Writing

It’s All In Your Head

/ Anita Marie / Leave a comment

There’s one thing I just can’t admit to people I know- I actually like some of Woody Allen’s films. I don’t know why, because I shouldn’t like them. 

My brain isn’t wired to like movies with brittle shrill characters who couldn’t find their own back sides if you gave them a map, a book called “Backside finding for Dummies” and a Backside Finding Search and Rescue team to help them out.

 I like movies with Pirates and Ghosts and Demonic kids that stuff babies into wine caskets and Mad Scientists that drip honey on people while they sleep and then turn bugs loose to devour the victim alive.

That’s me, that’s what I’m all about, and though I won’t cop to liking “Hannah and Her Sisters” I will say without a moments hesitation and lots of enthusiasm that one of my favorite movies of all time is Donovan’s Brain.

I like it for the ending.

At the ending of the movie the brain escapes from it’s tank and flies around the lab, chasing the mad scientist and his friends. The best part is Donovan’s spinal cord is still attached to the brain and the spinal cord is whipping around the place just like the creature in ” Alien ” would end up doing with it’s tail over 20 years later.

All kidding aside, I liked Donovan’s Brain because somebody had a story and they told it and exactly the way they wanted to tell it. They didn’t pretend it was anything other then a story about a killer brain that could fly.

That’s real story telling and that kind of story telling takes guts.

I keep that in mind when I write my own stories. 

Donovan’s Brain-  food for thought.

A Nice Little Prison And A Barb Wire Fence

/ Anita Marie / 14 Comments

 

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When I was about 10 years old I was sitting on the curb with some neighborhood girls and we were planning our lives- we decided right then and there who we would marry, where we would live and what sort of jobs we were going to have when we grew up.

Most of what I was hearing involved big houses and jobs as stewardesses or teachers and marriages to actors and the Osmond Brothers.

I remember my friend Karen sort of flinched and said, ” What about you Anita?”

I took a deep breath and I was off and running because like a lot of girls that age I was planning  on ” one day “.

I said I was going to be a writer like ” The Twilight Zone Guy ” and then I would become fighter pilot and then after I got done with that I was going to be a Captain, like Captain Kirk,  and be the first woman to land  a spaceship on Mars.

I  told my friends I expected to discover real aliens on ‘ faraway planets ‘ and after I died I was going to be buried on Titan in a cemetery they’d have there one day for Space Explorers like me.

And then I said I never wanted to get married.

I  wanted to live in a cabin in the mountains with some pet wolves and I wanted a salt water aquarium full of sea horses.

My friends stared at me with their mouths hanging open.

Karen grabbed Melody, Melody yanked on Shelly’s arm and they moved  a few feet away from me whispering to to each other and giving me horrified looks the entire time.

When they were done Shelly stomped up to me and I nearly dove into the street straight in front of an on coming car because I thought she was going to kick me

I swear to this day she was almost crying. ” That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. I’m telling your Mom…everyone is right- you are a weirdo!  Of COURSE   you’re going to get married!”

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They’ll Get You and Your Little Brain Too

/ Anita Marie / 5 Comments

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Last Summer I was listening to a news story on the radio about the grand and glorious day when human and machines will be one.

The Computer Guy telling this story sounded like a Minister at one of those Tent Revival meetings that they air TV either really late at night or super early in the morning He was preaching fire and brimstone and all the bad things that will happen to those who don’t ‘walk the path’

The world was an imperfect place and this man wanted to ‘improve it’ before it was to late.

Okay, I made that part up- but the thing of it is this Computer Guy intrigued me because the only other people I’ve seen who are that afraid of the world  live in cabins out in the woods where there are no roads or sewer systems and their little babies wear camouflage sleepers and  they have bomb-shelters in their backyards.

They don’t think the world could end- they think it SHOULD end.

Of course after it ends there’s a plan…there’s always a plan.

And guess who has it?

Computer Guy says that one day they’ll be able to implant a chip in your head and that they can load programs right into it- you’ll never have to go to school and learn to be a Teacher or a Carpenter – or an Accountant.

You’ll just be ‘written’.

So how do you ‘write’ a brain to create a Count Dracula or Dr. Phibes? How do you program it to accept and develop ideas like those little wind-up toys that everyone has at their desks at school or work?

Who the hell will be programmed to design Pez Guns?

That’s what I thought- there is no plan for that sort of person to be ‘brought forward.’

I hope Computer Guy turns into ” I think I better Shut My Mouth Guy ” before he ‘deletes’ the people who make the world an interesting place to live in.

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My Grave Thoughts

/ Anita Marie / 8 Comments

Just some bits and pieces I have laying around

in my

 Macabre Notebook:

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Here lies

Ezekial Aikle

Age 102

The Good

Die Young.

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The children of Israel wanted bread

And the Lord sent them manna,

Old clerk Wallace wanted a wife,

And the Devil sent him Anna.

 

I wish I had made this story up-

it would have made me

famous

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Gravediggers held BBQ in cemetery

Gravediggers in a Belgian city have been criticised for holding a barbecue party in a cemetery.

It follows a complaint from a couple who visited the cemetery at Merksem, Antwerp, to visit the grave of their son.

François and Magda Boljau were shocked to find the gravediggers holding a party in a shed at the cemetery, reports Het Nieuwsblad.

Mrs Bolijau said: “It was happening only 15 metres from his grave. The music of ‘Sex bomb, sex bomb’ was coming very loud from the loudspeakers.

“Children were playing between the graves. I couldn’t stand it and ran away in tears.”

Alderman Erwin Pairon, who is responsible for Antwerp’s cemeteries, said he was very annoyed with the gravediggers.

The gravediggers insisted they held a party every year in the same shed and that nobody had complained before.

But Alderman Pairon said: “Next year, they have to move. I understand it is very upsetting for the parents to have to listen to a party when they came to mourn.”

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In a fight I’d have to say  

Lizzie Borden

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Would have kicked

Jack The Ripper‘s

butt

up

one side of the street

and down 

the other. 

 

Eight Little Things…

/ Anita Marie / 7 Comments

My friend Max tagged me-  I was suppose to come up with eight little random facts …. and being that this is MY blog I decided to go ahead and do eight random facts about memememememememe!

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1. When I was a mortician’s apprentice I got seriously addicted to PEZ candy.

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2. I have a morbid fear of electricity

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3.  I  think Reality TV is Satan’s Vomit.

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4.  I’ve written stories about ghosts that I’ve seen and  about weird places that I’ve been too and really odd people I’ve met and then I make it sound like fiction.

 I’m such a coward.

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5. I think it’s great when my husband does political work because all of the sudden the same ISP from our area shows up and SOMEONE crawls through my entire blog page by page and my stats go through the roof.

 My own Mother won’t take the time to do that- Hell I don’t even do that!

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6. My favorite color is red but I tell people it’s pink. It’s so sweet when their faces scrunch up and they say, ” Pink? Really? “

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7. When my Sister was 5 and I was 8 she had a dream that her Baby Alive Doll came to life and tried to kill her. So she put Baby Alive in her closet and buried her under a bunch of clothes. Every night I’d go into her closet and take Baby Alive out and sit her on the foot of my Sister’s bed. I’m so grateful that after years of ME my Sister will admitt to people we’re actually related.

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8.

I think Jack The Ripper was a woman.

Actually….I just like to say that because it stresses people out.

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Home Is Where The Heart Is

/ Anita Marie / Leave a comment

My Very Own Story about a house, a man and

a dream nightmare….

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Back along on Deception Road is a little farmhouse that no one lives in.

After the house was built and then put up for sale the orchard out back died, the little vegetable garden died and all of the pumpkins and squashes and tomatoes rotted right on their vines.

Even the flowers in the window boxes shriveled up and turned to dust within a day or so after they were set out and all the little farmhouse could do was slam its doors open and shut and make the clock in its kitchen strike twelve over and over again.

The man who built the farmhouse, Travis Janosik, use to stand out at the road and wonder what the hell was going on in there, why was it that nothing could live near that place without giving up the ghost.

There was nothing about Travis that would make you say, ‘you know that killer house? The one on Deception Road? It was built by Travis Janosik” and the person you would be talking to wouldn’t reply, “ Well of course it was a strange house. Look who built it.”

No, the house turned bad all by itself and this bothered no one more then Travis. What bothered him most of all  happened when the house was two years old.

That’s when someone actually bought it and moved in.

The ‘someones’ who bought the farmhouse were the Korbar Family.

Travis use to drive out to Deception Road and park across the way from the Farmhouse and watch it. He’d see Darius Korbar working the vegetable garden or see him sitting on the porch with one of the many children he and Mrs. Korbar had and they acted like any other family living in those hills.

Unless of course you really watched them the way Travis did.

At first he had no interest in the Korbar family. His interest was in that house and what it was up to now. It didn’t have to settle for killing plants and the odd field animal that got to close to its walls. Now it had the Korbar children who scuttled around the property in their ill-fitting clothes.

At least that’s how it looked but then Travis realized it wasn’t the clothes that didn’t fit right, it was the bodies inside the clothes that weren’t right.

The children’s heads were to large for their small bodies and their hands and feet didn’t seem to be the same size and when they talked Travis felt the hair rising up on his arms and the back of his neck and that’s when he’d cut his daily vigil off.

Once Travis saw Mrs. Korbar come down the front steps with a tall glass in her hand and make her way to the garden to where Mr Korbar was working. She handed him the glass and he kissed her cheek and then she made her way back up the steps and Travis watched her but didn’t notice that as she climbed the steps her head was tilted slightly backwards and her back was straight as a pole and she never bent her knees.

It was like she was gliding up the steps and not walking up them at all.
Towards the end of the summer the gardens were dead and rotten and Mr Korbar was out there working it like it as if it were alive and thriving. The ground was water logged and moldy with green slime. The vegtables were rotting and decayed and you could actually smell it when the wind shifted.

On top of the fact that Travis was watching a man harvest from a garden full of rotten vegetables he was also sure that some of that smell was coming from Mr Korbar too.

Travis promised himself after that visit he wouldn’t go near the Farmhouse on Deception Road. Something was wrong with it, something was wrong with the people living inside of it and Travis was certain if he didn’t stop going over there something would be wrong with him too.

Of course, it was too late because that something had already happened to Travis and he found himself standing at the end of the drive leading right up to the Farmhouse the next day.

He was in plain view and Mrs. Korbar must have seen him from one of her windows because he wasn’t there for long before she came down the steps and met him with a basket of rotting carrots and maggot filled tomatoes on her arm.

“ We never got the chance to thank you for building this wonderful house Mr Janosik. Its perfect and we love it so.”

Travis was looking into the basket of dead and decaying vegetables and he said, “ How could you love it so? Nothing can live inside of that thing…”

And Mrs. Korbar said, “ Well, Mr Janosik nothing does…”

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He Has The Right To Your Life

/ Anita Marie / 2 Comments

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So this guy who has a dangerous strain of TB flies around the world spreading his little microbes o’ death like screwed up wedding confetti and  the CDC  gets out ahead of this thing and tells people not to worry – which on it’s face is pretty weird considering they don’t exactly release feel good stories on a regular basis.

And then we find out maybe that’s because:

(from Yahoo news )….

The honeymooner quarantined with a dangerous strain of tuberculosis was identified Thursday as a 31-year-old Atlanta personal injury lawyer whose new father-in-law is a CDC microbiologist specializing in the spread of TB and other bacteria. 

Okay, I’m officially stunned. 

But I’m getting away from the point I wanted to make. 

What I wanted to say is that I wish I HAD been on the plane next to this guy and that at some point he had coughed into my face.

Why?

My Goodness, to have sat next to the man whose life is more important then anyone else’s life on the entire planet?

I’d have been honored.

Original Story Here

Dark Travels

/ Anita Marie / Leave a comment

 

 

My very own version of

the All American Family

     on Vacation      

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 Last Summer Mata Dark and her family took a vacation.

Mata was almost 20 at the time and during her entire twenty years of life none of the Dark Family had set foot off of the Olympic Mountain Range in Washington State. They had never traveled further then 40 miles away from their hometown of Leaning Birches.

It’s because Mata’s Father was a workaholic and he had this thing about being replaced. He was terrified of losing his job.

” Derby, do you really believe there’s a line of people waiting for to take your job? ” Mata’s mom Rue screamed at the top of her lungs while waving around a bunch of travel pamphlets in her hand.

Mom had wanted a vacation in the worst way and she felt like if she didn’t get this trip she wouldn’t have the energy to fight for another.

Derby’s eyes crossed a little like they always do when he thinks to hard and finally he said, ” I’m sure there’s a few people who would love to do my job. And do you know what Rue? They’re probably a lot younger and smarter and quicker then me. Don’t ask me to take a chance on losing the only thing I’ve ever been good at in my life.”

Rue who’s eyes never crossed when she thought to hard lowered her voice and said ” Derby you are the hardest working man in town and you’ve earned a vacation. Promise me you’ll think about it.”

Derby who adored his wife and family as much as he adored his job gave in about a week after that argument. He came home one night from work and out of nowhere asked Rue would she mind if they took a road trip? He had a route and a destination picked out. He even had a leather folder that read “ USA TOURS” full of flyers, confirmation forms and event tickets.

The travel agent he had worked with in town had even got them t-shirts to wear.

Mata’s Mom looked through the folder and then she unfolded one of the T-Shirts and held it up. ” You’ve got to be kidding. ” was all she could think to say.

The shirt read:

                                   ” UFO PALOOZA 2006 “

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Derby smiled and shook his head. ” Pack up, we leave at Dawn “

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Mata’s brother 15-year-old brother Wilton not only wore the t-shirt the morning they left he went out to Joker’s Galore the night before and bought a set of ” Deeply Boppers” to wear on his head too.

The ” Deely Boppers ” were silver antenna with gold balls at the top that were the size of marbles. When you turned your head something in them shifted and made a crackling sound.

Mata took one long hard look at her brother, walked out the front door and then jumped on her motorcycle and rode at break neck speed into town and bought herself a set too.

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Mata and her brother Wilton had agreed with each other sometime during that very long drive that if Mom said the words, ‘ UFO’s? Are you kidding me Derby UFO’s? Our one and only vacation as a family is to celebrate something that doesn’t exist?” one more time they were both going to jump out of the car and take their chances on the New Mexico Desert, the New Mexico Sun and until they decided it sounded like fun the mutants that were suppose to have been created by the first Atomic Test back in 1945.

” Hey Mom ” Wilton asked, ” do you think there really  are Radioactive Mutants out here? “

” Well I haven’t seen any but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist…am I right Derby? “

Derby reached over and patted her shoulder and said, ” That’s the Spirit Querida “

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The little town was almost full of people dressed up like aliens, there were also a lot of people not dressed like aliens and they all seemed to know a lot about space travel and where you could get ” Saucer Burgers “, ” Milkyway Meals ” and everyone wanted to know if you were able to get reservations to stay at the ” Station 51 Hotel “

Most of the Dark Family were secretly pleased they were staying at the ” Place to Be ” for the Festival but they kept it to themselves because of the look on Rue’s face.

Rue’s face was this mask; she looked like someone had attached strings to her eyebrows and yanked them straight up.

She had speechless since they arrived in town, which was actually a relief.

Finally she opened her mouth, breathed and said ” God in Heaven ” and then she went back to the hotel and ordered a blood red steak and drank Strawberry Margaritas until she couldn’t focus her eyes.

After that she went back out and joined her family.

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Derby talked Rue into joining a UFO Watcher’s Group and by the time they got back from spending an evening learning to plot their own star charts and joined in on a few debates about the Roswell Incident and watched a video of a genuine Alien Autopsy it was obvious Rue was having a good time.

At least her eyebrows had gone back to their normal spot on her forehead and she had quit saying ” God in Heaven ” everytime someone walked by.

So it really turned out to be a good trip and on their last night Rue and Derby went out with some new friends to make arrangements to get together for next year’s festival and Mata and Wilton went shopping.

Mata and Wilton decided to go and pick up some souvenirs for their friends back home and they spent a lot of time talking to Mr. Fanshaw who ran the little Museum just around the street from the hotel. 

They talked to Mr Fanshaw about their Mom and their Dad and their home back in Washington.

Mr Fanshaw, Mata and Wilton were pleased to discover knew all about Aliens and he also knew at least an hours worth of  top drawer ghost stories and as he packed up Mata and Wilton’s purchases he asked, ” so tell me about your Mom, in the end she had a good time? Is she a believer now do you think? “

” Doubt it, ” Wilton said “she doesn’t have much going in the way of imagination.”

” Sorry to hear that…its a curse of the Modern Age ” Mr Fanshaw said sadly. Then he asked, “and what does she do for a living? “

” Homemaker, ” Mata told him ” she use to be a Phlebotomist. That’s how she met our Dad. See the offices she worked at used to get busted into and vandalized all of the time. One night she got attacked and our Dad actually saved her from being killed. They’ve been together ever since”

” And what does your Dad do? ” Mr Fanshaw asked.

” He’s a Vampire Hunter ” Wilton said from behind a stack of packages and then he and Mata thanked Mr Fanshaw for all of his time and as the two young people left the Museum Mr. Fanshaw heard Mata say ” hey Wilton we should talk to Dad about The Triangle for our next trip…”

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It Got Under My Skin

/ Anita Marie / 4 Comments

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When I was about 9 this little girl named Carla used to follow me around school and  chant, ” Anita is a black cat sitting on a Cadillac…Anita is a black cat sitting on a Cadillac. ”

She would stand there in front of me at recess or in front of my desk in class and put her hands on her hips and shake her butt from side to side and chant that damn  car slogan over and over again.

Once I asked why she was doing this and she told me it was ” because you’re a black girl ” ( actually I was an Asian Girl but Carla was on her way to being an equal opportunity bigot so brown was brown to her ).

Finally I get sick of this ( mostly because Carla was turning this concert she treated me too into a full blown musical and had her friends joining in ) and I go to my teacher and tell on Carla and what  she said and had been doing

What my teacher said will stick with me forever.

She said, ” Anita you are different,  you’re going to have to learn to have a sense of humor about certain things.”

I have a sense of humor…and I still don’t think this was funny.

What happened to Carla and my teacher?

I don’t know…so many people wearing hoods over their heads so little time to look under them all.

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The Light Goes On

/ Anita Marie / 5 Comments

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I’ve spent the afternoon drafting short stories for my blog

Anita’s Owl Creek Bridge.

At one point

I realized I had spent the day thinking about

ghosts and devils and curses

witches and cannibals

and clever ways

to bump people off.

I looked around to make sure

no one was watching

and then I laughed.