Bee Person Apology

I'm still constructing... I know I don't have many followers, but hang tight. Fabulosity pending!

Meet The Creepers

In honor of Halloween I wanted to bring forth to mind one of our most beloved fictional families, the Addams’. When Charles Addams created the Addams Family for the New Yorker in 1938, who knew why his creations would become iconic. Perhaps it is because the addams have inspired so many other inverted families (the Munsters and the Elliots for example). Perhaps it is because of the profound love they share, perhaps it is that they, in some ways, remind us of our own wayard families. Whatever the case, We love the Addams Family. Some of you know I’ll be going as Wednesday Addams for Halloween and I wanted to share with you all some of Charles’ early work. Happy Haunting!

Minor Update.

I have decided to start a lower key version of Bee Person on Tumblr. My new page is called Fetch. Its quicker for me and more pleasant aesthetically. If you would like to visit my new page, please click the word "Fetch" above . Enjoy!

Excuses

I know its been so long since I've posted here, but my brain is stuck and I feel like a fool lending you guys to the assumption that my writing has stopped. A lot of the time, I just can't think. Which, now, leads me to the totally inevitable re-evaluation, de-construction and re-construction of this blog. I now give you: Bee Person Revision.

Im gonna start posting on here, not just fiction, but thoughts and art. I hope people don't find it as dull as many I think might, but for now, I have to be as forthright as I can. I'm speaking to followers and non-followers alike, contrariwise. Thats logic.

Anyway, gimme an inch and I'll give you a mile back.

Love always,

Mithy

PS: In the meantime, while I'm working, please enjoy these pictures of scary ass princesses, compliments of Jeffery Thomas



COPY AND PASTE FOR ALL!!! http://jeftoonportfolio.blogspot.com/2009/02/twisted-princess.html

Halstead House

In my experience and the experience of those with whom I've had the pleasure of speaking with all these years, it is the nature of notable places to instill in some a set of oblique wonder; and so it was with Halstead House, sitting quietly and bedded down within the glum and greenery of Northern Tisbury. The once-plantation house was rustic, marked with age and set with such experience that those who would visit regarded it well. Decked in light-blue siding and pale gray trim, the house stood alone among sprawling lawns and dense groupings of fir and fringe tree. A wide porch, white-washed and sturdy wrapped itself around the house, a becoming bastion to such apparent firmament. Such a place stood in decrepit majesty, a faded old maid, retired in her prime of life.

I am not an eclectic man by any means. In fact, so much do I loathe New England in midwinter, what with its dark skies, swollen clouds and deep chill that I despaired to go about my way that evening. From the my collegue's house I departed, following the pedestrian trail back to my cottage in Edgartown. It was by this way. I found myself turned around, nearly drowning as the ominous clouds opened up in a torrent; assailed, I dashed madly along the path, heading toward lights I had seen in the brush. Thus was the means in which I first came about Halstead house on the eve of St. Lucia's.

I attempted the warped steps of Halstead, seeking shelter from what I knew must be the second great flood; I rapped upon the door with such celerity as if I were haunted by something oncoming. Within seconds, my call was answered by the releasing of a latch, the twisting of a deadbolt; the door opened, bathing my sodden form in the warm light inside.

"Yes?" said the boy who answered the door with caution. Quite young was he, in fact, within a year or two of eleven and still in short pants.

"I apologize for my intrusion," said I, "But I was on my way home and have lost my way in the storm."

The boy gazed at me, lit from behind, strange shadows traveling over his face. There he stood, His eyes captious, exacting more from me then what I had already provided.

"Please, may I come in?" I am aggrieved to say my words came out in a whimper, so daunted was I by the boy's strangeness. Admittedly, it was my predilection simply to leave. However, with a scowl the child allowed me to enter, holding the door back over the threshold. As I shook myself of the damp, the boy, with brows still furrowed, bade me follow him to the parlor. I complied.

As I had yet to understand my newly sought shelter, as I had yet to fully comprehend my whereabouts (the region, the house, the very hour) I could in no way hold any prior expectation of the place to where I was being led by this fair haired, glowering boy. The sitting room was wide, warm with firelight and rich with the smell of cleaning ammonia and an underlying node of a woman's perfume. I had before me, a niche cut out from the rest of the house, the rest of New England and the world perhaps. There, I was humbled by a sense of glamour, a room once trod by slippered feet and brushed by silken hems. An aura of rapture confronted me as I placed my feet upon the floor, as my eyes played over the heavy drapes alive with the movement of fire-shadows and the slight breeze from an open window. Here, a chaise beside the fire, a pianoforte beside, and shelves of books, leather-bound and brooding; there, a card table and a mantle displaying fresh flowers and the Lady Elgin in a bottle. Oriented, I intuited before me a consciousness of past, the presence of ghastly figures and lithe tinkling of music causing them to sway, causing them to wrap slender fingers around one another, around glasses of champagne and luxurious garment threads. I took in the perception of low mumblings, the fine rumbling of delighted conversation, the warmth of a young woman's flush and the boisterous laughter of her fellow. The air of the room shook off its more modern redolence and claimed the sweet odor of Perique, the sharp pangs of alcohol and the sweat of many finely dressed denizens pressed together in intimacy. Family members, close friends, business associates and lovers gathered in a fete of jubilant decadence, shaken not by the weather or the present foreboding which, in turn, grasped at my heart in a sudden twinge.

My anxiety and the rich, liquid voice of a woman dripped into the room, and I, shaken from my fancy, turned to see the slight figure leaning at the entrance of the parlor. The lady of the house, or so I assumed, gazed at me with the cold solicitude.

"Good sir." Said she, her voice deep and melodic "It seems you are dripping water upon my floor."

Surprised, I looked down at the ends of my duster and saw this was so, evidence of the deluge outside collecting into a large puddle at my feet.

"Forgive me." I cleared my throat as the woman entered, circling me once; then, upon inspection came behind me as a hostess would and removed my coat from me, fine dexterous fingers wrapping daintily about its lapels as it slid off my back. Taking the coat she gestured to the chaise by the fire.

"Please. Do sit."

Note: This piece is not yet finished. It is a Henry James inspired ghost story without a ghost... or a story. If you have any ideas to help me move forward with this, please post them! Thanks!

Mithy Pithy

Grouper

Hal's bed is empty, but it is night.

I am not surprised... less and less surprised by the things Hal does in the night. I have stopped looking for him when the street lights begin blinking the hour and the warm seeps out of the house out into the street. The dark is so much like a blanket of loneliness. My eyes perk up for car sounds or people laughing, or for footsteps on the hard concrete outside the building. But at night, the car engines cool and, the people sleep. At night no-one calls the name "Grouper" or whistles for me to come. I urge to find the one who is not asleep, who should be breathing slowly and heavily before the sun rises and the world comes back to life. But it is too much, to feel the cold floor against my foot pads, the shrunken frigid air against my belly, all to look for a man. I don't whine anymore either, instead I just sleep in the sheets lumped together at the foot of the bed. If I cannot sleep, I lick myself out of boredom and wonder when he will come back.

Hal had another bitch two nights ago. When the two of them had banged open the door, laughing and talking loudly, she had shrieked when she saw me. She threw a bottle at me, yelling. Hal tried to calm her down, but she kept at it, dancing up and down on her toes and screaming as loud as she could. Hal took her into the room, distracting her, pulling her clothing off. I crouched at the door. I had seen Hal with a bitch before, writhing, naked. When the people mate, It's always lurid, Lucid. They look into each other's eyes, meet mouths, touch, tangle. They flop like fish away from the water, they whisper, they moan. The bitch whines and bends herself, she trembles, shakes. The man pounds her, forcing her into submission. The two roll like octopi, heavy with sweat. This bitch was so much like the others. I lay on the carpet outside and gave a small whine. A small, but a good whine.

Now, He will be sitting in his chair in the living room, watching man and bitch writhe together on the television. Or he will be cross legged on floor, hunched over the short table, wiggling his nose with his thumb and forefinger. Other nights, I have caught him at this ritual, sniffing madly at lines of white, becoming glazed and angry. His eyes stare into nothing. I have nudged his foot and received the word "stupid" accompanied by a smack on the nose for interrupting.

When morning comes, I stretch out of the bed, forelegs then hind, onto the cold floor. I shake. It feels nice to shake, it feels like new things coming, old things gone. I walk out, slow, tired. I am much older than I used to be and do not move as quickly. There were some times, before, when my bones did not creak, when my eyes worked better, when I didn't shed as much. I try not to think about it. Hal has left food for me in the corner of the kitchen, and water. I listen to my nails click across the tile. Hal is a good man; he has added broth to the kibble. This makes me feel optimistic, and I wag a little. He's a good man, my Hal. I chew in time to the hum of the refrigerator and the gurgle of pipes as Hal takes his shower.

Once there was Sarah. Once there was Sarah and Hal, Hal and Sarah. When I think of Sarah I think of

the big house in town; the lawn, the trees. Sarah had flowers, and she would crouch down in big shoes and a big hat and dig. I liked to dig too, and she would let me. Only sometimes, if I dug wrong, she would yell and wave the spade. During the summer, the big house had a crawlspace. I went under there and slept to get away from the heat. Down there, it smelled like cool, damp dirt and mold, and it was all very good. Even the insects were good. Spiders used to crawl up into my fur and explore. There, I thought. if you find anything, let me know. Hal often got angry when I came out from under the house because I was dusty and needed a bath. While he scrubbed me down, I would watch as the poor little black spider-specks drifted down the drain. I whined in mourning and Hal would order me to be still as he shampooed and conditioned. He toweled me off, let me sleep in the big room. He put broth in my food even then. He's a good man, my Hal. She was a good woman, my Sarah. It was all very good.

Then there were the pups. Hal and Sarah's boys were like tennis balls, bouncing, loud, exciting. They had chubby little appendages and round fat faces and looked so different from bigger people. They grew at different times, The smaller one yelling "GROO!!!" and pulling my fur and squashing my ears against his little round belly, the bigger one rubbing finger-paint in my coat and giving me kool-aid to drink up. The children smelled like sour milk, and chocolate, and mud, and soap and all good things that the children of people smell like. They liked to run, which pleased me, and they liked to pet, which pleased me more. Sarah used to read them stories, would sing to them at night. Her voice was gentle and sweet always, but took on a different sound when she was with them. It was a vibration, a humming that filled me with comfort. When she left, after kisses and last minute bathroom runs; after she pet their heads and they closed their tired eyes. I would sleep pressed against their backsides on their little beds with fluffy blue comforters, glow in the dark stars and soft night-light illuminating their small forms and sleeping faces.

But Hal was gone more from that big house. Sarah sat up in the couch in the front room, sighing, the television flickering across her face, tired eyes, bitten lips. Another kind of night where the people were supposed to be at ease, and yet mine walked without sleeping. I nudged her slender fingers with my snout, licked her wrist, met her eyes. "ah, Grouper." Her voice was less than a whisper, she acknowledged me like breathing. She patted the cushion beside her, let me up on the couch. I let her pull me to her, let her hug me until it hurt, let her cry into the deep parts of my back until my fur was soaked through.

In the deeper part of my memory, It was spring and the big house allowed light to come in through spotless windows. It shone over the dining room table, the chairs. The light made a warm spot on the floor next to where the bigger boy played with tiny cars. I bathed in the filtered sun and watched as he pushed the cars with their wheels across the floor, as he tried to make engine sounds by blowing raspberries with his lips. He made noises like horns, I let him push one little car on my tail like a highway. Hal and Sarah were in the kitchen talking.

"GROO!" yelled the smaller boy up in his high chair. He dropped a spit soaked cracker off his tray and leaned over to look for it. It had landed near my snout and I crunched it easily, licking the salt of my muzzle, liking how dry it was. The smaller boy giggled "GROO! GROO!!". Ignoring the bigger boy's protests that I had moved my tail and propped myself up on the highchair leg, hoping to get another cracker. Instead the little one grabbed my ear and yanked, giggling. I tried to move my head from beneath his chubby fingers when a crash from the kitchen made me flinch. I barked as the yelling in the kitchen turned into uncontrollable screaming. Then it stopped. Sarah came into the dining room, shoving me away to unstrap her little boy from his chair. Her eyes were red, a dark bruise spreading across her cheek. She kicked the bigger boy's cars aside, and with one boy on her hip, one held by the wrist, left the house. The door slammed behind her. Moments later, the car engine started and I whined, wondering. I turned back to see Hal in the doorway of the kitchen, arms folded across his chest. I layed down by the door, still tasting cracker salt.

Hal gets out of the shower and comes dripping into the kitchen. In just his towel he digs around in the refrigerator, finds a bottle and pops it open in the edge of the sink. He takes a mouthful, pauses and looks straight ahead of him before slugging it down. I go over and lick the shower water off his feet. I wonder what he's thinking. He ignores me and makes his way to the bedroom where I watch him dress. He is getting older too, I can tell. He stands naked, The early, dim light that comes through the slats in the blinds shows the drooping of his thin stomach, the deep cavern of his chest, the shadows of his sinewy arms. His hair is a different color. His face sags in a way I never noticed. He sniffs as I walk up to him. I wag my tail in an effort to rise him from his waking sleep. Hal. Awake when he should be sleeping, sleeping while awake. He looks down, only just realizing that I am here, have been here. "Ah, Grouper". His voice comes out in a deep rumble. It sounds like wishing.

There aren't too many doubts about when a man is lost. Out in the field, the sky can go on for days. I can smell shit, inhale the aroma of another, displaced kind of life. I can piss on trees and grid-lock fences. When the grass is wet with dew or rain, I can feel it on my belly. My forelegs cover that special place in my chest and it forever faces that fevered channel of earth. That’s the thing about the people, they cannot feel the wet grass on their bellies. Men are too far from the ground on their stilt-like legs. They walk with their undersides facing out, they put their hands on their hips, swearing invincibility. Never do they touch palms to dirt as we do, feel the rich soil on the pads of their feet, live the strings of earth run up to fit, pulse to pulse. So when a man holds himself high on the soles of his shoes, when he walks too long with his arms at his sides, arms on his hips, arms forever at the ready, that is when he is tangled, mashed, Bunged up; dashed to pieces. Such is my Hal.

Handle Me With Care: An Idea of Where You Might Be (Comprised of Three Drabbles)

Suspension

She is vehemently redeemed. For what? She cannot explain. There is a salamander sitting on her window sill, soaking up sun like a tiny, phosphorescent sponge. When she was eighty, there was a time when she wouldn’t have poked at him with the brightly colored edge of her fingernail. Now she is less tolerant. She flicks him over the ledge, peeks over the side and watches him fly toward the bushes, tail flagellating about; eyes, she is certain, protruding out of his head with heightened concern. Free fall, that was what it was. And what was this feeling? Completely asinine.

Grafting

In the west the sky turns purple, a bruise tied round with scarves of white clouds that help dull the ache of it, the car picks up momentum and his foot just can’t lift from the gas pedal. He takes a second to glance over at the woman sitting beside him. The g-force sends her tense , shattered against the seat. Her face shows nothing as they spiral out in the middle of anywhere. He opposes gravity, turns to her as they hit 90 and barrel off the ledge.

“I am… so sorry.”

Somewhere, in the black, a tea kettle whistles.

Thumbelina in a Matchbox

Ironically, it’s not very cold in here… maybe I’m numb. The thing sealed itself, and I’m not sure how to get out. I’ve tried flailing, but there isn’t enough space to build any kind of opposing force to the inside wall. I’m wearing pink satin pumps and a bridesmaid’s dress, so when I kick at the lid, my heel snaps off and I can feel the shock vibrate up my leg into the taffeta. The air is stale and I can smell my own perfume, it is grotesque. On the lid of the box, refrigerator magnets read “This End Up”.

Mice In The Walls

Clicking. It’s the mice again, Josie is sure of it. Dancing on her toes she seizes a small cast iron pan from its rack above the cutting board. She bangs the thing heavily against the sink where, beneath, the mice skitter back and forth . They make more clicking noises as they scritch and patter, nosing their tiny snouts into places where they don’t belong. She’d put out poison, nestled in a tempting way between the “KaBoom!” kitchen cleanser and a hunk of aged gouda (mice liked cheese, right?) which was, by way of their ignorance, becoming moldy. She’d placed sticky traps under the pipes, lacing the edges with crackerjack crumbs, and yet nothing. The mice kept to themselves.

At present, Josie taps the pan against the tile of the sink, hoping to send shockwaves below. The cast iron pan is almost too heavy for her. Almost. She hears them pause a moment, waiting. She hits it again, flat-side. The sound reverberates throughout the kitchen. She pictures the disgusting little things wide eyed and terrified. She pictures their ugly little fur coats standing on end, their wiry tales curled up in fright. She bangs it again, this time so hard that one of the tiles, sea foam green and glossy, flies off the sink and clatters to the floor. She raises it to try again once more, listening to the frantic scratching as the mice run for cover, when the sound of the telephone interrupts her thoughts. She sets the pan down on the counter, eyeing the screened cupboard under the sink with a wary gaze, and answers the phone.

She has an older model phone, a dirty off-white color. It has one of those coiled cords that gets tangled and knotted when it’s hung up on the wall. Josie likes to talk and twirl it around her fingers like they used to do in the movies before phones stopped having cords. Her phone rings sharply, incessant. While most phones today play Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 4, she’s never felt the need to have anything but a piercing alert. She calls herself old-school. She picks the receiver up on the fifth ring, balancing it between her cheek and shoulder.

“Lo?” She says, and kneels to pick up the piece of tile that has broken off the sink. She still watches the grated cavity underneath it suspiciously.

“Josie.” Its Martin. His voice is good. Like yogurt. Soft, special.

“Hey, Martin.” She says, and seats herself on the cold floor of the kitchen, Indian-style. She winds the cord demurely with one hand and with the other examines the piece of tile.

“What are you up to, babe?” Martin is happy today. She can picture him reclining on his couch, watching day-time television, getting ready for his shift at Fed/Ex-Kinkos. He ships packages there, and wears a crisp white shirt and slacks with a shiny name tag. She often thinks un-holy thoughts about him in that crisp white shirt. Her stomach give a tug just as her mind wanders to it. She runs her tongue over her lips.

“Oh, cleaning… The mice are back under the sink.” She mentions this as a point of interest, plain and simple. If she thought he judged her because of the wayward rodents in her tidy little apartment she would have spared him the information. She didn’t because he didn’t. plain and simple.

There is a pause over the phone. “Babe, have you taken your Thorazine today?”

Thorazine. “That’s a generic name you know, Martin”

“Your chlorpromazine then”

She shakes her head, knowing full well he can’t detect her response. She hates when he asks that, was this why he called, to check up on her? “No” she says, adding edge to her voice to tell him that it irritates her the way he babies her. Josie’s mildly schizophrenic. They tell her you can’t be mildly schizophrenic, only are or are you are not schizophrenic. She feels she’d not ready to make that assertion yet.

Martin sighs into the phone. Whether or not he bothers her about her disorder. edit, minds her disorder. edit, slight disorder, after this many years of being together Josie is ready to make the claim that they do love each other. Therefore, she will remain patient. Turning the tile over in her had she slices her finger along the edge, making a small cut.

“Martin, I’m okay.” She sucks on her finger to staunch the tiny bead of blood on the tip. “I think I need some help re-caulking the sink”

“Josie, honey, go take your meds.”

She eyes the underbelly of the sink with mild apprehension. “Okay, but im telling you, these rats are remising.”

“I thought you said they were mice?”

“Tomato, tomah-toe”

Another sigh, another exhalation of breath. Martin’s thinking. He says: “babe, go take your meds. I’ll come by tonight after work, alright? I love you.”

Josie’s stomach flip-flops for the second time. “Okay” she says, which could mean anything. She stands and replaces the phone receiver on the wall.

She takes up the pan again and taps it along the counter-top, uncommitted. She walks to the kitchen cabinet, the one higher up where she keeps spices and dry goods. She sets the pan aside, reaches up and pulls down the small prescription bottle sitting near the cumin. She fumbles for a moment with the baby-proof cap and finally gets it loose. She shakes out a small tablet.

She discerns her palm, in it the fine dark orange disk. She flips it over, reading the inscription branded into the coating. She cocks her head a moment, considering. Then, she sidles to the sink cupboard, bends on one knee and opens the screening with great deliberation. She can feel their eyes on her, small and dark. Observing her, tolerating her. She reaches forward with the tablet, and sticks it squarely on the platform of one of the traps, a humble offering.

“Here, take it” she cooes, almost humming. “You’re remising.”