Emails From Lake Woe-Is-Me — Fit the Sixty-Fifth

[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.]

STEPHEN KING’S SHADOW

Hello All! Melanie here.

If you watched the Super Bowl: I hope your tailgate was strong and you experienced all the desired exhilarating highs and lows of that great gridiron drama.

If you instead spent your Sunday playing D&D with friends: I hope your dice were lucky and you experienced all the highs and lows of bafflement over that one bard friend who never met a Gelatinous Cube they didn’t want to romance. 

Without further ado…


Subject: URGENT!!!!!1 WHAT IS STEPHEN KING’S EMAIL

Dear Gladys,

Please pick up your phone. I’m watching you from my car. I know you’re in Mr. Morgan’s buying winter picnic items from their new sushi bar!! I can’t imagine why you’re ignoring me.

Is this about me calling you at 2:43 a.m. screaming about the leopard in my backyard??? Because that was AN EMERGENCY!!!!!

xox,

X

P.S. Your new plenty of fish profile picture isn’t your best choice. You should change it. I should know: I’m an expert on romance.

sent from my iPhone


Subject: THE FLASHING LIGHTS IS ME

Dear Gladys,

It’s nice to see you are dating again in spite of your awful plenty of fish picture. Once you find your date again, please tell him to calm down. I think I saw him run under the covered bridge over Farm Hill creek.

You may be wondering who’s in the car behind the flashing high beams that have followed you and your date around the park in the dark for the past two hours. IF you’d pick up your phone, you’d know it’s me. THIS IS AN EMERGENCY. I’m supposed to be WRITING and I NEED STEPHEN KING’S EMAIL ADDRESS STAT so I can get back to writing!!!!

It’s too dangerous for me to get out of the car. Will explain later.

xox,

X

P.S. Your date is very good looking. However, I can tell he’s not from Cradensburg. Only a crazy person would try hiding from a stalker on that covered bridge. What with the troll and all.

sent from my iPhone


Subject: Nevermind. Tryxy’s home!!!

Dear Gladys,

Now that Tryxy and #bestkitten are home from the library I feel safe to re-enter my house. Cancel the last two emails and sixty two voice messages re: Stephen King’s email. We walked in to all our lights on, the popcorm popper running, and the television playing Turner Classic Movies on full volume but the house was empty.

No harm, no foul.

xox,

X

P.S. I heard something about fire and rescue going up to Farm Hill Park to contain the troll. Where would you like me to send condolence flowers for your brief but exciting love life?


Subject: People Magazine Interview

Dear Gladys,

I have REALLY grown. Not that I’ve ever been immature. This year, instead of summoning a demon to work my day job while I stay home and write, I’m working on WORK LIDFE BALANCE.

As you know, I sold a MIGHTY amount of custom tractors on Monday and Tuesday and, to treat myself, I took today off from work to focus on my writing.

I spent the first three hours of my day fine-tuning my writing area’s feng shui

oh no

it’s back

Oh! Wait! False alarm! Hahahahaha, thought I saw my shadow move there on the wall but it was just a bird flying past my window.

Where was I? You know how I tend to sit in front of my computer for hours at a time and still get absolutely no writing done??? (A SIGN OF MY GENIUS!!!!) Well, I decided to give myself OTHER STUFF TO DO instead of stair at my screen. I added a laser pointer for me to lure #bestkitten into my writing space and play with me whenever I want to avoid thinking about plot.

You know those moments when I’m staring at a blank page and I can’t for the LIFE of me figure out what to write and TIME DRAGS TO AN EXCRUCIATING CRAWL, RUNS OUT OF GAS, WHEEZES, AND DIES???

In a special STROKE of BRILLIANCE, I added an additional 36” monitor near my writing space PERMANENTLY set to Facebook so that I can see ALL of the mindless posts, stories, and random ads for extra strength deodorant or pimple zappers from Korea IN A SINGLE GLANCE AWAY FROM MY SCREEN. That way I can get sucked in for what feels like two minutes but really turns out to be an hour an a half THUS RESTORING THE FLUIDITY OF TIME!!!!!

This is why I need you to contact your friend Bianca at People Magazine

oh god

why did my Facebook screen just change to Turner Classic Movies????

Gladys….that’s not my shadow falling on the wall beside my desk.

Quick! Go get Tryxy from work and bring him home IMMEDIATELY!!!! It’s back!!!!! I need to start shooting out these lights!!!!!

xixoxcc,

X

P.S. You still haven’t changed your dating profile pic, GLADYS!!!!! Please ignore all the messages in your plenty of fish account. I signed up for an account to bring it to your attention so you could change it.

I’m not trying to date you


Subject: PLEASE HACK STEPHEN KING’S TWITTER

Dear Gladys,

If you are looking for me, I’m in my snow suit hiding under Ben Henkel’s land rover parked near the town green. I’m probably not going to stay here, but as I was fleeing my house I slipped on some ice outside the Sweeney’s house and slid all the way down Horn Hill with the entire town watching me scream until I disappeared under Henkel’s car and, if it’s okay with you, I’m just going to stay here until I gather what’s left of my dignity.

In the meanwhile, I need you to hack Stephen King’s twitter account and have him UNBLOCK ME.

My phone is almost out of battery so when you’re done, just drop by the town green and stick your head below Ben Henkel’s bumper and let me know. Also: the waistband on my snow suit is caught on his front axle so you can see my boots sticking out.

xox,

X

P.S I think I just saw your date from the other night exciting the pharmacy. Ms. M____ from the library said hello to him and he shrieked and ran into the bushes. Definitely new here. He’ll learn.

sent from my iPhone


Subject: I STOLE A OUIJA BOARD

Dear Gladys,

For reasons that I’ll explain later, I stole a Ouija board from the Mantra shop. However, they don’t take apple pay and so I had to sneak out with the goods while they were demonstrating deep meditation to a new customer. I forgot my wallet at home. Please go by and pay for my ouija board before they have a chance to review their security cameras.

IF THE POLICE COME TO MY HOUSE AND ARREST ME AGAIN, IT’S YOUR FAULT, GaLDSY!!!!

xox,

X

P.S. I saw your date from the other night at the mantra shop. He bought a candle for repelling bridge trolls and another for irresistible sex appeal and had your name carved into it. Isn’t that romantic?

sent from my iPhone


Subject: How does this read to you?

Dear Gladys,

Please review this email I wrote to Stephen King and then send it to him IMMEDIATELY. I texted you his email address as I think he has me blocked.

Dear Mr. Stephen King,

Please come get your shadow. You have misplaced it. It has started to frequent my house for four hours each day and has caused me A LOT of grief.

First of all, you should know that I am the next big epic fantasy writer of ALL TIME and you of all people should be working very hard to make sure that I GET MY WRITING DONE and that I am FREE to DISTRACT MYSELF from ever getting my writing done in my OWN UNIWQUE WAYS.

If I wanT to get sucked into a Facebook feed for two minutes and emerge from it two hours later, THAT’S AN IMPORTANT PART OF MY PROCESS. If I want to lure #bestkitten to come play with me and walk all over my keyboard so that at least SOME SEMBLANCE OF WRITING GETS DONE, THAT’S MY prerogative.

However, for four hours a day, YOUR SHADOW makes it IMPOSSIBLE for me to write by turning on Turner Classic Movies and endless YouTube playlists of AC/DC!!!!!

How am I supposed to work my noble and lofty craft while BON SCOTT drawls about the plenitudinous nature of his charity balls???????

WORSE THAN THAT, whne I POLITELY asked your shadow to leave, its eyes began to glow shining yellow on the wall and its silhouette resembled that of a clown with a gaping maw of needle-like teeth and it leered at me while gripping a fistful of balloons. AND THEN it had the nerve TO OFFER ME ONE!!!!!

Of course, everyone knows I’m terrified of balloons and I was forced to quickly evacuate my own house on multiple occasions in search of help!!!!

Fortunately for both of us, I am a RESOURCEFUL writer and I stole-bought a ouija board to GET TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS and communicate with your distracting shadow before he offers me another balloon!!

Mr. King, I will have you know that in the many decades you have faithfully made yourself write for FOUR HOURS A DAY shutting out all distractions, your writing shadow has been BORED TO TEARS. Did you EVER in all your decades of writing THINK OF HIS NEEDS????? HMMMM?????

You should be ashamed of yourself. I never treat my writing shadow this way and give a steady flow of social media and playing with my cat during my writing time.

FYI, your shadow will NOT be returning at the end of your writing time today. I am holding it hostage with the temptation of binge-watching Stranger Things.

If you don’t come apologize and collect your shadow and give it some sort of stimulation you will force me to walk down to the shadow of the police station and report you for having neglected your shadow!!!

Please come pick him up write away. In the meanwhile, I will be taking it down to the temporary ice skating rink in the town green because children seem to make it happy.

It has so many balloons. Shudder.

xox,

X

P.S. Gladys, I notice you were arrested for kung fuing your creepy date in the face. Well that went sideways. I will be bailing you out soon but I need you to SEND THAT EMAIL to Stephen King. The JAIL HAS EMAIL. I should know, I’ve been there SEVERAL Times!!!!

HAVE BEEN

AT THE

LIBRARY

ALL WEEK

STUDYING.

IT HELPS

WITH

DISTRACTION.

OUR LIBRARY

HAS SO

MANY COOL

THINGS.

THIS WEEK

I LEARNED

THEY HAVE

A TIME

MACHINE

BUT IT

WAS ALREADY

CHECKED OUT.

4 thoughts on “Emails From Lake Woe-Is-Me — Fit the Sixty-Fifth

  1. My library has a waffle iron that makes Death Star waffles, but no time machine yet. Or anymore.

    (Also, my D&D group has a bard that would absolutely try to romance a gelatinous cube….)

  2. I love that you note that your library doesn’t have a Time Machine anymore…did someone check it out and not return it?

    My local library is great, but it doesn’t have a Death Star Waffle maker and I’m seeing this needs to change.

  3. My hypothesis is that it DID/WILL have a time machine, but whoever has it checked out now has been/is being/will be careless….

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