creepyclothdoll

[creepyclothdoll]

Turkey Day

I didn’t scream when Deb brought out the platter. The dish was large, white, and decorated with little porcelain angels– the ‘good china’ for special occasions. I had thought there was something grotesque about those little porcelain angels before Deb set her masterpiece upon it. 

It was the conflict-avoidance in me that stopped the scream. But it didn’t stop my jaw from dropping. 

“Mom, you said you weren’t going to do this this time,” Derrick said through his hands. 

“Well, no, I told you on the phone, we had a surprise visitor yesterday,” said Deb.

“Bet you never saw a thanksgiving turkey like that in Minneapolis,” Trent grunted at me, before smugly, theatrically stabbing into a roast arm with his fork. He seemed pleased that I didn’t have a response. My mouth just wouldn’t form words. I couldn’t move, or speak. 

“I didn’t–” Derrick finally took his fingers off of his nose. “You said, last month, that you were going to do a turkey this year.”

Trent stuffed an enormous forkful of stringy grey meat into his mouth and chewed, staring at me all the while without blinking.

“No, sweetie, you’re remembering wrong,” Deb, who would not look at me at all, argued in her gentle sing-song voice. She was short and thin with a fading blonde bob and grey roots. She wore a beige sweater over a beige dress. “I said your dad wasn’t up for it, with his hip, and with my sciatica and your brothers gone, I just didn’t think we could manage it this year. But then yesterday, around four, just about when I was unwrapping the frozen turkey, the doorbell rang! Trent, please.” Deb slapped Trent’s hand as it reached for another big forkful of meat. “Wait till I carve some for everyone first, for Christ’s sake. Poor Lexi is sitting there thinking ‘oh, these redneck McCabes, bunch of barbarians raised in a barn.’”

“It’s fine,” I said automatically. This was the first movement of my muscles since Deb brought out the platter. “I don’t think that.” 

“You don’t have to be so nice,” Deb replied. “I can take it.”

Derrick was staring at me now, too. His hand passed under the table to squeeze mine.

“Why couldn’t you just carve it in the kitchen?” Trent huffed.

“That’s not how Thanksgiving dinner works, dear,” Deb replied. Her thin fingers worked to saw thinner slices of cooked flesh off of the bones. The meat seemed to be somewhat tough, because she was going very slow at it. “Anyway, I ask this fellow where he was coming from, and he said Rindley. Lexi, that’s a whole county over. He’s a door-to-door JW, I forgot to say. He’s got this stack of flyers, you should see them, they’re funny. Anyway. I say, ‘don’t you JW’s always travel in pairs?’ and he says, ‘no m’a’am, that’s not a requirement, that’s only for safety.’ And I say, ‘well aren’t you worried about crazy hicks out here in the boonies taking shots at you?’ And he says, ‘I never had a problem out here before.’ And I say–”

“Godammit Deb!” Trent blurted. He let out a long, excruciated grunt as he stood up laboriously, taking great care to make sure we all knew how much it hurt him. He pushed his walker around the table and grabbed the carving knife from his wife. “I’ll show you how to carve a roast. Christ almighty, I swear to god.” He sawed the meat with violent speed, splashing grease on his old navy checkered flannel. 

“And I say–”

“Mom, maybe save it for another time?” Derrick said. He made a big show of secretly nodding towards me so his mother knew why. 

“It’s a funny story,” Deb frowned

“I want to hear it,” I said. Deb only sighed and sucked her teeth. Then she sat down.

“Well, it’s not that funny. It’s dumb, actually.”

“I still want to hear it,” I said. My phone buzzed in my dress pocket, and I pulled it out instinctively. 

I’m so sorry this is awful, the message read. It was from Derrick. He squeezed my hand again. I took mine away. 

“She’s calling the cops,” Trent said. “Told ya.”

“I’m not,” I said. “I just got a text.”

“Surprised you can get texts out here,” Deb said. “Most people can’t. Too far out in the sticks.”

“I can get them through wifi,” I said. I’d gotten the password off of their fridge when I arrived. It was under a magnet that said Never Mess With A PISCES WOMAN Who Was BORN IN MARCH And Is Allergic to STUPIDITY, They’ll Never Find Your Body! “I also think I still have bars, though, too.” 

I was getting sick of Deb acting like this suburban mcmansion was so far from civilization it might as well be the middle of Alaska. We were thirty-five minutes from Grand Rapids, tops. 

“Gals try to call the cops sometimes,” Trent continued, breathing heavy now as he struggled with the roast. He wasn’t doing much better than his wife at it. Sweat dripped from his wispy brown crew cut into his piggy eyes, but he refused to slow or stop. “They don’t last very long. By the time the cops get to our door, we’ve already got a whole new Thanksgiving meal to serve up to them.”

“Okay,” I said. He raised his eyebrows, as if to accentuate that there was an implication there that I should pick up on.

“Dad.” Derrick said. “She’s not calling the cops.”

The thing I didn’t like about Derrick’s dad most was the way he said everything like he’d rehearsed it in his head a lot beforehand. Sometimes, Derrick could sound just like that. He’d say something and raise his eyebrows with a smile like he was expecting a big reaction. He wouldn’t move past it until I gave some acknowledgment that yes, I did “get” the implication. I never realized how much that annoyed me until now. What do you want, a round of applause?

“God dammit!” Trent threw down the knife. “God damn roast is tough, Deb. What about ‘low and slow’ don’t you understand?”

“Well, there was a lot of meat, dear. If you just fixed the grill this summer–”

“Oh, don’t go bringing that up.”

“Men.” Deb tutted. “Nothing is ever their fault. You know what I’m talking about, Lexi. Us women take the blame for all their stupid mistakes. But that’s life. Cleaning up our men’s messes without complaint.” Deb smiled conspiratorily at me, and I smiled back, even though I didn’t relate to or agree with the sentiment. The front door was just down the hall behind Deb, just a few square meters of grey carpet and beige walls smattered with tacky and vaguely threatening Hobby Lobby signage (Grandma’s Shit List: Don’t Say Shit, Don’t Do Shit, Don’t Expect Shit! and House Rules: ACT RIGHT or get a trip to the woodshed!).  I kept glancing at it, measuring the distance in my mind, wondering if I could run fast enough to get to my car before one of Derrick’s parents caught up to me. Or drew a weapon. 

Another buzz in my pocket.

I love you, Derrick had texted me. I could see him out the corner of my eye trying to make eye contact with me and shoot me his own conspiratorial smile, but I did not look at him. Trent slapped a pile of rubbery grey meat on a plate and passed it to me. 

“Breast or thigh?” He joked without smiling. I took the plate. The meat was wet, as if it had been boiled, and the thin ring of white fat and skin around the edge jiggled as it separated from the muscle. I thought I could still see blonde arm hair on the skin. 

Derrick took his plate of grey meat from his dad. As Deb took hers, Derrick leaned over to me and whispered in my ear,

“Don’t forget to say thank you.”

“Thanks, Deb,” I said. 

“And my dad?”

Deb passed a basket of white grocery store rolls around. There was a low white ramekin of canned cranberry sauce on the table, and a big blue bowl of salad with russian dressing. There was an extremely mushy and condensed soup-forward green bean casserole. In an effort to make a good impression, I had brought candied sweet potatoes. 

I took a generous helping of the salad, which was somehow also very wet. The russian dressing water from the lettuce pooled with the unthinkable and loathsome juices of the grey flesh at the bottom of the plate. I also took a generous helping of the sweet potatoes. No one else did, though. 

“Let’s wait until we say grace,” Deb said through her smiling teeth, watching me take a deep swig of my wine. “Thirsty, aren’t we?” She chirped. She poured me some more wine, filling it almost to the brim this time. I think she meant this as an insult, but I was going to do that myself anyway, so the joke was on her. “Would you like to lead the prayer, Lexi?”

“Uh… I don’t really know what to say,” I said. 

“Just say what’s in your heart.”

“Um.” I cleared my throat. I looked to Derrick. He nodded encouragingly at me, a sign he wasn’t going to step in and rescue me. “Thank you, God, for bringing us all together, here.” Deb and Trent both bowed their heads and touched their palms. Derrick followed suit. “I’m so glad I got to meet Derrick’s lovely parents. Thank you for this amazing… meal.” I felt the wine come back up into my mouth a little bit and had to gag it back down. “We’re all grateful to be here, rather than anywhere else. Uh. Amen.”

Derrick wasn’t religious, as far as I knew. But he gave a reverent nod before he opened his eyes and picked up his knife and fork. 

“That was a beautiful prayer,” Deb said. She sniffled. “You picked a good one, sweetie. Don’t let her go.”

“No thank-you for carving your dinner. I see how it is,” Trent mumbled. 

I watched Derrick take a small mouthful of meat. It was sinewy, and had come from the hand. He chewed and chewed. I’d never been less attracted to him. 

My family ate Thanksgiving dinner in the early afternoon. Sometimes my grandparents were there, sometimes my dad’s brother and his kids, sometimes family friends would come. My candied sweet potatoes always killed. Not a spoonful left by the end. But the thing was that we all liked each other. My mom would get a little tipsy and tell crazy college party stories, my dad would burn the pecan pie and laugh so hard he cried, and then we’d laugh so hard we cried, and then we’d watch movies and laugh some more. 

“So, what is it you do for a living?” Deb asked, chewing on her roast. Her teeth scraped the fork as she pulled it off.

“I’m a personal assistant at a pet magazine.”

“Oh, that’s adorable,” Deb laughed. I smiled a little bit. 

“It’s harder than it sounds. You know The Devil Wears Prada?” I asked.

“...No,” Deb said.

“You like Prada?” Trent asked through an open mouth of food.

“No, but, basically, I do what Anne Hathaway does, except for with dog clothes. But if you haven’t seen it, nevermind.”

“We don’t like the Devil in this house,” Trent said.

“It’s not a literal Devil. It’s Meryl streep–”

“Let’s not keep talking about this. It’s Thanksgiving,” Deb snapped.

Buzz.

My mom loves you, you’re doing great.

“You know,” I said, swallowing a bite of sweet potatoes, which I made very sure hadn’t touched the grey meat or any of its accumulated juices, “these candied sweet potatoes are made with real maple syrup and brown butter. I toasted the pecans myself and sugared them with homemade maple caramel.”

After a long silence, Trent wiped his mouth and replied,

“I don’t like real maple.”

“It’s too strong,” Derrick agreed.

“We already have a dessert,” Deb said.

“Regular mashed potatoes are better.” Trent said. “And they’re traditional.”

“To each their own,” I said politely. I poured myself another glass of wine. Honestly, I hoped they did kill me. Anything to end this dinner sooner. 

There was a loud, faraway noise from below us. A pounding, a rattling, and then a long, low wail. Derrick put his head back in his hands.

“Mom.”

“That’ll be our JW.”

“He’s alive.”

“You know how hard it is to break down a whole carcass, son?” Trent spat. “Nobody’s got the time for that. Not when you find out you gotta make a thanksgiving dinner for two extra people last-minute the day before. Now get your elbows off the damn table.” Then, in a moment of brilliance, he added, “Only one set of elbows on this table tonight, and they’re well-done.” He grinned and looked at me for a reaction again. “What, you got nothing to say?” 

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” I said. 

“Say what’s on your mind,” Trent responded.

“Okay. Well… candied sweet potatoes aren’t a dessert,” I said. “They’re a side. But I don’t want to start an argument.”

“You’ve wanted to start an argument since you got here,” Trent said. “Don’t think we can’t see you think you’re better than us. College-educated girl, women’s studies, you probably got all kinds of opinions.”

“I think you want to start an argument,” I said. 

Derrick groaned beside me. 

“See? Knew you think you’re smart.”

The man in the basement let out another agonized wail. 

“It was journalism, not women’s studies,” I said. 

“Like it matters. This day and age, you tell me what the difference is. It’s all women’s studies, gender studies these days.” Trent huffed. He chewed as he talked, and I could hear the fat squeak between his teeth as the prisoner downstairs built up the energy for another scream. 

“When I was a girl, I took a women’s studies course in college,” Deb piped up, attempting to smooth down the hostile tone of the conversation by pretending she couldn’t sense it. “Back then, there were still ladies who would go out and burn their bras in a big fire. I understood feminism when it was about equal rights, but I look around today and– well, hasn’t it gotten out of hand? You know how it is, Lexi– you’re a pretty girl, you don’t shave your head or pierce your eyebrows or anything like that. Do you?”

The Jehovah’s Witness wailed in the basement and rattled his chains. 

“Would you shut him up?” Trent snapped at Derrick. 

“Me?!” Derrick said. “Dad.” He gestured at me. Like that would sway anyone here. Trent’s big lumpy face was stony as a gargoyle’s as he gestured at his walker. He wouldn’t be able to go down stairs with his bad hip.

“I’ll do it,” Deb said. “It’s my mess, I’ll clean it up.” She stood up and pushed in her squeaky beige chair.

“No, mom,” Derrick said. “I’ll do it.” He looked at me, then looked away quickly, towards the grey carpet. “I’ll, uh–” Derrick grabbed the carving knife from the roast and wiped it on his napkin. Then he headed towards the pantry door.

“That’s my boy,” Trent shouted, without any real pride. “Sure hope you’re loyal to him, Lexi,” Trent said to me once he was arguably out of earshot. “Most women these days–”

“I’ll go with him,” I said as I stood, almost knocking a fork off the table. I hurried after my boyfriend through the dingey, grey-tiled kitchen (past a hanging wood sign which read In This House We Believe: No Cryin’, No Whinin’, No Back-Talkin’!) and catching him before the secret door behind the rack of very expired dry goods swung shut. 

“Lexi–” Derrick said, four steps down the creaky wooden staircase. The man’s screams were louder and more frantic now. “I’m so sorry about all this.”

“Is this normal for your family?” 

“No– I mean, the ritual cannibalism is just a Thanksgiving thing, I promise. And my mom said she wasn’t going to do it this year. I thought it would be fine.” Derrick smiled wanly. I didn’t like the way that smile looked on his face. Honestly, I didn’t like his face very much anymore. I could see his dad’s meaty forehead and his mom’s thin nose. I could see Deb’s wide cheekbones and Trent’s lipless mouth. 

“You don’t have to do what they say,” I said.

“It’s– not that big of a deal,” Derrick replied. “It’s just family stuff. You know?”

I didn’t. 

“Derrick,” I said. “I don’t like your family.”

Derrick looked hurt.

“I know this is a lot,” he said. “And my dad is being an asshole. But… you don’t choose your family.”

“I mean… why not?” I said, following him as he carried the knife down the stairs. 

“What’s the alternative?” Derrick said. “I turn my back on my mom and dad? No. Never. I believe in loyalty, Lexi. Even when people aren’t perfect. Even when I don’t agree with them. I don’t agree with you all the time, but we’re still together.”

“Well, don’t expect me to come to any future McCabe Thanksgivings,” I said.

“I understand why you’d feel that way after today, but… you might change your mind when they’re your family, too.” Derrick stopped at the bottom of the stairs. He looked up at me with his big, dopey eyes.

“Derrick–” 

“Lexi, this isn’t how I wanted to do this. But you’ve seen the worst of my family secrets, and you’re still by my side. So will you stay by my side?”

Derrick was doing that thing again, that Trent thing, where he said a line and waited for my reaction. 

“Let’s just get out of here,” I said.

“Will you stay by my side?” He repeated like maybe he thought I hadn’t heard. “For the rest of our lives?”

“I just want to go.”

“I’m asking you to marry me.”

“I have ears, Derrick,” I snapped. It was the first time I’d ever snapped at him. I never snapped at anyone. Especially not him. 

His expression didn’t move an inch. He was smiling, for some reason, like this was the happiest day of his life.

“Then say yes,” he said.

“No, I don’t want to marry you,” I said. 

“Because this is where I come from?” He swallowed, shaking.

“No. Because this is who you’re choosing to be.” I replied. 

Derrick hung his head. The knife drooped to his knee.

“Things aren’t that black and white, Lexi.”

I clapped my hands over my ears as another shriek boomed through the basement, close now.

Derrick sighed.

“Fuck,” he said. He hurried into the basement proper, and I followed him. Again, I didn’t scream. 

What was left of the man was chained by the ankles to the wall. He crawled like a caterpillar, the stumps where his arms used to start on his torso haphazardly bandaged with paper towels and medical tape. His face was a pulp, his body bruised. He was naked. An overturned bucket leaked into the drain in the floor. He looked up at Derrick and I with wide, white eyes.

“Help me!” He screamed. “Get me out of here! Oh, Lord, please get me out of here!”

“Sorry, man,” Derrick said, stooping over the prisoner. His knee fell onto the man’s back, pinning him in place. He raised the knife. “Thanksgiving with the family. You know how it is.”

“Derrick,” I said. He looked up at me a second too late to see the bread knife flash under his chin. By the time he did, it was lodged all the way through his neck. His face was stunned, betrayed. I felt bad.

I pulled the knife out, followed by a torrent of blood. Down it went, towards the floor drain. 

Derrick dropped down to both knees. He clutched his neck. He didn’t scream. 

“Don’t make a sound,” I said to the armless, naked prisoner, who had been screaming a lot until then. He’d rolled away to the side as soon as Derrick’s weight was off of him. “If you stay quiet, we’ll be out of here in time to finish Thanksgiving with our own families.”

The man spat bloody drool.

“J-jehovah’s Witnesses don’t celebrate Thanksgiving,” he managed. 

“Yeah…” I said. “I think you’re onto something with that.”

Derrick twitched and gurgled. Then, finally, he stopped. 

I imagined my own family at home, topping off the evening with hot toddies and bad cable tv Christmas movies. 

“Lexi, Derrick,” Deb called from upstairs. “We’re cutting into the pie! Hurry up or your dad’ll eat it all before you get any. As soon as I find my knife!”

“I’ll help you!” I shouted up the stairs. 

My phone buzzed.

Miss you this year lex!! Happy Turkey Day!! Love, mom

I wiped blood from my thumb and texted her back.

Love you too.

I started up the stairs.

[creepyclothdoll]

(Not a scary story)

Severely jetlagged, I slept oved 14 hours and had a vivid dream that the BEST character in NBC's Hannibal was the Muppet detective character. She was the most relatable one, and had the most good sense by far. She was the only muppet. The fact that she was a muppet was never addressed. She survived to the end.

I strongly felt like the fandom, in its love for Will and Hannibal, was fucking sleeping on the muppet character and she was egregiously underappreciated.

I spent the first day of my vacation recreating this.

[creepyclothdoll]

The Devil's Wheel

The Devil’s Wheel

“If you say yes,” said the Devil, “a single man, somewhere in the world, will be killed on the spot. But three million dollars is nothing to sneeze at, missus.”

“What’s the catch?” You squint at him suspiciously over the red-and-black striped carnival booth. You’re smarter than he thinks you are– a devil deal always has a catch, and you’re determined to catch him before he catches you. 

“Well, the catch is that you’ll know you did it. And I’ll know, too. And the big man upstairs’ll know, I ‘spose. But what’s the chariot of salvation without a little sin to grease the wheels? You can repent from your mansion balcony, looking out at your waterfront views, sipping a bellini in your eighties. But hey, it’s up to you– take my deal or leave it.”

The Devil lights a cigar without a match, taking an inhale, and blowing out a cloud of deep, sweet-smelling tobacco laced faintly with something that reminds you of rotten eggs. If he does have horns, they’re hidden under his lemon yellow carnival barker hat. He wears a clean pinstripe suit and a red bowtie. No cloven hooves, no big pointy fork, but you know he’s the Devil without having to be told. Though he did introduce himself.

He’s been perfectly polite. 

You know you need the money. He knows it too, or he wouldn’t have brought you here, to this strange dark room, whisking you away from your new house in the suburbs as fast as a wish. Now you’re in some sort of warehouse, where all the windows seem to be blacked out– or, maybe, they simply look out into pitch darkness, though it is the middle of the day. A single white spotlight shines down on the two of you. 

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” you say. “I bet the man is someone I know, right? My husband?”

“Could be,” the Devil says with a pointed grin. “That’s for the wheel to decide.”

He steps back and raises his black-gloved hand as the tarp flies off of the large veiled object behind him. The light of the carnival wheel nearly blinds you. Blinking lights line the sides. Jingling music blares over speakers you can’t see. The flickering sign above it reads:

THE DEVIL’S WHEEL

“Step right up and claim your fortune,” the Devil barks. “Spin the wheel and pay the price! Or leave now, and a man keeps his life.”

You examine the wheel. 

The gambling addict

The doting boyfriend

The escaped convict

The dog dad

The secretive sadist

“These are all the possible men I can kill?” You ask, thumbing the side of the wheel. It rolls smoothly in your hand. Then you quickly stop, realizing that this might constitute a spin under the Devil’s rules. He flashes a smile at you, watching you halt its motion. 

“Addicts, convicts, murderers– plenty of terrible options for you to land on, missus!”

“Serial wife murderer?”

“Now who would miss a fellow like that? I can guarantee that the whole world would be better off without him in it, and that’s a fact.”

The hard worker

The compulsive liar

The animal torturer

The widower

The desperate businessman

The failed musician

The beloved son

“My husband is on here too,” you say. 

“Your husband Dave, yes. The wheel has to be fair, otherwise there’s simply no stakes.”

“I know what’s gonna happen,” you say, crossing your arms. “This wheel is rigged. I’m gonna spin it around, and it’ll go through all the killers and stuff, and then it’s gonna land on my husband no matter what.”

“Why, I would never disgrace the wheel that way,” the Devil says, wounded. “I swear on my own mother’s grave– may she never escape it. In fact, take one free spin, just to test it out! This one’s on me, no death, no dollars.”

You cautiously reach up to the top of the wheel and feel its heaviness in your hand. The weight of hundreds of lives. But also, millions of dollars. You pull the wheel down and let it go.

Clackity-clackity-clackity-clackity

Round and round it goes. 

The college graduate

The hockey fan

The Eagle Scout

The cold older brother

The charming younger brother

The two-faced middle child

The perfectionist

The slob 

Your husband Dave

Clackity-clackity-clackity.

Finally, the wheel lands on a name. A title, really.

The photographer

“Hmm, tough, missus, but that’s the way of the wheel. But hey, look! Your husband is allllll the way over here,” he points with his cane to the very bottom of the wheel, all the way on the other side from where the arrow landed. “As you can see, it’s not rigged. The wheel truly is random.”

“So… there really isn’t another catch?” You ask. 

“Isn’t it enough for you to end a man’s life? You need a steeper price? If you’re really such a glutton for punishment, I’ll gladly re-negotiate the terms.”

“No, no… wait.” You examine the wheel, glancing between it and the Devil.

You really could use that three million dollars. Newly married, new house, you and your husband’s combined debt– those student loans really follow you around. He’s quite a bit older than you, and even he hasn’t paid them off yet, to the point where the whole time you were dating you watched him stress out about money. You had to have a small, budget wedding, and a small, budget honeymoon. Three million dollars could be big for the two of you. You could re-do your honeymoon and go somewhere nice, like Hawaii, instead of just taking two weeks in Atlantic City. You deserve it. 

Even so, do you really want to kill an innocent photographer? Or an innocent seasonal allergy sufferer? Or an innocent blogger? Just because you don’t know or love these people doesn’t mean that someone doesn’t. 

The cancer survivor

The bereaved

The applicant

Some of these were so vague. They could be anyone, honestly. Your neighbors, your father, your friends…

The newlywed

The ex-gifted kid

The uncle

The Badgers fan

“My husband is a Badgers fan,” you say.

“How lovely,” the Devil says. 

Then it hits you.

Of course.

The weightlifter.

The careful driver.

The manager.

The claustrophobe.

Your husband Dave lifts weights at the gym twice a month. You wouldn’t call him a pro, but he does it. He also drives like he’s got a bowl of hot soup in his lap all the time, because he’s afraid of being pulled over. He just got promoted to management at his company, and he takes the stairs to his seventh-story office because he hates how small and cramped the elevator is.

“I get your game,” you announce. “You thought you could get me, but I figured you out, jackass!” “Oh really? What is my game, pray tell?” The Devil responds, leaning against his cane.

“All these different titles– they’re all just different ways to describe the same guy. My husband isn’t one notch on the wheel, he’s every notch. No matter what I land on, Dave dies. I’m wise to your tricks!” 

The Devil cackles. 

“You’re a clever one, that’s for sure. I thought you’d never figure it out.”

“Thanks but no thanks, man,” you say with a triumphant smirk. “I’m no rube. No deal. Take me back home.”

“As you wish, missus,” the Devil says. He snaps his fingers, and you’re gone, back to your brand-new house with your new husband. “Don’t say I never tried to help anyone.”

[creepyclothdoll]

Listening to a non-fiction book about maritime disaster and the way this author is describing the ship sinking is so sexual

[creepyclothdoll]

taking away a clowngirl's makeup telling her she doesn't have to be a clown she can just be a normal silly billy and correcting her any time she tries to juggle until she gets sadder and sadder and eventually stops talking altogether and just communicating via gestures and realizing with horror you've created a mimegirl

[creepyclothdoll]

There's this thrift store at the old strip mall up the highway.

You go to the earrings first. You love earrings, but you’re always losing them.

This place has most of them in a wicker basket up by the register, but there’s more on a rack nearby and some of the fancier stuff is behind the glass under the table. But who goes for the “fancy” stuff at a thrift store? Thrift is the point. These earrings, the ones in the wicker basket, are stuck through blank, white cardboard squares with neon price stickers. 

All of them are under $10, lots under $5. You rifle through them, registering at first only that the colors and styles are very pleasing to you. Your favorite colors. The right size. Then the familiarity sets in. You are struck by a weird, uncanny feeling, which you don’t immediately place. Your body reacts to the surprise before your brain even has a chance to register what it is.

These are your earrings. Not all of them, but lots of them. Here’s a pair you bought from a different thrift store during your first year of college, gaudy wooden hippie-ish disks with flowers painted on– old and tacky, but you felt like you were cool enough to make them work– which you lost when you moved out of your dorm. Here’s a pair you lost in your last apartment, which you didn’t even realize you hadn’t seen around for the last two years– two fairly pricey and elegant-looking sapphires that your parents got for your 30th birthday, when you got promoted to Marketing Specialist. Here’s a pair you forgot you ever owned until now– some dangly red stacked beads that you wore for one Florida vacation in 2011 and then never again. Because you probably left them on the plane. 

“These are all mine,” you say out loud. You can see your reflection in the slim mirror built into the rotating sunglasses display. The earrings you are wearing today are a completely different style– the sort that a Marketing Specialist wears on the weekends, still arty but much more subtle than the sort you wore back then. That doesn’t mean you wouldn’t wear these dangly red things now. You just… don’t, really.  

“Oh, that’s interesting,” says the employee. She is short and dark-haired and named Beth. She is reading a paperback at the check-out and ignoring you. 

You look at the price tag for the sapphires. $15.99. That’s a steal. 

But they’re mine, you think. I shouldn’t have to pay fucking money for these. They’re mine.

Your eyes drift down under the mirror to the sunglasses rack. The first pair there is child-sized, with a blue frame that has a faded Little Mermaid logo on it. You recognize the sunglasses from a photograph of yourself when you were a child at Valley Fair that was pasted to your mom’s fridge for the longest time. They’re $2.99. 

In the “fancy things” area under the glass, you see an old, heavy camera. Could that be the one your grandma made you bring to high school for show-and-tell, the priceless antique World War II era camera, which went missing after you left it overnight? You got in so much trouble for losing that thing, even though you never wanted to bring it to begin with. It’s only $500. You have to buy it. There’s also a tote bag with your old work logo plastered on it which, you know, is packed full of cannabis. You decided to stock up during a trip to Canada because you didn’t know anyone who sold it while you were living in North Dakota, making ends meet while you tried (and failed) to get scholarships to animation schools. You never got to use any of it, though, because that bag got shoved under a seat in your car when you were crossing the border and you just sort of didn’t retrieve it for long enough that, eventually, you forgot you had it, and by the time you remembered, you couldn’t find it again. 

How did it get here?

There’s a deck of gen 1 Pokemon cards that you took to the park one day in 2000 and left on a slide. You’re sure you had some back then that would be really, really valuable now. 

“These are all mine,” you say. “Can I have them back? They were mine originally, I mean. I didn’t give them up on purpose and I don’t know how they got here.”

“You can’t just take things,” Beth says. “But yeah, if you want to buy them, you can have them.”

“But they’re mine. That’s my grandpa’s World War II camera. I lost it in ninth grade and I feel terrible about that.”

“It’s $500,” Beth says, pointing to the sign. You sigh and pull out my credit card. But then you see the rack of jackets. Among them, you see a terribly familiar jean jacket. 

“That’s my mom’s!” you shout excitedly. You run over to it and pull it off the rack. It’s a 1980’s Levi’s jean jacket that she saved up all her money to buy. She wore it everywhere, and kept it for decades until she could pass it on to her daughter. You had it for two months. You loved that jacket. It symbolized your mom’s trust in you. And it made you feel cool. You were in middle school, and being cool was very important, and you got a lot of compliments on it. Then one day, you went with your little brother to the park, and it was hot out, so you took it off and left it on a bench. When you went home, you weren’t wearing it anymore. But you didn’t realize it was gone until your mom asked why you hadn’t worn it in awhile. The fact that you were so careless as to lose something so important to her broke her heart. You used to search the closets in your house compulsively, hoping it might just turn up one day, and your mom would forgive you. But it never turned up. You checked that park bench, too, every time you went to that park for the rest of your life. The jacket never returned, of course. 

But now, here it is, on this rack. 

If you’re going to take anything back from this place, you know it should be this. 

And then you see grandma’s quilt. 

It’s draped and pinched with clothespins on a different rack, with the tablecloths and scrap fabric. 

Your grandma made you this quilt when you graduated college. It has her handwriting on the corner and the year she made it– 2014. She spent months making this in your favorite colors, picking out fabrics she thought you would like. She knew you really well. You loved that quilt. 

Three years ago, you took it to the laundromat. You set it on a table while you did the rest of your laundry first, so you could cold-wash it separately. But then, a crazy guy came in, yelling and acting all erratic, and it was night and you were the only other person in there, and he kept asking to buy your hair, and you rushed out of there with your wet laundry dripping. You forgot about the quilt until the rest of your blankets finished drying on your apartment banister two days later. You called the laundromat and they didn’t have it. Last winter, your grandma passed. 

You grab the jean jacket and beeline for the quilt, adding it to your pile. 

Two of your old pillowcases are on the rack too— you didn’t even realize those had been folded up with the quilt the day you lost it.

In the children’s toy section, you see your favorite stuffed raccoon, Dorothy. You haven’t seen her for years. She used to go on lots of adventures with you and your brother. You don’t remember losing her, but now you realize that yes, she– and all these other stuffed animals– are lost. Somewhere along the line, you saw them for the last time. 

A scarf you wore in tenth grade. A pair of pants that don’t fit you anymore. A snowglobe with a picture of your middle school friends in it. A nice sports bra you got from a hiking gear store when you thought you were going to get fit four years ago. A piggy bank shaped like Spongebob. Dozens of Goosebumps books. A decorative halloween skeleton. A purple sweater that you forgot was your favorite.

You grab all these things and add them to the growing pile in your arms. 

What am I gonna do with this piggy bank? You ask yourself. But then you remind yourself that it’s yours. It doesn’t matter what you do with it! It’s just supposed to be yours!

The worst thing is that you don’t remember the loss of most of these things. You never grieved them. They mostly just slipped away quietly, and you moved on. You stopped buying scarves that looked like that because your favorite color changed and you sort of realized you didn’t really like scarves that much. But that doesn’t mean you don’t want it back. 

That scarf reminds you of the time you wore it to homecoming. A crisp autumn day that was made better by a good hot dog and worse by Rachel and Drew making out on the bleachers in front of you. You were happy that day. Not about homecoming– you lost the game, not that you cared much, but because of the weather, and your friends, and the hot dog, and because you didn’t know to be depressed yet. 

You want it back. 

You want it all back.

You take the scarf. You take the toys. You take everything. You take the christmas ornaments and the ukulele and rope strings of necklaces over your arms and purses over your shoulders. You take printed mugs, good water bottles, old halloween masks, trophies you won in elementary school, your second prom dress (the one with the glitter), happy birthday cards from relatives who died when you were little (they loved the little you! You were so loveable), a jello mould in the shape of a chicken you bought as a joke with your first real girlfriend (wish it ended different), a pair of ladybug-print rain boots you left outside when you were three, VHS family movies from the late 90’s, a phone you dropped in a lake, an old tamagotchi you also dropped in a lake, a book of self-portraits you did as a series in college (you look nothing like her now but you still want it), your old journal filled with comics (remember when you wanted to be a cartoonist?), your old skateboard (remember how you used to play?).

It’s the little trinkets, the things you don’t even think you liked very much, but which maybe you could have made better use of, that you want back the most. You aren’t done with those things. Unfinished, all of them. 

In a stack of blue bins against a wall are a thousand little things you drew or wrote over the course of your childhood– gifts to your parents, homework you never turned in, little stories about your friends, drawings of your grandma. Some of it is still pretty funny (remember when you wanted to be a comedian?). Animation cells that you made and stored away in the basement when you were telling yourself your scholarship hunt was just “on pause” (these ideas are still good, you can still use them!) What the hell are these things doing here? How dare these people?

“Excuse me, ma’m,” Beth says, only now looking up from her paperback– which you now realize is also yours– with a mix of irritation and deep concern. You spin around, covered head-to-toe in your things. 

“What?!” You snap. You are wrapped in the quilt, draped in ribbons and purses and medals and sweaters and scarves of all shades from all eras of your life. You look like a giant slug made of closet debris. 

“There’s no way you’re gonna buy all that,” Beth says. 

“Like hell I am!” You shout. “I shouldn’t have to buy any of it! It’s all mine, and I want it back!”

A little orange plastic treasure chest with two of your baby teeth inside– you used to be so little, so innocent. Your Girl Scout sash– you had so many friends. The orange yo-yo you got at a carnival when you were one– the first thing you consciously remember losing, remember how sad you were? A note you wrote to yourself with a funny song lyric on it last thursday (you might record it someday). A Mickey Mouse photo frame of you with your best friend Anna in elementary school (you loved her so much, why don’t you talk to her anymore?). 

“I want it all back,” you say again and again. 

There was a version of you who wore the red bead earrings. There was a version of you who played with the stuffed raccoon with your brother. There was a version of you who appreciated those nice sapphires. There was a version of you who was happy in a scarf at homecoming. There were versions of you with more friends, versions with fewer troubles, versions that were thinner and stronger and healthier and younger, versions that had all sorts of dreams and visions for the future, versions that strived for completely different things than you strive for now.

You can still have them back.

You pull the sunglasses display over, grabbing every pair and stuffing them into your many bags. You grab the hat rack that used to sit in your childhood bedroom and start dragging it toward the door. 

“Ma’am, I’m going to call the police if you don’t stop,” Beth says. You do stop– just long enough to walk back to her and take the paperback murder mystery out of her hands, which still has your library info as the last check-out glued inside the cover. 

“See?” You laugh bitterly, pointing at it. “Me!”

The nest of stuff has swelled around you, trailing behind you like the tail of a huge worm. 

Beth is already calling 911. You move very slowly toward the door, exerting tremendous effort to lug all of your precious memories toward the glass pane between you and the outside. You tell yourself that you can already feel the feelings coming back to you– all those other versions of yourself, just by proximity, are waking up again inside of you. The young woman who believed she was going to be something different, the child who was happy in the rain, the future artist before the future evaporated– all of them are coming back now. 

You don’t fit through the door. Beth is talking fast to the operator. In a small town like this, they’ll be here soon. Breathing heavy, you back up and slam into the open door frame, wedging yourself firmly inside. The little mermaid sunglasses shatter. Something crunches. You grunt and scream, pushing with all your might. Something rips. Something scrapes. 

“She’s trying to take everything,” Beth explains hurriedly. “You will? That’s great. As fast as you can.”

You have one last hail mary– you leap forward, letting yourself– and everything you’re wearing– fall to the ground. The enormous mass of things around you crunch down around you, crushing the air out of your lungs, pinning you to the cement. But you’re out. You did it. You took it all back. It’s yours. Yours again. 

By the time the police arrive, you’re gone– lumbering up the freeway, backward through traffic, a massive snakey worm made of tangled fabric and papers and trinkets. The “you” that walked into the thrift store is only a tiny piece of what you are now– a YOU freed from the burden of forgetting. Cars swerve around you to avoid hitting you or any of the things dangling from your massive, hulking form. 

Where are you going? To be everything you meant to be. To fulfill every possible future. It’s not too late. Not now that you have all of it back. 

You march forward like time.

[creepyclothdoll]

Artist: Lindsey Marie

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Fish from World of Warcraft

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show you’re obsessed with + text posts ...a household staple dare I say

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@cryptotheism My sister & cousin wrote a fanfic when they were 9 about Plumpy having Lord Licorice's baby. I think about it all the time

Did you know?

The Candy land board game is based on real events? It's true. All of that things happened.

Did you know that Lord Licorice is my homie in real life and we hang out?

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me drowning in a lake while my friend, 11th century french rabbi and prolific scriptural commentator Schlomo "Rashi" Yitzchaki (zy"a) stands nearby: help im drowing help me rashi

Schlomo "Rashi" Yitzchaki (zy"a): "drowing" is likely a scribal error for "drowning." "im drow[n]ing" is to say: my lungs have become filled with water, and i am struggling to breathe. "help" once followed by "help me" a second time: the first [help] is directed to the Holy One, blessed be He, and means: "may He help us by swiftly delivering the World to Come;" the second (i.e., "help me") is to invoke direct assistance in this world, spoken as if to a personal friend. the meaning of "rashi" here is unclear.

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ADHD mega-nightmare.

the real challenge of adulthood that no one tells you about in advance is how many goddamn pieces of paper you have to keep up with that are never important until they are suddenly VERY important

[creepyclothdoll]

Pit

I have a friend who lives in a tar pit. 

I love them. But if you hang out with them a lot, the tar gets on you and you can’t get it off for the longest time. It’s really easy to get stuck to them and fall into the pit if you’re not careful. But most people are. Most people avoid the pit entirely. That’s why my friend is lonely most of the time.

When I first met them, they were about waist-deep in the tar. You’d never know it, but under that black sticky mess was a pair of the most cutsey socks you ever saw. White fluffy pomeranians crocheted on. That’s what they said to me, anyway. All I could ever make out were the beady eyes of little black creatures clinging to their legs, slicked with viscous, heavy liquid.

They made some jokes about the tar pit, and we laughed. It was harder to pry them out than you’d think. It took all five of us, days of patience, and several contraptions. They sat down on the edge of the granite ledge overlooking the tar pit, their lower half covered in hot black ooze which stuck to the dirt and accumulated dead leaves and sand. 

They wrinkled their nose at this.

“How come this isn’t happening to you?” they said, looking at our blue jeans and dusty hiking boots, which were mostly clear of tar. 

“It is,” I said, showing them the tarry mess on my hands and elbows, coated with debris. 

“Only because you touched me,” they replied, staring at the dirt and tar on themselves with growing disgust.  “I think I would have died if you hadn’t come,” they said to me. When we started to leave, they started to cry. “You are abandoning me now? After saving me?” They asked. 

“Obviously we want you to come with us,” I said. 

“It’s because I’m made of tar,” they spat. 

We told them they were not made of tar. But nothing we said could convince them. We tried to scrape the tar off of them, but they only panicked when our hands came away blackened again. 

“We have to leave,” my other friends said to me after a long long time. “We can’t stay here forever, waiting for them to be ready. No one can survive here.”

They were right. The tar pit stank. The tar gurgled and sucked and emitted foul-smelling gasses. Nothing grew around here, and nothing could live long in this place. 

My friends left us. I was the only one who stayed.

“I will prove to you that the tar comes off,” I promised. “I will prove to you that you belong in the world.”

Every day, we took a little walk further and further from the tar pit. My friend saw things that delighted them. They heard birdsong. They tasted crabapples and raspberries and wild leeks. But sometimes, insects would get stuck to the tar on their legs, and would die from the effort of escaping. And my friend would believe they were horrible again. Every day, we scraped a little more of the tar away. But my friend would see new tar on their fingers and mine and believe the stain was only spreading.

When I needed to go home to sleep, to see my family, and eat something that didn’t taste like smoke and oil and petroleum, my friend would weep.

“I know you like them more than me,” they’d cry. “You only feel sorry for me. You’re tired of all this tar. I’m noxious, I’m poison.”

One day, when I came back to visit them, I didn’t see them at their usual resting place near the edge of the tar pit. I walked to the ledge and looked down, and there they were, ankle-deep in the tar again, among the animal bones and the boiling toxic fumes. 

This time, their excuse was that they’d left their favorite watch somewhere in the tar, and they wanted it back. Their arms were sticky up to their elbows, searching for it. I can’t remember if they found it or not. Not that it matters. 

They had a lot of excuses over the years. They’d scream for help and someone– sometimes me, sometimes other passing folks– would hear and come lift them out of the pit. And each time, there would be fresh, hot, sticky tar on their skin, and anything that touched them would stick to them and die there or come away stained. 

We tried soaps and creams and pumice stones. Sometimes, these things worked. But as the tar started to come off, so too would the dead mice and luna moths and spiders, the dead white flowers preserved in the black, the suffocated frogs and trampled baby snakes and those allegedly pretty crocheted socks and layers of skin. And it hurt. And it disgusted them. And then the next day I’d find them back in the tar pit again.

I visit them every now and then, of course. I bring them snacks and little things I think they’ll like. 

I’m not the only one. Once, I saw them pull another would-be-rescuer deep into the tar with them. He screamed and strained to get away from the tar pit, but my friend clung to him, desperate and grateful, dragging him deeper and deeper into the thick, viscous, stinking mass. He only barely escaped, spitting and crying and swearing to me that he’d never return to this place. 

“He abandoned me,” my friend despaired. “He said he wanted me, but he left. He acted like I was disgusting.”

“That wasn’t nice of him,” I said, passing them the bottle of sticky-sweet honey mead, their favorite.

“It’s because I’m awful,” they said, taking a drink and passing it back.

It’s because you tried to drown him, I thought. 

“I want you to come out of the tar pit,” I said. I say this every time. “Come out and try again.”

But a long time ago, they stopped trying. 

“This is my home,” they say. “I’m made of tar.”

They get angry at me when I tell them they are not made of tar. They are made of blood and flesh and that’s why they hurt so much. That’s why they can’t survive. 

You don’t notice it creeping up on you, but at some point, when you hang out near the tar pit, when you spend so much of your time trying to save the person inside, you become aware that all of your things are stained with tar. You go to kiss someone and your fingers stick in her hair, and you have the sudden and terrible sense that you’re becoming tangled in some terrible trap you can never escape and you flinch away so hard that you rip her hairs out. 

“I’m sorry,” you say. “It doesn’t come off. I feel horrible.”

“You’re not horrible,” she says. “It’s just the tar.”

But it feels like the tar is a part of me now. 

“I love you,” I say to the person in the tar pit.

“I’m going to die here,” they cry up at me. Nowadays, they’ve sunk in up to their neck. Their pretty pink shirt has long been submerged in the burning black tar. Their hair is a sheet of slick black rubbery ooze. Their lips are close to the surface. 

“Please come out,” I say.

“I can’t,” they reply. “I’m trapped.”

“Take my hand,” I say.

“I can’t,” they reply. “It’s too far away.”

“I’ll throw down a rope,” I say.

“No. It’s too hard to raise my arms from the tar now. The tar is too thick and heavy.”

“Why aren’t you calling for help?”

“I’ll just drown them. There’s no point.”

“We can get lots of people. We can bring machines.”

“There’s no point,” they say. “I’ll just stain them. They’ll all be cruel to me anyway. No one wants a tar monster ruining them with their touch, spreading tar everywhere they go. And I hate them all for that.”

“The tar comes off,” I shout. 

“You know it doesn’t.”

“You have to try,” I plead.

“I’m going to die here,” they say.

“Let me help you. Let anyone help you. Come drink the mead you like. Come eat the cakes you like. Come get a new pair of fluffy socks. But you have to do something to save yourself. Please. You have to try.”

“I’m going to die here,” they say.

I’m sitting on the ledge now. I’m watching their eyes as their face sinks closer to the surface of the tar. 

“I love you,” I say again.

“No one loves me,” the sea of tar responds. “I am poison. I am rot. I will suffocate you.”

“I do love you,” I lie to the tar.

“I ruin everything. I am hate.”

“I love you,” I lie again to the tar. 

“Why are you lying?” It gurgles and hisses and steams. “All you have for me is pity and resentment. Touch me and I will drown you.”

I am lying because I still see my friend’s eyes peeking over the black oily pit. I can still see the color they dyed their hair on top– pink, their favorite. I can still see the bunny hair clip they like. 

They’re still in there. 

My friend lives in the tar pit. 

Only the tar speaks now. 

It will not let go of them. They will not let go of it.

[creepyclothdoll]

People (especially online) get really mad at you when you suggest that it's generally better to be patient and understanding in most difficult situations. They'll immediately jump to "OH SO IF SOMEONE IS LITERALLY CALLING FOR MY DEATH I SHOULD TRY AND EMPATHIZE WITH THEIR SIDE???? IF SOMEONE IS TRYING TO KILL MY CHILD WITH A HAMMER I SHOULD JUST GIVE THEM A HUG???? ITS WRONG TO BE RUDE TO MY LITERAL ACTUAL ABUSER????" like jesus christ no

phase 1 is 'being nice to people is good.' in some cases there is a phase 2, which is 'you don't have to be unconditionally accommodating and inoffensive - you have the right to stick up for yourself, too.' in some cases still there is a phase 3 which is 'there are situations in which showing a little understanding and patience will instantly defuse a conflict arising over a small fluke, rather than exacerbate it five million fold'

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