Experience Writing Day 12 -Microscopic Monsters

You’ve never heard of Alonzo Manzella  because he died a very long time ago in a small town in Italy.

His brothers ( Alonzo died unmarried  in 1835 ) dressed him in his finest suit and after his funeral his body was taken to the Crypts. After awhile in one of the small rooms   he was taken to a great hall  and he propped against a wall where he stood  with other unmarried men. This all had smooth white plaster walls and sometimes the plaster fell away from the ceiling and it looked like it was snowing.

Alonzo’s jaw had been tied shut from the inside, so unlike the Mr  Renata ( who stood to his left ) and  Mr Salvatrice ( who stood to his right ) Alonzo did not appear to be screaming or yelling.

But one of Alonzo’s eye lids ( the left one ) had opened just a little and as the years went on it opened a little bit more and eventually it opened completely.

Now, unless you went nose to nose with Alonzo ( not advisable ) you would see that his eye socket was empty and you could reassure yourself  that even though it looked like it- Alonzo could see nothing through his dried and desiccated eye socket.

Still. When you looked into Alonzo’s eye socked, it was like looking down a set of very dark and creepy basement stairs and even though your eyes told you nothing was there, something in your ear was screaming there was.

The tourists ( the Catacombs are very and people come from all  over the world to visit them ) will swear up and down that the ” Mummy who opened his eye ” was watching them.

” You can see it, you can see his eye following  you. ”

People weren’t supposed to take pictures of the mummies, but they did anyway and the internet is full of pictures of Alonzo’s eye- staring at you from the other side of your computer screen.

Alonzo even had a book and a movie written about him- in  these stories he can see the day you will die and how and a clever medium – who ends up being possessed by Alonzo sees her own death and blah blah blah- it’s not a very good story.

Of course Alonzo is not an empty husky in dusty clothes. He’s a little bit more then that.

There is a little spark, a little bit of Alonzo that sometimes wakes up in a dark room and he can hear people talking about his eye, how it feels like he is watching them.

“So stupid, ” Alonzo tells himself ( at least he thinks he’s alone in his darkness ) I can’t see a thing. I’ve been blind my entire life.

EXPERIENCE WRITING WRITOBER PROMPT: DON’T LOOK HER IN THE EYE

Don’t look her in the eye, my educated friends who dwell in the world of the Supernatural, have advised me or the Witch that haunts you will turn you into stone

and I thought- as I have looked into the face of Evil  that lived in my attic  as it followed me from work to home and sometimes to the store on several occasion; then what should I look at when I meet her face to face ( as I often do ) her fangs? Her claws? The sight of her floating above the floor and dragging her toes behind her?

She I count the human teeth buttons  that hold the front of her dress closed?

Or maybe I should fact the fact that people who claim to know how to confront or fight evil, or ghosts or monsters can’t really know what they are talking about if they have never looked into the face of Evil, the kind of face that could turn you to stone

and I should keep doing what I am doing to keep myself safe.

Inspired by Writober Prompt: WHO CONTROLS OUR MINDS

Hazel Sharp died two days before her birthday last year.

Her family said it was a shame she didn’t go the day after her birthday because Hazel Sharp was born on Halloween and leaving this world on All Souls Day would have been a hoot.

It may sound like Hazel’s family was indifferent to her passing, or maybe they didn’t care that she died but nothing could be further from the truth.

Hazel’s family understood her you see- they knew who she was was and more so- they understood what she was.

 

In her younger years Hazel had made her mark in the world by writing crime and horror  novels.

In her books, people chopped and peeled and skinned and ate and burned and buried each other alive with reckless abandon. And as you wandered down the very dark path she set you on as you took her words in- you tried unsuccessfully to not laugh and when you did you would slam your hand over your mouth and hope nobody saw what you were reading and the merry laugh that pushed it’s way up from your chest and passed  your lips.

What  you need to know is that Hazel’s characters weren’t charming, they weren’t clever the human monsters that populated her mind weren’t exceptional in any way and their crimes were never well planned  and as you got to know these people, by the end of the story you were glad most of them were dead.

Still. Hazel was fond of her characters. ” I’d send them Christmas cards if they had addresses ” she would say when the holiday rolled around.

 

Hazel’s son, William was responsible for her estate after she passed away.

” You’ll carry on my works for me William, I know I can trust you to do that.”

He promised he would. He swore it to her in fact.

 

Three days after Hazel’s well attended Funeral William was sitting at her writing desk in her office that was located in her basement- and when I say he was in her office in her basement  I don’t want you to think it was decorated with art or sculptures or that it was anyone’s idea of a writer’s retreat.

The only pieces of furniture in her office was a kitchen table that used to be painted a light sea foam green, a metal folding chair with a wonky leg and a shelf that used to be used to hold canned goods in a grocery store, but it was empty now and rusting.

Her desk faced a rough stone wall that sweated water and housed bugs and mice.

This is where Hazel wrote her stories and books in long hand , so there wasn’t any need for electrical outlets- the only light source was a naked dusty bulb hanging from a cord above her desk and occasionally it popped off and then back on.

This time when the light popped off and stayed off longer then usual and William was sitting there in total and absolute darkness. He waited patiently for the light to pop back on and when it did he looked down and saw  his Mother’s  notebook.

It was a plain light blue spiral bound notebook covered with Hazel Sharp’s initials worked into little doodles of birds and flowers.

William sighed.

He opened the notebook and on the first page he read,

” My to do list ”

On each line on each page was somebody’s name, a date and a few words like

poison, or knife or car or pushed in front of a train.

William closed the notebook.

He stared at the wall and he wondered if he were to go home and look up these names on the internet would he find out they belonged to real people who had died real and terrible deaths?

He opened the notebook back up to the page that said,

” My to do list ”

he laid his hand on the page and stared at the wall for a few more minutes and then the light popped off and when it popped back on there was a surge of brightness that made William wince.

William blinked his eyes, he rubbed them and then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a pen he leaned over his Mother’s notebook and he wrote.

It was a name, just one name that belonged to a face and a person that William sat next to on the bus each day.

William pushed his chair back and got up from the table and as the light above his head blinked out, he made his way up the stairs with slow and heavy steps.