Tagged: mother

My Mother Kept Many Secrets

  • by jen“Nice neighborhood.”
  • with bars on the windows
  • often requires a flight of stairs
  • within sleepwalking distance
  • (depending on thickness, of course)

Tune in next time part 911      Click Here for Earlier Installments

My mother kept many secrets about her past. Could she have possibly spent time in Colloquillia and learned that wretched recipe? The only time I could remember her mentioning the country she had said merely, “Nice neighborhood.” The way she said it, disdain dripping from her words, meant she thought it was the kind of place with bars on the windows, the kind of place so full of vermin it often requires a flight of stairs to avoid them, the kind of place with dangerous cliffs within sleepwalking distance of every bedroom. Not the sort of place she’d want to spend any time. But Colloquillia was so secretive, how would she know that unless she’d experienced it first hand?

My mind was swimming with even more questions than mere moments ago. I stared at the roll of foil in my hand. Covering an entire room with the stuff was a challenge. It was prone to tearing (depending on thickness, of course) and creasing. But it was still my best bet. If I could restore my memory, I might suddenly have the answers to my questions about Ursula, my mother, and any number of other topics.

“Forget the stinky man,” I said. “We have work to do.”

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“Give Them the Smallest Escape Pod”

  • by jenI’ve grown to adore him
  • often used to welcome distinguished guests
  • ill-gotten origins
  • tattoo with the word “warning” on her hip
  • learned how to make explosives

Tune in next time part 729      Click Here for Earlier Installments

“Give them the smallest escape pod,” Fleur said. “The one those robots stole that one time.”

Before the guards escorted the newlyweds away, I said to Mother, “Why are you maintaining this charade of coupledom with John? We all know it’s just some ruse of yours to gain access to Fleur’s airship.”

“It may have started out that way, but I’ve grown to adore him.” Mother’s eyes sparkled as she spoke of her new husband. “He knows all the best bedroom moves, even those I often used to welcome distinguished guests to the White House, and ones with even more ill-gotten origins.”

I should have known better than to try to talk to her about this sort of thing.

John elbowed me jovially. “And I’ve always wanted a wife with a tattoo with the word ‘warning’ on her hip that she got when she learned how to make explosives out of feminine hygiene products. Keeps things interesting.”

“Move out,” I said to the guards. The quicker these two were off the zeppelin, the quicker my queasiness would abate.

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My Elbow had Been Bruised for Days

  • by jenNot underwear.
  • Fitz’s physical condition
  • The guy is a shit, right to the core.
  • every country music song
  • or none at all

Tune in next time part 727      Click Here for Earlier Installments

My elbow had been bruised for days after Fleur squeezed it that morning, because the dalliance she was describing had been with me, not Jason. Was she just fucking with me? Almost certainly, but to what extent I could not tell. What would it be like to have true, naked honesty with my wife? To stand before each other wearing nothing but vulnerability and earnestness: Not armor. Not lies. Not underwear. Not anything but love. Sadly I would never know.

The guards placed manacles on John and Mother. Their leader, Major Fitz, saluted Fleur. Fitz’s physical condition was such that his muscles nearly burst out of his uniform when he moved. Even so, I felt the need to warn him about his prisoners.

I pointed to John. “The guy is a shit, right to the core. He could be the villain in every country music song, or none at all because no one would actually want to write a song about him.” I pointed to my mother. “And she’s worse. Don’t put them in adjoining cells.”

Fitz saluted again, this time at me, and I heard the seams in his jacket creak.

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I Could Hardly Be Angry With My Wife

  • dressed in a sheer green sweater
  • If it is wintertime
  • I would have been prepared for the screams
  • inscribed with messages from the monarch
  • paralyzed by the atrocious confession

Tune in next time part 725      Click Here for Earlier Installments

I could hardly be angry with my wife for sleeping with my brother when I had slept with her sister, half-brother, and sister-in-law, and I could tell she regretted her actions. It was as if she were dressed in a sheer green sweater of shame, a garment both unattractive and impractical. If it is wintertime, anyway. Or if we crashed into the snowy mountains. That event seemed much less likely as John manipulated his magnet a final time and the airship’s engines hummed back to life. I would have been prepared for the screams of everyone aboard if we’d been shot down, but was happy not to hear them just the same.

“Good work, John,” I said. “Now let’s get you those pancakes.”

“He’ll have to eat them in the brig,” said Fleur. “I can’t allow someone so dangerous to roam freely about my blimp.”

“Then you should lock up my mother, too.”

The cells of Royal Contrarian Airship brigs are made of platinum bars inscribed with messages from the monarch, Fleur’s father. They taunt the prisoner for being inept enough to be caught at whatever misdeed they were up to. Mother would hate it.

As Fleur summoned guards to escort the newlyweds to their new accommodations, I decided to see if she was still under the spell of her truth-telling trigger phrase. “You seemed to expect me to be paralyzed by the atrocious confession you made a few moments ago,” I said. “Could it be that you regret your actions because you’ve grown fond of me?”

A declaration of love from my wife would be most unexpected, but I could think of few other reasons for her to want to keep her dalliance with Jason from me.

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People Often Don’t Believe Me

  • by jensinister to the core
  • the monkey and the plywood violin
  • “What a fucking cliché,”
  • skittering across the ice
  • “Do you suffer from sea sickness?”

Tune in next time part 721      Click Here for Earlier Installments

People often don’t believe me when I say that my mother is sinister to the core. They mention my numerous siblings and how joyful a large family is, they remember my fifth birthday party, when she hired the man with the monkey and the plywood violin to entertain us, and how idyllic that meant my childhood must have been. They ignore the stories of marital strife with my father, of early childhood espionage training exercises, of her highly questionable acts as president. “What a fucking cliché,” they say. “Everyone has mommy issues.” Well, my mommy issues were skittering across the ice of an airborne hockey rink, intent on starting a war.

“Do you suffer from sea sickness?” she asked me with mock sympathy. “Your face is awfully green.”

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Read This Way, the Message Still Said Nothing

  • by jenshorts held up by suspenders
  • while we limber up
  • experimented with it at parties
  • his revenge should be protracted and terrible
  • the precision and cold-blooded nature

Tune in next time part 641      Click Here for Earlier Installments

Read this way, the message still said nothing about the accompanying photo of my mother dressed only in shorts held up by suspenders. Perhaps I needed to rotate it 90 degrees and try it that way? I turned the page sideways, which made my brain cells scream, “Slow down while we limber up!”

Aha! The limbo code! Of course!

It had been outlawed at the Academy, but I and some of my fellow students learned about it and experimented with it at parties. I was one of the two who mastered it. John was the other. I recognized his handwriting now, and knew that if he learned Hildegard and her father had showed this letter to me, his revenge should be protracted and terrible with the precision and cold-blooded nature of a shark.

Was my new father-in-law trying to get me killed?

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Contrary to What Alfred Hitchcock Would Have You Believe

  • by jenextremely unlikely to do at a hotel
  • decorated with stuffed birds
  • staring at their tight asses and glistening abs
  • “I was very much surprised.”
  • imagine my surprise to receive this photograph of my mother

Tune in next time part 637      Click Here for Earlier Installments

Contrary to what Alfred Hitchcock would have you believe, murder is something most people are extremely unlikely to do at a hotel decorated with stuffed birds, which is why so many in the hospitality industry choose that design motif for their guest rooms. The discomfort in my bladder, though, was so great that I was considering bucking the trend and killing both Hildegard and her father so that I would be able to pee in peace, despite the frozen aviary surrounding me. In a bizarre Bumpengryndian touch, there were as many marble nudes as taxidermy fowl in the honeymoon suite. It was strange to imagine how many couples had spent their first night as a married couple amid these stone Adonises, staring at their tight asses and glistening abs, feeling (probably) inadequate by comparison.

These thoughts distracted me, and I relaxed almost enough to begin urinating. Then Hildegard’s father waved his silk handkerchief in my face, saying, “I was very much surprised.”

I swore under my breath as my bladder slammed shut and my kidneys groaned.

“Did you hear me?” my new father-in-law demanded. “I said I was very much surprised.”

“By what?” I said peevishly. “By the intrusion of virtual strangers into your bathroom?”

“There are no strangers in Bumpengrynd, my boy! No, I was surprised to find this in my mailbox today.” He thrust a large envelope at me. Inside was a salacious snapshot and a folded piece of paper.

He thought he was surprised? Well, imagine my surprise to receive this photograph of my mother dressed in only the bottom half of a Contrarian warlord’s dress uniform. While I sat on the toilet.

I hardly dared read the accompanying note.

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With Great Effort

  • by jenin the bathroom blowdrying her hair
  • still the only one to know
  • newly engaged couple
  • not gonna let you do that to Maxine
  • cause her bosoms to jiggle and sway

Tune in next time part 485      Click Here for Earlier Installments

With great effort I kept the disgust off my face. Of course I knew what medicine bottles this madwoman was talking about. I’d seen them on my mother’s nightstand when I searched her bedroom right before I moved out of the White House for good. Mother was in the bathroom blowdrying her hair at the time, and I never mentioned what I found to anyone. In fact I’m still the only one to know that terrible secret. I should have done something at the time, but Fleur and I were a newly engaged couple, just hours away from our lengthy wedding ceremony and I had bigger things to worry about.

Tatiana swooped in beside me and said, “Jason! I can tell by the set of your eyebrows that you’re about to burst into rap, and I’m not gonna let you do that to Maxine with no warning. She wouldn’t be able to stop herself from dancing, which would cause her bosoms to jiggle and sway. It would disrupt the entire auction.”

So, the puffer coat woman was Maxine. It was a name I had heard before.

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The Body of Water Mother Was Pointing At

  • k-avatarother worker won employee of the month
  • please put your hood back on
  • we’re trying to make our own luck
  • bedeck me in the other world
  • posted images of a coded note card

Tune In Next Time Part 37                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

The body of water Mother was pointing at was officially known as the Sea of Imbroglio, which was the nearest my father would ever come to a memorial. It formed in the same cataclysmic events that expanded and merged the Great Lakes, eradicated Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, and took Father’s life. Mother wept at its mere mention. Now it was to be the staging ground for her next big scheme?

The truth struck me like a jai-alai serve to the head. This wasn’t Mother, it was her twin sister, Aunt Züg! That was why she failed to recognize Freya or me. I squinted at Freya, trying to read her awareness of the ruse. Without the sitting president to back my play, it was too risky calling out Aunt Züg’s deception.

“Tessa, darling,” the ersatz Ambassador to South Dakota said, “have you seen Jason’s brother at all lately? I promised him to Jorgensen when this is all over.” Tessa shook her head. “I see. Now, please put your hood back on. Listen up, all of you. The recipe for revolution is three parts chance and two parts ideology, and we’re trying to make our own luck. None of us can afford to slouch like some other worker won employee of the month. It’s no use crying, ‘Let them bedeck me in the other world with ribbons and medals,’ for it’s in this world that the Ambassador to North Dakota posted images of a coded note card showing, we believe, the only weakness in his citadel’s defenses. It’s these ninjas and pirates whose alliance we must exploit. And it’s the precious treasure brought to us by Tessa — please lower your hood now — that makes it all possible!”

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