Trying to Wake Up

dreaming

Image: alghad.com

Jeremy woke up from the nightmare that was rapidly vanishing from his memory. He meant to stay up late enough to find out the election results, but after pulling a double-shift in the E.R., he was exhausted.

Turning on the coffee, he opened his Macbook and searched the national news. What a relief. The 45th President of the United States was going to be Olivia Marsdin. She was originally considered a long shot that had little chance of beating her political rival Charles Remington, but as one scandal after another surfaced to plague the Remington campaign, Marsdin steadily rose in the polls.

Marsdin was an outsider, a moderate fiscally and a liberal socially, so she appealed to a wide audience. Remington was conservative both fiscally and socially and while he appealed to the Washington insider crowd, he also was the early favorite among college educated voters, especially white males.

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In Sunlight

sunlight

Image: Fox News

From the Unlife and Curse of Sean Becker

I can’t sleep.

I know that most people occasionally have to deal with insomnia, but I’m not most people. My name is Sean Becker and I’m a vampire.

As near as I can tell, vampires are severely allergic to natural sunlight. One of the effects of this is that I become lethargic as the night wanes and dawn approaches. By full day, I’m out, you should pardon the expression, like a light.

Except I fell asleep in my little shelter fashioned in a crawl way of an abandoned warehouse four hours ago, and now I’m wide awake.

Stranger than that, I’m hungry.

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The Monster That Got Benny

divorce

Image: Huffington Post Canada

“Can you sleep in my room tonight, Grandpa?”

Little Benny was visiting his Grandparents for the weekend and sleeping in the same spare bedroom at their house he’d slept in since he was in diapers.

“Why do you want me to sleep with you, Benny?” Grandma had already said good night to the seven-year-old, but Benny liked Grandpa to say good night last because he told such good bedtime stories.

“Because a monster might come in the middle of the night and get me.”

“No monster has ever gotten into our house before. Why would you be afraid of that now?”

“I just am. Please Grandpa?”

Grandpa knew Benny far too well not to realize what he was really afraid of.

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The Mysterious Mr. Franks

Boris Karloff

Boris Karloff

From the Unlife and Curse of Sean Becker

I drained enough blood from that carjacker to slake my lust for one evening, but had to get out of there and across the Bay to avoid the police the old woman called. You’d think she’d have been a little more grateful that I saved her from being beaten and her car stolen, but I must have been as terrifying to her as her would-be assailant.

Glad I found this all night diner. Blood with a coffee chaser. Just what every vampire needs.

Past 3 a.m. according to the clock on the wall. Only one other guy in the place, also nursing a cup of java. I know it’s cold outside, but he’s bundled up like the Invisible Man. Of course given that I’m a vampire, maybe I’m due to meet another Universal Studios monster.

I see him reaching for a napkin and his sleeve rides up. Nasty scars on the wrist and across the back of his hand.

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Prey and Prayers in the Night

alley

From the film “Red Fog” (2013)

From the Unlife and Curse of Sean Becker

Heaven help me, my name is Sean Becker and I’m a vampire. I figured I’d better write all this down. Maybe it’ll help someone else facing the life or non-life I have now. Maybe it’ll just help normal people understand that we’re not all monsters.

I’d been casing the Red Cross blood bank for days. I figured out their schedule. They ship blood out by all kinds of methods including car, bus, and plane depending on the need and the distance it has to go. Blood shipments are sent day and night. It was the night I was interested in.

But in the end, I couldn’t go through with it. Sure, stealing from a blood bank means I don’t have to attack anyone. It would be a victimless crime, right?

Wrong.

Blood being shipped somewhere means a hospital or other medical facility has requested it. If it didn’t arrive, it would mean I’d taken blood that was meant for someone else, someone who could die without it.

Attacking people for their blood is reprehensible, but I don’t kill for it. But I hate preying on the innocent.

So I’ll prey on the guilty.

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Why Don’t I Trust You?

trust“If you trust me, why are you so upset?”

“Are you out of your mind? Just look at what’s happening to me? How could you do this?”

They were sitting together on the edge of Mallorie’s bed in the dark. It was just after two in the morning but she couldn’t sleep. She barely ate. She hadn’t been to class in a week. She just stayed in her bedroom in an apartment she shared with two other girls, toggling between mind-numbing despair and panic.

“I never said bad things wouldn’t happen in your life, Mallorie. I just said I’d be here to help you deal with them.”

The young college student wiped tears from red, swollen eyes and tried to compose herself.

“I do trust you.” She started sobbing again, then forced herself to stop.

“I don’t know. Maybe I don’t. I mean if I did, why are my emotions so out of control? Please, please have mercy. I need to heal. My Daddy’s throat cancer need to heal and only you can help.”

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Overcoming Conquerers

Earth

Earth as seen from Apollo 17 – Image: Wikipedia

The T’Quenq had conquered the population of the Earth a generation ago and with good reason. On the verge of humanity developing a working Interstellar drive, the T’Quenq, who had been observing our planet for centuries, were terrified that we would spread our propensity for strife, bloodshed, and harsh colonialism to the nearby inhabited star systems. There was only one way to make sure we never got the chance: subjugate us.

In science fiction stories, the aliens are always just humans who look different from us, four arms instead of two, green skin, pointy ears, that sort of thing. In real life, alien means alien. Concepts of cruelty or kindness were foreign to their thinking. They didn’t even have words in their language for “generosity,” “charity,” or “compassion.” They simply administered resources and populations. The people of the Earth were governed but not a great deal of thought was put into our comfort. Neither did the T’Quenq deliberately cause us to suffer. We simply existed under their rule.

We were conquered a generation ago and since that time, a few things have mellowed a bit. Segregation between T’Quenq and humans was no longer strictly enforced. Some of them thought it adventurous to walk our streets and shop in our stores, while a few human beings were allowed in T’Quenq compounds, only as servants, but a smattering of us got a first hand look at how they live.

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At Gunpoint

gunpoint

Image: International Business Times UK

“Admit it. You voted for Donald Trump. I know you did.”

These were the first words Colton heard as he woke up. Angelique was pointing a .45 caliber handgun at his face.

“Wait. What? What are you talking about?”

Angelique and Colton lived in a four bedroom flat on the second floor of a building in San Francisco’s Richmond District along with two other “flatmates.” The election was a week ago. It seemed like the City, Oakland, and several other Bay Area communities, along with major population centers across America, were burning figuratively and literally with hate and fear over a Donald Trump win and what everyone thought it would mean.

“God damn you, Colton, how could you? I thought we were friends.”

Colton’s head had cleared thanks to the sight of the firearm pointing at him from less than three feet away. “What the hell are you doing with that thing, Ang?”

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The Child Who Knew Everything

dani-11-14-16“I still say that particle theory is more viable because it predicts four dimensions, 3 spatial plus time.”

“Sid, be reasonable. Particle theory doesn’t predict the existence of a graviton but string theory does.”

Norman and Sid are old friends. They are also retired physicists and when they get together, they naturally debate over their passion.

“Ba, nu, gampa, gleg, *giggle*.”

I’ll say your granddaughter is really talkative today, Norman.”

Both men laughed.

“I wanted to give her parents a ‘date night’ and said I’d watch little Sophie.”

“She’s quite the cutie. How old now?”

“Just over sixteen months. The apple of my eye, Sid. But back to our conversation.”

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