quote:Originally posted by johnsonweed: It was a dark and stormy night.
I was relaxing with a cup of chamomile tea and listening to my Best of Wayne Newton album wailing on the hi-fi.
"This evening would be perfect", I thought, "if only Margaret were here to share it with me. But alas..."
My thoughts were interrupted by a tremendous peal of thunder. The lights flickered, and just before they went dark, I heard the doorbell "Ding..."
The unheard "Dong" echoed in my mind as I set down my tea and groped my way to the door to find who could be out on such a night.
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Opened the door, and there he was: Rogan Josh, my favorite "cuz"! He shivered as he came in from the cold; "I prefer it hot," I then was told.
He went right over to my furnace; The gas was off, he couldn't burn it. He got real mad, and glared at me, And said, angry as he could be:
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The unheard "Dong" echoed in my mind as I set down my tea and groped my way to the door to find who could be out on such a night.
Naturally, having survived the normal number of horror movies, I imagined all the predictables: Nobody there at all; a dead body; a guy with an axe which is already swinging down at my head; a zombie - er, I mean, one of the less-dead; an alien that leaps onto my face; Hagrid.
But when I got to the door, I refused to let the creepiness of the evening make me hesitate. I flung it open. It was Mom and Dad. Dad was carrying a suitcase.
"Hi, son," Dad said.
"Uh, hi. Moving in?"
"If you don't mind. Just for a few days, till I can get an apartment."
"Why? Was your house blown away or something?"
"No. Your mother threw me out."
I turned to Mom. This was weird, if true. "Is this true?" I asked. "Because if it is, it's really weird for you to have driven him over here."
"I needed the car tomorrow," said Mom.
"Who are you talking to?" asked Dad.
"Mom," I pointed out, pointing.
"Son, are you all right?"
"Oh, are you carrying not speaking to each other so far now that you can't even admit that she's standing right beside you?"
"Son, there's nobody standing beside me."
Mom rolled her eyes.
"Mom's rolling her eyes," I said. "And I'm not getting into the middle of this."
"Just let me come in out of the rain."
"You're standing under the porch roof."
"Then let me come in out of the humidity." Dad pushed past me. Mom made as if to follow. I stepped out of the way. Dad slammed the door in her face.
"Dad, don't carry your quarrel to my place!"
"Have you been taking your meds?" asked Dad.
"I don't have any meds," I said.
"Then I suggest you get some."
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I rolled my eyes (like mother like son), and opened the door for Mom. She walked in, blowing her nose on a tissue. Her eyes were red and puffy.
"He's insufferable," she said.
"Tell me about it," I said, watching as Dad shook his raincoat off in the living room. "Dad, you're getting everything wet. Knock it off. Have some manners."
[EDIT] (Oh, dangit. Someone posted after me already. . .) Dad shook his head. "As bad as your mother," he muttered.
"Dad, she's right here! What is wrong with you?"
"I told you: in-suff-er-able," said Mom.
"Have you been drinking, son?" Dad asked me, squinching up his eyes at me. He sniffed the air. "I thought I taught you better than that. You haven't become a . . . a lush, have you?"
"Dad, no one even uses that term any more. No one's used lush for drunk in ninety years."
"Well, I feel that old, so I get to use it. Have you been drinking?"
"No."
"Let me smell your breath. To make sure."
Like I was a kid who kept forgetting to brush my teeth.[/EDIT]
[ November 09, 2005, 01:13 PM: Message edited by: Scott R ]
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"Tell me about it," I said, watching as Dad shook his raincoat off in the living room. "Dad, you're getting everything wet. Knock it off. Have some manners."
Dad's retort was cut off mid-grumble when the phone rang. "Hi," said Margaret on the other end of the line.
My stomach plummeted down to my knees. "Margaret. I can't tell you how great it is to hear your voice."
"I've been thinking . . . do you think maybe I could come over and talk?"
"Ummm . . ." I hedged, as the chorus of "Strangers in the Night" filled the living room.
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"You sound just like your mother," he grumbled, and I saw Mom grin just a little. She, meanwhile, was carefully shaking her umbrella dry outside the front door and hanging her coat on the coat rack.
Dad just sighed and sunk into my favorite chair. "What happened?" I asked him.
"Tell you in a minute. Can I use your bathroom first?" Without waiting for my reply, he got up and headed in the direction of the bathroom.
Once he was gone, Mom let it rip. "What happened is that your father's been ignoring my feelings and doing whatever he pleases while I--"
I turned to Mom. "You can make yourself comfortable in the guest room if you like. I'll see you in the morning."
She just stared at me. I stared back. I had almost a full foot on her, and she was wet and tired. It didn't take more than a minute for her to head upstairs.
I heard the toilet flush and knew Dad was going to be back soon. Boy howdy, was this going to be a long night.
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(and apparently, the lights went back on between the missed "Dong" and the opening of the door)
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Wow, looks like the timing of my post couldn't have been worse . . . I say whoever wants to keep this up takes up whichever story line he/she prefers!
Sorry, kq, the story was already going on from a different point when I got here. I take it Rogan Josh was from another Hatrack thread somewhere? I thought it must be a play on Josh Groban and then googled and found it's a recipe . . . so I'm VERY confused about that now! ;-)
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posted
Rogan Josh was created for a condiment thread. But he then took a very crucial part in our last story thread-- which also involved SG-1 and Goa'ould with eyes of a very confused color. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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"What the...who are...how did you get in here?!" I exclaimed in bewilderment, though it was already quite a strange night, so I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised.
"Sorry about that. I'm Rogan Josh. I came with your parents. You must not have seen me come in behind your mother."
"Oh let me guess, father's been ignoring you too."
Before he could answer, the doorbell once again rang "Ding..." followed by the now expected silent "Dong."
Before I was able to react, the door wildly swings open as Margaret rushes in.
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I felt it necessary to add backstory. You see, I am often a character pulled from the ether into Round Robin type stories, and have noticed the quickest route to the grave is to show up sans last name or history. Most Round Robin-ers are particularly bloodthirsty that way.
The idea of a party frightened me, you understand, because the last party I'd invited my parents to had ended with suspicious blood and cocktail stains on the walls and a rather convoluted alibi for the police.
Needless to say, I rushed to the kitchen to fetch a plate of o'dourves--eu'dearves--eu'dou--appetizers and to remove all the knives. I hid them (except for the largest stake knife, which I stuck in my belt for self-defense) in a hoel in the backyard.
I frantically concocted a backstory as I rushed back to the living room. Rogan Josh was, er, an ex-lover?--no, too complicated--a comrade from the military?--was I old enough to have been in any major wars?--ah yes, my long-lost adopted brother. I embraced him wholeheartedly and welcomed him to the party, saying, "I really hope you don't still have that allergy to shellfish."
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"I've been thinking . . . do you think maybe I could come over and talk?"
"Ummm . . ." I hedged, as the chorus of "Strangers in the Night" filled the living room.
"Please," she replied, "I feel that it is vital that we have this talk."
"Are you okay Margaret? You don't sound like yourself."
"Just say I can come over."
"But you've moved away. Even if you left now and were lucky with the flights, it would still take you the better part of a day to get here."
"Uh...about that...that's one of the things we need to talk about. Look, I'll be there are soon as I can. Bye" And she hung up.
"This night started off so normal." I thought as I turned back to my parents. Dad was poking through my records as he did every time he came over. Mom had sat down on the couch, as prim and proper as ever, except for the occasional loud honk as she blew her nose.
"That was Margaret." I announced. "She's...ummm...she said she's coming over."
"How are you and Maggie-girl getting along? I thought you'd said you were having problems." my father said.
I was about to tell him for the hundreth time Margaret really hated his nickname for her when Mom broke in with "What are you two talking about? Who is this Margaret?"
posted
I gave Mom a look. "Margaret is the girl I've been dating for the last year and a half. You may remember the night you invited us over for dinner - multiplied by twenty."
"I know who Margaret is, David," Dad emerged victorious from my record collection, a vintage Beatles LP in his hand.
"I never make dinner more than once a night." Mom sniffled and blew her nose again.
I sat on the arm rest and massage the bridge of my nose between my fingers.
"Listen, both of you. This is cute, really, just like a movie, but if you don't cut it out this VERY SECOND I'm going to throw both of you back out into the rain and - Dad! Do NOT handle the Beatles like that..."
"You're father won't acknowledge my existence unless his dinner's cold, or his shirts aren't ironed." Mom collapsed over the opposite arm rest, sobbing.
posted
Everything had been fine, before that echoing "Dong". Why did I hear the, "Dong"?
In a sense, the play before me was another echo. I could almost anticipate every grumble that would come out of Dad's mouth and every one of Mom's hollow pleas.
"... or the house isn't clean." I finished for Mom in a tired voice. She continued to sob. Dad looked at me, and for the first time, I noticed something that wasn't a part of the standard script.
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Dad looked tired, forlorn even. And mom -- well...i don't know why i hadn't noticed it from the beginning.
Mom was slightly transparent around the edges.
Her edges. I mean -- she was, you know, sort of see-through.
And Dad hadn't heard a thing she'd said since she came in. What was going on??
"Mom?" I moved from the arm rest to the couch next to her. "Mom -- what is all this? Why can't Dad see or hear you?"
Mom looked at me like I'd just unscrewed my head from my body and proceeded to pour gatorade down my exposed throat.
"He never pays any attention to me! This isn't anything new, David!"
I wasn't feeling very well, all of a sudden.
Dad couldn't see Mom, Mom didn't seem to think anything was abnormal about that -- and i had a sneaking suspicion that something otherworldly was going on here.
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My mind raced in a frantic search for a logical explanation. The effort made me feel all the more queasy. I was thankful for the support of the old sofa.
"Dad, what's going on?"
He said, "David, do you remember when we used to drive to Pier Point Landing? You know, that old boardwalk down by the shipyards? We'd listen to the Beatles on the way there and you drove your mother and I half crazy by singing "Yellow Submarine" over and over again." He shook his head and quickly brushed at his eyes as he turned away."To this day, whenever I hear that song, I still smell the corndogs, cotton candy and deisel oil. It's a good smell."
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It _was_ a good smell. I knew it, because I was smelling it now. I thought I could hear the faint lapping of water.
And my mother was looking less _there_ than before. While my father seemed the opposite. He was so present in the room, he almost seemed to glow.
Mom glared at me. "Are you going to take his side in this? Don't tell me you and I don't have our share of good memories, too?"
"Mom, I'm not 'deciding' anything..." My mind was recycling movies again. Any minute, now, I'd wake from the dream- and perhaps, for good measure, then I'd wake from _that_ dream, as well. Or M. Night Shyamalan would pull back the curtain and reveal that my mother had killed my father. Or my father, my mother.
No. No. My father was ignoring my mother in a fit of pique, and I was semi-hallucinating from fatigue. Simple explanations.
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When I reached the door, I hesitated. I wasn't quite as willing to open it this time. Before I had felt that jumpy creepiness that makes you whistle when you're walking down a dark alley. This fear was different. This was dread. Margaret had arrived.
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Now let me tell you a little about Margaret. She used to be a professional telephone psychic. Used to be, that is, until she convinced herself that she wasn't just playing at being psychic and hustling suckers out of their money, but that she was really and truly psychic. She walked off the job due to a "strong feeling" that her bosses were inappropriately withholding payroll deductions. It is very difficult to be in a serious relationship with a woman who thinks she is a psychic. She is always convinced that she is right, she always knows just what you were going to say, and get all steamed up about it, even though YOU had no idea that you would even consider saying such a thing. But you can't tell that to Margaret. She can see into your mind better than you can.
That was what led up to her leaving. She was all worked up about something that I hadn't done yet. Whatever it was (would have been?) must have been pretty severe, because she packed up in a huff and cut all ties.
And now, just after I had wished to see her again, she arrived at my doorstep.
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Margaret flounced inside, grabbing the door and pushing me out of the way, then slamming it behind her.
"What's wrong now?" I asked, exasperated.
"You were going to slam the door in my face."
"Why would i have opened the door, knowing it was you, only to slam it in your face, Margaret?"
She ignored my question and glanced over my shoulder. Quickly sizing up my dad's beaten suitcase, my mother's prostrate form, and my bewildered expression, she deduced (rather than "magically saw") what was going on.
"Your mother kicked your father out. This time it's permanent."
She didn't even look at me as she said it, brushing past me into the room.
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My father by now was throughly engrossed in his beatles record to even noticed Margaret was present. He often fell into his own little worlds when it came to listening to music. This didn't seem to phase margaret in the slightest.
"Can we talk in private?" She said as she crossed her arms and tapped her foot with impatience.
At this point i was so befuddled about everything that had just happened that all I could do was nodd and follow her into the next room.
This is when i noticed she had a peice of paper gripped tightly in her hand.
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"Is that my birth-certificate?" I asked, more out of prolonged confusion (Which is bad for the complexion.) than curiosity.
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"Your what?" snapped Margaret. "Get a grip, buddy. You know perfectly well what it is. I don't have time to play games with you."
"But . . . but . . ." I stammered helplessly. It was no use. It never was, with Margaret. Don't get me wrong, she could be sweet. I mean, I had been missing her earlier that evening, after all. But the timing of her arrival was not contributing to my sense of well-being.
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"Listen," Margaret's eyes narrowed to tiny slits. "Don't you think you owe me an explanation?"
"I...err..."
in the towwwwn, where I was borrrrn, lived a maaan, who sailed the seaaaas....
"Dad, can you at least turn the volume down?" I shouted over my shoulder into the living room, but my request drew no reponse from my father who was lost somewhere between "Abbey Road" and "Revolver."
"You knew I wasn't planning on having children!" And with that, Margaret burst into tears. "Honestly, sometimes you just make me feel so...invisible!"
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Her tears mixed with the raindrops on her cheeks.
Margaret dropped her overnight bag and dripping umbrella so that she could slide her wet bangs out her eyes.
"Maggie, I mean, Margaret, I'm kind of in the middle of something right now. Do you think we could get together later? Maybe grab a coffee or a yogurt? I am a bit hungry."
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"Maggie, I mean, Margaret, I'm kind of in the middle of something right now. Do you think we could get together later? Maybe grab a coffee or a yogurt? I am a bit hungry."
"What you're in the middle of right now is you and me. This thing with your mom and dad...I did it."
"What are you talking about? How could you have..." I sputtered out before she cut in.
"David, stop. Your dad is acting like he doesn't know your mom is here, right? Well, he's not just acting. He can't see her. He can't hear her. And it's all my fault." Her tears starting spilling out faster.
"Wha...what? How could this possibly be your fault? And why does my mom seem to not remember ever meeting you?"
That shocked her out of her tears. "What! She doesn't remember me." Margaret looked down at the floor, which she always did when she was puzzled by something. And then softly, "But that doesn't make any sense."
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Finding that she was surprised worried me. Perhaps she was telling the truth after all. But that was nonsense. She was a telephone psychic.
"This is worse than I thought. I've erased your mother! I hope you forgive me!" and she fell to her knees sobbing.
"Common..." I pleaded.
"Look!" She thrust the paper at me.
It was my mother's birth certificate. My mother, in her desire to hook me and Margaret up, had agreed to participate in the deluxe psychic reading.
I remember Margaret trying to get me to do one. Birth certificate, childhood pictures and toys, any baptism or blessing certificates, school records, anything from the past. It was all gathered so the psychic could tap into the force behind the body. I scoffed at the idea.
As I stared past my mom's birth certificate at Maragret, I noticed the words fade. Examining it, I noticed now that my mom's name was nearly gone, barely visible.
"What have you done?"
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"You don't know!?", I almost screamed it and I could tell she had known I was going to say that.
"Well, I kind of know," she said, halfway between embarrassment and dread. "It all started when your mother came to me and asked me what she was good for..."
So here's the short version. My dad's ignorance of my mom finally drove her to start questioning her worth as a human being, so she went to see Margaret, of all people, for a psychic reading. "What am I good for?" was the main question. So rather than attempting a normal reading in which Margaret stared meaningfully at the evidence, traced palms, felt earlobes, waved her hands about, moaned a bit as the "spirits" took her, et cetera, and made some statement that the client wanted to hear, she had tried to fix things. Jimmy Stewart style.
I mean, it was November. That's close enough for a sappy Christmas special, right? I found myself mumbling "Merry Christmas, you wonderful old Building and Loan!" just to test the phrase out. Yeah, it worked in November, too.
Anyway, there were a lot more pentagrams in this version - meaning one - and I'm sure Margaret didn't exactly appeal to a higher power, if you know what I mean, and the effect wasn't immediate, but it was supposed to be basically the same.
"So you tried to show my mom what the world would be like without her in it, the changes are gradual, and only those of us who half exist can see her?"
Margaret nodded.
"Well, that's not too bad, then. When is it all over? Does she have to jump off a bridge or something?"
"I'm supposed to draw her back tomorrow night."
"Oh, great. So everything's under control, right?"
"No, no, no. I can see her just fine. For some reason, I can't exist without your mother. But we're fading! We're not going to be around tomorrow night!"
Just then, Dad looked directly at me and said, "What are you doing in my house?"
[ November 14, 2005, 04:15 AM: Message edited by: lord trousers ]
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