He's done it. He's finally gone and done it.
The bastard has left me stranded in the middle of nowhere, with no food, no money, no friends, nowhere to live and I don't even speak the frelling language.
He's gone and left me.
Thank god.
The sky is purple.
It's kinda cool, in a funky way. The clouds are just water vapor, as always, so they are generally on the mashed potato side of things as far as shape and color are concerned, but at sunset they go the sort of hue my Honda did when it started rusting, the red paint started peeling and flaking. Only in a pretty way, mind. Like if you could reach up and touch the sky it would feel gritty and crumble in your grasp with little bits lodging in your eyes.
I've been staring at the sky a lot lately. Not much else to do here.
I found the farm on my fourth day of wandering after Smeghead ditched me. I was down to eating bark, but not quite at the level of bug munching. You'd think after the number of times this kind of thing has happened I'd have a better strategy then eating everything around, vomiting most of it up and stick to the plants that don't make me boot. But everywhere I wind up the flora is always different.
I should have tried to stay in the Boy Scouts.
The farm is… well, farm-ish. It's got a barn, silo, some fields, rutting pigs, chickens everywhere and a big house with a porch where lots 'o sitting takes place. Nothing much happens here; just a couple of nice folks who let me crash in their loft. They have lots of Amber kids running around. I'm not sure if there are so many cause the dad needed the help on the farm or because whatever their religion is says 'Shag a lot, bring me cash.'
Don't care really. They're nice to look at. The sixteen year old kid definitely ranks in 'Cuteboy' category: model hot Amber with blue eyes. He won't look at me twice. It's almost like being home…
Except the sky is purple.
It's totally put me off oranges.
Can't explain that last bit.
Who'da thought knowing how to milk a cow would ever have done me any good? Thank ya, Aunty Pete. You may have broken three of my ribs with your fave shovel that last summer, but that beaten dun and taught me stuff. Squeezin' teats, yep, that'd be learnin'.
God, I'm bored.
Yes, sir, I'm now a bone fide farm hand.
Whee. That's right, the ex-aerospace engineer, ex-analyst for the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce and graduate of Stanford University possesses yet another mind-bending skill: Shoveling shit.
Only, I sorta suck at it. I forgot how painful this kinda stuff is, how my hands turn all yellowish as the skin is forced away from places it was really fond of, then puddles up with water and bursts free exposing the soft tender skin underneath to the wonders of the shovel handle.
Thomas (aka Cuteboy) shovels alongside me. Sweat does some pretty cool things to cotton tank tops. Must thank the inventor of the Spinning Jenny.
I will admit, hard labor doing great things for my upper body. My legs are still thin as rails though.
Oh God. I'm turning into a time-traveling twink.
I'll be singing Cher next.
'Ma' is going to bake blueberry pie tonight.
We've been eating some form of rolled spinach product for meals the past five days. I'm starting to think that things on the farm aren't quite what they appear. There's plenty of grain and animals but no one is eating them. Except for the eggs. The basement is littered with animal corpses hanging from the rafters but no one seems to be warming up the grill…
I've tried sneaking some pieces of jerky but those kids are everywhere, always popping up and shaking their head in disapproval. Not for me, their adorable little amber heads say. So I replace the bits of beef and trod my way back to the table and force down another lump of Spinach Surprise.
Needless to say everyone is very excited about the blueberry pie tonight. The girls all went berry collecting this fine autumn day and came back with their darling little faces all splotchy with gooey blue stains. So the plan is to eat spinach and chow down the pie as 'Father' reads from the book.
I still don't understand a word of their language but I hardly need to since I've seen it all before. I used to go over to Eric's house all the time and watch 'The Little House on the Prairie.'
Eric's family had cable.
Needless to say, I'm allergic to blueberries.
Oh happy day, the mail is here.
A dusty cart pulled past the farmhouse today and dropped a bundle of letters as it dawdled by.
The way the kids reacted you'd think it was the second coming, if the second coming involved Christmas, Halloween and Easter all rolled into one exciting afternoon. They screamed and yelled and danced and did cartwheels and stuff. It was mildly impressive. Better than dung shoveling anyway. I was almost expecting them to break into a choreographed 'Wells Fargo Wagon' number thingy.
Most of it was junk mail.
One was a letter from, I think, one of their relations. The upshot is we all get to go the city. They showed me on a map. I'll be going as the bag boy apparently.
I'm stealing the map if I can lay my hands on it.
Am I excited? Big, glorious lights, spectacular shows and wild and whacky things? Hell yes!
And no, Jeb, I ain't coming back.
Oh yeah. Jeb is the name of my shovel. Well, we spent so much time together… its hard not to get attached to a trusty piece of hard…
Okay, okay, I'll knock off the wood jokes…
There's trouble in River City.
Yep, that's right, Trouble right here, starts with T that rhymes with P that stands for...
And that's all the Broadway references you're going to get out of me, cause I ain't that kinda gal.
My penis has, once again, led me into a dark and scary place.
Stop that.
I am, as they say, on the first boat outta Dodge.
I will state categorically that I am not a skanky hoe. I am just a product of my environment and my historical setting that I was raised in. I don't even like sex very much.
Bet you didn't expect that six inches of wood coming straight at ya! And that was just my nose! Okay, it is a big whopping lie: I am terribly fond of sex, but I certainly don't do it very often.
I would love a relationship and 2.5 kids and a house full of Ikea products, but sometimes, when people are trying to shoot, stab, kidnap, brainwash, gut and exterminate you, it's tough to find the time to 'meet the right guy' and get a cup of coffee. So, every once in a while I get the urge and after another eight weeks of frustrated nights I may finally go hunting for a little relief. There's nothing wrong with that. A hoe de la skank I am not, I say.
Really.
And don't give me that look.
I hate that look.
Stop. Now.
It was in a park. No, it was in an alley…. Or was it the back of a truck?
Well, piss off and go stereotype your own ass, cause I'm betting it's big and hairy. I met someone in a bar, had a couple of drinks and walked back to his place. It's the same perfectly normal thing that people do all over and all throughout history.
His name was Jonathan (that's what it sounded like… about the only thing around here that I recognize as anything resembling English appears to be proper nouns). I had gotten bored hanging around the hotel with 'Dad' and the rest of the gang, so I wandered around staring at banks and churches and things before winding up at the bar.
I say bar… but… a bar is a bar is a bar….
When is a bar not a bar?
When it's this place.
I can't really describe it… it's like the place was desperately trying to be a bar with all its might. It had tables and glasses and stools and, yes, a bar with people mingling about smiling, chatting and playing board games with babies on their laps in a remarkably smoke-free atmosphere.
I was very confused.
So of course I went inside. I attempted to order some form of what looked like vodka but turned out to be birch beer, of the root beer ilk. My language skills evidently needed work but I was too tired to try and get an actual drink out of the bartender. Not that I had any money to pay for the one I had in hand, mind. But I figured that would be a battle for after I had actually drunk it.
Most of the locals were pretty unsavory. No, that's not true… they all looked like 'Dad's, the father-type, which was never really my thing. Sides, spanking didn't appear to be on their minds in the slightest. Every so often one of their wives would sidle up to them, give them a hug and then giggle their way back to their board games.
I had just drained the last of my sarsaparilla and last drop of hope when I spotted Jonathan staring out the back window. He had on some jean-like pants that were very tight fitting and he had on another of those glorious cotton farmer tees. Straw-blond hair, blue eyes, chiseled features just like all the rest of them. Unlike all the rest of them, however, Jonathan was in the same room as me and, apparently, wife-free. I managed to catch his eye (by staring steadily at him for ten minutes) and sauntered over. He smiled as everyone in this place seems to do all day long and watched my approach with a humorous expression. His smile got even broader as I tried, using napkins and saltshakers, to explain my adventures to date using only mime-gestures and acrobatic eyebrows.
Things seemed to be going well; at least his smile appeared to be genuine. And as closing time came and another glorious purple sunset began to fill the sky, we continued to converse with flailing hands and goggling eyes. He even paid for my drink.
At some point we wound up back at his place, laughing and giggling and we collapsed on the couch. I remember I let out a big sigh as I stared into his face, so happy after all those months of being alone that I had finally found someone to be with. To touch, to hold, to be held. I reached out and pushed aside a strand of his hair out of his lovely blue gaze. He looked at me with genuine curiosity that was desperately cute.
And yes, I kissed him. And yes, one of my hands may or may not have done something mostly inappropriate. Nothing can be proven.
But still, I hardly think screaming was the appropriate response.
Kids today.
When I uncurled from my fetal position on the floor of the living room I was surrounded by all of Jonathan's brothers, mothers, cousins, sisters and fathers. And the look on their faces-
I don't think I've ever seen that expression before. Although I've seen it a great deal since.
When the shouting started I was glad that I had not yet removed my hands from my ears.
I'm going to kill him.
I'll admit I can be a bit slow. The farmhouse thing is okay, I understand. The town? Fine. The city…
I suppose the name of the city was Marriott should have clued me in. Or the Pepsi Island Centerport.
I thought the city was composed entirely of these religious nuts. An outpost. A nice isolated region. A blip on the map.
And it was.
A blip on the planet Bringham-Young.
I'm in some sort of prison cell awaiting what I can only guess will be a trial, although I use that word loosely.
He's gone and left me stranded on a planet composed entirely of Mormons.
I'm going to kill him.