Typhoid Mary

The conspiracy theorist sat up in his apartment and twitched. She traced with her best pen around all the spots, and the pen scratched her just enough to make the ink burn. That probably wasn't making her better, but then again, the burning was better than the fever and the sweating and the shaking and everything else that game with this accursed disease.

At least she controlled the shaking. And the theorist had to control everything. That was why she lived in this stupid hole with the thick cement walls and the twenty-seven fire alarms that would set off sprinklers in three point four seconds and sixteen flares that would start fires if she ever needed her house to be simply gone. That was why she had the glass knife that she could sneak through metal detectors in a place in the lower half of her back where she could reach it at any second. And who cared if she couldn't ever really slump in a seat? Who cared if she had to sit straight as an arrow even on the couch? It was good for her posture, anyway.

The conspiracy theorist would have written to the government if she'd trusted the government. She'd have written to her mother if she trusted her mother. Hell, she'd have written it to herself just for the sake of writing if she thought it was safe to write it down at all.

Because the theorist was positive that stupid Mary woman had done it on purpose.

Babushka Lady

I was no grandmother.
I wrapped the scarf around my head.
I tucked the gun into my pocket.

But someone beat me to it.

Black Dahlia

Before there was Elizabeth Short there was Marion Parker, who had her eyes wired wide.
Wired wide but not wired, for Marion Parker was dead.
Kidnapped and dead, Marion Parker was thrown out of a car, but the car was not parked, not parked for Marion Parker.

Her father paid.
Her father paid twice, because Marion Parker was dead.
And wrapped up tight.
With eyes wired wide, so she would appear alive.
She was not alive.

Marion Parker was snatched from her school, was snatched willingly enough, with a bundle of lies and a car.
(At this point, the car was parked, indeed.)
And Marion Parker went and her twin Marjorie stayed and Marion went and found out the identity of her kidnapper.

That's why she died, she did.
If Marion had been ignorant, she needn't have died.
Ignorance is bliss, bliss, bliss.

But poor Marion opened her eyes and found them open for a deathtime.

The Voynich Manuscript

I giggled over the paper
and practiced my letters:
age five--
and just for fun,
I made up new ones.

And I never knew
that someone might think
this meant something important.

The Mary Celeste

I was buzzed.

Somehow, I didn't think ghosts could get buzzed.

It was the earthquake that had done us in. The earthquake and the smell together. But the captain was determined and so onward we sailed, sailed to the Sea of Gibraltar. And when you're dead and so you cannot even escape with death and you have a detrmined captain who won't even let you stop sailing to properly enjoy your death and you have no choice for the rest of eternity you can only do one thing:

Clearly, you can only drink.

And it wasn't necessarily because we wanted to escape, though that was certainly why we'd drunk when we were alive. Now we drank for the habit, for the ghost of a taste we could feel on our tongues, for the memories of what used to be.

The Mary Celeste had been doomed and none knew why and none knew how but the ship had certainly been cursed.

We hadn't sunk. We hadn't caught the wrong end of a sword.

No other ship had taken us.

And yet not a one of us had survived.

It was curious. Curious, indeed.

If we drank enough of the rum and gin we had left--not enough to last us a century, certainly, but the habit of drinking was hard to break--we could get a slight buzz off what once would have us puking our innards over the side of the sweet Mary Celeste.

It was a refreshing feeling, in the face of an eternity.

I was buzzed.

Stonehenge

Hello, my name is Wally Wallington and I would like to tell you a little bit about myself.

I really like Stonehenge. Golly, I think Stonehenge is great. Really, I think it's really, really, really great. And then I had this great idea. And the great idea was that I could build a Stonehenge right in my own backyard!

Wasn't that wonderful? I really thought it was wonderful.

Don't you think it's wonderful?

Anyway, as we all know, making a Stonehenge is no easy feat. And I did not think my neighbors would appreciate it if I just started making a lifesize Stonehenge. It would block all their sun! So I decided to make a Stonehenge that was big, but not too big. In fact, you might say that it was just big enough. And so it was. Just big enough.

And I'm not going to bore you with all the technical details, but you should know that I had a lot of VERY IMPRESSIVE pulleys. You'd be surprised how impressive they were. I mean, I know it's not surprising that I could do something impressive--but this was impressive for even me.

And then I let some children run down a hill on their tiny, tiny legs.

THE END.

(Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.)

Grigori Rasputin

I despised Rasputin Music stores.

The poster had me as a DJ, spinning those infernal tables. It was a mockery, a simple mockery. I would damn California to hell for this. Damn California to hell.

I had been great. A healer. A wizard unquestionably, yes, but not the kind they all thought. I had not brought down the Tsar. I had run.

I had run, and California had dragged my name through the mud. The world had dragged my name through the mud. They had made films about me, written books about me, but it was this accursed music company that I hated the most. This was the only thing in years and years that had ever made me want to curse them to the deepest pits of despair, use every power I had to destroy them.

I would not stand for this mistreatment. I would not stand to be so mocked. The name Rasputin would not be defiled. I stood there, clenching my fists so hard that my fingernails cut into my palms. Flecks of blood fizzled on the floor.

My blood was, quite literally, boiling.

A darling little sales rep with a darling little bob tapped me on the shoulder with a broad, friendly smile to ask if I needed her help.

I fried her on the spot.

And that is how I became the Rasputin of legends. And I found I sort of liked it.