[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.]

THE QUESTION AT LAST

Hello All, Melanie here.

Last week Writer X sent us a brief email with a special menu for writers from the Cradensburg restaurant Fish! Fish! Fish! Usually, she discloses much more about her latest plans to take over the fantasy writing world by (not) writing the next big epic fantasy saga of all time.

I was surprised at the short length.

X had other things on her mind, however. She had secured a brainwashing device and was on her way to meet fantasy writer and ex-boyfriend Tod Boadkins for dinner so that she could:

1.) Use this device to repair damage from a renegade gnome who’d stunned Tod with it, and

2.) Win Tod back while getting him to move in with her.

After all, when Tod is around, X is in the mood to write more, and that’s the ultimate aphrodisiac for a writer like Writer X, I’d think. 

We might have heard from her if the dinner went well, but I didn’t overthink it when we didn’t. Turns out, when you set a person like X loose with a brainwashing device in a restaurant like Fish! Fish! Fish! Expect…delays.

Without further ado…

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Subject: A Romantic!!! Dinner! at F!ish Fi!sh Fis!h

Dear! Gladys,

I know I told you last week that I was heading! to see my ex boyfriend, award nominated fantasy writer Tod Boadkins but that brain!washing device I gnicked off the gnomes is a piiiiinchhh touchier than I was expecting. Needless to say, my dinner date at Fish! Fsi!h F!ish was delayed because I accidentally got myself a few times. But I’ve! pretty much gotten over it without side!effects.

Speaking of the device, I wouldn’t really call it a brainwashing device so much as a brai!n stunning device. One misplaced flash from the blasted thing and you!re waking up on the roof of Mr. Morgan’s Food Emporium wearing a mysterious set of flip flops and a handcuff hanging from your left ear. THE!Y ShOULD FIX! IT WITH A WARNING! LABEL!!

Not to worry though whether brain washing or brain stunning, I’ve now got everything I! need for a romantic! dinner! at! Fish!

Fishfish!!

That reminds me, Gladys, I keep meaning to ask you if you’ve seen any angels around because I keep finding angel feathers in my backyard.

I just got an idea!!!!!

Anyhoo, I’m sure you’re dying to know how my writing is going and I’ll tell you just as soon as I try my latest idea to fix the hairtrigger on this brainstunning thing.

x!ox,

X!

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Subject: A Ro!mantic! D!inner! at F!!ish !Fi!sh !Fis!h

Dear! Gladys!!,

I know I told you last week that I was! heading to see my ex boyfriend, award-nominated fantasy writer Tod Boadkins but that! brainwash!ing device I gnicked! off the gnomes is a haaaaaaiiiiiiiirrrrrrr touchier than I! was expecting. Needless to say, my dinner date at Fish! Fish! !Foosh was delayed because I accidentally! got myself a few times. But I’ve! pretty much gotten over it without!!! sideeffects.

Speaking! of the device, I wouldn’t really call! it a brainwashing device so much as a !!!!brain stunning device. One misplaced! flash from the stupid thing and you’re waking up in the men’s rest!room of the Stuff! Someone Threw Away Boutique covered in vaseline! with an empty bottle of handsanitizer! and a bendy straw. THEY SHOULD FiX IT WITH! A WARNING!!!! LABEL.

Btw, have I mentioned the angel feathers I keep finding! in my backyard???!? Don’t think I have!.

Anyhoo, I’m sure! you’re dying to know how my writing is going but I can’t tell you! because I’m on my way to a slightly more postponed dinner date! with my exboyfriend, award nominated fantasy writer Tod!! Boadkins. I need to get to the! restaurant before he does so I can set up this! device without! him seeing it!!!!

x!ox,

X

P.S!!!. Can I borrow your angel harpoon?? I’m worried whatever angel hanging! by my house will harass! Tryxy so I want to gnip! this problem in the bud!

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Subject: It’s! a Qwonderful night

Dear Gladys!,

I have to tell you all about my night with my boyfriend award! nominated fantasy wrtier Tod Boadkins. Things got off to a rocky start.

First, I found the perfect place to set up my brainstunning device! so that I wouldn’t! accidentally blast myself to next Tuesday when! I took it out of my purse. Like I did last Tuesday. You know the little elevated table! next to the water feature and the giant tentacled beast they just got? PERFECT!! You get a view of all the tables, at least 9 of the 37 thrashing tentacles of the beast, it’s romantic! Not to mention there’s all the ficus plants which served as the perfect prop for my brain! device.

All I did was unplug a little ultrasonic instrument by the giant tentacled beast tank because the cord was in the way of the ficus I need and the manager threw a fit!!! She raged! about me unplugging the ultrasonic doo-hickey and told me the elevated table was reserved for a restaurant critic that night. In a happy accident, she unwittingly hoisted the ficus that the brain washing device was balanced on and POOF!!, my boyfriend and I had the perfect view and there wasn’t any more talk about that silly ultrasonic!!! thingy.

The second hiccup was when my exboyfriend-now boyfriend again award nominated fantasy writer Tod Boadkins walked in. He was happy enough to see me but you know I’m a VERY perceptive person Galdsy and I could tell right away that he was acting guilty and sheepish and that he’d been sleeping on microfiber! sheets instead of Cotton!! I almost blasted his brain to blinkers right then and there, but! something told me to stay my hand.

Of course he was stunned! by how shiny my skin was from all that vaseline but that admiration was cut short when the giant tentacled beast started acting up. First it seemed more “thrashy” than usual, then it got more “toothy”, and the next thing you know it had broken through its mesh tank cap and seized a server by the waist. Next thing, it hung her by the suspenders on the chandelier. It was hard! to focus on all the nice things my boyfriend was saying to me about myself but I managed.

Apparently he’s been doing a lot of thinking about himself, his attitudes to relationships, his writing, and our relationship. He confessed that writing his first fantasy novel Broken Tides was part of his therapy after his ex wife left him for a Peruvian lion tamer.

I told him that I understood completely because when my lover C___ was pretty much killed due to his involvement! with Brian and The Society, I healed my broken heart by becoming the next big epic fantasy writer of all time and writing my nine book epic fantasy saga. He gave me this blinky squint and said, “Did you ever finish writing the first book?” and I growled, “That’s not the point.” And he stammered, “Of course not.” And then the giant tentacled beast slithered three black tentacles across fifteen feet of floor and started dragging itself and its WHOLE TANK toward an aquarium of terrified lobsters.

Oddly enough, that’s when a quaking server sat an angel at a table near ours and I started thinking deep thoughts about harpoons. I won’t! let an angel pick on our Tryxy! You have to watch the neighborhood or everything goes downhill fast!!! I live on a hill!!! I should know!!!

What was I saying??!? Right. I felt like my boyfriend was taking too long to get to apologizing and moving in with me so I stuck out my foot to give the ficus a shake and set off the brain blaster. But when I wiggled my toes, the plant! wasn’t there anymore!!!! It had been tipped over by the giant tentacled beast. The brainwashing device was now angled at the server who had seated the angel.

Anyhoo, that’s when my boyfriend, award nominated fantasy writer Tod Boadkins, explained that he’s been talking to his litraumatologist about how he developed Second Book Syndrome in the first place. Apparently, he had developed a superstitious belief that he could only write well when he was single and, while he didn’t want to break! up with me, he subconsciously neglected things for a few months because he was afraid his second book wouldn’t be as good as his first.

I needed him to repeat this because there was a blinding flash of light and the server by the angel went thump. Flat out on the floor!! Of course I barely had time to notice this because four more of the giant tentacled beast’s tentacles slithered out of the tank and in our direction so we had to hide under the table for a little while.

I was really wondering when award nominated fantasy writer Tod Boadkins would get to the point. He’s usually so concise but it seemed like he was taking the long way round his explanation and it was getting much harder to hear him with all the screaming. It’s usually so atmospheric at Fis!h fiSh1 Fish!, I wonder! what happened???

That’s when my boyfriend blurted that after I took care of him for all those weeks he recovered from Second Book Syndrome, he realized that—for complicated! reasons—he had been a negligent boyfriend, some of it was fear of rejection, but there was no excuse.

“I know,” I said. “For a little while there, I forgot I had a boyfriend.”

He looked horrible in the shadows there beneath the table. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I made you feel that way.”

I said, “No, I mean, I literally forgot.”

He said, “Oh…oh. I’m glad you’re not done with me. Well, do you think they’re ready to take our drink order?”

As we climbed out from beneath the table, I dodged a bucket of melted butter flying over our heads and studied the drinks menu.

“I’m really glad you’ve apologized. I was hurt because Tryxy and I went through the trouble of having the house renovated so that you could move in and the next thing I know you’ve left with a note about all good things must end and you wouldn’t return my calls. If I didn’t know you so well I could have mistaken you for breaking up with me!!!”

The manager shrieked, dragging herself on all fours up to our private mezzanine. Tentacles slithered and slapped around her but she was desperately focused on the wall behind the ficuses.

My boyfriend noticed! none of this. He stared at me, his mouth hanging open. “You want me to move in with you?”

The manager stretched out quivering fingers and clasped the unplugged ultrasonic device, groaning incomprehensible words of joy and relief. 

“Of course!” I said. “Didn’t I ask?”

Just as the manager approached the wall outlet, ten black tentacles came crashing down. They whipped away the ultrasonic device and flung three or four ficuses in the air. I looked up at the mirrored ceiling of Fish! Fis!h Figgle and spied my brain stunning device spinning in the reflection high above. I also thought I saw Tryxy sitting at the table with the angel but that had to be a side effect because that’s just silly.

“No,” was the last thing I heard my boyfriend, award nominated fantasy writer Tod Boadkins say. Then there was a blinding flash and my boyfriend and I woke up in the local drunk tank smelling of seawater and butter, but that didn’t matter because we have eachother.

And this fine for disturbing the peace for some reason.

And an iguana.

Pages next week Gladys!!!!

xo!x,

X!!!!

OH NO.

DO YOU

THINK SHE’S

FIGURED

OUT

MY

SECRET?

THIS IS

BAD.

BAD BAD

BAD.