make these, although she was only nine). Eating would take her around half an hour, just enough time to finish watching an episode of ‘The Jetsons’ on Boomerang. She would then put her plate in the sink and wash it out. Paps always took care of the rest. From there, she would go outside to see Paps either mowing, or working in his tomato garden. He lived on a large property, so sometimes she had to search for him if she heard the mower humming. “Beautiful morning, Ti-ti!” he would yell at her as soon as he saw her, as he continued to do his work. Sometimes it would rain, and he would be sitting in his garage drinking coffee. Tiana liked these days, because she would get to slide across the smooth grey concrete, and Paps would come inside the house and talk to her much earlier. Rainy mornings were rare in the Georgia summer though, so most mornings she would have to go inside and prepare for the day on her own. She would shower and brush her teeth, slide on a one-piece bathing suit and shorts, and head back outside through the garage. There, Paps would be sitting leaned deeply into his white lawn chair, with a root beer in hand. Paps did not drink real beer, like Tiana’s parents. He always had a chair set up beside his, and Tiana would run through the gravel to the front of the garage, and slide down next to him. She slumped as he did, and he never corrected her posture. The two sat there in silence for a moment, Paps not enforcing the silence like most adults did. Instead, letting his granddaughter watch his own smile and nod in the Georgia sunshine, which lead her to do the same. This was very different than most adults she had seen, who yelled and complained if you didn’t appreciate the moment as they clearly were. After a moment of this, in which time didn’t matter, the pair would stumble inside laughing, with Paps picking at her as he often did.
“The gators’ll gecha’ out on the water if you aint careful!” he told her on their last summer day together, as they walked inside after completing the morning ritual.
“Paaps, stooop, no they won’t” she groaned back at him, stopping in her tracks and staring down at the driveway gravel they stood on. Sensing her fear, he leaned down to her face, and responded “Naw, I’ve been dealin’ with gators my whole life, and not once has one gotten the better hand on your Paps.”
Tiana shook her head positively, but still wouldn’t look up at him.
Paps let out a humbled sigh, paused and looked up, saying “Ti-ti?”
“Yes Paps?” Tiana said cutely, as young children often do to communicate feeling slighted
“Let’s go sit out on the porch, let Paps tell ya’ a story” he said with the glowing smile that had gotten him out of trouble with women and girls his whole life.
“Okay Paps!” Tiana said, finally looking up at him, flashing a close eyed grin.
Tiana and Paps walked back through the gravel and grass to the front porch, holding hands the whole way. Paps sat down on the far left end of the patio sofa, as he always did, and Tiana snuggled into him from the right.
“What story are you gonna tell me, Paps?” Tiana asked, looking up at him with big eyes
“Oh, this is a very important story for ya to hear, but you’re gonna have to be a big girl to listen, ya understand?” he looked down at her seriously
“Yes Paps, I understand” she stared up at him for a moment, and then they both laughed releasing the pressure of the moment.
“Now. You have to promise Paps you’ll understand the meaning behind this story, and not get too scared otherwise. Ya hear?”
“Yes Paps, I wont get scared”
“Good girl, now lemme ask you a question”
“Yes Paps?”
“Why was it you was scared earlia’ about the gators?”
“Because I don’t like them Paps”
“And why is it you don’t like the gators?”
She stared back at him for a moment, they hadn’t broken eye-contact since they sat down on the couch. “Because they’re scary Paps, gators kill people”
“That’s just what I thought you’d say, honey, so that’s what this little story imma thinkin’ about tellin’ you is for.”
“Alright Paps, please don’t make it scary,” her last word was muffled as she nudged her face into Paps’ sweater.
“Okay, sweetie” Paps said, taking in a deep breath and patting Tiana on the back before he spoke.
“When I ‘as a boy, we didn’t have a lotta land like we’ve got here now” (Paps always called his property his, even though no one had lived with his since mawmaw died).
“No, when I ‘as a boy we lived on a small farm down further south on da coastal plain” he finally broke eye contact with Tiana, staring out to the road at the end of an acre of freshly cut grass.
“We ‘as very poor, and not in the way people ‘round here are, we ‘as the type of poor that was poor in a town called ‘Ideal’, ‘magine that Te-te,” he said, starting to laugh with the mention of his hometown. “When I ‘as a boy we ain’t have too many people that lived ‘round us, and we spent most the day workin’ on peanuts, so I ‘as kinda like you.”
“How were you like me Paps?” Tiana asked, interjecting after a pause in his story.
“Well, I ‘as like you ‘cause I didn’t have any kids to go ‘round with in the summer, so I ended up spending all my time with my Grammy”
“Was she nice like you, Paps?”
“Ohh she ‘as the best woman I ever met. She was real pretty, had this long, pure grey hair that went all the way down to her butt. She didn’t like anyone touching it much, but every now and again she’d let me play with it while she told me stories.”
“She told you stories too?”
“You bet she did,” Paps said, looking down at Tiana excitedly, “she told stories much much better than I do. Sometimes I even gotta steal some of ‘em, but I can’t tell ‘em quite like she could.”
“Which ones did she tell you?”
“Well, one of ya favorites, the one about the big blue man coming down through the sky and burnin’ up all the bad people in Georgia? Well she taught me that one”
“Paps! You made me think you thought of all your stories!” Tiana said, laughing
“Well Ti-ti, not even your Paps can come into da world knowin’ everything”
Tiana sat and listened to Paps listing all of the stories they had both heard first of children, and Tiana was stunned. She couldn’t imagine her Paps being a child, nestling into the bosom of an old woman with long grey hair, and listening to stories as she did now. She began to wonder if one day she would be a beautiful woman with long grey hair and a happy grandchild listening to all of the stories she had to tell. Tiana decided that she wanted this very badly.
“She always wore this pretty red bandana, and she’d pull ‘er hair back wit’ it.” Paps said, looking back down at Tiana excitedly, “she’d sit around all day in a rockin’ chair out on our front porch, me and your great-uncles would do all the workin’ and we’d come ‘round back and she’d be sittin’ in her chair swayin’ with the breeze.”
“What did she do all day?”
“Oh! That woman did everything! O’ course we never saw any of it ‘cause we’d go to bed early as we could and she’d still be up, then we’d wake up in the mornin’ and the whole dang house would be clean, and we’d have somethin’ nice on the table to have us ready for the day.”
“She sounds like a magic woman” Tiana said, with her eyes growing as her curiosity did.
“Oh, she was magic alright!” Paps said, leaning down and lowering his voice, “Every night, she would sit on the porch and tell me stories, and she’d always say, ‘Grandson, I love you, but one day Nanny’s gonna melt away.”
“That doesn’t make her magic! That just makes her crazy!” Tiana said, laughing
“No, no, my Nana was not crazy, she really did melt away” Paps said, with an intense seriousness that caused Tiana to push herself up on his legs and open her eyes wide.
“One day, it was a nice hot summer day like the one we’ve got now, she just melted sittin’ right down in her chair on the front porch.”
Tiana looked at him, stunned, and said “how did she melt?”
Paps smiled and paused, looking back out at the road and rubbing Tiana’s back.
“Well, I ‘as about ten years old, and since I ‘as a little boy she’d been tellin’ me she’d melt away. On Sunday’s daddy wouldn’t make us work so I’d spend the whole day out on the porch with her, listenin’ to stories and eatin’ every now and again. She told me that mornin’, ‘son, today is the day I’m gonna melt.’ So I ran inside all sad and cryin’, and I told daddy and he didn’t believe me. Went outside and yelled that she ‘as a crazy woman, just like you said, fillin’ my head wit’ lies and deceit. As the day went on, we’d go outside and look up on the porch at her, and there she was! Sweatin’ as hard as I ever seen someone sweat before! Her face was lookin’ all doughy and soft and she was just a leanin’ down into her seat.”
“Thats horrible Paps, she was dying she must have hurt so bad!” Tiana said, burying her face down into Paps’ stomach.
“No, no Ti-ti, that’s the thing about it, she was just fine. After a while of looking at her all doughy and sweaty I went up on the poarch and talked to her and she was just sittin’ there, as happy as she could be. I went up and she pulled me up to her real close, I could feel her starting to melt and she just sat there and hugged me, told me she ‘as the happiest woman alive.”
“Did you not do anything to help, Paps?” Tiana questioned, looking back at him with a horrified look in her eyes.
“Of course we did! We all went out on the poarch with her and sang and prayed, we held her hands while we still could and she just kept tellin’ us it was alright, it’s her time to go”
“Did you see her melt all the way?”
“Well, we sat there for a while and we sang gospel to her, and she told us she wanted to be alone for a while. So we went inside, minded our own business for a while, then came out right after the sun went down, and she was gone. There in the rocking chair sat her pretty little red bandana and the rest of her clothes.”
Tiana buried her face into the cushion they sat on, turning away from Paps. For the first time since starting to describe the melting he turned towards her and whispered down into her ear, “it’s alright Ti-ti, it’s just alright. That’s why you shouldn’t be scared of alligators now, ya hear?”
Tiana and Paps spent the afternoon hours as they would any other, sitting lazily out on the water in Paps white pontoon boat, drinking root beer and enjoying the sun.
“Oh no!” Paps cried, grabbing at his chest and collapsing to his knees
Tiana popped out of her seat and ran over to him, shrieking, “What’s wrong Paps what’s wrong!”
“Uh-I…I think I’m melting” Paps groaned, letting out a struggled breath
“Nooo” Tiana said beginning to sob, backing away and standing up straight, contorting her face as children do when they cry.
“No, no, no Ti-ti,” Paps said, standing up straight and returning to normalcy “I was just messin’, you know how I kid, I’m so sorry sweetie” he said with a rush of sympathy running down his face.
“You’re mean! You scared me!” Tiana said, backing out of his hug and pointing accusingly at him.
Paps walked back to the driver’s seat of the boat with his head down, and sat down slowly.
“I’m sorry baby,” he said with his head down to the wheel.
Tiana kept crying, and gave no response.
“I was just messin’,” he whispered to himself, as he started the boat with the intention of going back home.
Tiana spent the rest of the day locked in her room, deviating between tears and an intense fear of apparitions. She threw herself around in bed, incapable of finding a safe spot. If she faced the window, her melting Great-Grandmother could be standing at the door, watching over her and wailing in pain. And if she faced the door, Paps could be staring at her through the window, shaking in the insanity that had surely gripped him. She decided it would be best to lie on her back with her eyes on the ceiling. That way, through peripheral vision she could see the whole room. But what if her the ghost of Nana was under her bed! Her melted body oozing up from the floor, solidifying under her, just in time for an attack. Her only occasional comfort came from Paps coming to her door offering apologies and a chance to come out and make-up. For just a moment, she would consider consoling. But she knew she couldn’t trust him, he was a crazy old man after all. With the help of the internet, she decided that Paps must be a schizophrenic.The website read, “Often, sufferers of this disease can be made dangerous by their paranoid delusions, as they often report a sense that family members and friends are “out to get them.” My God, she thought. I’m really going to die.
As the day wore on, eventually Paps came to the door in one final attempt to console her. “Ti-ti, I love you.” She heard him lean against the door, “I love you, and I’m sorry. I wish you’d just say somethin’.” He stood for another moment. “I guess not. That’s okay, goodnight Ti-ti.” For just a moment, she considered going outside and hugging him. Telling him, “It’s okay Paps, I know you’re shetsophernic but I still love you.” She decided against it. She did not want to die.
As Paps went to bed, Tiana looked at her clock. 11:14. At 12:14, she would call her mother, and tell her she needed to go home. The hour was long and nerve wracking, and Tiana found herself pacing through the room in a sweaty haze. Finally, the hour turned, and she called her. At this point she cried, “Mom!” she exclaimed in a nervous whisper. “Mom! I really need to go home. Paps is crazy, he’s telling me all these stories about melting women and he’s acting so weird mom please!” her crying intensifying as she grew more and more desperate.
“He told you about melting ladies?”
“Yes mom he’s shetsophrenic”
“That son of a bitch,” Tiana heard her mom whisper, pulled away from the phone.
“I’m on my way to get you right now, your Paps isn’t crazy, but don’t let him fill your head with any of that garbage”
“Thank you so much mom, so so much”
“I’ll be there soon, just calm down. I love you”
After hearing her mother mumble, “That son of a bitch is gonna make me drive five hours,” before she hung up the phone, Tiana was filled with relief. She let out a sigh, fell back into her bed, and finally felt safe.
Tiana slowly and anxiously drifted into sleep in the early hours of the morning, with the paranoia and tension from earlier hours presenting themselves in a number of sleep disruptions and dreams. She envisioned her Great-Grandmother in the corner of the room, slowly melting into the floor. You did this! She screamed from the pit of her stomach, pointing at her with a long finger that had skin oozing off of the bone. Following this dream, Tiana decided it wasn’t safe to sleep. So she stayed up until she heard the sound of a door at 6am, and with it the purposeful and unmistakable footsteps of her mother trudging through the door.
“You bastard,” she snapped at Paps accusingly, Tiana had heard her use the same tactics on her husband at home.
“I know,” he said defeatedly; Tiana deciphered that the conversation was taking place in the living room behind the far side wall of her bedroom.
“You can not be filling her head with those lies! She is a little girl and you know what that shit you pulled on me did”
“Sweetie, I know”
“Don’t sweetie me!”
“Kristie, it isn’t lies”
“You gave Eric a nervous breakdown! The poor boy was anxious all his life, now look at him! I told you never to pull this shit on her,” she said, audibly sobbing at this tense point of the conversation.
Immediately following that exchange, Tiana heard her mother’s footsteps stomping to her bedroom door with more purpose than she had coming into the house. “Tiana, honey” she said with an attempted tenderness, “you need to come out and let Mommy take you home, everything is gonna be alright baby”
Tiana felt her heartbeat rise further then it had throughout the night imagining the altercation that would take place when she left the room; but to her, this fear was outweighed by what would happen if she decided to stay. She hesitated sitting in her bed, curled fully under the covers, and let out a muffled “Okay, Mom.”
Tiana stood up and attempted to hurriedly gather her belongings, but her nerves had caused a shaking sensation to run over her body, making this almost impossible.
“Honey!”
“I-I’m coming mom. Please,” Tiana begged, letting out a tearless sob as she spoke.
After a continual stream of commands from her mother, she opened the door, and saw her mother crying intensely, with her face deeply red and contorted.
“Let’s go sweetie,” she said, taking a short break in her tears. She drew Tiana in, covering her eyes and dragging her around the corner and turning her away from Paps”
“I wanna see-”
“No!”
“I wanna see Pap-”
“No!” both of their cries increasing in intensity as Tiana was forced through the living room.
“Paps!” Tiana cried, breaking away from her mother’s arms and turning towards where she heard him crying on the couch by the far side wall.
“Paps I don’t care that your schetso-” she was cut off by the sight of her Paps on the couch. At least, she thought it would be her Paps. Sitting on the couch was a slowly dismembering glob of a man. It could be loosely recognized as Paps, and was only discernible as a human from its desperate tears and struggled jerking movements. “I love you Ti-ti,” he cried from a mouth that was slowly sticking together through a downward stream of melting humanity from his top lip. Both Tiana and her mother stood separately, incapable of looking away from their dying father-figure. He cried painfully, and stared deeply back at his two girls, but his eyes were slowly being covered too by his collapsing forehead. His skin was slowly seeping from his body into the couch, and his clothes hung off of him loosely. The words “Love, Ti-ti” on his sweater were being drooled over by burnt, sweating skin.
“Please, please come ova here” he moaned at the girls, who were stuck in shock in the middle of the living room. Tiana ran over to him and hopped on the couch beside him. “Oh, Paps!” she cried, jumping beside him in a puddle of his own body. He embraced her, with what little substance he had left in his body. “Your Paps is alright now, he’s just alright,” he said, now with a wry smile across his face. “But you were hurting so much Paps”
“I ‘as just scared you didn’t love me anymore, TI-ti” he said, with a hint of joyful calm in his muffled speech. “I love you so much Paps!” she shrieked, burying herself into the remains of his melting body in a desperate attempt to full him together.
“Don’t worry about me baby, I’m just alright. Just alright.”
“I’m scared Paps!”
“Don’t be scared Ti-ti, no reason to be fearful. This is beauty baby, your Paps couldn’t be any happier.”
“Please don’t die Paps! Please don’t die!”
“Look out at the sun baby, look out at the sun,” upon hearing this, Tiana turned upward and looked out the window behind the couch, as Paps was.
He smiled, and said, “It was just like this when Nana was out on the porch. Just like this, it was big and yella’, sent out pink and orange rays through the sky and shined right down on ‘er.”
Tiana was calm with these words, and she looked out the window with him while he could still see. “It was just like this.” The pair sat silently for a moment, and Tiana held onto his sweater until it became empty of any remains of Paps, and until the sun had settled on remaining a simple yellow in the sky. Tiana looked up at her mother, who was curled into the floor letting out shocked cries. She was no longer scared of alligators.
Zachary Crain is an unremarkable eighteen year old who lives with his mother in Asheville, North Carolina. He attends the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and plans to continue writing fiction into the future. He spends his days writing, reading, running, and doing all of the pesky tasks that life throws in between those things.
What if ours weren’t the only reality? What if the past paths converged, if those moments that led to our current circumstances got tangled together with their alternates and we found ourselves caught up in the threads?
Marla returned home after the funeral and wake. She drew the key in the lock and opened the door slowly, the looming dread of coming back to an empty house finally sinking in. Everyone else had gone home with their loved ones. They had all said, “goodbye,” and moved along.
Her daughter Misty and son-in-law Joel had caught a flight to Springfield so he could be at work the next day for the big meeting. Her brother Darcy was on his way back to Montreal. Emmett and Ruth were at home next door, probably washing dishes from the big meal they had helped to provide afterward, seeing as their kitchen light was on. Marla remembered there being food but couldn’t recall what exactly as she hadn’t felt like eating. Sandwiches probably… she’d have to thank them later.
Marla had felt supported up until she turned the key in the lock after the services, but then the realization sank deep in her throat like acid reflux, hanging heavy on her heart – everyone else had other lives to return to except for her. She sighed and stepped through the threshold onto the outdated beige linoleum tile and the braided rag rug that stretched across it. She closed the door behind herself and sighed again. She wiped her shoes reflexively on the mat before just kicking them off to land in a haphazard heap in the entryway.
The still silence of the house enveloped her, its oppressive emptiness palpable – she could feel it on her skin, taste it on her tongue. It was bitter. She sighed and walked purposefully to the living room, the large rust-orange sofa waiting to greet her. She flopped into its empty embrace, dropping her purse at her side as she did so.
A familiar, husky voice greeted her from deeper within the large, empty house. “Where have you been?”
Marla looked up and glanced around. Her husband Frank was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, drying a bowl. Marla gasped, her hand shooting to her mouth. Her clutched appendage took on a life of its own, slowly relinquishing itself of her gaping jaw and extending a first finger to point at the specter.
“Frank?” she spoke hesitantly.
“Yeah,” the man replied, holding the now-dry bowl nestled in the faded blue-and-white-checkered kitchen towel in both hands. “Who else would you expect?”
“But you’re dead,” Marla spat, the words falling limply from her mouth of their own accord.
The 66-year old man looked around confusedly and turned to face Marla, his silver hair sparkling in the light from the kitchen, illuminated from behind like a halo. “What are you talking about? I’m just here washing up after lunch. You were gone so I made myself some soup. Where have you been?”
“No, I just got home from your funeral,” Marla spoke quietly. “You are dead. After the boating accident… You drowned. I went along to the hospital – they pronounced you dead on arrival.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Frank said. “What boating accident?”
“The sailboat… You were going to take me out,” Marla coughed, her brown eyes glossed over with tears.
“We don’t own a sailboat,” Frank said bluntly. “Sure, I’d thought about it – it seems like a cool retirement hobby – but it’s just too expensive. We’ve talked about this, we can’t afford it.”
Marla glanced out the bay window towards the driveway where the small sailboat sat on its trailer, its orange hull reminiscent of the Florida citrus industry, and also of the life jacket Frank should have been wearing when he’d been pulled under. Marla cringed and turned back toward the kitchen. She sighed and spoke again, “But the boat’s out front. The guys at the marina helped to bring it back… after you… drowned.”
Frank had retreated to the kitchen to put away the bowl. Marla followed. She stood in the doorway and studied the man intently. He was unmistakably her husband, there was no denying it even despite her having just witnessed his waxen lifeless body in the coffin at the wake before the burial, though this Frank was a slight bit more overweight than she remembered.
“Well, that’s not possible. Because I’m still here,” Frank grumbled. He turned to face her, his blue eyes edged with worry. “There now, it was probably just a dream. You knew I wanted a boat and your anxiety just formulated the worst-case scenario…”
“See for yourself,” Marla said, her voice lilting with every syllable.
Frank strode into the living room and stared out the bay window. The driveway was vacant save for some bits of Spanish moss strewn over the concrete from the neighboring live oak tree. He turned towards his wife.
“But there’s no boat,” he sighed. “You must have had a bad dream. Did you fall asleep in the car in the garage again?” Concern was written all over his face, deepening every crease and wrinkle. “Is that where you were? The garage?”
Marla glanced again at the boat, plain as day, and turned to face Frank. Her voice grew stubborn. “It’s right here. How can you miss it?” she said, pointing at the orange behemoth.
“Honey, there’s nothing there,” Frank exclaimed, exasperation creeping into his voice.
Marla huffed and strode to the entryway, gathering her shoes from where they waited in their haphazard heap alongside the braided rag run on the worn linoleum floor. She marched out the door as Frank took vigil in its open frame, still staring at her. She stomped out to the boat and slapped her hand on the fiberglass surface with a resounding smack. The boat was warm to the touch, having baked in the Florida sun. She turned back towards the front door.
“See!” she bellowed.
The door stood open, empty. No one was there, watching. Marla sighed again and walked back inside. The vacant house once again enveloped her in its oppressive emptiness. Frank was nowhere to be found.
So I guess it’s goodbye for now. Feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.
Today on Nightmarish Nature we’re gonna revisit The Blob and jiggle our way to terror. Why? ‘Cause we’re just jellies – looking at those gelatinous denizens of the deep, as well as some snot-like land-bound monstrosities, and wishing we could ooze on down for some snoozy booze schmoozing action. Or something.
Honestly, I don’t know what exactly it is that jellyfish and slime molds do but whatever it is they do it well, which is why they’re still around despite being among the more ancient organism templates still in common use.
Jellyfish are on the rise.
Yeah, yeah, some species like moon jellies will hang out in huge blooms near the surface feeding, but that’s not what I meant. Jellyfish populations are up. They’re honing in on the open over-fished ocean and making themselves at home. Again.
And, although this makes the sea turtles happy since jellies are a favorite food staple of theirs, not much else is excited about the development. Except for those fish that like to hide out inside of their bells, assuming they don’t accidentally get eaten hanging out in there. But that’s a risk you gotta take when you’re trying to escape predation by surrounding yourself in a bubble of danger that itself wants to eat you. Be eaten or be eaten. Oh, wait…
So what makes jellies so scary?
Jellyfish pack some mighty venom. Despite obvious differences in mobility, they are related to anemones and corals. But not the Man o’ War which looks similar but is actually a community of microorganisms that function together as a whole, not one creature. Not that it matters when you’re on the wrong end of a nematocyst, really. Because regardless what it’s attached to, that stings.
Box jellies are among the most venomous creatures in the world and can move of their own accord rather than just drifting about like many smaller jellyfish do. And even if they aren’t deadly, the venom from many jellyfish species will cause blisters and lesions that can take a long time to heal. So even if they do resemble free-floating plastic grocery bags, you’d do best to steer clear. Because those are some dangerous curves.
But what does this have to do with slime molds?
Absolutely nothing. I honestly don’t know enough about jellyfish or slime molds to devote the whole of a Nightmarish Nature segment to either, so they had to share. Essentially, this bit is what happened when I decided to toast a bagel before coming up with something to write about and spent a tad too much time in contemplation of my breakfast. I guess we’re lucky I didn’t have any cream cheese or clotted cream…
Oh, and also thinking about gelatinous cubes and oozes in the role-playing game sense – because those sort of seem like a weird hybrid between jellies and slime molds, as does The Blob. Any of those amoeba influenced creatures are horrific by their very nature – they don’t even need to be souped up, just ask anyone who’s had dysentery.
And one of the most interesting thing about slime molds is that they can take the shortest path to food even when confronted with very complex barriers. They are maze masterminds and would give the Minotaur more than a run for his money, especially if he had or was food. They have even proven capable of determining the most efficient paths for water lines or railways in metropolitan regions, which is kind of crazy when you really think about it. Check it out in Scientific American here. So, if we assume that this is essentially the model upon which The Blob was built, then it’s kind of a miracle anything got away. And slime molds are coming under closer scrutiny and study as alternative means of creating computer components are being explored.
Jellies are the Wave of the Future.
We are learning that there may be a myriad of uses for jellyfish from foodstuffs to cosmetic products as we rethink how we interact with them. They are even proving useful in cleaning up plastic pollution. I don’t know how I feel about the foodstuff angle for all that they’ve been a part of various recipes for a long time. From what I’ve seen of the jellyfish cookbook recipes, they just don’t look that appealing. But then again I hate boba with a passion, so I’m probably not the best candidate to consider the possibility.
So it seems that jellies are kind of the wave of the future as we find that they can help solve our problems. That’s pretty impressive for some brainless millions of years old critter condiments. Past – present – perpetuity! Who knows what else we’d have found if evolution hadn’t cleaned out the fridge every so often?
Feel free to check out more Nightmarish Nature here.
Continuing our junkyard dawg werewolf story from the previous St. Patrick’s Days… though technically he’s more of a wolfwere but wolfwhatever. Anyway, here are Part 1 from 2022, Part 2 from 2023 and Part 3 from 2024 if you want to catch up.
Yeah I don’t know how you managed to find me after all this time. We haven’t been the easiest to track down, Monty and I, and we like it that way. Though actually, you’ve managed to find me every St. Patrick’s Day since 2022 despite me being someplace else every single time. It’s a little disconcerting, like I’m starting to wonder if I was microchipped way back in the day in 2021 when I was out lollygagging around and blacked out behind that taco hut…
Anyway as I’d mentioned before, that Scratchers was a winner. And I’d already moved in with Monty come last St. Patrick’s Day. Hell, he’d already begun the process of cashing in the Scratchers, and what a process that was. It made my head spin, like too many squirrels chirping at you from three different trees at once. We did get the money eventually though.
Since I saw you last, we were kicked out of Monty’s crap apartment and had gone to live with his parents while we sorted things out. Thank goodness that was short-lived; his mother is a nosy one for sure, and Monty didn’t want to let on he was sitting on a gold mine as he knew they’d want a cut even though they had it made already. She did make a mean brisket though, and it sure beat living with Sal. Just sayin.
Anyway, we finally got a better beater car and headed west. I was livin’ the dream. We were seeing the country, driving out along old Route 66, for the most part. At least until our car broke down just outside of Roswell near the mountains and we decided to just shack it up there. (Boy, Monty sure can pick ‘em. It’s like he has radar for bad cars. Calling them lemons would be generous. At least it’s not high maintenance women who won’t toss you table scraps or let you up on the sofa.)
We found ourselves the perfect little cabin in the woods. And it turns out we were in the heart of Bigfoot Country, depending on who you ask. I wouldn’t know, I’ve never seen one. But it seems that Monty was all into all of those supernatural things: aliens, Bigfoot, even werewolves. And finding out his instincts on me were legit only added fuel to that fire. So now he sees himself as some sort of paranormal investigator.
Whatever. I keep telling him this werewolf gig isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be, and it doesn’t work like in the movies. I wasn’t bitten, and I generally don’t bite unless provoked. He says technically I’m a wolfwere, to which I just reply “Where?” and smile. Whatever. It’s the little things I guess. I just wish everything didn’t come out as a bark most of the time, though Monty’s gotten pretty good at interpreting… As long as he doesn’t get the government involved, and considering his take on the government himself that would seem to be a long stretch. We both prefer the down low.
So here we are, still livin’ the dream. There aren’t all that many rabbits out here but it’s quiet and the locals don’t seem to notice me all that much. And Monty can run around and make like he’s gonna have some kind of sighting of Bigfoot or aliens or the like. As long as the pantry’s stocked it’s no hair off my back. Sure, there are scads of tourists, but they can be fun to mess around with, especially at that time of the month if I happen to catch them out and about.
Speaking of tourists, I even ran into that misspent youth from way back in 2021 at the convenience store; I spotted him at the Quickie Mart along the highway here. I guess he and his girlfriend were apparently on walkabout (or car-about) perhaps making their way to California or something. He even bought me another cookie. Small world. But we all knew that already…
If you enjoyed this werewolf wolfwere wolfwhatever saga, feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.
