New Stories for Paint-by-Numbers

BASKET CASE

2012-02-10T06:50:00.000-08:00

Like a random thought, Little Moses was cast adrift on the Phlebitis River, cribbed in a reed basket. Upstream, at the edge of the palace, the Pharoah's daughter, Helsinki, noticed the leavening-bread-shaped baby bobbing among the rushes. "Don't eat him," warned her servants. Helsinki had him swaddled in Egyptian cotton before she ventured in to the kitchen. Like a yeast infection, Helsinki had a baker's addiction. The sight of the doughy baby had spurred her urge to bake bread. For the next 15 years, she filled the palace - and the boy's stomach - with an ongoing product line of loaves, sticks and tarts. Like a stretched bread crust, the spreading Moses could consume no more. On his 16th birthday, he left the palace with his flock of sheep (a gift from the Pharoah) and roamed Pyramid Valley in search of a burning bush.

FISH ON FRIDAYS

2012-02-09T07:28:00.001-08:00

"I fry with my little eye..." began Theresa's weekly ritual. The prairie girl was gifted beyond reason. The first in her family to develop kitten ears, she could detect the tiniest wind-whispers of the wheat through her stuccoed bedroom wall. Because of an inherent stir-fry genome, her eyes could sizzle succulent steaks and seafood with one gaze. Each Friday, her father would bring home the pond-caught trout. Once gutted and rinsed, it was Theresa's duty to cook the fish - with a focused feline ray - to perfection.

A FULL HOUSE

2012-02-08T07:16:00.000-08:00

Madame See-Ying came from a long line of fortune tellers. Her great grandmother, Empress Xiang-Wei, ran a house of cards in Sichuan province. Settling in the Yucatan city of Merida (with her Mexican husband, the visionary painter Ramón Futuro) just after the war, she set up her studio - A Thing Or Two - where she foresaw the futures of heat-hazed travellers and curious locals. The Mayan people, knowing a thing or two themselves about the future, would give her tips gleaned from their elders' stories. The topic of the Mayan calendar would often come up in conversation. Why, everyone wondered, did it end in the year 2012? One old man told her it was because the writers had caught flu - and were too ill to advance the dates. Another claimed, with great authority, that it had been misinterpreted - and actually continued to 2102. But the Madame - with her mental channel tune-locked to the divine - knew the answer: by the end of the year 2012, with limited space for the world's departed souls, there would be no more room in heaven.
© BILL BLAIR 2012

A STASH OF SOUVENIRS

2011-10-13T14:10:00.000-07:00

In the garden of Buckingham Palace sits a large circular glassed-in gazebo. It is home to Her Majesty's collection of souvenirs from a lifetime of world travels. Regularly, the Queen visits the building to inspect the state of her collection - most of the items gifts from flag-waving children in the far reaches of the Commonwealth. A particular favorite, a gift from the Inuit students at an elementary school in Nunavit, is a round hand-hooked rug, its central design the geometric maple-leaf logo from Canada's centennial in 1967. She often will let the corgis roll around on it, while she contemplates the turning of time.

TIME, THE AVENGER

2011-06-14T15:38:00.001-07:00

In the swinging 60s, billionaire hotelier Rodney Glenville IV would don his red London cap before ordering an ice-cold martini (straight-up, olives) at the Solaris Plexis Polo Club. In those days, he'd usually be seen in the company of his live-in girlfriend - the bikini-clad, B-flick bombshell, Julietta Sangiovese. Fast-forward to 1984, to Trebbiano’s Ristorante on Rodeo Drive, where Julietta walked out on Rodney – for good. Earlier that evening they had gone to the premier of Purple Rain. Rodney, now older and all soft and philosophical, had questioned aloud: “Like, what is that purple rain?” Julietta, about to throw in the towel on a relationship long gone toxic, replied: “It’s not rain... it’s the way that tears - landing on a color photo - turn the surface a soft magenta.”
© BILL BLAIR 2011

VALLEY OF LOST SOULS

2011-06-14T14:10:00.001-07:00

You won't find the Valley of Lost Souls on any map. It exists in limbo, a tract of land where souls wait in purgatory. Each afternoon, a train winds into the valley - crossing the frozen river - bringing with it another thousand spirits awaiting their destiny. Indeed, some have tried to escape: Jonny Winterbottom, the diabetic pop star (died of a sugar overdose); Michelle Omega, the trigger-happy shotgun repair expert (died while looking into a gun barrel); Edgar Chu, publisher of the Ever Daily newspaper that people pick up only to immediately throw away (died in parenthesis); Helen Hamer, the school bus driver (died while looking over her shoulder on a steep curve: "Remember it's a long weekend, kids!"), and; Raul Ortega, housekeeper/arsonist (died of internal combustion, after setting afire eight corporate executives' wastebins). Those that try to escape get rounded up by the league of henchmen. The escapees are returned to their icy pods where the constant hum of energy from the thousands of neighbouring spirits singes the air. Among today's new arrivals is Jessie Dumont, who is convinced he'll cross over to the high ground (spiritually speaking), once he admits his error of not wearing clean underwear while crossing the intersection at the moment when Susan Taylor's Mercury Zephyr pinned him into the pavement.
© BILL BLAIR 2011

LAVA LOVE

2011-06-03T10:35:00.000-07:00

In the 70s, TV sex therapist, Dr. Paul Savage, always stuffed a tiki figurine in his hip pocket before an interview. It was his lucky talisman, giving him peace-of-mind before answering tough questions on life's libido. Once, while vacationing in Hawaii, Dr. Savage glimpsed an eruption of Kilauea Volcano. The molten lava drooling over the crater impressed him greatly. It represented, for him, a metaphor for life's energy. His 1979 best-selling guide, Lava Love, makes reference to his famous therapy sessions involving cane syrup, palm leaves - and loads of celebrities.
© BILL BLAIR 2011

ALL IN JEST

2011-05-31T10:05:00.000-07:00

The village of Changeling Brook has an eerie silence. Where once the jolly, rosy-cheeked villagers chuckled and gossiped about their neighbours - "Remember how the milkman always makes a slow delivery at Rosalie Jones's cottage?" - now there are none. The village doctor, Adam Shynde, poured poison into the drinking water to avenge his patients. All gone! Today, the idyllic village, with its stream and cottages (all maintained with glee by Dr. Shynde - who prefers to drink his bottled water at the pick-any-seat-you-want Jest public house) looks picture-postcard perfect. Or, in this case, paint-by-number perfect...
© BILL BLAIR 2011

SHEER THERAPY

2011-05-31T09:21:00.000-07:00

Acclaimed psychoanalyst, Dr. Karin von Richter, author of the seminal 70s book, Blocking Out The Boogie-Man, used a simple - yet highly effective - technique incorporating scarves. The patient was asked to select a scarf of his or her choosing (preferably with a sheer, silky texture). Then, once naked, the patient was guided to drape the scarf over the groin area, and to visualize all painful childhood memories being absorbed - and released - through the fabric.
© BILL BLAIR 2011

OSCARS WILD

2011-01-30T19:35:00.000-08:00

Each year, on the evening of the Academy Awards, Susan Harrigan takes a lengthy bath in her tropicana-themed bathroom before donning a new peach chiffon negligee and popping the cork on a bottle of Veuve Clicquot. A widow herself, Ms. Harrigan relishes her private time with the bubbles - in the bath and in the glass - while watching the winners make their acceptance speeches. When the ceremony ends, and the empty bottle clinks on the counter, she wanders to bed... hoping for Champagne dreams.

THE STEAMPUNK WEEKEND

2010-11-15T13:46:00.000-08:00

Bored with everything bland in his English country life, Little Lord Evercreek ruminated on another; one where inventions and copper tubing and quirky gauges and electro-shock meters filled his days. Jules Verne had written fantastic adventures, and Evercreek wanted to live them. The young lord had heard about the goings on at The Pot Boiler, a Soho club off Wardour Street, where the London experimental engineering set gathered each Saturday to play inventors. With a personal invitation from Reginald Highcroft, the club's secretary, Evercreek set off by coach and horses - the coach lavishly furnished with red velvet walls, metal chains and locks, and a bar stocked with the finest selection of spirits - from his home at Skeleton Quay Castle, a half-hour north of London. Five minutes out of the gate, the hornblower, Harold Timmins, lit up his big bong atop the coach. Once passed around to Bert and John, the drivers - then down through the coach window to the little lord, the trip began. Evercreek then poured himself a large crystal cup of gin, which he sipped slowly, imagining all the spouts and steam-vents he'd be designing in his gadget-ized future.

TRETCHIKOFF'S WONG WAYS

2010-11-03T23:22:00.000-07:00

Having lived his early years in China, the young Vladimir Tretchikoff - Vlad for short - wandered the backstreets of Cape Town looking for a wild time. Arriving at Miss Wong's Olde-Worlde Opium Den & Sandwich Emporium, he knew he'd hit gold. Bold bongo rhythms and freaky flute trills floated stoccato-like into the South African night. Vlad entered...never to be the same. All the Asian women in the emporium had blue skin. The bongo rhythms pulsated between his ears, while his eyes took in the exotic and the unfamiliar. Tendrils from the Hyakulanga plant swayed behind the main drummer, whose hair splayed like the highest surf wave off the coast of Java. Right then and there, the artist decided he would paint cyan-skinned beauties and wilted orchids. He spun dollar signs in his head, as he imagined travelling the world, pedalling his glossy chromolithographs - his mind forever an open edition.

THE POODLE WITH THE MARASCHINO EYES

2010-10-07T14:52:00.000-07:00

Up for auction, our adorable miniature poodle "Cherie". Boy, has she got eyes! They're as red as maraschino cherries floating in buttermilk. And hypnotic. Just looking at them will make you reach for a Manhattan. We like ours with 1-1/2 ounces Maker's Mark, 2 teaspoons Punt e Mes, and 2 teaspoons dry vermouth. Stir with a bar spoon in a shaker filled with cracked ice, then strain into a frosty martini glass. Oh - and don't forget the Cherie!

NO TIME FOR SIESTA

2010-10-06T13:06:00.001-07:00

Basilica Bonga is affectionately known as the town that never sleeps. Day and night, wild carioca-costumed Bongans take to the streets in Latin dance mode. Portia Da Grava, the mayor, makes a point of conducting town business while dancing with her aldermen. She calls it "the perpetual political party!"

PORTRAIT OF A (EPI)LADY

2010-10-04T13:41:00.001-07:00

The famous face of Mona Lisa changed significantly over the three months that she sat for Leonardo. In July, when artist and sitter first met, her hairline started just two inches above her eyebrows. She had, you see, a nervous tick - a neurotic itch. Each day, around noon, Mona would pick out a single hair from her forehead, simultaneously making a little "titch" sound. Over time, as her portrait neared completion, her hairline accordingly receded. On the fourth day of October, when she was allowed to view the finished portrait, Miss Mona's face took on a mysterious bewildered look. Da Vinci noticed it right away - and later that evening went to work, smudging the oil paint to create the iconic expression we know today.
© BILL BLAIR 2010

CURSE of THE GOLDEN RETRIEVER

2010-09-10T12:58:00.000-07:00

Jon Denver had experimented one too many times with his liquor. If he didn't drink enough, he'd dream about his high school teacher, Miss Faye. If he drank too much, he'd dream about his first pet, Down-Boy, a golden retriever. Tonight he drank too much. Lying on his coupon-strewn floor, a barrage of dog images - little Down-Boy yipping and yapping - bounced off the walls of his mind. He always thought the dog looked half-human under his golden brows (reminding Jon of Jo-Jo, The Dog-Faced Boy, whom he'd once met at one of P.T. Barnum's booze-filled circus events). As Jon drifted off, he cued some 1001 Strings music in his head...to bid farewell to his childhood canine companion. Soon Down-Boy would blur with low-down boy, a curse that repeatedly haunts Jon Denver.
© BILL BLAIR 2010

PERFORMANCES NIGHTLY!

2010-08-19T15:16:00.000-07:00

Schwang and Schwing were performing Sea Monkeys, captured off the coast of Tching Lang-Lee Island in 1953. To make them more appealing to theatre-goers, their tails were surgically removed at Rosemont Medical Center. Dr. Richard Skillings, who performed the operation, was quoted at the time: "It was a difficult procedure, but the tails came off quite cleanly and I expect the little ladies' balance to return to normal in relatively short order." Schwang and Schwing's manager, Professor Horace Gilbert, made a small fortune off the pair, as they then toured Europe and the Americas - filling scrapbooks with their tales.
© BILL BLAIR 2010

HELL HARBOR

2010-06-10T14:17:00.000-07:00

Once rated "Most Charming Harbor" by Armchair Traveller Magazine, the port of St. Francis had grown chillingly quiet this June. Back in March, the town physician, Dr. Stanley Proctor, had returned from a Thai vacation with "one hell of a bug". By April, the virus - undiagnosed - had spread throughout the population. By May, the townsfolk were dropping like flies. Remarkably, Dr. Proctor survived, along with just three others: Tom Bell from The Corner Hardware, Susan Holden from the post office, and Lenny Shore from the harbor authority. To celebrate their survival, the four set sail on Lenny's yacht for a champagne brunch at sea. Once past St. Francis Point, however, a major squall hit - sending the provisions overboard, and turning the happy campers into prune-faced partygoers. Two days later, the provisions - including a bottle of Moët & Chandon - washed ashore on nearby Richter Island, where they were discovered by the resident lighthouse keeper, Sharon Coulter. Feeling blessed, Sharon ran into her house with the bottle and popped the cork. The next day she came down with a "hell of a bug".

SOMETHING. A FOOT.

2010-04-06T07:13:00.000-07:00

On Easter Sunday, while watching the puppies frolic with Mr. Mojo - their childhood stuffed bunny - Stan Reason and his sister Janet lamented the disappearance of lucky rabbits' feet from the selection of keychains and rearview-mirror danglers found at 21st century dollar-store counters.

THREE FEET TO THE WIND

2010-03-25T15:19:00.000-07:00

The first human foot - still laced into its Converse All-Star sneaker - washed ashore in March. Then in June, Bob Stanley spotted a second foot - also a left, and belonging to a male - between the rocks and shore at Fervor Beach. By mid-Summer, a third left foot had been discovered along the same beach. Everyone in the town of Beals Point seemed to be having no difficulty in walking. No one had reported a missing foot. So, where were they coming from? Bob scanned the shore each day, hoping to find the answer.
© BILL BLAIR 2010

THE NICOTINED ROOM

2010-03-07T15:07:00.001-08:00

After reading the complete poems of Avery Finch, Madeline Forrest felt sad. She lay naked on her green velvet chaise, recalling the last line of the poet's greatest work, Shell Shock Shoreline: "When at last against the rock my heart pounds". Tears began to stream down her cheeks. And as she cried, so did the room. All around her, the walls dripped down drizzles of brown nicotine stains. Souvenirs of a lifetime of smoking. What goes up, thought Madeline, must come down.

THE EAGLES HAS LANDED

2010-03-07T14:49:00.000-08:00

Juan Alcatraz was a master serenader. His repertoire was so great, he was known throughout Guadalajara as Mister Music. Ask him to play Stevie Wonder's "Boogie On Reggae Woman" and the cords immediately would fire up. "Like a Virgin"? Any song at all - no problem. Arriving for the Fiesta del Agave Azul, maestro Juan placed his fingers on the metal strings before belting out at the crowd: "Welcome to the Hotel California". Any time of year, you will find him here.

RED HOODIE'S REVENGE

2009-11-16T15:13:00.000-08:00

With a taste for revenge, Roger Soufflé had replaced the hockey puck with a replica explosive device. For the past six months, the Youngash triplets had teased the red-hoodied Roger - calling him names like "little red riding hood" - on his way home from school. Dr. Soufflé, his father, was an ace inventor with an eye for detail and an evil willingness to assist. None of the boys had noticed anything peculiar about the replica puck. In ten minutes, it would explode - finally making Roger's harassers see red.

OVER EXPOSURE

2009-11-13T15:39:00.000-08:00

It was the mattress fire, started by her cigarette, that alarmed the front desk, consequently calling firemen (and later police officers) to her suite at the Stapleton Hotel. Ex-stripper, Sherry Dupree, down on her luck - and up on alcohol - lay naked and passed out on the sheets. When the smoke had cleared, Miss Dupree was pronounced dead. Under her bed, the officers found a stash of 238 empty bottles of cheap spiced rum.

MIRACLE at CYPRESS GARDENS

2009-10-09T14:38:00.000-07:00

Young Shane McGillivray had waited patiently - his parents steadying him on his metal leg braces - on that July morning at Cypress Gardens. He'd been in line to meet the great healer, the Reverend Arthur Smyly. In line before him, Shane watched the fat lady waddle up the bridge to the Reverend, who pressed the palm of his hand - push-button style - into the woman's forehead. She dizzied and fell sideways, snapping the bridge rail before falling into the water. A trio of alligators quickly aimed their snouts towards her. There was a garbled scream (Shane's parents shielded his curious eyes from the blood spurts) as the crowd dispursed into mayhem. Reverend Smyly, himself in shock, stood frozen on the bridge. Shane's parents took this opportunity to guide him up to the healer. A laying of hands followed, plus a few jerks and twists from Shane - before a cure was pronounced. He left the gardens that afternoon, walking proudly - unassisted - with his braces under his arms.

ANSEL ADAMS'S ACID TRIP

2009-10-09T14:20:00.000-07:00

Ahead of his time, Ansel Adams met with a series of gallery rejections when he first sent out his wildly colorful images for curatorial critique. Responses like "loud", "horrific", "surreal", and "no thanks" filled his file folder. A friend, Imogen Cunningham, suggested he take up the artsy stuff - black and white photography. He did. And he never looked back. However, stashed in a cardboard box in the vault of the Zone-System Interpretive Center at Monterey, lies a treasure trove of saturated wonders from the shutterbug's early days.

A LIFE IN MINIATURE

2009-09-17T15:50:00.000-07:00

Dr. Kenji Sasaki, having successfully miniaturized his wife, Seiko, had only one thing to report to the Japanese news media: "Our grocery bill has certainly gotten smaller." Seiko - her voice barely audible at the press conference - said her new stature mirrored the role of women in Japanese society. Alas, her voice was drowned out by the voice of Kyu Sakamoto, sadly crooning Sukiyaki.

COLD TURKEYS

2009-09-17T11:05:00.000-07:00

First Nations stand-up comic, Cheep'chik, travels the club circuit, regaling audiences with a routine based on dissing North American Indian stereotypes. The Germans - nostalgic for Karl May's early 20th century stories about cowboys and Indians, where the Indians were nearly always the heroes - love her, particularly when she appears on stage in full costume. (She once made the mistake of walking on-stage in Munich wearing a Stussy logo sweatshirt; the Oktoberfest crowd booed.) Cheep'chik was born a stand-up comic. At the age of six, she visited her grandfather's turkey farm in Metisland, Quebec. Walking into the six-thousand-square-foot barn - and suddenly facing 10-thousand turkeys, she had the perfect audience. "Did you hear the one about...?" she began. Her line was followed by a cacophony of gobble-gobble-gobbles - like a chorus of laughter. "A midget goes into a bar..." she continued, again greeted with a million laughing gobblers. With her confidence boosted, she headed out - years later - into comedy culture. When audiences respond positively to her jokes, she remembers her grandfather's turkeys. When audiences respond badly, she calls them turkeys.

THE BODY in THE ATTIC

2009-09-12T17:59:00.000-07:00

If you had not driven past the old Rogers cottage, but instead had stopped and lingered outside its board-and-batten walls, you likely would catch a whiff of the body decomposing in the attic. Shirley Adams, the attractive New Hampshire realtor, was laughing when she crossed the state line in the passenger seat of Neil Holden's Mercury Montego. Neil was a travelling salesman with a sad addiction: he picked up lonely single women and, after treating them to a romantic dinner - usually Italian - he'd drive them to a derelict farmhouse where the femme would meet her fatale end.

THE CREATURE from BIRCH LAKE

2009-09-10T11:04:00.000-07:00

It was just after Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon, that the Birch Lake Monster tooks its first step ashore. Most people in the nearby community of Hester remember the incident with the fondness of a fable. Younger generations thrill at its myth. Yet the monster did exist, even if for one moment. Ron Chambers, scanning the lake shore with his metal detector that morning, was the first witness. Fortunately, he always carried his Kodak Instamatic - so was able to record, on grainy negative, the charcoal-grey slimy figure, web-footing its way out of the water. With the blurry composition of the Big Foot photo, most news media discredited Ron's picture as fakery. However, if you ask Ron, and Sandra and Tom Benjamin, Herb Taylor, Rusty and Ben Holland, Jane Stern, and the residents of the Indian Summer Retirement Home - they'll tell you. They all caught a glimpse of the frightening figure, as it swathed a path along the back of Ray Road, before disappearing into a watercress-ripe ditch. Never to be seen again.
© BILL BLAIR 2009

UN-AMERICAN IDOL

2009-09-08T11:31:00.000-07:00

Jennifer Wong, the Singapore songstress, hit all the right notes when she sang her upbeat finale - "My Country 'Tisn't of Thee" before the judges. Their disinterest only made her belt it out louder. When her performance was over, and the judges had tallied their votes, she was presented with a FAIL. Jennifer couldn't believe it. She'd sung her song better than the other two contestants: Josh Brubeque (the judges' favorite) with his flat-note "Save Your Best For Me", and Sharmayne LeCroix with her over-the-top (yet under-the-belt) rendition of "Way Up There, Somewhere". Miss Wong broke into tears, before cursing the judges and damning the U.S. of A. Her outbursts were bleeped from the televised signal. Security guards dragged her flailing body away. When her feet touched down on the exit ramp, Jennifer felt a cocoon of cool sparkly light envelope her. Then a voice explained: "I am Vince, the almighty Creator's sculptor-laureate. He's in need of a new office planter. And because of your un-American behavior, you're it!" With a series of popping whirs, the light dissolved, exposing the heavenly sculptor's creation: Jennifer Wong - ceramic planter. A rare bird about to perform in paradise.

JONI'S BLUE PERIOD

2009-09-04T09:06:00.000-07:00

The first snow had settled on Fort MacLeod, Alberta, on that cold November night in 1943. The silence of the evening was broken by the first cries of a newborn infant at Anderson Lodge. The baby, a girl, responded quickly to sights and sounds. By the age of three, she was composing jigs and ballads on the kitchen table. Later, she'd leave the dusty lodge to set foot in the Big City. There, busking at tables at a cafe in the Bohemian Sector, she'd sing of life's gritty underside. Lyrics like "acid, booze, and ass - needles, guns, and grass", held a special appeal for the cafe's unkind-of-blue crowd.

THE TEARS of A CLOWN

2009-09-03T18:06:00.000-07:00

Constantinople (the clown formerly known as Istanbul) begins each day with a heavy dose of caffeine. Consuming up to 33 cups a day, he's a textbook coffee addict. He prefers it straight-up, considering cream and sugar a crutch. His tears - mocha brown - start running at about three o'clock in the afternoon; a steady stream, but not dense enough for him to drown in them.

ANOTHER ROADSIDE ATTRACTION

2009-09-03T12:57:00.000-07:00

Having tired of Cirque du Soleil extravaganzas, His Holiness The 15th Dalai Lama asked his driver to take him beyond the Las Vegas strip, into the wild west. At the Highway 159 turnoff, there was a caravan set up with vintage costumes and props - a cowboys-and-indians photo op. With childhood visions of becoming an Indian Chief, not a spiritual leader, His Holiness asked the driver to pull over. On a rack beside the camera was a full chief costume complete with feathered headdress. A photographer approached him from the caravan, and welcomed him, ushering him to a change area behind the props. A few moments later, the Dalai Lama appeared, majestically, in full costume. His driver applauded the transformation. The photographer positioned him for the portrait. Just before the shutter clicked, His Holiness had one request - "Pass me that peace pipe."
© BILL BLAIR 2009

A PRAYER BEFORE DRYING

2009-09-03T09:16:00.000-07:00

Susan Jones hated her job at the library. Every chance she got, she'd slip away from the Reference Desk to go skinny dipping at Brooks Pond. Hanging her conservative cotton suit and straw hat on a twisted branch, she'd dive in - thrilling at the cool fresh water as it swooshed in caresses around her supple flesh. She usually stopped at the north edge to pick a camelia blossom. This would adorn her hair, adding an exotic Dorothy-Lamour-native-girl touch.
When it was time to leave the pond, Susan would pull a J-Cloth towel from her suit pocket. And as she dried herself, she'd pray that something would happen in her life - some big break - to rescue her from Library purgatory.
© BILL BLAIR 2009

MYSTERY at THE MILL HOUSE

2009-09-01T09:14:00.000-07:00

On the first day of September, the water wheel at the old mill house came to a stop. There was no witness. Nicknamed the "house of hanky-panky" by the residents of New Bosford, the building had been the go-to hangout for illicit love. Christine Pendry had lost her necklace there, when Bryce Stanley went to pull her in for a kiss - but accidentally caught his fingers on the strands of prehispanic crystal beads. They smacked on the plank floorboards like a hundred tiny ice-cubes. Christine was in tears, knowing her anthropologist father, Dr. Harold Pendry, would strap her with his New Guinea feather headdress when he found out. Bryce felt like a dolt at his clumsiness. And the moist kiss he longed for could only be imagined. Many years earlier, the slightly-retarded (and constantly picked on) Tom Hicks, had tried to hang himself by the mill house rafters. His life was saved, however, when Steve Jenkins and Tricia Wyatt showed up in their wet bathing suits. They'd hoped for a little twist and shout, but instead became life-savers of the mentally challenged. Grateful to this day, Tom Hicks routinely has his IQ checked.

GONE. FISHING.

2009-08-28T12:59:00.000-07:00

The air is always quiet before a disaster. James Dally had taken a 'sick' day, a means to escape his hectic job at Capital Records. He felt great, driving up Iceberg Mountain Road to go fly fishing at Skogland River. The day before, stopping in at Jake's Bar across the street from the office, he spotted Nat 'King' Cole. Mr. Cole frequently stopped in at Jake's after meeting with the record company. They chatted about family, work and life in general. James mentioned his crazy workload, and it was Nat who suggested - "You get sick time, don't you?" - that he take a day off. James cast his line in the river stretch below Skogland Falls. And then he became aware of the ominous silence. No wind, no water splushing, no birds crying, no trees shaking. Wierd. Before long there was a gunshot. It was so loud, it scared James to death! He fell back, gulped on glacier water, and convulsed in an "Unforgettable" way.
© BILL BLAIR 2009

CURSE of the SKYE TERRIER

2009-08-27T22:24:00.000-07:00

Ollie Adams had experimented one too many times with his liquor. If he didn't drink enough, he'd dream about his abusive father. If he drank too much, he'd dream about his first pet - Sky, the Skye terrier. Tonight he drank too much. Lying on his coupon-strewn floor, a barrage of doggie images - little Sky yipping and yapping - bounced off the walls of his mind. He always thought the dog looked half-human under his scruffy brows (reminding Ollie of Jo-Jo, The Dog-Faced Boy, whom he'd once met at one of P.T. Barnum's booze-filled circus events). As Ollie drifted off, he cued some 1001 Strings music in his head...to bid farewell to his childhood canine companion. Soon Skye would bleed with Sky, a blurry curse that repeatedly haunts Ollie Adams.

INCIDENT at CRUSTY LAKE

2009-08-27T09:43:00.000-07:00

With the maple-sugar harvest nearing completion, the residents of Crusty Lake took to the frozen lake. The ice was thick and firm, great for skating, frollicking - and thrills. Dodie and Paul built a snowman on the shore, their recently-dead poodle pup (blame that Buick driver) buried inside the figure's frosty belly. Wilburt chased Ed, hoping to catch some of his loot from the corner grocery robbery. Sandy tightly fastened her laces while Timmy slipped on his pool of incontinence. Roger and Anne waltzed a glide, their skate blades cutting shrieks over the ice. Further down the lake, Leonard did an interpretive dance-come-crucifixion pose. All appeared well in this charming scene. As dusk approached, however, the Buick driver would return, racing over the lake - flattening each thrill-seeking participant at Crusty Lake.
© BILL BLAIR 2009