Emails from Lake Woe-Is-Me — Fit the ???

[Introduction: Melanie Stormm continues her humorous series of posts about the misdirected emails she’s been getting. Stormm is a multiracial writer who writes fiction, poetry, and audio theatre. Her novella, Last Poet of Wyrld’s End is available through Candlemark & Gleam. She is currently the editor at the SPECk, a monthly publication on speculative poetry by the SFPA. Find her in her virtual home at coldwildeyes.com. Wipe your feet before entering.]

IS WRITER X IN JAIL?

Hello All, Melanie here.

I’ve been under the weather all week, and to be honest, I’m still really fuzzy on what reality is or isn’t, and if you told me it was Tuesday and that Obamer is president, I’d believe you.

BUT. I didn’t get an email from X this week.

I slept most of the days she normally sends these (usually Thursday or Friday, sometimes Saturday at the latest.) At first, I thought she would likely be busy during the holiday and wouldn’t get an email out until late Friday night. Then I spent a considerable amount of time wondering who she would be spending her Thanksgiving with. Gladys? Ms. B___ who lives up the road and got a palm-reading? Does X have family in town? She never mentions it. 

My kids helped prepare our Turkey-Day meal. In a feverish fit, I honestly thought about sending her a plate but decided against it as it would mean sending my partner out driving into the night in the direction of a New Hampshire town we haven’t been able to find on a map. We have a lot of goodwill toward each other and don’t mind going the extra mile, but that would be a big ask, even so. At some point, I wrote “how to get across reality?” in the notebook I keep beside my bed for when I remember some doctor’s appointment or birthday in the middle of the night.  

So, we didn’t send a plate of Thanksgiving goodness across realities. 

And I decided that X spent Thanksgiving with Ms. B___ or Gladys, or Marjory, or possibly everyone in the entire town of Cradensburg, and that let me sleep.

But yesterday (that would be Saturday at the time of this writing which is late Sunday), I woke up at about 4:30 a.m. with a strong feeling that—not only had I not received an email, but that I wouldn’t. You know how you just know something, but you don’t know how you know? Nothing generates a generous dose of anxiety as knowing something that certainly.

I got up and immediately tried to prove myself wrong. I went through my inboxes—all of them. I went through spam and trash and…nothing. Nada. Zilch.

Then I began to re-read her older emails. I found one tiny but also kind-of-huge detail that I managed to miss. 

X was planning to break into the Grim Hill House at 7:30 pm on Thanksgiving. This was, of course, to accomplish the uber-important goal of retrieving her right croc that she had flung at the Head of Brian a month or so ago. Given what I’ve gathered about her personality, I think X went through with it. But also, given what I’ve gathered about her personality, I don’t think she’s exactly a ninja…

I may be fever-delusional, and she’ll get me an email tomorrow or maybe even late tonight and that I’m overreacting, but I honest-to-goodness worry that she may have been arrested. 

And, if she was, that means that maybe her “protege” R___ was arrested, too? That poor kid. He’s already run for the hills once. Now that X has messed with the timeline, she has earned a second chance, and he has earned a negative integer chance.

I dunno. Do you think I’m overreacting? 

If I knew the right numbers to call, I’d call the sheriff’s office in Cradensburg, but that’s been a nothing burger of a google search. 

Maybe I’m overreacting. 

It’s Tuesday, right? 

And Obamer is president?

10 thoughts on “Emails from Lake Woe-Is-Me — Fit the ???

  1. @Melanie Stormm: It’s Tuesday; that’s all I can confirm from here, in my reality. 😉

    Maybe X is having e-mail or computer or internet woes. Hopefully not arrested! But there are a lot of possibilities between mystery and an arrest. Fingers crossed it’s a legal-but-entertaining explanation and it shows up eventually!

  2. @Kendall, thank you!

    You know, I TOTALLY hadn’t even considered that it might be internet/electrical problems. Fever mode is “end-of-the-world mode” in my head, apparently.

    Either way, I hope we hear from her soon!

  3. Good call on not trying to send food. Cross-reality travel is especially tricky around the holidays. Hope you are better soon.

  4. Thanks, Jim!
    I had my first day of not sleeping 14 hours straight through the night so it’s finally looking up.
    Do you have any cross-reality travel service you recommend? x-D

  5. It’s hard to say. Books, as previously noted, are extremely dangerous things, the tesseracts are full of mimes, and many of the nicer realities now have travel bans (to limit the spread of toxic craziness). And don’t get me started on the so-called delivery services. An egg a month from all over? Hard pass on that one.

  6. Pingback: Emails from Lake Woe-Is-Me — Fit the Sixteenth | File 770

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