WIP: DYNAMIC DUO OF THE OZARKS

NOTE: This has nothing to do with my novel, THE DYNAMIC DUO OF THE OZARKS. I thought I would post this story I wrote last fall, because it takes place at Christmas time. What if all the characters from the famous “story songs” were all together in one large room? A young mother looses control of her car during a snow storm and finds herself in this place. But where is her baby?

IN THE STORY SONG REALM by Jeff Boggs

“Where am I? Where is my baby? Is he okay?” the young woman screamed and began crying after she gained consciousness. She noticed everyone was staring at her with worried looks. In front of her was a nurse, in a traditional white nurses uniform with a royal blue, half cape with red trim.

“What is wrong with her, Carrie?” ask a teenage girl, dressed in a long dress, from a bygone era.

“I’m not sure, Suzy,” the nurse answered the girl. “She just appeared out of nowhere. I wonder if she is one of us.”

The young woman looked around the room at the menagerie crowded around gawking at her. Sitting on the couch next to her was an adorable little blue-eyed girl, in a fancy dress and bow in her blonde hair. Beside the little girl was a waif of a boy. His left eye was blackened and bruised, his lip was swollen, and he had cigarette burns on his malnourished arms.

There was a tall, strapping man in coveralls and a hard hat with a lantern mounted on it. His face was smeared with coal dust and he held a pick ax in his large hands. She assumed he was a coal miner.

An old African-American man in farm clothes with a mule was standing by the coal miner. At a small table, sat an elderly lady, whose face was caked with make up, wearing a slinky, satin dress, that showed more of her senior citizen body than a person needed to see, and in her white hair were the same faded, purple feathers that were in the boa around her neck. She was drinking a martini and smoking, like a factory, at a table with an old man in a fedora and brown suit, who looked like had been doing time in prison.

Behind the old couple, there was a pool table, where two unsavory looking characters were engaged in game.

On a park bench across the room, sat a disheveled, homeless man with a long, dirty beard, a nose running green mucus and a tubercular cough, starring at her with bad intent. Next to him, sat a middle-aged woman in mismatched outfit with a dead rose pined to her coat, clutching a large suitcase. A young man in a Yankee uniform from the Civil War standing at attention. A large, armored android was in a chair in a corner, like a kindergartner being punished for acting up.

“Carrie, when you finish giving aid to that hysterical woman, we need to go over these maps that you brought to the Four Winds Bar,” spoke an icy, Satanic voice, like a cross between Vincent Price and Barnabas Collins, with a dash of Roddy McDowell. The young woman became frightened at the strange figure, who had spoken. He wore a long, black cape adorned with pentagrams and half moons. His face was covered with a strange black and white mask. “I’m anxious to take over the world.”

“Hold on, Desdinova! This may take awhile!”

“Yer shtoopid, Desdinova,” snarled a guy sitting a on wet tarp, wearing a t-shirt with a Confederate flag on it, reading ‘If they can ware there X, I’m gonna ware mine.’ Oh his head “W-04” trucker’s cap. He had a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a white Styrofoam cup, full of tobacco spit, in the other. He also had tobacco spit on his shirt and running from his mouth. “Ya ain’t never gonna rule the world. Folks ain’t gonna vote fur ya.”

“Any more of your bubbles and squeaks, Earl, and I will render you mute!” the strange figure snapped.

“Could you two stop bickering for a few moments?” said a young man in a denim jacket with his hair in a pompadour and scars on his face, like he had being fighting most of his life.

“Where’s my baby? Where is little Billy?” the young woman screamed and cried.

A short, pudgy, middle-aged man walked over to her. “Yes, what can I do for you?”

The young mother looked bewildered. “Who are you?”

“Everyone calls me Little Billy,” the chubby fellow explained in a soft British accent. “I run a special foster home. I’m raising the children of all my friends, who died of lung cancer from smoking cigarettes. I don’t mind.”

The Union soldier ran over, “My name is Billy! Do you need me to do something like deliver a message to another brigade?”

A teenage boy sauntered over. “My name is Billy too,” he announced in a thick Mississippi accent.

“You don’t understand!” the young mother screamed. “Billy is my baby! He was in the backseat, when my car skidded off the highway on the ice! He may still be in the car…out in the cold!”

“I would be happy to go search for your baby in the cold and snow!” the Union soldier said. “I want to be a hero, even if it means being a fool with my life.”

Little Billy whispered to Miss Carrie, the nurse, “Do you think she has passed away?”

“I don’t think so. She may be here temporary, like an out of body experience,” Miss Carrie nurse replied. “But you might have the life transition councilors come over an talk to her.”

As Little Billy walked away, Earl lit up a cigarette. “Hey Fatso, look what I’m doing.” He then blew cloud of second-hand smoke in Little Billy’s direction. “Ima smokin and ya ain’t gonna stop me.”

“You are a pathetic monster, Earl,” Little Billy denounced Earl in his soft British voice.

The tough, young man in denim shot Earl an angry look. “Why don’t you leave folks alone, Earl? Maybe people would start liking you. Little Billy may be a big man on the outside, be he is an even bigger man on the inside.”

“I ain’t listening to you. You got a girly name,” Earl sneered, the let out a Goofy-like chuckle. “Huh Huh Huh.”

“You bring that up again and I’ll bust your head like an Arkansas watermelon,” the young man warned Earl.

“Would you like a drink of water or coffee?” Miss Carrie nurse asked the young mother.

“Water would be fine,” the young mother replied. “But I need to find my baby Billy to see if he is alright!”

“I’ll go get the waitress from the Ya’ll Come Back Saloon,” said the miner.

“Thanks Big John,” Miss Carrie nurse admonished the gigantic man as he walked toward a bar area. A creepy character wearing a straight-jacket came over to Miss Carrie’s friend, Suzy, which caused Suzy to be startled.

“Is your name Suzy?” the mental patient asked with a deranged twinkle in his eye and almost perverted smile on his face.

“Yes, why do you ask?’ Suzy answered with a quiver in her voice.

“I just think it is a coincidence that I took a girl name Suzy to the junior prom,” the mental patient told the frightened girl. “Then I raped her and killed her and build a little cage with her bones. They said I was an excitable boy.”

“You need to go back to your room and leave us alone! Can’t you talk to your roommate?” Carrie scolded the mental patient, as she tried to lead him away from Suzy, who was shaking with fear.

“He’s no fun. All he wants to do is dance with that headless mannequin that he calls Glendora,” the mental patient huffed.

“Miss Carrie Nurse, I’ll walk him back to his room. You care for that young lady, that was in the car wreck,” the tough, young man said as he grabbed the ‘excitable boy’ by the collar of his straight-jacket to escort him back to his room.

“Why don’t ya tell him what yer name is!” Earl shouted in a mocking tone before spitting tobacco into his spit cup in his hand.

“You know, I think I will,” the tough boy answered Earl. He then began to explain to the mental patient, as he dragged him back to his room, “You talk about a coincidence, guess what my name is?”

Suzy was shaken by her interaction with the creep in the straight-jacket. “That was scary!”

“He is really a bad case,” Miss Carrie the nurse explained. “He also has hallucinations of werewolves.”

“Are they attacking him?” Suzy asked.

“No,” Miss Carrie replied in a puzzled voice. “He says the werewolves are drinking Pina coladas and eating beef chow mien.”

An attractive young woman in hot pants and a cropped t-shirt, carrying a tray walked up. Around her neck was an expensive looking braided, silver chain with a locket attached at the end.

“Hello, I’m Brandy, I’ll be your waitress. Our featured drink is the Funky Cold Medina. We also have a special on strawberry wine in long tall glasses, filled up to there. They are free, if you can dance like Fred Astaire.”

“I need to find my baby and my car!” the young mother screamed frantically. Brandy looked at Miss Carrie Nurse and Suzy with concern.

“Bring us two bottles of water,” Carrie Nurse told Brandy. “We think she needs to re-hydrate.”

Brandy began walking away, when the old lady in the slinky dress and feather boa waved her over to the table she was sharing with the aging gangster.

“Brandy, could you bring me and Uncle Sonny another martini. We’re celebrating his release from prison. He can give you that twenty dollar bill, in his hat band, as a tip.”

“I’m saving that for cab fare,” Uncle Sonny explained to Brandy. “I’m planing on going to Central Park later on.”

“Then put the martinis on my tab and bring each of us two more,” the old lady instructed Brandy, who put the empty glasses, from the table, on her tray.

“Lola, you are drinking yourself half blind!” Brandy scolded the elderly lady.

“I might as well,” Lola confessed in her booze soaked voice. “The man I loved is dead, the place I loved to work is now disco and nobody wants to see a ninety year old woman dance. What kind of music is in the bar tonight?”

“It’s the guitar jam with Clayton Delaney and Johnny B. Goode. Tomorrow night, there is a retro/paisley underground band from the 80s, with a girl lead singer,” Brandy explained.

“Is she the one that wears electric boots and a mohair suit?” Lola asked, as she lit another cigarette.

“No, this girl has hair like Jean Shrimpton did in 1965,” Brandy said. “You’re thinking of that girl named Bennie. She fronts a glam band called the Jets” Brandy walked into the bar and came back with the bottled water for the young mother.

“Is the bar going to have that obnoxious kid from Georgia that plays the violin again?” Desdinova asked Brandy as she walked past him.

“I don’t think so,” Brandy answered.

“Good! I detest little snot! He beat a good friend of mine out of his priced golden violin in a so-called fiddle contest, and then, to add insult to injury, called my friend’s mother the ‘b-word.”

“I relay your complaint to Joe the manager,” Brandy affirmed. “He would understand since he is a musician. He plays a mean piano.”

“I know him,” Desdinova smiled. “He has a black mustache and wears a red bandanna and purple sash. I believe he used to run a honky-tonk down in Mexico.”

“Yes he did,” Brandy explained. “He also had a cantina in El Paso, but there was a guy got shot there.”

“Tragic. So many tragic things have happened to people here. Let me add, that I would love to marry you. You’re a fine girl and would make a good wife,” Desdinova took Brandy’s hand and kissed it. She blushed and a tear came to her eye.

“She wouldn’t wanna marry you, Desdinova! You call yerself an Alka-Seltzer,” Earl blurted out and chased with a loud belch.

“I’m an alchemist, not an Alka-Seltzer, you idiotic redneck!” Desdinova screamed back.

Two young women walked over to Carrie Nurse and Suzy. One was dressed like a housewife of the late Sixties and the other was dressed like a housewife of the early Seventies.

“Little Billy said you may need a Passage of Life councilor for a woman, who had been in an auto accident,” the Sixties housewife said with a pleasant voice.

“We don’t know all of her situation yet. She says she lost control of her car on the ice and snow. She may just be in a momentary state of limbo. She is worried about her infant son, who was in the back seat asleep. You might try to be careful what you say to her.” Carrie Nurse explained to the two ladies. They both agreed to be delicate as possible. They walked over to the couch, where the young mother was sitting.

“Could you children move so we can talk to this lady?” the Sixties housewife asked the little blonde girl.

“I don’t want to go sit on that park bench,” the little blonde girl explained. “That old guy is over there. He has snot running out his nose and makes a sound like a deep sea diver, when he breathes. He also ask to see my panties.”

“And that lady with the suitcase is crazy,” the little boy piped up. “She says thinks a man is coming to take her to a mansion in the sky. You know, she is forty-one and her daddy still calls her baby.”

“You could sit in the floor, if you like,” the Sixties housewife said. “But we need to talk to this lady.” The children agreed to sit in the floor.

“What are your names?” the Seventies housewife asked the children.

The little blonde girl smiled and announced, “My name is Jennifer.”

“That is pretty dress and bow in your hair,” the Sixties housewife gushed. “Did your grandma buy that for you?”

“No, my pet rabbit bought it for me, when he went to town in an old streetcar, with a turtle and kangaroo and a bunch of monkey from the city zoo,” the little girl explained.

The little boy reluctantly told they Passage of Life councilors in a soft voice, “My name is Luka and I live upstairs on the second floor. You’ve probably seen me before. I guess I’m clumsy. I walked into the door again. It’s none of your business anyway.”

Jennifer got a smile on her face and told Luka, “Hey, we could go look at that android that was used to fight wars in time and space!”

“I don’t know if would be safe for you children to bother the Iron Man,” the Seventies housewife warned the children.

“He’s harmless, he just stares at the wall.” Jennifer said before they scampered away.

The Seventies housewife added, “Okay, but stay away from the pool table. Leroy Brown and Jim Walker are shooting pool over there and cussing up a storm.” The children went on there way.

Brandy came back with the two bottles of water for the young mother, after dropping off the martinis for the elderly twosome. “Here you go! This is from the well of Desert Pete.”

The young mother took the bottles of water and thanked Brandy, then said, “Can I ask you a question? Who is the old lady you drinking all those martinis?”

“That’s Lola, she was a showgirl at the Copacabana,” answered Brandy. “She kind of lost her mind after her boyfriend was killed many years ago. She is like me, she loves a man, who is no longer around.” Brandy then walked back to the Ya’ll Come Back Saloon.

The Sixties housewife took the young mother’s hand, “Hi, my name is Honey and I’m a Passage of Life councilor here in the Story Song Realm. Just so you know, I’m training this new girl to help me.” The Seventies housewife gave the young mother a sympathetic grin. “I had to fire my last assistant councilor, because she kept calling people ‘country bumpkin.’ We think you’re here because you may have passed away. Now, there is nothing to be ashamed about being deceased. Many of us here are dead. There is a girl here, who lived on Yellow Mountain, that died in a blizzard looking for her lost pony named Wildfire, and another girl, who walks through the moors, calling for a boy named Johnny to remember her. There is also a girl, who was run over by a train, while trying to retrieve her boyfriend’s class ring from their car, that was stalled on the railroad tracks. In the late 50s, several teenagers came here after they passed away. There is also a young race car driver here, name Tommy, that keeps wanting people to tell a girl name Laura that he loves her.”

“And that leader of a motorcycle gang, called the Pack, that got hit by a truck.” the Seventies housewife added. “Oh and don’t forget those one hundred Chicago policemen that died in that gun battle, on the old East Side, with Al Capone’s men.”

The Sixties housewife nodded in agreement, “That man with the mule, Old Rivers, died after years of plowing fields and planting crops, and Big John died when a mine caved in on him.”

“Oh yeah, Earl’s wife and her best friend poisoned him and threw his body in a lake,” the Seventies housewife added. “But he had it coming and you know, nobody missed him at all.”

“I can kind of understand that,” the young mother asked. “What about that Desdinova character?”

“No, he is immortal. They say he started World War One,” the Sixties housewife clarified. “We’re are both dead. I should ask at this point, do you have a husband?”

“I did, but we are going through an ugly divorce,” the young mother began to explain. “I found out he cheating on me with a red headed woman name Jolene. I went and begged her not to take him away from me. It didn’t work, so while they were at a bar, one night, I broke out the headlights on his pickup truck, with a baseball bat, and scratched the doors with my car keys.”

“We have some very understanding judges here in the Story Song Realm,” the Seventies housewife assured her. She then pointed to an attractive young woman. “See that girl there…she killed the Fortune Telling Queen of New Orleans and her boyfriend, when she caught them together. The judge let her off, because of her rough childhood. You see, she was born in the wagon of a traveling show and her mother had to dance for the money men would throw.”

“It is probably good that we don’t have a husband to deal with,” Honey told the young mother. “My doctor called one morning and told me I had a brain tumor, but I chose not to tell my husband. There was nothing he could do, so why cause him to worry. He would come home from work early and I would be crying about it, but I still kept it a secret. I just died one day while he was at work. He took it kind of hard, but…”

The Seventies housewife interrupted Honey, “I know I shouldn’t say anything since I’m being trained, but I feel you should have told him you were going to die. My husband was with me when the doctor gave me the test results. I leaned on my husband, Rocky, for strength. I told him, ‘I’ve never had to die before, I don’t know if I can do it.’ Even though I’m gone, I still give him little pep talks in my own sweet voice.”

The two councilors began bickering about how they handled their demise, when Desdinova walked over to the young mother with a large mirror and held it up to her.

“You cast a reflection, as does Carrie Nurse and Suzy Dear,” he explained before turning the mirror to others in the room. Those ladies don’t. That kid from Mississippi doesn’t, so he is obviously dead. Old Rivers and Big John don’t. Brandy, Lola and Uncle Sonny do have a reflection.” He then looked around. “Where are those two children?”

Brandy spoke up, as she dropped off another round of drinks for Lola and Uncle Sonny, “Jennifer and Luka are playing with Annie, that little orphan girl, who froze to death while making artificial flowers.”

Desdinova spun back around to where the young mother was, with his cape swirling around him, “Those two children would have a reflection, but the other child wouldn’t.” He turned the mirror again. “Our tough, young friend and Little Billy cast reflections, but Earl doesn’t…which we can all be glad of. My point is, the people who do not cast reflections are deceased. The ones with a reflection are still living and you, my dear, are still living. I believe we should get you back to your car and your child, if we can find where you went off the road.”

“We were on our way to my parents house in Cincinnati,” the young mother explained. “A blizzard came up and it was hard to see. I lost control of the car on the ice. I’m not really sure where I was at, because I couldn’t see.”

“If that car is in a ditch,” Old Rivers said. “I’m sure my mule could pull it out.”

“I can give it a mighty shove,” Big John added. “Pushing a car out of a ditch or snowbank would be no problem.”

“Wait a minute,” the tough, young man spoke up. “Don’t we know an astronaut that is stranded out in space? If we could contact him, maybe he could see it from space and tell us where it is.”

“I’ll bet that little, crippled, boy with all that radio equipment could contact him,” Old Rivers said. Big John, Billy the Union soldier and the tough boy went and carried the boy and his equipment out of his room, to where everyone was. The tough guy plugged in the radio equipment and the little boy turned on the mike.

“Ground control to Major Tom. Ground control to Major Tom. Major Tom, are you there? Please talk to little Teddy Bear,” the boy spoke into the microphone on the old Motorola radio set.

“This is Major Tom to ground control,” came a voice through the static on the radio’s speaker.

“We need your help finding a car that ran off the road, in a snow storm, on the way to Cincinnati,” the little boy asked. “There is a baby inside named Billy.” The radio crackle with white noise.

“This is Major Tom and I’m stepping through door,” the voice said. “I see a Ford Fiesta in a snowbank along State Highway 27. On closer examination there is a baby in a car seat, sleeping soundly in the back. Not sure if his name is Billy or not. Tell my wife I love her very much…I think she knows.”

The static became louder and the voice fell silent. “Ground control to Major Tom, something is wrong! Can you hear me Major Tom? If you can hear me, say something to little Teddy Bear,” the boy cried as he frantically operated the squelch knob on the radio set.

“I know where Highway 27 in Ohio is! I’ll lead the way! I can be a hero!” Bill the Union soldier exclaimed.

“I can ride Midnight out there,” Rivers said. “How about you Big John?”

“I’ll meet you guys outside,” Big John explained. “I’m going to the barn to saddle up that horse that doesn’t have a name.”

Desdinova walked over to Rivers with small, mahogany box with strange carvings on the side. “Rivers, take these with you, they might come in handy. These are galvanic keys made of copper, zinc and other metals. They may help you start the car, if the battery is dead. Just attach these to the terminals and then start the motor. The silver ones can open the doors, if they are locked. No incantations needed.”

“You know something, Mr. Desdinova, you’re are a right decent fellow, for a crazy, alchemist, who wants to rule the world,” Rivers admonished. “I’ll bring these back to you. I hate when someone borrows a man’s tools and doesn’t give them back.” Old Rivers climbed up on his mule, Midnight, and rode out the door.

“Nice of you to loan those tools out like that, Desdinova,” said the young fighter. “I hope they don’t loose them out in the snow.”

“Don’t worry, young man. Those are simple tools that anyone can make. They are insignificant to my grand plans,” Desdinova explained. “What I would love to have are the four wands, created by the American alchemist, Osiris Bulicroix, known as the Mad Cajun of South. He is said to have created a set of four wands that could control the weather, control minds and turn dirt into gold.”

The teenage boy, with the Southern accent, sauntered over to where Desdinova, “Mr. Desdinova, sir, my name is Billy Joe MacAllister. Did I hear you call the name Osiris Bulicroix? He was my mama’s great uncle!”

“Really? Do you know what happened to his earthly possessions after he died?” Desdinova asked with intense interest.

“They are all still in his old house place, up on Choctaw Ridge,” Billy Joe explained to the interested, megalomaniac alchemist. “Me and this girl, that I’ve been friends with all my life, Roberta Streeter, we used to play in the old house when we was kids. There were just all sorts of neat stuff in his house. All kinds of candles, leather bound books, swords, axes, skulls, and down in the root cellar was a laboratory filled with bottles of weird chemicals and potions.”

Desdinova produced a leather bound book, flipped to an illustration of the wands and showed Billy Joe, “I’ll show you what I would like from his collection. These things. Do you know if they are still there?”

Billy Joe looked at the picture in the book with sheepish expression and said with slight embarrassment, “Oh, them things. Last time me and my friend, Roberta was at Uncle Osiris’ house, we kind of threw them away.”

“In the trash?”

“No, we threw them off the Tallahatchie Bridge,” Billy Joe confessed. “They did make a big splash when they hit the water, though.”

“You know, that water in the Tallahatchie River is awful muddy,” the young fighter spoke up. “I’ll bet those wands are still under the water. Desdinova, with all your magic, you could probably find a way to get them out of the river.”

“It says in the book that they will glow in the dark beneath a full moon!” Desdinova exclaimed with delight. “I could probably retrieve them from the murky depths of that Southern tributary and with them, I, Desdinova, would rule the world.” He then laughed a loud maniacal laughter.

“I want to warn you,” Billy Joe cautioned. “Not only is that water muddy, but it is rather cold. I know, because a week after me and Roberta threw those things off the bridge, I was walking home from Choctaw Ridge and there was this woman in a long, black dress, walking toward me from the other end. She looked young and pretty, until she got up to me and, then she aged, right before my eyes to about a hundred years old and turned a gray corpse color. She must have been a haint of some sort. Then, she shoved me off the bridge and I drowned.”

“Somebody told me you jumped off the bridge?,” the young, tough, fighter asked.

“Why would I do something stupid like that?”

“I think I will go to Mississippi and get Bulicroix’s wands out of the Tallahatchie River!” Desdinova exclaimed.

“I hope you drowned in that thar river or some good ole boys hang ya and then throw yer body in the river,” Earl smarted off.

“Earl, you can’t kill me,” Desdinova laughed. “I’m immortal, unlike you.”

“He’s right, Earl!” the young, tough, fighter chided the redneck. “You can’t talk. Your wife, and her best friend, fed you poisoned black-eyed peas.”

“Oh yeah,” Earl snapped. “At least I ain’t got a woman’s name.” He then stood up and hollered to everyone in ear shot and pointed to the tough guy. “Hey yall, this ole boy here is named Sue! Ya here me, his name is Sue! That’s a gal’s name!”

“That does it! You asked for it!” and with that Sue knocked Earl to the ground, with the whiskey bottle and tobacco spit cup spilling everywhere.

Old Rivers rode back into the room on his mule, holding Desdinova’s box, with some snow in his white hair and on his shoulders. Big John was right behind him.

“Old Rivers and me got your car out of the ditch and started it, Miss,” Big John said.

“Your baby is fine,” Old Rivers reassured her. “Sleeping like a log.”

“That Yankee soldier, Billy, said he wanted to standing guard until you got back to your car,” Big John chuckled. “He wants to be a hero, whether or no.”

“Somebody call the lady a cab, so she can get back to her baby and get back on the road,” Old Rivers said. “There is two taxis here, which one is available?”

“I’ll get the Nashville cab that the boyfriend of that country singer Kay drives,” answered Sue. “I don’t trust that taxi driver from San Francisco. He likes to get stoned and pretend he is flying in his taxi.”

Carrie Nurse and Suzy helped the young mother up from the sofa and began walking her to the door. “Good luck, you shouldn’t have any more bad weather on your way to Cincinnati.”

“How do you know?” the young mother asked.

“I read it on the map I found, behind the clock, at the Four Winds Bar,” Carrie Nurse explained.

“Remember, I will need that map in my quest to take over the world,” Desdinova reminded Carrie Nurse.

“Ya cain’t take over the world with no maps and wands, like some sorta fairy,” Earl started shooting his mouth off again. “Ya need guns and pickup trucks if ya wanna take over the guberment.”

Everyone present unanimously yelled, “SHUT UP, EARL!”

Suzy handed the young mother an envelope with a Christmas card inside and Carrie Nurse slipped in a small stack of one hundred dollar bills before closing it. “We signed a Christmas card for you and are giving you some money,” Suzy told the young mother.

“You didn’t need to take up a collection for me,” the young mother said.

“We didn’t,” Carrie Nurse explained. “It is a gift from the newlyweds from Saginaw, Michigan. He became rich when he sold his father-in-law a worthless gold claim in the Klondike.”

“Thank you. I appreciate your help. Goodbye.” the young mother said, as the large room and everyone seemed to dissolve into the darkness. She heard the windshield wipers whipping back and forth on the windshield. The heater was blowing full blast. She looked in the back seat and Billy was sound asleep. She was in the car again or maybe she had never left. It must have been a dream, she thought. It had to be a dream, because it was too crazy to have really happened. That was a strange gathering of people that would never be together in the same place.

She pulled her car back onto State Highway 27 and had an uneventful drive the rest of the way to her parent’s house. She heard Billy shake his rattle, gurgling and babbling, so he was awake. When she parked her car in her parent’s driveway, she looked down and saw on the seat beside her a Christmas card in an envelope. Before she went to bed, she opened the envelope and pulled out the card. Not only was there a card, but there was one thousand dollars in hundred dollar bills in the envelope too. She opened the card and it was signed by almost everyone she had met, except for the Iron Man and Earl.

“MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE RESIDENTS OF THE STORY SONG REALM! Miss Carrie Nurse, Suzy Dear, Desdinova the Eternal Light, the Boy Named Sue, Big Bad John, Old Rivers, Honey & Mrs. Jay “Rocky” Stevens the Passage of Life Counselors, Brandy, Lola the Showgirl, Big Jim Walker, Leroy Brown, Uncle Sonny, the Excitable Boy (BTW you have great bone structure), Jennifer and her brown and white rabbit, Luka, Delta Dawn, Aqualung, Little Billy of the Home for the Orphans of the Victims of Lung Cancer, Billy the Yankee hero, Billie Joe MacAllister, Teddy Bear and Kay’s boyfriend the taxi driver.”