Geo Bloom

Tonight's tale is a little gem of maritime lore concerning sailors on the S.S. Lorabelle. They've been frustrated by foul weather and are anxious to get underway again. Their captain desires to make an unscheduled detour to investigate an oceangoing enigma known as the Geo Bloom. Herewith we drop in on the spirited debate going on below decks.








Captain Trent shuffled cards in his ready room. Morning light filtered down from portholes set high in the bulkhead, revealing how much the space needed tidying. The abysmal weather conspired to keep them locked in port yet another day. He feared a general mutiny if the crew had to endure it much longer. Even the cards were wearing thin from overuse. Whist was a trifle awkward with three players, but he disapproved of gambling games like poker aboard ship; a man resentful of being in debt was not an efficient hand.

The S.S. Lorabelle was Aussie registered and sailing out of Trinidad. She had laid over in Naples for supplies and shore leave. Before sailing on to Newfoundland with a commercial cargo, Trent planned to investigate a rash of Geo Bloom sightings in the mid Atlantic. The scheme required of the crew a much-resented extension of their time at sea.We are not scientists went their frequent complaint.

First Mate Tom Willis held his cards primly, his thin face easily readable: he had nothing. Schweikert, the gruff, bearded boson, remained circumspect. Trent enjoyed these quiet times, when the great reciprocal engines were silent, the crew all tucked in, save for the watch. As usual, Willis served as the conscience Trent had a propensity to ignore. After a bracing pull on his watery tea, he pressed a constant concern since hearing of the plan. "Any ideas how to explain the delay to the Home Office?"

"You'll think of something," Trent said. "And ease off the tea--that cup is full every time I sea it. You're starting to look a little tea-brownish in complexion." He glowered at the smudged symbols of the hand he'd been dealt. "Nay, I'll not be denied my chance this time. It's become my Moby Dick!"

"Right," Schweikert mused. "And we know how that turned out." He grinned affably under the captain's glare. "Never mind me, mates--I'm a little light on the lore." A former army cargo handler, he was fairly new to the sea, having risen quickly on organizational skills.

Trent made his opening gambit in the game, having gone typically somber. There was no reason for his gloom; his niece was getting married in two months, and he looked forward to some additions to the family. Perhaps he was spending too much time afloat. It was time for a vacation. The very thought made his hand go slack in such ponderings, threatening to spill his cards on the table. How inviting it was, the idea of swinging in a hammock on a summer's day, just letting himself go.

Willis drew him out of his reverie. "This all sounds like a science show. What's the thing about, anyway?"

"The Geo Bloom," Trent said thoughtfully. "So called because it assumes geometric shapes on the water. Circles mostly, but a triangle has been seen, though most recently it took the form of a pink square miles across. It must have been an old one, because a passing plane arrived just in time to spot it. The pilot swore he saw a vortex at the center."

"Perhaps," Willis ventured with a nervous chin scratch, "it's a natural phenomenon, an undersea geyser spewing volcanic matter. But I foresee a danger for ship-borne approach: we'd never become aware of this vortex in time to avoid it."

Trent ignored that. "A natural square? I tell you, there's something not natural about it, and I mean to crack it." He kept Willis on the hook. "Something else bothering you, Tom?"

Willis met their looks defensively. "Part of it is having your sister along. It's frightful bad luck having a woman aboard ship. Were that not enough, we go traipsing into an area known at The Devil's Triangle, and The Sargasso Sea."

"You refer," Schweikert joked, "to the sea goddess. What did the Vikings call her. . .Ran, I think. Not to worry--we'll appease her with a suitable sacrifice." He leered wolfishly.

The matter was settled for Trent, who anticipated the upcoming port call in the far north. "You'll like it up north. Some of the Eskimo tribes migrate that far south. I once tasted a delicacy of theirs, little birds called auks stuffed in a seal carcass for slow pickling."

"Do tell us," Schweikert said, enjoying Willis' discomfort. The man looked like Death warmed over.

"Right then," Trent said. "You reach into the gullet and fish out a bird, little more than black goo after some months in there. Pull off the beak and feet, and toss it in your mouth. It munches like oily bubbles popping on your tongue."

"I say," Willis began, looking even more sickly. "Haven't we heard this before?"

Schweikert made a gurgling sort of laugh, his tea having gone done wrong. "If you'd heard it before, you wouldn't be going all seasick on us!"

Trent experienced a niggling doubt of his own. He had indeed gotten into a rut, seemingly going through the same routine day after day in this accursed spell of bad weather.

A shadow blocked the porthole light, but passed in due time, admitting a view of a watery sun trying to break through the clouds. Could the weather be breaking at last?

"By the seven hells!" Trent crowed, "we'll be asea on the morrow!" He eyed the first mate's unhealthy countenance. "Blast my scuppers, Willis, you look a proper corpse in need of some sun!" Trent brushed a skeletal hand in front of his face. A fish had bumped it in swimming past.

Do You Use Folklore and Mythology?

A General Survey
One of the most common tropes is the vampire, who features in every media. The best known comic book biter is Vampirella, scantily clad (how else?) in red and white. Strangely, her fangs are on either side of the two center teeth, rather than at the canines, third from center. TV was home to Barnabas Collins in the soap Dark Shadows, and his brethren later fought Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Filmdom played host to vampires in the Hammer horror series starring Chris Lee and Peter Cushing. Even cartoons get into the act with the pixie Vampirina. The Hotel Transylvania franchise stars Dracula and his hip daughter in a CGI hodgepodge of the entirety of monsterdom.

Ghosts haunt the cartoon zone in the guise of Casper, along with more sinister counterparts from the early years. Our old friend Hammer contributed films like Thirteen Ghosts. Nineteenth century England was the high point of the printed ghost story.

Returning to the ubiquitous Hammer, we have a fine snake-hair entry in The Gorgon, again starring horror kings Lee and Cushing. A close companion is the basilisk from Harry Potter.

Mythology doesn't automatically resonate; I wasn't able to get into a book where centaurs flew helicopters.  But I did adopt one of the gorgons--Stheno--in a comic. She represents the youngest sister, formerly a spoiled Greek princess.

Still Life: The Potter's Shed

This 9x12 acrylic originated in one of the home and garden mags, which focused on sheds. I seized on the little rusted can with its arrangement of flowering weeds, a nice variation of the floral still life. The trowel, glove, and seed pack were added to give it that carefully-tended look. The wood panels make a rustic background to enhance the theme. Who says still lifes are trite? There must be any number of other ways to approach the subject.

The Drawing Room Event

Professor Chaduray scanned the firelit drawing room which seated two dozen of Westerbury's upper crust socialites. They'd come to hear his lecture on the fourth dimension, a popular topic owing to recent advances in mathematics. Chaduray had rashly advertised his intent to not only explain a fourth dimension, but to access it. Nonsense, of course. When it failed, he'd simply confess to a bold experiment having come up short, and modestly offer them a refund. They in turn, much entertained, would naturally refuse.

His assistant tonight was a medium called Madame Sezny, whose Gypsy attire was no stage costume. Chaduray, lacking the arcane machinery of high science--not yet invented--sought a back door approach to the problem. Were there no mediums on the other side? Let them make the connection between each other. So went his spiel to enthralled audiences hopeful of a world-altering epiphany.

Mademe Sezny set up an easel for sketching diagrams. Next, she pushed to the fore a large, black-draped box, the erstwhile focal point of tonight's activities. Lady Tibbets, their genial hostess, shifted her bulk in the fireplace wing chair, the better to command attention. She raised opera glasses on a slender stem and fixed Chaduray with a look of matronly doubt. "Well, Professor, shall you finally prove the existence of the fourth dimension?"

"Nay, Madam." Chaduray inserted his monocle in silence broken only by fireplace crackle. "I shall posit the existence of multiple realities!" He drew on his easel the X and Y axes of the Cartesian coordinate system. "On a flat surface, we find distance between two points as the square root of X squared plus Y squared." He drew a third line through the origin, perpendicular to the others. "With the addition of a Z axis, we have our three-dimensional universe."

An old gent in back spoke up. "I say--does the equation still hold true?"

"Indubitably." Chaduray's goatee  widened around his grin. "We now find distance via the square root of our new sum: the added squares of X, Y, and Z."

"But. . ." Lady Tibbets lowered her spectacles. "You have quite run out of planes, Professor."

"Have I?" Still looking impious, Chaduray added a W plane to the mix, yet another angled line through the origin. The square root of the four sums still yielded a valid number, though it was a little smaller than a point plotted right beside it.

A portly banker. "But where is that point?"

"Right here in this room," Chaduray said. "But not in this physical plane. It is a fact that any number of planes will yield a valid numerical result. May we not conclude an infinite number of realities?" During the applause, Chaduray motioned his assistant toward the draped box. "In another such drawing room, somewhere in the cosmos--if not close at our elbows--there must exist other practitioners of the occult arts. Madame Sezny shall attempt contact, using a representation of the fourth dimension to bend her energies to that end." At his nod, she uncovered the box with a flourish.

Hushed muttering broke out, as if the company feared provoking some reaction from the black, tubular structure. It portrayed a cube within a cube, its vertices connected by slender wires.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the professor began, "I give you our best understanding of the fourth dimension, the tesseract, a 3-D representation of a fourth plane. In this iteration, it's known as a Schlegel diagram, in which all sides are equal. The tesseract is to the cube what the cube is to a square."

"Here now," objected the banker. "Obviously the smaller cube cannot have sides equal to those of the larger."

"Not in this reality," Chaduray explained. "There is a time element we cannot duplicate here. You see, the tesseract is forever in motion. Picture the inner tube passing through the larger tube's front wall, growing to become the front wall, folding back to engulf the whole, then shrinking to re-enter the back wall as the smaller cube once again. If we could unfold the tesseract at an instant in time, we would have the Dali cross: four stacked cubes attached at the next-to-topmost cube."

The audience could not comprehend the thing, none of them having a rigorous grounding in calculus. It was a necessary skill for manipulating objects mentally.

"Can you simplify it?" Lady Tibbets enjoined, studying the machine through her lenses. "I mean--can this device serve as passage to another dimension?"

"A good question," Chaduray said, pleased with the segue. "With present methods, lacking unheard-of amounts of electric power, we may only endeavor to access the adjacent universe." He made a bow to Madame Sezny. ""My assistant will now attempt contact with someone over there."

Madame Sezny went into deep concentration. Chaduray relished the apprehensive, excited faces fixated on her. His fee was well earned at this point, no matter the result.

"Look there!" a man called.

A hazy image formed with the tesseract. The manor began to creak, and windows shook in a rising moan of wind that failed to rouse the drapes. Everyone's hair and garments stood out in static charge. The image remained flat, ghostly.

"This is a symbol!" Madame Sezny said breathlessly, "conveyed by one with more skill than I!"

Chaduray paced about the visitation, noting how it quite disappeared when viewed edge-on. It was two dimensional.

"It's the knight of wards!" Sezny exclaimed. She put hands forth, to Chaduray's alarm. "It's a message from one who uses a tarot deck. This knight represents the messenger, one who speeds the journey. My journey, can't you see?"

Lady Tibbets rose from her seat, voice raised in the din. "Professor, I believe we've crossed a forbidden boundary! You must end this!"

Another image oozed through the back side of the large cube, forcing the knight forward, where it grew to encompass that side, then folded back to re-enter the small cube--just as Chaduray predicted. The new image, a chess-type tower, alternated places with the knight in precessing fashion, each taking turns folding back upon itself. Chaduray winced at the similarity to writhing intestines.

"The tower," Madame Sezny said, mesmerized. "A symbol of relocation. I know what I must do!" She reached into the tesseract, eliciting screams from the ladies, was drawn into the infernal engine. Now it was her tortured image precessing through the device, turning inside-out upon exiting the front wall, and re-assembling to enter the rear wall.

Abruptly the thing imploded with a thunderclap, leaving only drifting ectoplasm behind. Of the device there remained no trace. In the shocked aftermath, everyone crowded about, demanding answers.

Chaduray raised hands for calm. "Good people, hear me! In spite of the unexpected turn of events, I believe we have arrived at proof of our exhibition."

"What does it mean?" Lady Tibbets inquired, near tears for the victim.

"Somewhere," Chaduray said, "others like ourselves have just proved the existence of our universe. Lacking Madame Sezny's intestinal fortitude, they invited us to make the first move."

An elderly gent: "Can she hope to return? Is she all right?"

Chaduray stroked his goatee. "We can find out by hiring another spirit medium. Shall we attempt to reach out to Madame Sezny in her new reality?"

Two dozen heads nodded "no" in unison.

Monolithic Nightmare

If you think it can't happen, it can. During the course of three years I finally finished my second book. Years and years of revisions and modifications that it was finally finished in a way that I could go back and fix areas that need attention. During that whole time I forgot, literally forgot to back up my work that was all on my flash drive and not anywhere else. It was that sense of panic when my flash drive stopped connecting to computers. It was a sense of devastation of a different kind.

So I began a search for the right place and person to recover my data on a flash drive. No two flashdrives are alike. Beware of the monolith flash drive which I had. I looked at companies that quoted thousands of dollars to five hundred dollars. It would require surgery and attach wires carefully so my monolith flash drive would be recovered correctly. Many companies said it would be difficult and time consuming How depressing that most companies were into price gouging to the unsuspecting consumer in a dilemma.

It took a month and a half to do some soul searching for myself and reaffirm what my goals are. I could rewrite my story, go back to the previous saved work before my entire updated version. And never think you will not use the paper print out of your work as a physical backup.

So I prayed to God about this problem. I asked him if he wants me to make this book, show me the right person to be trustworthy and good person. My search eventually led me to a place that only recovers flash drives. He had a five star rating and a 98% success rate. I emailed my problem and he was able to identify my monolithic chip and find an exact model that was disassembled. He impressed me beyond. I thought he did something the other guys didn't. He knew exactly what he was doing. The quote was reasonable. So I slept on it, night after night and my gut told me countless times this was the guy. So I sent my chip way north, and I waited. The wait was overwhelming day after day. Finally I got an email that said my chip was fully recovered. I hesitantly paid the quote which was quite reasonable than what I got. The guy sent me a link to download my work, and within a few days he sent me my original monolithic flash drive and a new flash drive with my complete work on it.

Whew. What a long wait of agony. God was directing me and said yes, get this literary baby published. Now I have printed copy of my fully recovered work and peace of mind. My experience to this, back up your work, such as your phone, your external hard drive and flash drive etc. Be aware of people out there waiting to gouge unsuspecting customers lots of money. Monolithic chips are the newest thing, but keep to the regular flashdrives for future reference. 
In a devastating case scenario, it turned out good.


Some have you knew of this, but since last May 2019 all is well.   So far the Chromebook is wonderful with my work saved on the Cloud which is on multiple devices now.  I still use my main laptop for multiple files since it has more room. It does guzzle up the battery faster than the chrome, which lasts about nine hours for battery life.  Even if I move my story around, it is on the desktop and a simple new flash drive, if need be.  

Page Layout For Paperbacks

Text programs are fairly similar in appearance. I use LibreOffice, a free download. Books are structured as a continuous file which grows as you add stories or chapters. You'll start with a title page, then the copyright, and a table of contents. The latter will grow as you add story titles and corresponding page numbers.

On your first story page, chose 'page' from the toolbar. This is where you set the book size and margins. I use 6x9 with 12-point print. On the 'layout' screen you'll set margins. Under 'page layout', choose mirrored, which centers text on the page. Note that the inner margin needs to be larger due to space lost from binding. The figures provided are good for books up to 250 pages. For larger ones, Amazon provides a simple formula for calculating inner margins. Here are the figures I use:

MARGINS
Inner: 0.56
Outer: 0.50
Top: 0.60
Bottom: 0.60
Width: 6
Height: 9

Set page numbering to automatic, as well as indents (I use a 4-space indent). Another function under 'paragraph' is Drop Caps, the giant first letter in a chapter. I set mine for a height of 3 lines. On your second paragraph, toggle drop caps to 'off', and restore indent to 'automatic'. Write down the measurements for your opening page style: print size, and number of lines between features. For a professional look, choose 'center justified' from the toolbar for a professional right margin.

Next time, we'll get into loading your text and covers (front and back) to the print on demand website. I use CreateSpace, and the only criticism I have is how far they stretch a batch of toner. The print comes out lighter than big name authors would ever accept. Otherwise, great work they do.

Mila Mari - A Man-Made Love Story

The Possession of derelict, man-made terror over others and the command of fears, it comes from a day of snow and destitution in a land of legends. Mila Mari was a strange young woman. Romanian, Bulgarian. I am not sure. I do know that she was from that area of Europe and her accent was thick. Long, jet black hair cascading over her shoulders in front of big buttons on a thick black coat, she was short, slender, sensual, and very full of her sense of feminine power over men, she sat in the coffee shop at a table in front of me. That is how I met her.

Curiosity and a confused conversation between the salesperson serving her order brought me over to help. For some foolish reason, I thought that I could help translate. It worked out somehow as I was able to understand her attempts at English. The order was taken care of and she sat with me.

“I thank you for assistance…..I am pleased you can understand my words.”

“I am glad that I could help,” I told her…pleased with myself…I pressed on.

“How long have you been in our country?” I asked.

“I have been in United States for one month – you are very nice American,” she said, smiling at me.

“Are you alone here? Or do you have friends or family with you?” I asked

“I am alone.”

As most foreign visitors usually travel in groups the oddness of that statement at the time did not register in my mind and I sat with her all afternoon. I bought her hot chocolate and pastries. Her skills at flirtation were very keen and she used my attention to her to the fullest. She would occasionally flash me a seductive look with her brown eyes and lick the chocolate from her red lips. She called me Liska, as it matched my name in translation to her language and she told me hers. 

She worked me good….sending chills down my spine with light touches to my arm, down along my fingers. I invited her to my place for a drink and she came home with me. I noticed after she had removed her coat that there were odd shapes of scars on her wrists, ankles and neck. She made attempts to cover them quickly and said that they were the effects of a bad automobile accident. She changed the focus of the conversation as she sat on my sofa, crossing her legs and making sure I was watching. She laughed – and I went to get two beers from my refrigerator. There was something in those scars….what was it?

She would cause me to believe in the projectile wants or pouring of heart, so near, or dear, I am saying, so dear with every evolution of emotion stronger at each ring of a bell from her voice, which caused me to act. Foolish in love? Foolish an intuition at best. The tremendous center of each tumultuous creation in passion shook me like that blue charge in the making of Frankenstein’s monster. Was I out of control?

Mila Mari is the most sexual woman I have ever encountered. Her desires in lovemaking set me free. I was taken in by her dedication to her passion as if hungry for release of something…what? Something from a restricted childhood? I did not care. I held on for the ride of my life. Her body was exquisite in form and delightfully pale as I expected from her region of descent. She seemed to fit into me like a missing puzzle piece as I hovered over her, my movements matching hers. Warm and giving, she held me into her as I shuddered at my final thrill. She continued to grip me tightly and I noticed her shaking…she was crying. I reached for her face and she covered it with her hands.

“What’s wrong?”

She did not speak and rolled over on to her side facing away from me. I noticed a long scar from her neck all the way down her back. It was an odd thing to see in the glow from the candles on the dresser. I touched her gently, running a finger along the scar. She flinched and moved away. I settled back onto my pillow in awe of this. We slept soundly with an occasional cuddle throughout the night. Yet, I had the most unusual of dreams that night involving Mila Mari. Sitting alone in a lifeboat in a vast green Sea, in the water she swam up to me. Naked and glistening in the moonlight, turning and swimming like a seal. She sang to me in a language I could only half comprehend.

Comfortably stretching out, at home in the water, she arched her back as she slipped backwards under the waves, her breasts showing the results of the cold water. She disappeared, and then resurfaced to smile at me. She floated on her back facing me…teasing me even more, she then disappeared again under the green waves. I sat against the side of the boat holding steady against the rolling of the sea as I waited for her. She surfaced again and was attempting to show me more when her arms detached themselves. Then her wrists floated away. Her legs followed, then her head. All of these parts separated at the very places I had seen the scars.  As she floated away in different directions she cried…sobbing heavily, she asked me not to tell anyone. I agreed absolutely…and called out after her. A heavy rain, portentous and dark, fell upon me. It beat down hard onto my skin. It began to sting as I watched it fill the boat to almost sinking
.

I awoke to the sounds of Mila in the shower.

She left me that morning to go where? I do not know. I worked hard at my computer job that day to finish several projects. The evening was set with my acceptance of tuna sandwiches and crackers for dinner. I was not expecting the knock at my door. She came in and sat.  She had cut her hair up to her chin and was wearing a short skirt with tall black boots. Her blouse was crimson and somewhat see-through. She had changed herself – for me? To be more American? Whatever…..she looked good!

“Did you miss me Liska?” she asked, as she leaned forward to put an elbow on her knee.

“Yes I did, where did you go?”

She threw up her hands in protest.

“Do you not see – my new look?!!”

“Yes. Yes, you look fantastic!”

She sat back on the couch.

“Did you enjoy me last night?”

“I enjoyed being with you…is that what you mean?” I asked.

“Whatever – you like my sexy boots, yes?” she said, holding a leg out for me to look at.

“Yes, I like them a lot.”

“Better than my sexy underwear?” she said again, as she opened her legs, and then shut them.

She wasn’t wearing any – she smiled at me.

“I ask this again – did you enjoy me last night?”

“I enjoyed you very much,” I answered as I moved to her, trembling, to take her hand and place a kiss there. She moved in to kiss me full on the lips, slipping in her tongue, creating tingles at the back of my neck. Mila Mari kissed with real fire.

We did play with fire that night and she seemed to soften up a bit after sex this time. We slept together with much more cuddling. She somehow seemed like a wounded child to me as she responded to my affections that way. I held her and ran my fingers through her newly cut hair, telling her that I liked the cut and kissed her on her on her temples. She mumbled something and fell asleep. When I slept that night, it was heavy.

There were more strange and eerie visitations in my dreams. And always her body parts fell away in some sort of bizarre fashion, multitudes of steel tables, cutting saws, tubes and tubes of pink and green liquids flowing to nowhere in particular. In one strange and unusual place in the frame of a dream she was being tested constantly by unseen faces in white clothing. Measuring tape and the pulling of stitches was constant.  Laboratory smells of chloroform and distilled alcohol were always present as far off sounds of a child crying lingered in my brain. When I awoke in the morning she was gone – again.

She was secretive to a point as to where she always went during the day. She told me little. Something to do with a job at a pharmacy on the far side of town which she did not want me visiting; she said that I would get her in trouble with her new manager. I never pushed the issue with her and always picked her up at the bus stop as people stared…she looked young for me. “Mila Mari is twenty three years old,” she said. I held no regards to that as she had all of her belongings with her now in my home. She did not have much. Some clothes, which she kept in the closet and in my dresser. An assortment of shoes cluttered the floor. Make-up, feminine things and no jewelry – she never wore any. Strange? maybe, she said that things made her scars itch and turn green.  No piercing in her ears, nose or even belly. No tattoos, no identifying marks or moles anywhere. That in itself was interesting. She used my shampoo, soap and razors. She shaved her legs but not her arm pits…she hated that. I never knew what perfume she wore but it drove me to fantasy and she was generous with it when she sprayed herself. Mila Mari cooked quite well. I was grateful for that. Her English improved daily and I enjoyed her company very much. I grew very fond of her and I think she was very fond of me as well.

She still cried on occasion and would never tell me why. She said that I would not understand. She even said that I would not like her anymore if I were to know. Of course I was even more curious now but accepted her requests against prying. There were times when she would be in the tub and would not let me in to talk with her or anything else. She was doing something I wasn’t supposed to see, something that had to do with the scars. Those scars! She had become more and more paranoid of me seeing them up close.

Yet, our three months together were wonderful. She was happy in her new life here and we did many things, trips to the ocean, trips to amusement parks, concerts – the opera. We went camping once and made love on the mountainside as the sun went down. We made love on the beach as the sun came up. We saw many movies together. We danced at parties. She painted. She seemed content – until that one afternoon – the scars! They had become badly infected. I offered to clean them for her with peroxide but she refused and ran into the bathroom again – crying. I stood at the door begging her to let me in and help her. She cried even harder and told me to go away. I did wait a long time in anxious dilemma. I went to the door and pressed her again to tell me what was going on. I lost my temper – how could she hide from me like that…..ME…of all people. Desperation took hold of me and pushed heavily on the bathroom door, twice, then put my shoulder to it….it banged open. 

Mila Mari sat in the tub half covering her naked body with a meager wash towel – surprised at my ability to get in so easily. Tears had made her eyes a deep red. She sat in cold water as she shook. Large portions of her hair had fallen out and were floating in the water. She was almost completely bald.

Rotten flaps of skin were peeling away from her back where the long scars were; now green with uncontrollable rotting infection. Several of her toes were missing from her left foot. She looked at me helplessly and in fear for her life.

“My God….Mila!!!......what is happening to you?”

I sat on the tub beside her. She looked at me and burst out crying…………

“I’m dying!!!!....................” she buried her face into the wash towel, shaking violently as she sobbed.

“Mila….tell me what is going on – why is this happening?”

She told me everything.

My dreams had been right on as far as her falling apart. She was the result of a bizarre medical experiment. Efforts to bring her back to life after a deadly accident were successful. They had recreated a good portion of her body. Parts of her torso were hers as was her head; the other parts were of different sources, from other bodies. One day she had escaped from the labs…she wanted to live a normal life – another chance. She fled to the United States to have the things she had seen others have. They did not know where she was, and she still would not tell me where she was from.

Yes…I was completely horrified. The girl that I had been sleeping with and sharing so much feeling for was a man made creature pitiful and helpless now, sitting in front of me – disintegrating. It took me a few moments to really understand this.

“Sweet God in Heaven Mila…what can I do to save you…..?”

She sat silent as she pulled one the last strands of hair out of her head and dropped it into the water with the rest.  She had resigned herself.

“There is nothing you can do Liska.” She looked up at me with her eyes more swollen and sunken with their expression of doom…”Just stay with me.”

“I am yours my angel…I will stay with you forever…….!”  I sobbed heavily.

She reached a hand up to take my tears on her finger. There was nothing to be done….nothing at all She sat before me rotting, the cold water doing little to preserve her. She lay back in the tub shaking, her body now turning black and blue – her eyes sinking deeper into her skull. I held onto her and she laid her head on my hand. She slowly began to sing a song. I had heard this song in one of my dreams…I sobbed heavily again.

“Don’t cry my sweet Liska…..I will be home soon.”

She was delirious, the death and decay rapidly taking her. She raised her pitiful head and looked up at me …..

“Thank you for my life in America………..you have made me very happy………….you helped me live all of my dreams……………………………………I love you Liska.”

She said this in a struggle of a whisper.

Mila Mari finished her last breath and dropped her head onto my hand.

She was dead.

In a pouring rain, I took her to the ocean and let the tide take what was left of her.

I sat there and cried for hours.

The End

Other books by this author

Please visit your favorite ebook retailer to discover other stories by E.R. Fox:

Short Story Series

Ugly Saturday

On the Choke at Cutter's Point

The Dilemma of Dorias Nimble

About the Author.

E.R. Fox, (Edward) is a writer/illustrator currently living in the south with his Amazon Parrot, Cocoa Bongo.  Read Edward's Smashwords Interview or Friend me on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edwardfox

https://www.smashwords.com/interview/mc