WRITE
11 x 14 Mixed Media on Canvas
~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman
with a little bit of help from Marla Todd and inspiration from Milton 510 Bowen and my friends at WPaD (Writers, Poets, and Deviants)
WRITE. I made a thing. I made an art thing.
Tag Archives: humor
Short Film Festival
We’ve all been home and watched everything on Netflix. Sometimes you just need something short. Sometimes you need something that isn’t a long series, or serious, or even a full movie. Have fun. Stay safe. Wash your hands. Don’t do anything stupid (like starting fires.) Be creative. Be calm. Get some sleep.
Yes, I love short films. Enjoy. ~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman
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Short Story Sunday: Dream a Little Dream
Damn. What a night. Fighting demons and their fucking friends. Max rarely even thought of using four letter words but tonight was a swear night. Even as an alpha Vampire to top all alpha Vampires he was exhausted, and away from home.
The only saving grace was that he’d been not far from his fiancé’s house by the beach. He looked forward to falling asleep in her arms to the sound of the waves.
She wasn’t home. Damn. He let himself in as the sun started to light up the morning sky. 5:00 a.m. Where was she?
Max stripped off his clothing and threw it into the washing machine. Then he fell onto her bed. Damn it felt good. She said she’d gotten new bedding but this was amazing. He never understood Vampires who slept in coffins and crypts.
Falling into a deep sleep the dreams came in waves…
“I’m smarter than everyone in this room. They’re all idiots,” said Archibald Fontaine.
What is that blow hard doing here? Thought Max. He couldn’t stand the pompous ass. Archi was the last Vampire he’d want in his dreams.
Then Archibald Fontaine leaned forward and kissed Max on the mouth.
Max backed off. “It is over Archi.”
Then he was jolted into a dark passageway. Sadness overwhelmed him. He had never felt so alone. A cat started to follow him, then two, then three, then five.
The dream jumped to another location. This time a house. His house. She lay on his bed in silk tap pants and a silk bra, both in pale pink. He kissed her neck and brushed it with his fangs. He wanted to tell her that he loved her but he didn’t. Or did she want to tell him?
He was at a party. It was the 1916. He heard her voice I haven’t thought about him in years.It was a lie. She thought about him all the time. A wolf howled in the distance. It was a Werewolf.
He sat on a chair pulling off the silk stockings he’d worn the night before. Red peep toe shoes were on the floor in front of him along with a flowered dress.
Max had never worn a dress. Not even on Halloween.
Max opened his eyes and looked into his own face next to him in bed. His eyes were brown, then the color turned to hazel, then back to brown. He smiled at himself and pulled himself close in an embrace.
Then he woke in a jolt. This was too weird. What had those demons done?
Mehitabel stood by the bed. “Hey baby.”
“Hey,” said Max.
He reached out his hand to her. She sat on the edge of the bed and gently kissed him.
“The new bedding is nice. Love the pillows. But oh man, I’m having weird dreams.”
She smiled and stroked his hair. “Memory foam,” she said.
“What?”
“Memory foam. You’re sleeping on my pillow silly.”
Then she undressed and got into bed beside him, but not before she gave him his own pillow.
~ end
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Guest Post: The Famous ‘House Special’
The Famous ‘House Special’
A while ago, back in Europe, when I was traveling with a friend, I went for dinner to a restaurant that belonged to a very nice Italian couple. It was in Rome.
You know, when you go to European restaurants, there are these eight-to-ten people tables for tourists, where they place you on, and unless the table is filled up, you won’t get served.
My friend and I had a lot of fun. I don’t belong to the people who always want to eat steak and fries or fish and chips wherever they go. I’d like to know what a country has to offer me. And here it was the same thing.
Confidently I told the waiter, I want to have the ‘house special,’ no matter what it is. He was a bit surprised and asked carefully, “Are you sure?” I confirmed that I was, indeed, very sure.
He brought us soup and salad ahead; then, the entrees were served. My friend got steak and fries, and I got the ‘house special’… it was a bird, a tiny bird. It was lying there, all by itself, on a small white plate.
The little head hung halfway over the plate; one of its eyes was open, one closed, beak, feet, and claws were still entirely there.
So far, I have always taken on every challenge I had accepted, even the ones to myself. But in that particular case, the question was not, would I really go through with this? The question was, “How?”
There is something we all can learn from American ‘Haute Cuisine’… One can eat everything imaginable on Earth, no matter what it is, provided it fits in a bun.
I, therefore, clipped the poor bird’s head between its legs, pressed it a bit flat, took two pieces of white bread, stuffed the bird in between, and started eating. At that point, the conversations in the restaurant had lapsed into almost complete silence, interrupted only by the occasional embarrassed cough. At that point, even my friend didn’t say anything, which I gave her great credit for.
Now, the way things are, as soon as our nutrition passes the stomach, it reaches a, let’s say, ‘portal,’ which allows it to enter the intestinal system. When my portal saw, what was on its way, it immediately shut down. The ‘house special,’ from that moment on, laid there like a stone in my stomach, and started festering.
That chemical process developed resulting gases, which pressed stomach acid back through the ‘cardia,’ the stomach entrance, into the esophagus. A doctor, in that case, would talk about ‘gastroesophageal reflux’; we would typically call it heartburn – or pyrosis.
Try to picture now tiny, about pinhead-sized gas clouds, which are racing upwards, passing the uprising stomach acid towards the exit, in our case, my mouth, where they made themselves noticeable in the form of diminutive burbs.
The combination of these gases with oxygen apparently became an overly aggressive mix that made my friend tell me: “Wwwwoooow… if my eyes wouldn’t tell me for sure that I’m not wrong, I would almost think, you’re dead – for about three weeks.” I sat there, slowly blowing up. At the next chance, I asked the waiter: “Do you, by any chance, have something like a digestive juice?” He looked at me and nodded understandingly. “The ‘house special,’ right?” He then brought me something that looked, smelled, and tasted like a septic tank. I drank that stuff in only two big swallows.
And then, suddenly, all portals in and on my body opened – simultaneously!
That liquid was clearly familiar to the bird because that animal immediately started running. I started running too… as a result, we got to the restroom almost at the same time…
I’ll save you all the gory details of the following happenings – but let’s say we didn’t plan to eat there again anyway.
~ end
(This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.)
Aurora Jean Alexander is the author of Demon Tracker. She also runs the blog Writer’s Treasure Chest – A blog for authors, about authors, written by an author. Check it out for interesting author interviews, books, and more about the art of writing.
Aurora Jean is one of my oldest and dearest blogging friends. I’m happy to share her work today. As some of you recall she also wrote the popular Short Story Sunday – Tangled Tales featured story: Bernie Showers in France.
~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman
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Delivered To Your Door
Delivered to your door…
I looked at the muscular, almost beautiful, naked body on the bed and the folded up sheriffs’ uniform on the chair. The badge seemed to sparkle saying “look at me, look at me.” A white and pink orchid flower was behind his ear.
Holy crap, this wasn’t how I’d planned on starting out my week.
I was three years old and he someone throwing me up in the air and I laughed so hard I could hardly breathe.
His hands are warm and I cling to him to put my ear next to his chest and hear his heart. I hold him tight feeling the heat radiate from his body. I keep laughing. He is so different from everyone else I know.
Thirteen years later, he takes my hands, I laugh. Then my best girlfriend says “He’ll marry me and I’ll be his wife forever.” No way would she get the most handsome man in the world to marry her. I laughed in her face and everyone yelled Happy New Year. Someone lit up lights to spell out 1865. We were in California and in love with men we have silly school girl crushes on. Who cared about the war? We were safe.
I woke in a cold sweat, on the back deck, my book on the ground, the cat staring at me. I heard my son’s voice.
“Mom, Uncle Val is on the phone.” My son Garrett stood at the sliding glass door holding my phone out at arms length.
My brother Valentine, thirteen months my senior said I have to come right now. It was an emergency. Nobody else could come. None of our three older brothers could make it. Everyone else had suddenly vanished off the face of the earth.
I arrived at the farm house, my two teens in tow, slamming the door as hard as I could when I got out of the car.
I’m usually pretty calm but I lit into my brother when I saw him walking towards us. “Nobody ever consults with me. I’m the one with the kids and the husband and my own business. I’m on fucking call 24/7 for everyone in this family and nobody ever asks me what I want or need. Nobody.”
“Are you done?” Val asked this in an uncharacteristically sarcastic tone.
“No. What is going on?”
My brother scowled at me and shook his head. “Why are you yelling?”
I went into the house leaving him in the yard. I could hear my son saying “Bad day to mess with my mom.”
Dealing with the sick and elderly is something we do. We do it for love or obligation or family bonds or whatever the reason it is usually on autopilot fueled by guilt and frustration. I’m so saint but sometimes I want to play that saint card so much it hurts.
Eleora stood at the door in a yellow bikini top and a tie-dye skirt, her brown curls done up in red bows. She fluttered around then kissed me on each cheek. Tellias gave me a big hug. He was wearing a green shirt with yellow parrots embroidered on the back. A patch on the front said Dave in large script letters. His white blonde hair was pulled back with a green ribbon.
They look like they’re 19 or 20 years old but they’re ancient – two of the most ancient Vampires known. They were pioneers and founders of the Modern Vampire movement. It is hard to see them like this. It literally breaks my heart.
Steel guitars were hissing away on a scratched up old record playing on a wind up phonograph in the corner.
“We can’t find the car keys,” said Tellias.
“We’re being tropical tonight,” said Eleora as she danced around and put an orchid flower behind my ear.
I was ready to scream. “Again? Where did you last have them?” I asked slowly and calmly.
“If we knew that we’d be driving,” said Tellias, as he took the ribbon out of his hair and shook it out on his shoulders.
“We’d take a road trip to Montana and Maine and Michigan and Maui!” Eleora sang as she danced around again.
“How long have the keys been gone?” I asked.
“Two or three weeks. Val won’t let us use his car,” Tellias said.
“He says we drive too creatively,” Eleora giggled.
“Yes, he said we drive too creatively,” added Tellias.
“Creatively,” said Eleora, this time more seriously.
“Creatively. That was a nice way to put it,” I said more to myself than to the Elders. “What about food? Is Val bringing you food?”
Tellias patted my hand. “Val has been a darling but we like delivery. We call and they come to the house. Amazing. We should have done that a long time ago.”
Delivery? What in the world were they doing? I looked at the hanging chandelier in the entryway. “Nice fixture. Is it new?”
“A couple of nice men came and installed it,” Tellias told me. “It should last for years. The old one was fitted for gas and ugly. Remember?”
“We had them for lunch,” Eleora proudly told me.
“You shouldn’t do that. They’re help,” I told them.
Eleora just smiled. “We liked them Juliette. We wanted them to stay.”
“Are they still here?” I asked not knowing if I wanted to know the answer.
Tellias answered this time. “No, they left. Then we called the County Sheriffs and asked them to come out. We said someone tried to break in. Eleora sounded scared. They sent two good-looking strong young men right to our door.”
“Right to our door. Good looking healthy young men,” Eleora echoed.
I glanced out the window and saw the black and white car on the side of the house. Oh no.
“Where are they?” I asked trying not to panic.
They both looked to the ceiling. I ran up the stairs.
In a bedroom done in high Victorian style, I found a golden haired well-built man face down and naked on the bed. His uniform was neatly folded in a chair. He was alive but in a deep sleep. The name badge was Murphy, as in Officer Murphy.
Another handsome muscular young man was in the next bedroom over, shirtless on his back, asleep. I noticed a wedding ring on his finger. The name badge on his shirt had the name Garcia. His sleeping eyes moved a little under long dark eyelashes.
I called down the stairs. “How long have you had these guys here?”
“Since yesterday. We jammed the GPS on their car.”
I sat down on the top step, almost in tears. They couldn’t find their car keys but they could jam a GPS signal. I thought about the guy with the wedding ring. His wife must be sick wondering where he is.
In most popular novels ancient Vampires are powerful creatures of the night. In my life they are silly creatures that forget all rules about consequences or right and wrong. They act like senile teenagers, with occasional flashes to the wise, powerful leaders they once were.
Tellias sat down next to me. “We thought about keeping them for a while. Then you and Val wouldn’t have to worry about us.”
Eleora slid down on the other side and stroked my face with a cool hand. “Why are you so upset? Everything will be fine. It always is.”
We dressed the nice handsome patrol officers and positioned them in less provocative poses. An hour later another patrol car and an ambulance arrived. Two officers had become ill with an unexplained illness. Not knowing what to do a young couple took them in to their home. All was well. The officers recovered with no memory of what happened. Both mentioned an overwhelming calm and sense of well-being. Imagine that.
Tellias took my hand, like he did when I was a child. “Juliette, my dear child, we weren’t going to turn those young men into Vampires. You know we wouldn’t do that.”
“I just worry about you two,” I told him.
“You care too much for those Regular Humans,” said Eleora. “You have to distance yourself.”
“I’m married to a man who used to be a Regular Human,” I said quietly, but ready to scream.
Tellias squeezed my hand again. “And if it wasn’t for Eleora and me he would be dead.”
I went back to the bedroom where the married officer had been. Years ago my husband lay in that bed, a phantom between two worlds, that of the humans of the light and those of us who favor the dark. An unwanted conversion that had turned those warm hands cold forever, but given me…
“Mom?”
I looked over to kids standing next to me. A 14 year old daughter and a 17 year old son. They shouldn’t have to see all this, but I don’t believe in sheltering them. I never have.
I guess I should do my famous parenting blogger bullet points but there is no point in this story. It is just one of those things, on one of those nights.
~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman
First posted in 2013. If figured since we’re all getting so much take-out and delivery these days that I’d post it again.
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Short Story Sunday: Bernie Showers in France
Bernie Showers in France
A short story by Aurora Jean Alexander
Bernie Watson, a self-acclaimed womanizer, always wanted to see Paris. One day he managed to travel to France after tediously scraping up the money he needed for the trip. In his imagination, Bernie saw himself sitting in the first class, sipping champagne and enjoying movies, a beautiful woman next to him. He was dreaming about standing on the balcony of a 5-star hotel with a breathtaking view over the city until he could see the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe from far.
Reality looked a bit different. Bernie found himself in the middle row of economy, helplessly jammed between an angry tourist at the end of his vacation and a permanently eating eighty-year-old on the other side, with an ancient Pekinese on her lap.
When he arrived at the hotel, he found that the two-star hotel he had made reservations, was even older than he had suspected from the pictures. It was located in the most run-down quarter of the city. Bernie now wasn’t the most hygiene-fanatic on Earth, but after a trip of roughly 9 hours in an airplane, he still felt the need to shower. Usually, he would have used baby wipes to clean the worst, but they had removed them at the customs; the heavy accent of the man explaining the reason made it impossible for Bernie to understand, and he didn’t know where to buy them in France.
He undressed and stood in front of the mirror, looking at his body with appreciation. He didn’t see the pale, almost sick-looking skin that hadn’t seen the sun in the past forty-five years, the slightly protruding stomach, the flat ass, and the wobbly arms which all showed that he hadn’t seen a gym from up close for decades. Also, he didn’t see the missing hair on his lower chest that made his torso look like he was regularly wearing a bra…. But he found himself very attractive, and to him, that was enough, after all, only his own opinion was important.
He climbed into the shower cabin and found himself facing an old construction with two faucets, on one it said C, which he immediately concluded was ‘cold,’ while the other one said F, which he figured, must be the opposite… hot, or (f)arm with a typo… he was in France, after all.
Full of energy, he turned the ‘Farm’ and found himself showered with an icy stream of brown lava… as it was normal in an old building in Europe when the water fuses had not been used for a while.
Immediately ‘Louis XIV,’ his Sun King, resentfully withdrew into his hunting lodge… Bernie, of course, caressed his little king, knowing he had to be careful… after all, he was utterly dependent on his Sun King’s moods.
He, therefore, mixed himself a decently comfortable water temperature and continued showering… until someone in another room flushed the toilet…
In these old hotels, this process had an immediate effect on the water temperature by removing the complete cold water from Bernie’s shower within nanoseconds… He found himself in the boiling hot shower cabin. The door which had only jammed from the outside was impossible to open from the inside. Also, he had no idea that the re-fill of an old toilet tank in a two-hundred-year-old hotel room needed about 25 minutes.
Bernie, while having the hot brownish lava pelted onto his head, he realized, he had only one hand to turn off both faucets! With the other hand, he had to protect his Sun King as well as possible! Because in this country, where he was unable to speak the language, he would not be able to talk someone into helping him with his injured, burned sun king…
(This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.)
Aurora Jean Alexander is the author of Demon Tracker. She also runs the blog Writer’s Treasure Chest – A blog for authors, about authors, written by an author. Check it out for interesting author interviews, books, and more about the art of writing.
Aurora Jean is one of my oldest and dearest blogging friends. I’m happy to share her work today.
~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman
