The Gremlins are not Winning

Hey! I'm back! It's echoing in here.
I lost my computer and have been subsisting on the crumbs of my fairly new Kindle Fire or I'd have been hair-tearing insane by now. Especially since it's Poetry month and I couldn't post them on my blog with pictures like I like to do. Hopefully I'll figure out this new scribe of mine and we'll be in the clover.
The bad news is that my desktop computer is still Sleeping Beautying. We had to go get the Great Muckin' Giant Mother of a thumb drive (Big Bertha) to get all my stuff off my other computer. So it's off except for the 6K emails it ate about a week before it took the Big Plunge. Those are lost in the Forbidden Forest somewhere on my computer. The thing is, I want them. There are' things'.

So then, when we've pulled off every single thing we can, it's time for the napalm. And then the resurrection. And hopefully there will be sentient life in there again.

The whole problem happened because when I got my computer, it wasn't new like I'd been told. Only new to me. There was some kind of licensing snafu, or some other reason my computer refused to do anything. (Lazy wench!)

So it necessitated turning it on, then waiting a while, doing taxes, cleaning out the car, cutting the dog's toenails, and maybe doing dishes. Then I could turn on the screen. Then I had to turn the computer off (a BIG no-no, but that's what it took, I swear) and wait until the screen lit, and back on again. If I hadn't waited long enough, the gobbledy-gook of pre-opening didn't happen and the whole thing began over again. This time you'd have to go change the oil in the car, write letters to grandmothers, re-do your kitchen spice cupboard, and maybe plant the garden.

THEN it would think about going on.

And I told The Man this several times, while still trying not to complain about everything (which annoys him). So I did. Several times. Apparently all that was in vane, because when this whole shebang went down, he looked at me blankly, and said in his horrified voice, "Why would you ever do such a thing? I never told you to do that!"

Sometimes I would like to be visible and audible.

Anywho, DON'T DO WHAT I DID. If it's your Sweatheart (I know. It's on purpose), take his head in yours, drill him in the eyes with yours, and say, "Honey (only we don't use pet names 'cause I don't know why) there is something wrong with my computer. And if you don't fix it instantly, there will be a freaking boatload of trouble down the line for you. (And I know where you sleep. And I make your food.)
That might work for you. And again, if your Sweatheart is anything like mine, he'll just shoot you The Look of Ice Raying and go back to his online game. And your 'Baby' will sit there on its nicely cleaned up desk (because you've had nothing to do but clean for well over a month) and grow dust for possibly another century.

I just went ahead and used my birthday money from my mom and got a used laptop from a wonderful new friend (on which I'm writing this tome). Which means the pressure is off for figuring out the other one...possibly a horrible move on my part. You see, I miss my Baby. We were comfortable in our sloth. Sort of.

This has been one huge complaint. It shouldn't have been. My sweet husband has worked like a dog to try and figure out what's wrong with the thing. He took me down and got me that Mother of all Thumb drives (Okay there are some bigger) so we could save stuff for the newly refurbished computer. (He also got himself a lovely new monitor which now resides on my kitchen table instead of the desk in his den and a battery pack for The Son's computer. And a movie.) He transferred everything he could find to Mother. And he's really busy. I greatly appreciate that he spends time trying to help me. I'm happy that it makes him so happy to have two screens to play his games on.

And Kathryn, my new wonderful friend, gave this one to me out of the goodness of her heart, for a steal of a price (I'm writing the check after I get done with this and several hundred other chores. Really! It's almost in the mail as we speak. I might, in fact, get up and go write the check in a minute.)

Now I'll have to find something to call my computers. The Son names his computers Russian girl names. That's not for me. Maybe I should name mine after famous scribes.

At any rate, I'm back. Now I'll go load on April poetry.

Ps, I'm waiting to send in YEAR OF THE HONEY BADGERS, which won't be its title. I already know they're going to make me rename it. They'll probably go with African Tango. Which is sad because it says nothing about honey badgers. They've already asked to have it sometime this week. Hurray!!!!! Now I have to go get my email going on here...sigh.

Honey Badgers and Cobras and Grumps, Oh My!

Huh. Well look at that. I actually LOST readers doing Poetry month. Who knew? I'm either going to have to get funnier or lump them all in one long post like I've done in the past.

Welp. Let's just say I'm a bit tapped out today. I've been doing chores and I'm in it to hit the rack with a good read. So I've decided to favor you with a snippet of something I'm working on called YEAR OF THE HONEY BADGER. So here goes:

That night Sabra lay awake, staring up at the tin roof, wondering what she'd actually expected. It wasn't like she'd thought there'd be a five star hotel with jacuzzi and spa nearby. But it seemed not too much to ask to have a shower and maybe a stove to cook on. She sat bolt upright in bed. There had been a stove. She distinctly remembered it sitting there in the corner of the room next to a tiny, ancient refrigerator.
“Ha ha. You got me Stirling, you eel-brained toadstool. You probably have regular food to eat too. At any rate, the next time we go to town, I'm getting my own supply of food. And I'm going to start building the ratels a better place to live tomorrow. That all right, Darwin?”
The honey badger had hunkered down and was licking his paws. She could hear his tongue rasping on his teeth.
Finally the cares of the day crashed down on Sabra and she fell deeply asleep.
Until the slight scraping noise woke her. There it was again.
Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.
Slowly she reached down into her shoe and grabbed her flashlight, flicking it on.
There, right in front of her hammock, lay a snake.
It's tongue flickered, tasting the air.
The snake rared up, weaving slightly as it got its bearings.
Sabra tried not to move, not to breathe.
Her heart hammered like rolling thunder in her ears.
She noticed the distinctive markings on its head and must have jumped slightly.
It flipped its hood open, hanging there in front of her as if examining her curiously.
At first Sabra locked up, petrified. What could she do?
Then she remembered Stirling and how much sneering he'd do if she let herself freak out her first night over a snake.
Her mind sped between possibilities.
Nothing viable came to mind.

The snake could strike faster than she could throw anything.
What could she do, throw a shoe at it? No.
She had to wait it out. And hope.
She stared at the cobra until she thought she'd pass out from holding her breath.
Spots swam in front of her eyes just as the snake, with a last flick of its tongue, lowered itself and slithered away.
She couldn't move, but she took a tentative breath, slamming her eyes closed as the rasping of its scales disappeared into the further corner of the structure. It was after rodents that feasted on the badger's food. Clearly she'd have to make the place more secure in the morning. But what about tonight?
Then she remembered the fearless little animals she had come to study. They regularly went up against cobras. Their thick hide rarely let a snake's teeth sink in. She slowly slipped out of the hammock and crawled haltingly over to the cages. Contrary to what Richie had said, he hadn't clicked Darwin's lock shut. He'd have been out in a nanosecond. Sabra wondered why he wasn't already. She opened the lock and swung the door wide. Darwin's eyes gleamed in the dimness. She backed away from the cage, hoping the little creature would make his escape and go snake hunting.
At first the animal simply sat there.
“You're probably wondering why I'm letting you out, my friend. I bet you're thinking I'm going to do something to you. I'm sure nobody lets you out on purpose unless it's for blood draws or something. It's safe, though. You'll get it soon. I'll bet you're more intelligent than those lunks in the house.” Sabra stopped, realizing she was rambling. The cobra had thrown her more than she liked to admit. Clearly her voice was confusing the ratel. She climbed onto the table, sure that being up there wouldn't save her from the badger or the snake. It would simply make them take longer to get to her. Staying awake was the real reason she was up there.
Finally, after it had been quiet for some time, she heard the stealthy rattle of the cage door, then the skittering sound as Darwin's claws hit the wood of the cage on the way out. She heard him snuffling and the click of his claws as he padded around the room. She was just about convinced that the cobra had beat a hasty retreat when a commotion sparked in the corner. She heard the hiss of the snake and grunts and growls from the angry mustelid, as well as thuds and thumps as the two circled and writhed.
Oh how she wanted to turn on the flashlight and see what was happening. But surprising a honey badger in the middle of a fight was never a good idea, especially if the snake wasn't dead yet. She huddled on top of the table hoping it would all end well.
There was a yelp, as if the snake struck something vulnerable. Then a growl and a couple more thuds and the place went quiet. Sabra was just about to turn on her flashlight and check, when she heard the snuffling and padding of clawed feet. So it was over. And now, just like in the Dr. Seuss book with the mice and cats in it, she had to figure out how to deal with the H. B., as Richie called it.
She turned on her flashlight and squawked. Blood spattered the walls of the corner and badger tracks made trails all over the area. Darwin sat beneath the bank of cages chewing contentedly on part of the snake as if it were a popsicle. Sabra wanted to toss some of the snake into his cage, hoping he'd jump in there himself to finish it off. It would have been the simple solution, except getting between a honey badger and its hard-won food was an even dumber idea than turning on the flashlight in a fight.
Finally Sabra spotted a chunk which had, for some reason, rolled away. She jumped down, grabbed the piece, tossed it in Darwin's cage, scurried back to the table and skidded on. Darwin barely looked up from his snake snack. With her luck, he'd be too full to bother with the fragment in his cage—too full and too smart to fall for that ploy. But it was all she could think of at the moment. She flipped the flashlight back off, hoping the badger wouldn't smell the snake on her skin and come exploring.
She hugged her knees, waiting, wondering if she would catch heck for letting the badger out. Her eyelids grew heavy and she could barely keep her head from hitting her knees. Tomorrow she'd have to work on closing up the holes in the walls.
If she survived.

Chapter 4--

“What the heck?” The words woke Sabra from an uneasy sleep atop the table. She looked blearily up into the face of her new “best friend,” Stirling. “Why is the cage open? And where's the badger?”
“Mwaf.” Sabra had never been her best in the early morning.
Stirling stalked over and bent to peer into the cage. “Crazy!” he exclaimed, reaching up to shut the door and click the lock. “He's in there asleep!”
That got to Sabra. She scrambled off the table and over to the badger's cage, worried suddenly that the snake had actually made contact with a vulnerable part of its vicious opponent. She pushed Stirling out of the way. Could Darwin be dead in there? She scratched on the bars and the little animal shuddered in its sleep. Thank heavens. I couldn't live with myself if Darwin died to save my life. She breathed a sigh of relief and stepped back. If Darwin showed signs of having been bitten, she'd have to say something. Otherwise? No. Why add fuel to the fire they were building up about how she shouldn't be sleeping in the badger shed?
Sabra refused to tell the guys why she couldn't hold her eyes open that day. They were already ribbing her about being an up-at-noon princess. She simply ate her oatmeal mush and got to work shoring up the gaps under the door, around the corroded glass of the windows, and in the corners of the lab. 

© 2015 by H. Linn Murphy

A Snatch of YEAR OF THE HONEY BADGER

Here's a smidgen of YEAR OF THE HONEY BADGER:

The next morning Sabra went for a swim, riding the waves like a gull. She was out beyond the breaker line when she noticed a curious thing. A tent-sized kite rose from the beach in lazy circles. She looked down the strand wondering who was flying such a strange-shaped kite. But there was nobody other than a few bathers and some children building a sand castle. A wave broke over her head, filling her eyes and throat with salt water. When she got back up, the “kite” was bouncing back up into the air in a slow twirl.
    “Holey Cheese! That's my tent!” she screeched and beat back to shore. When she got to camp the vagrant tent had climbed about a hundred feet into the air. Stray papers floated lazily down from it. “My research papers!” Sabra yelled. She scampered around trying to gather them up before the wind blew them away.
    That's when she noticed the frowning man standing on a bluff overlooking the beach. He just stood there watching her scramble. “What?” she asked shortly as she ran past him. He probably didn't even speak English the way he simply stood there watching the papers fly around. “Any chance you could give me a hand?”
    The man smiled dryly and clapped.
    “Jerk,” Sabra said under her breath. She jumped for another wayward paper.
    “I was under the impression most people slept in their tents. This is an interesting new sport,” the unhelpful man said. He didn't even try to hide his amusement.
    “Oh, then, you aren't deaf and you speak English,” she said, out of breath from jumping around.
    He snorted. “Among seven other languages.” He reached down and put a pebble on another wayward paper. “There you go.”
    “Don't knock yourself out, Sir Speedy Helpsalot.”
    The tent had blown further along the beach but was now coming down again. Sabra broke away and flew down the sand to grab at the material as it headed back up and now out to sea. She made one last leap for the rain fly bungee. One fingertip caught the cord just as the last clip worked loose. She yanked it down, grabbing at the nylon. Her fingers slipped on the rip-stop, but she managed to catch at a tab and haul the tent and its fly back to earth.
    The man walked over and tossed a stone into the offending tent, anchoring it.
    She glared at him. “Thanks.”
    “Nice.”
    “What do you mean?” Then she looked down and saw that she was still only wearing a bikini. Yeah, it must have been a dandy show. Jamb your eyeballs back in your head, Dirtball.
    The annoying guy looked out to sea and then back at her face. “You've still got stragglers.”
    “I know. I know.” She tore off after another couple of sheets. That's when she noticed her sleeping bag washing ashore in a tide pool. She swore under her breath and dragged it out of the water. Now to find her clothes and pillow. One shoe lazily turned in another pool, its laces dragging the barnacle-encrusted rocks.
    The man plodded down the beach with a couple of papers clutched in his hand. “Hey, you wouldn't have seen a man around here—kind of geeky, looks like a scientist?”
    She stopped running and turned. “Why do you ask?”
    “I'm supposed to pick up my new research assistant and the guy at the airfield told me he was down here.”
    “You're from Niassa?” She had a sudden boiling feeling in the pit of her stomach.
    “Yeah. Sort of.”
    “I'm it.” She snatched her papers out of his hand and stuffed them into the tent along with the ones in her fist.
    “What?”
    “I'm headed for Niassa.”
    “The heck you are! I'm looking for a man.”
    “Good luck with that. You don't look the type.” She favored him with her own wry grin.
    “Johns Hopkins sent you?”
    “Only the best.”
    He threw out his hands, scowling at her. “Johns Hopkins sent me a bimbo for an assistant? How are you ever going to survive? We live with real wildlife, like right in the middle of it. We are the zoo. There's no way you'd be able to handle it. Go home and send the real assistant. Preferably someone who can handle a gun.”
    “What are we doing out there, shooting and stuffing them or studying them in their habitats?”
    “You won't be doing anything because you won't be there. Go home and send a guy back, fast.”
    Sabra stepped right up to the guy's chest and looked him in the eyes. “Look, mister. I don't care what your preconceived notions are about what women can or cannot do. They don't apply to me. I've been in this line of study since you were in diapers and I'm not about to go crying home again before I've completely finished my studies. I've got a—“ She stopped, not feeling like tossing him any more bones. She wanted him to twist in the wind for a while, hopefully until his air ran out. “Never mind.” She ran after a couple more papers and added them to the mound in the tent. By that time her hair was starting to dry in salty, ropey hanks and there was sand down her trunks.
    “Come on, then.”
    “Pardon. What?”
    “Come on. The jeep's waiting. I've got chores to do. I'm out of here.”
    “But I've got to get all these papers corralled. I need to change. I need to find my other freaking shoe for crying out loud.”
    He looked her up and down. She wanted to smack him but didn't want to wreck her chances for getting to Niassa even though the guy was one of the last men on earth she wanted to spend a bumpy ride with, let alone a year.
    “You've got fifteen minutes. I'll be in the jeep.”
    “Could you at least take my luggage? If I have to rescue the papers, you could at least get the bags.”
    He looked at Mt. St. Luggage and rolled his eyes. “You should have left the cadavers and the blow-up raft at home.”
    Sabra took in the purple and pink paisleys her mother had insisted would make stealing her bags harder. The guy probably thought she was hauling a pink feather boa as well. “Then get the papers. If you're afraid you'll hurt yourself, I'll get the bags in.”
    He gave another snort and stomped over to grab the giant suitcases.
    “Easy there! Don't toss them. I've got delicate instruments in there.”
    “Just so you know,” he growled as he hefted the largest bag onto his shoulder. “We have no plugs for your curling iron and boom box.”
    You have been out here a long time, she thought. They aren't boom boxes anymore. And by the way, I'm not even going to gratify you with an answer. She fixed him with a scowl instead, then turned on her heel and went to finish grabbing the last of the papers. The fifteen minutes were almost up when she dragged on her inundated jeans and a salty t-shirt. Luckily she'd found the other shoe and all but a couple of papers and a sock. The other had gone to a watery grave somewhere. She yanked down the offending tent and thrust it back into its bag along with the poles.
    It didn't take very long to catch up to the man as he labored up the road toward a mud-spattered, ancient jeep. Big dents scored the sides and it sported a huge roll bar. She got there just as the man dumped the biggest bag into the back. She flinched, expecting to hear shattering glass.
    “Thanks,” she said facetiously. “I'm sure I can get along just fine without all that expensive equipment.”
    “You lug it in there then.” He dumped the rest at her feet and strode around to the driver's seat and vaulted in.
    “Excuse me, sir. What is your name?”
    “Why?”
    “I'd really like to know the Neanderthal I am addressing.” She carefully added the last of the luggage to the back and secured it with the webbing cargo net, using the time to calm down.
    “Stirling Darrow.”
    “Ah great. That's nice. Yeah I'm Sabra Houghton.”
    His eyes popped. “No! You're really S. Houghton?” He slammed his fist on the steering wheel. “Get in,” he said through gritted teeth. “So it wasn't ever going to be a guy.”
    “Nope.”

© 2015 H. Linn Murphy