The Island Gets the Splotchy Virus Again

Here's what I would like to do. I want to create a story that branches out in a variety of different, unexpected ways. I don't know how realistic it is, but that's what I'm aiming for. Hopefully, at least one thread of the story can make a decent number of hops before it dies out.

If you are one of the carriers of this story virus (i.e. you have been tagged and choose to contribute to it), you will have one responsibility, in addition to contributing your own piece of the story: you will have to tag at least one person that continues your story thread. So, say you tag five people. If four people decide to not participate, it's okay, as long as the fifth one does. And if all five participate, well that's five interesting threads the story spins off into.

Not a requirement, but something your readers would appreciate: to help people trace your own particular thread of the narrative, it will be helpful if you include links to the chapters preceding yours. -Splotchy

I had been shuffling around the house for a few hours and already felt tired. The doorbell rang. I opened the front door and saw a figure striding away from the house, quickly and purposefully. I looked down and saw a bulky envelope. I picked it up. The handwriting was smudged and cramped, and I could only make out a few words. (Splotchy)

Despite the throbbing pain in my knees and the dull ache in my lower back, I bent down slowly and picked up the envelope...

Oh no. It did not say this, did it?

Oh yes, it did. It did.

The handwriting was familiar in a way that inspired a cold sweat and a bout of nausea. It was the penmanship of my former husband. You know - the one that was presumed dead.

He disappeared in a suspicious blogging related accident a number of years ago and was never heard from again. I was devastated. I had hated the blog, loathed the thing. What began as a hobby that took but a few minutes a day had morphed into an addiction, the proportions of which could not be measured. It was pure evil.

The blog turned into a cruel and demanding mistress and her siren song was more than I could compete with. One day he left for an evening event, never to return again.

All fingers pointed to one blogger, but I could never get the charges to stick. That one is slick- slick, slick, slick. He can talk a good game and write like nobody's business. But there is something about him, it just is not right.

So my husband was gone, that other one kept blogging and I had to rebuild my life, which I did.

So I finally had the bastard declared dead.(FranIam)

I took the envelope inside and got out a magnifying glass. I studied the scribblings on the front and made out the words “This is for you. You KNOW why” just above the undead bastard’s name. What the hell?

What could it be? What did he mean, I “KNOW” why? What did I do? I had never been anything but faithful to him and his "interests." I followed his stupid blog as it meandered through the vapid expanses of his small mind, trying my best to be polite when he talked about some comment he’d gotten on a particular post, or a funny link he’d dropped into a post.

Just thinking about it made my stomach hurt.

Despite a fleeting fear that there might be anthrax powder in the envelope, I opened it and pulled out the contents. (dguzman)

A noodle, a meatball and one of the six legs of a squid? (Squid have six legs, not eight, right? Unsure I rushed to my computer to ask The Lord Google. OMG, I was wrong! Squid do have eight legs. And two tentacles. Like cuttlefish. I digress. Damn you Google!)

What was he working on when he had that blogging accident? I thought back to the nights of feverish typing. The nights the keyboard fairly reeked of despair, flopsweat and ricola. He would babble "vision quest" "noodly appendage" "the alpha and the semolina" "green sticky spawn of the stars". This last I just attributed to far too much interest in the pussy photos of Britney Spears.

In shaky handwriting was the couplet:

That is not dead which can eternal lie.
And with strange æons even death may die

I felt that I was beginning to understand. He had been killed in an epic battle of Good versus Not-So-Good or even "meh!" (Jess Wundrun)


Shakily, I set the envelope down and wiped my hands on my jeans. I got up immediately and headed for the fridge, from which I pulled a recently-opened carton of the cheapest wine I was able to find last time I went shopping, raised it over my head, tilted my head back, twisted the cap, and greedily gulped down about two liters of forgetfulness.

It didn’t work. Or maybe it did, because when I woke up that evening in a puddle of cheap wine and bitterness, I couldn’t remember how I got there or how I had gotten so desperate in life to be drinking wine from a cardboard box.

Oh yeah, him.

It was dark outside, so nobody noticed when I stumbled into the back yard and peed against a tree.

What? Holy shit! I must have been drinking cheap wine for more than just tonight! I’d completely forgotten I was actually male!

I raced back into the house and found a utility bill amongst the pile of unopened mail on the kitchen counter. Then, I extricated my wallet from a jacket pocket, pulled out my driver’s license and compared the two address. They didn’t match. They weren’t even from the same state! What the…. Who the….

And then it dawned on me. I’d spent so much time recently reading other people’s blogs, I had somehow managed to take on the identity of a female blogger. Cripes. What have I done!?!?!

I looked again at the address on the utility bill. The name read “Michelle Malkin”. And then I looked on the back of the envelope that had been left on the front porch. Rubber-stamped were the words, “From the office of the Democratic National Convention”. Time seemed to suspend itself while I headed back to the fridge, looking for another box of cheap wine. (Commander Other)

Because all I could find in the fridge at this point was a moldy orange and a styrofoam container of questionable leftovers, I decided it might be a good time for me to get the hell out of there. This "Michelle Malkin" might be behind my current identity crisis. I was vaguely starting to realize that I must have been hypnotized. But, why? What in the world would Michelle Malkin want from me? Some visceral image of a diaper and an airport bathroom was starting to come into focus, the discomfort of which made me happy to distract myself with the prospect of... escape?

I had keys in my pocket to a car in the garage that I didn't recognize and I got in the car and drove instinctually toward what appeared to be a down town area. I decided I had to get myself to a hotel room and a location with internet access to find out who this Michelle Malkin was and how the hell I ended up in Dallas, of all places. (Freida Bee)

Instead of a hotel I cut through the fence at Six Flags and slept for the night in the log plume ride. Wet but comfortable. I-30 was a mere moment away and I could change direction and go to Ft. Worth instead and eat BBQ'd cow until the cows came home.

Once in Ft Worth I met up with a Kay Baily Hutchinson outside the the Colonial Golf Course. Boxes of wine were everywhere

She on one side of the fence and me on the other all she would say is "All will be revealed" and then shanked a 3 iron into the rough.

Confused I got back into the car and drove. My destination unknown. (Pidomon)

I found myself on the campus of the University of Texas at Arlington and from the smell of sweat and abject fear, I knew it was Finals Week.

Kay Bailey Hutchinson was there too and drunkenly attempting to hand out flyers to the scurrying, worried looking students. They did not have time for another, as they thought, wingnut religious activist trying to get them to give up their wicked ways and birth control pills.

In a daze at the strangeness of the day, I took a flyer. What the hell, right?

Dear Mr. Cunning Runt:

Thank you for contacting me regarding wage discrimination in the workplace. I welcome your thoughts and comments on this issue.

On May 29, 2007, the United States Supreme Court issued a decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. which set a powerful precedent concerning discrimination in the workplace. The Court ruled in favor of Goodyear by a 5 to 4 margin, citing that Ms. Ledbetter had not filed the lawsuit within the required time frame of 180 days following the first instance of wage discrimination. By failing to do so, the Court found Ms. Ledbetter was not eligible to file suit based on gender or race discrimination.

Two bills regarding this issue have recently been introduced in Congress that would broaden the definition of unlawful employment discrimination. H.R. 2831 was introduced in the House of Representatives on June 22, 2007, by Representative George Miller (D-CA), and S. 1843 was introduced in the Senate on July 20, 2007, by Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA). Echoing Ms. Ledbetter’s argument before the Court, these bills provide that if wage discrimination has occurred, it continues every time the affected employee receives a paycheck. As such, passage of these bills would effectively nullify the Supreme Court decision.

I believe all forms of discrimination are wrong and therefore support strong enforcement of our nation’s existing anti-discrimination laws, such as Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Equal Pay Act, and other federal laws aimed at preventing discrimination and expanding opportunities for all Americans. While both bills have yet to come before the full Senate, please be assured that, if either do, I will take your views into consideration.

I appreciate hearing from you and hope you will not hesitate to keep in touch on any issue of concern to you.

Sincerely,
Kay Bailey Hutchison
United States Senator

284 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
202-224-5922 (tel)
202-224-0776 (fax)
http://hutchison.senate.gov

To signup for Senator Hutchison's weekly e-newsletter, please send your request to newsletter@hutchison.senate.gov.


I couldn't help but wonder if her newsletter was another way of her taking entirely too long to say precisely not a damn thing and why the hell I would want to "signup" for that when I had children I could listen to taking forever to say absolutely nothing.

I have children? I have children! And not one, but more than one, hence the -en ending. Wow! I wondered who they were and where they were at that moment and felt a thread of fear that perhaps they'd been with me when this strangeness had occurred. Did I leave them somewhere? Oh well, I thought. I wished them well and hope they'd made it home okay.

I now tag:

Brave Sir Robin
Cunning Runt
Konagod

You're welcome guys. ::smooches::

Comments

Steve said…
SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEETTTTTTTTTTTT!!11!11elven!!!!
Friðvin said…
I will get to this on Tuesday. Hope that's OK. txrad and I are already on bottle #2 of splendid vino.

:lol:

And hopefully vino is what is needed to make #2 realize who it works for.

:lol: :lol:
Christina, thank you for thinking of me. But as much as I'm enjoying reading this, I'm afraid I can't accept your invitation this time; my mind just doesn't work that way. I'm having altogether too much trouble putting my own thoughts together into anything like a coherent post, and have no idea where to begin extrapolating on someone else's, regardless of how brilliant they may be.

Good luck with the rest of your picks, though... talented bunch you've snagged!
Anonymous said…
Naw, all my tags are only binding by consent.

Enthusiastic consent, as a matter of fact.

Get to it whenever or not at all, as you wish.
Splotchy said…
Thank goodness you remembered you have children! That could have been awkward.

Thanks for being infected.
splord said…
Gee, kona didn't even acknowledge my tag. ;)

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