Archive for the ‘Authors’ Category
The Frog Prince – The Middle Bit
Friday, January 1st, 2010
How could it have gone so spectacularly badly?
Felicity negotiated Tad down to a family dinner. Was it Great-aunt Bernadette of Grenouille-sur-le-Tapis had married a frog who’d turned into a handsome prince? Whatever, someone had married a frog and it all turned out happily ever after. If worst came to worst, there was always frogs legs for dinner.
Now, Felicity lay so close to the edge of her big princessy bed that if she breathed too heavily she would fall out. That would be better than looking at what sat on the other side of her teddy bear.
Her parents had been utterly charmed by Tad. They ooh’d and aah’d when he told his tale – turned into a frog by a witch – Felicity suspected he’d deserved it. After dinner she’d tried to show him out, but her parents wouldn’t hear of it.
Wasn’t he a fine, brave fellow? Hadn’t he retrieved Felicity’s treasured soccer ball? Wouldn’t he turn back to a handsome prince if kissed? Perhaps Felicity could – ah, perhaps not just yet then. Felicity put down the plate she was about to throw. But Tad was definitely staying and as he was Felicity’s special friend he would share her room.
He lay like a blob of snot on her frilly pillows. She’d have to burn them. He was snoring incredibly loudly. It rattled the frame of her four-poster bed. She moved to the couch.
Eventually she drifted off, the snoring dulled by the earmuffs she’d found. She was having a wonderful dream about kicking a frog-shaped ball when she woke with a start.
‘How did you sleep?’
Felicity opened her eyes. Tad was sitting on her chest.
‘Gnaaaargh!’ she yelled and pitched about. He landed with a splat on the floor.
‘Careful! I have delicate bones.’
‘Do that again and you’re toast, mate.’
‘You’re not very hospitable.’
‘How long do you plan on staying? This wasn’t supposed to be a sleep-over.’ Felicity pointed out.
‘Well, when I re-prince …’
‘When exactly will that be?’
‘The moment you kiss me. C’mon, pucker up.’ He blew a big smooch at her, made all the more gross because frogs have no lips to speak of.
‘Not going to happen.’
‘Then I’m here for the duration. I wonder what’s for brekkers.’ He hopped out of the room.
Felicity glared. There was nothing else for it: the frog was going down.
The Bison Girl
Thursday, December 31st, 2009
I’d been on a panel discussion about Noh theater, and the bison girl had caught me on my way out and asked if I wanted to have coffee. I should have gotten out of it, but 1) I couldn’t come up with an excuse and 2) I was distracted by her tight-fitting costume. She had a lithe, beautifully-proportioned body. But it disturbed me that the body had a tail and a bison’s head.
My friend Isaac had tried to explain furries to me before I left for the convention. At one point he’d said, “There are furries, and then there are yiffy furries. The regular furries are just having fun.”
“Then what are the yiffy furries doing?” I’d asked.
He’d just laughed at me.
We were sitting. The bison girl sipped iced coffee through a long straw she’d taken from her purse. “Insurance,” she said, answering my last question. “I’m a field adjuster.”
“I should have guessed you’d work in the field,” I said. She laughed: a beautiful laugh, for a bison. And you had to admire her mask, especially around the eyes. Of course, the expression didn’t change–but then, masks aren’t an extension of your face: they’re a replacement for it, a veil, a barrier, a statement, a simplification, a distraction.
My watch beeped. “Oh, I have to get to my next panel,” I said, relieved.
“What are you doing after? Want to get some dinner?”
Just for a moment, I considered it. I thought of the graceful shape under the fur. Then I thought about Isaac laughing. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said. I waited for her to ask me why. Apparently she didn’t need to.
“Fine,” she said. “That’s funny coming from you–but fine.”
“I just don’t feel very comfortable with … uh, furries.”
“Obviously,” she said. “I just thought, working with masks, you might get what this is about.”
“Artistically? Sure,” I said. “Personally? No clue.”
She stood then and pulled off her mask. Her face glimmered with perspiration, framed by damp tendrils of dark hair. I would have recognized her anywhere: Jessie Rosner, the girl I’d been obsessed with all through high school. I’d never gotten to say more than two words to her, until today.
“You know, just because your face shows,” she said, “doesn’t mean you’re not wearing one.” Then she turned her back on me and left.