Quick Fix: The Man of My Dreams

THE MAN OF MY DREAMS

By: Jennifer Gregson

Dear Diary,

Killing someone is harder than it looks. I should have used a gun. My old bow and arrow worked, but it was messy.

See, a few years ago, an old witch cursed me. She cackled when she did it too. She claimed my dreams would come true, and I naively thought that was a good thing. Dad’s new girlfriend moved in yesterday. I dreamt about that affair a year ago. Mom and Tony, her tennis instructor, are somewhere in Mexico on vacation. That one was just last month. And if last week’s dream is any indication, Richie is about to piss off some very important mobsters.

The worst thing happened two nights ago. I dreamt I was murdered. And no one cared. I’m not sure which upsets me more actually.

I went and tried to reason with the old woman, but she blames me for Natasha’s death. We were best friends. She’d been drinking that night, but so had I. I should have called a cab, I should have called someone, but I didn’t. I walked away with a broken wrist, her granddaughter didn’t walk away at all.

So, trying to talk to her didn’t go well. In fact, she spit on my feet, yelled at me in Russian or something, and closed the door in my face. I knew that I had to act fast.

I wrote down everything I could remember from my dream. I saw a middle-aged man. Brown hair, mustache, shabby ill-fitting suit. I had no idea what his beef was with me exactly, and I had no time to figure that out. We were in an alleyway that looked very familiar.

Figuring out the where was crucial. I racked my brain until it finally came to me - right behind the high school. I graduated this past May so there was no reason for me to be there, but that was the alleyway, make no mistake.

I grabbed the bow and arrows and ran to the school. Half way there I worried that I was walking into a trap - would it be better to avoid the school all together? Or would that cause events to shift, cause this man to kill me somewhere else? No, I kept going.

Nighttime came fast. I didn’t have to wait too long for the man of my dreams to arrive. Honestly, I don’t remember firing off the arrow. I saw his gun and I shot. Years of archery paid off, he clutched his chest and fell over. Actually, strike what I wrote earlier, killing someone isn’t that hard at all. I just wish the detective had believed me when I went in to confess, but I guess pretty blonde girls can get away with anything in this town. I wonder what I’ll dream about tonight? I wonder why that guy wanted to kill me? I wonder if that cute detective is single?

Love,
Lauren
P.S. - I should really tell Richie to lay off the ponies.

Too Many Books, Not Enough Time

I finished the first book of Game of Thrones (still haven’t seen any of the HBO series….sorry) and was looking through my To-Read list on Goodreads and realized I have more books that I want to read than time to read them.

In between running around after a very mobile toddler, writing, exercising, eating, sleeping, and spending some time with friends and family there’s not much left over for reading. I know how important reading is for a writer so I make it happen, but it’s slow and steady.

GOT took me two or three months to finish and I could make the argument that it was a long novel, but truth be told, I lost interest half-way through and switched to a few non-fiction books about conflict and plotting. Then I came back and finished.

What made me lose interest? I think it was too many chapters about the men (and fighting, or getting ready to fight, or just getting done with a fight) and not enough with Khaleesi/Dany, who I found so interesting. She was tragic, brave, and I knew eventually she was going to have dragons (mostly from a Time Warner Cable commercial, but also because what writer in their right mind puts in dragon eggs without giving us a dragon!).

Ok, I’m getting off topic, my main point was I’m overwhelmed with my to-read list. I just started the second book of the Divergent series (Insurgent by Veronica Roth). Also on my list is the second book of the Cinder series (Scarlet by Marissa Meyer), the second GOT book (A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin), Life of Pi by Yann Martel, Smoke & Mirrors by Neil Gaiman, Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, Mindy Kaling’s non-fiction book (Is Everyone Having Fun Without Me), and Kristen Chenowith’s non-fiction book (A Little Bit Wicked). I think I also have a few writerly type books on the list as well.

I’m overwhelmed just typing that list…I want to keep track of books I want to read (I even have a Pinterest board called Books Worth Reading where I keep things I see online)….but sometimes seeing that list, or seeing the books in my Nook apps queue is….counterproductive to me reading at all. I know, it’s weird….one of my many quirks.

So…what do you guys do? Do you hide books, not go to goodreads or pinterest or wherever you keep your list online….seriously, I’m in need of some help. Thanks!

P.S. - Sorry about the short blog hiatus, we were in Virginia visiting family and the week before hand was spent getting ready to travel by train with a toddler (which was super fun actually, I’d recommend it!). Hope to get back on a posting schedule this week. :-)

Quick Fix: Because You Loved Me

BECAUSE YOU LOVED ME

By:  Jennifer Gregson

“I should have dumped your ink a long time ago,” Sylvia said as she tried to open the fountain pen.

“You can’t, I won’t let you.”

The pen wrestled out of her hand and started scribbling something on the nearby pad of paper. Sylvia stood, stunned that the pen could somehow write on it’s own.

“But...how?”

“I’m more powerful, because you loved me.”

She watched as the pen’s scribblings came together to form a tiger. She grabbed her book bag and bolted for the door. She slammed it shut just as a loud roar came from the other side.

“I guess you don’t love me back, huh?”

She fumbled in her bag for the little booklet that came with the pen. Sylvia scanned the instructions about how to fill it and how to clean it. She was just about to wad the whole thing up in disgust when she saw the small print on the very last page.

This pen is magic, use at your own risk. To reverse the magic, please empty the pen, put it back into the original black case, and say these words three times: Fountain Mountain Poo.
“Fountain Mountain Poo?” Sylvia said out loud.

“Doesn’t work as long as I’m full of ink,” the pen sang from the other side of the door.

She dug around her bag to see if the case was in there, but she remembered it was sitting on her desk which was inside her room with the tiger. All she had on her was a sketch book, a few colored pencils, and a large eraser with the words, can be used on ink, written on its side.

Perfect! Now, all she had to do was open the door and maybe she could erase the tiger and whatever else the stupid pen was thinking up, before....well, she wasn’t quite sure what would happen if she was eaten by a pen drawn tiger actually.

With the large eraser in front of her, she pushed open the door. The tiger leapt for her, but she quickly slashed at its mouth, erasing all but one sharp fang. Sylvia erased the tiger part by part, but before it was completely erased, its left paw swung at her and knocked the eraser to the floor. She dropped to her knees, picked up the eraser, swiveled, and finished off the beast leaving nothing but disjoined black lines all over the floor.

“Look what you did,” the pen shouted. It started to draw again. “Try this on for size.

“Is that… a clown?” she asked.

The pen laughed. Sylvia dropped the eraser. When she bent over to pick it up she noticed blood. Her blood. The tiger must have snagged her right hand, blood was dripping everywhere. She squeezed it and swallowed. Clowns scared her, no, terrified her, and this one was no exception. The pen had made him tall and menacing. No time to be scared, she thought. Sylvia grabbed the eraser with her left hand and lunged forward. She took out the clown in four slashes.

The pen was still laughing, so she grabbed the case and jumped across the room. She picked up the pen, threw open the ink well and dumped it. She then shoved the pen into the case and snapped it shut.

“Fountain Mountain Poo. Fountain Mountain Poo. Fountain Mountain Poo.”

The laughing finally stopped.

Later that evening, after she had cleaned up her room, bandaged her hand, and finished her homework, Sylvia was reading in bed.

“Sylvia.”

“Yes?” she asked, looking around her room.

“Fill me back up, please. You know you want to.”

And that’s how Sylvia’s fountain pen got buried behind her Mom’s prized rose bushes.