Three Word Wednesday- Zombie Apocalypse

Prompts:

Feral, adjective: (especially of an animal) in a wild state, especially after escape from captivity or domestication; resembling a wild animal.

Insatiable, adjective: (of an appetite or desire) impossible to satisfy; (of a person) having an insatiable appetite or desire for something, especially sex.

Shred, noun: tatter, scrap, strip, ribbon, rag, fragment, sliver, (tiny) bit/piece; scrap, bit, speck, iota, particle, ounce, whit, jot, crumb, morsel, fragment, grain, drop, trace, scintilla, spot; informal smidgen; verb: chop finely, cut up, tear up, grate, mince, macerate, grind.

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      I placed the salt in my dead boyfriend’s mouth and carefully sewed stitches. Peter would not be one of those awaken by the bokor spreading her potions around for the Kurama no Hi-Matsuri / the Kurama Fire Festival. Nor would any of the other fifty people I had dug up. The back loader I had borrowed had come in handy for digging up all the coffins. The bokor, KiIkongo, thought she could defeat me by offering her elixir at 25 percent off to those foolish enough to try the zombie max, but I would stop her.

     I thought I had known things that would stop her; for I had known that her real name wasn’t even KiIkongo. But the council wouldn’t listen to me or any of my ideas. They trusted someone who hid behind an alias; they heard her out. The bokor had claimed I was delusional and had turned feral and insatiable in my quest  to punish her for Peter’s death. Did I blame her for Peter’s death? Of course I did. She had moved against Peter to stop me, but I wouldn’t let her take him in death. His body would not be one of her army. He was safe now I had seen to that she couldn;t make him one of her army and have him shred his skin like the rest.

      I had begged city council to forbid the festival, but all they cared about was tourism. They wouldn’t or couldn’t believe me that the KiIkongo’s plan was not only reviving the dead, but poisoning and enslaving the living too. She wanted a willing army to help her take over the city, then the state, then the countries, one by one. They insisted I take some time off and step down from being mayor. That grief had overtaken my senses, but I knew the truth and she couldn’t silence me. I had time to stop her. The festival began at six pm and continued past midnight. Tall fires would be lit in front of homes to open the ceremony; then children would carry torches to the shrine where that too would be carried through the night. I would torch homes and those who would join the parade they would be so busy putting out those fires they wouldn’t join the bokor. She wouldn’t have access to them only those she animated in the cemetery and I had dug enough of them up to prevent her from animate most of them. I had studied the ancient rituals of my grandmother who was a sangoma. I too could be a healer and restore our people, burning the sacred plants like the silver bush everlasting flower to save them. The smoke from these would counteract her medicines. I would defeat the hold she had over the zombies and save my town. I would win and she would lose her hold over my people.

    I felt the hands that overtook me and knew Kilkongo had won.

     I heard “She’s extremely delusional. She believes she’s becoming a flesh eating zombie. That she is under the control of the bokor. Keep her room locked and guarded  at all times.”

     The zombies sought to fool me by speaking instead of grunting . I knew this was it; we would all be zombies soon. I surrendered and became what I feared the most. These fools would all join me soon.

©Sheilagh Lee February 19, 2014

Happy Valentine's Day

In the language of flowers, this yellow rose from my garden offers joy and friendship. 

Three Word Wednesday - Tina

Prompts:

Cruel, adjective (crueler, cruelest): willfully causing pain or suffering to others, or feeling no concern about it; causing pain or suffering.

Ghastly, adjective (ghastlier, ghastliest): causing great horror or fear; frightful or macabre; informal objectionable; unpleasant; extremely unwell; deathly white or pallid.

Unkempt, adjective (especially of a person) having an untidy or disheveled appearance.

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                                                    Tina

    The young teenage girl yawned then grimaced as she limped across the floor her cane click on it. Tired of being in pain, of not feeling normal, like every other eighteen year old, she had became resigned; her leg wasn’t getting any better the surgery had not been a success, if anything it had made it worse.  Her leg wouldn’t seem to heal and she needed this damn cane to walk. Therapy made it worse so she had recently given that up. Now she spent her days going to doctors who hummed and hawed and her nights trying to sleep with pain. The doctors had no idea why her leg wasn’t better and why at eighteen years old she had the knees of a sixty year old woman. Nor did they understand why the pain seemed to be spreading throughout her body. One doctor had actually insinuated it was all in her head. Life had sent her a cruel twist and she had to accept it. She as discouraged depressed and felt like crying, but she couldn’t let her mother see how it affected her daughter. Mother and father worked long hard hours as security guards to support their remaining two children and now that she wasn’t working she felt like a burden. Her younger brother tried to amuse her and spent long hours playing board games and watching television with her when he was home from school but long hours stretched out when she was all alone and she brooded about her condition and felt sorry for herself.

      The snow outside came down in sheets of white, big flakes covering the ground and mounting up. Her brother home from school, wanted dinner so she cooked dinner for them both and then they sat at the table playing monopoly. Her leg pained her and she placed it on another chair resting it. They heard the wind whistling outside then howling as the storm got worse. They were glad their parents were working the night shift so they didn’t have to come home in this. The wind clamoured loudly again sounding like a scream. The scream of a cat, a ghastly sound of a animal howling in a pain and cold was heard. The girl got up from her seat, followed by her brother. As they looked outside in the vast white, they saw a speck of black in the snow by the back fence.

     They put on their coats and boots and went out into the yard the girl offering a small blanket to wrap the frightened cat in. The boy took the blanket from the girl and grabbed the scared calico cat and brought it into the warm house. The girl took the cat unwrapping it only to reveal its fur and with a warm washcloth she gently washed the cat’s fur which was unkempt and matted in places. The cat softly mewed from time to time and at times purred at the girl’s ministrations. It climbed on furniture and perched high above humans, cats and the dog.

                                                    (This is Tina)

     She sat the cat down and the feline ran under the sofa and hid at the back. The girl fetched cat food from the kitchen as their cat looked on in disdain. The other cat, Whiskers, the boy’s cat, snarled he wasn’t happy another cat had invaded his space, nor was Smokey two who also snarled.

    The girl bent down with difficulty and placed a plate of cat food and water under the couch. She heard the cat greedily devour the food and went she peeked under a few minutes later the food was gone. Day after day the girl did this as the cat only came out to use the litter box when humans were in bed. The girl resisted the urge to pet the cat. She'd had a cat that she loved before and it had died she wouldn't become attached again. One night as the girl struggled to sleep, the cat entered her room and jumped on her bed. It snuggled up against her leg and purred. This made the girl smile even though the cat’s actions had pained her. 

    The girl called the cat Tina. She took the cat to a vet to tend its wounds and make sure it was well and found out it had been beaten and kicked probably because it was pregnant. Tina gave the girl purpose she had something to think about other than herself and she began to get a little better. She could tolerate the pain better and walk without the cane for short distance. Tina loved her and often came to her when she was at her worst to be petted. Petting Tina always made her feel better, even if it didn’t take away the pain. She loved the cat and when it gave birth to two kittens on that looked exactly like the mother and a black kitten she wished she could keep them both but they already had three cats, two more, would be too many. She found good homes for the kittens and then felt bad when the cat searched for her kitten that echoed her. Three years later, still searching for her kitten, Tina snuck out of the house one morning and a neighbour who hated cats poisoned her. Though the girl took her to the vet to save her nothing could be done. The girl grieved for the cat and vowed never to have cat again, but each time she saw other people with cats she remembered Tina and treated them kindly, petting them and paying attention to them and wondered if she could survive having a cat again. She always decided she could not. Tina held that place in her heart that she could share with no other animal. Tina had saved her when she was lost she could never be replaced.

©Sheilagh Lee February 12, 2014

Happy Groundhog Day

       

        

Wiarton Willie of Ontario fame and Punxsutaney Phil both predicted six more weeks of winter but you know the calendar says that anyway. Right? Don't lose hope Spring will arrive.

 Shubenacadie Sam of Novia Scotia fame and Fred la Marmotte of Val d'Espoir, a town in Quebec Gaspésie region, both predicted and early spring but we know they're just tired of winter like the rest of us.