The well had dried.

Just to be sure, Louise through dropped a stone and listened eagerly, waiting for a PLOP! and a renewed hope. All she got was a THUNK! and a reaffirmed desperation. It wasn’t looking good.

Louise turned the pail upside to triple-check for any signs of water, and when gravity told her that she was shit out of luck she almost cried. She would’ve, too, if she wasn’t’ already so dehydrated. At this point, she was sure her blood was turning into dust and that her next period would look more like Lawrence of Arabia than Dracula.

“Fuck it,” Louise muttered, dropping the pail and looking to the sky. Not. A. Cloud. In. Sight. Her only hope – the only hope – of getting water would be to march down to Padre Sausalita’s house and knock on the door. Diligent as ever, the good Padre’d anticipated the drought and had pre-ordered countless gallons so that the congregation’d never run out of holy water.

The only problem? Louise had promised herself that if she ever saw him again, she’d kill Padre Sausalita. In fact, she’d promised herself that she’d drag his scab-ass to a big `ole mirror and slit his throat in front of it so that he’d be able to watch himself bleed out.

And Louise never broke a promise.

—-

This right here? This is the MONDAY MORNING COMMUTE!

First, I caffeinate myself into enough of a frenzy to offer a bit of prose — call it microfiction or short narrative or drivel-fiction — for your reading pleasure! Then, I present the various means I’ll be using in the upcoming Monday-through-Friday to cope with the workweek. Finally, you hop into the comments section and offer your own anti-ennui elixirs.

It’s not much more than show-and-tell, but it’s a fairly well-attended event aboard SPACESHIP OL!

Okay, let’s rock!

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Del Toro. C’mon. Stop fucking around with this stuff and make Slaughterhouse Five. I beg you. Beseech you. However — if you insist. In that case, I’m down with this casting. Hot off playing Jimmy Harassson or whatever in Star Trek II: One More Time with Feeling, Del Toro is fingering Benjamin Slumerbuns for a role in Frankenstein. I’ll take it!

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There’s a story behind every line, but maybe the imagination can cook up funnier shit than the truth (this will be difficult, I assure you).  It was a pleasure to host OL in Toronto, and I’m already looking forward to the next con weekend that OL tears up.

Lo! The vortex on the horizon – do you see it? Surely you must! It’s a gargantuan cyclone, an indomitable mass of swirling purple and orange and black. Those protesters who’ve spent the last month screaming at the revelers, naysaying and posturing themselves above the traditions of candied-chaos? Well, they’ll be summarily swept away, fallen victim to the natural disaster that’s been summoned by the OCTOBERFEAST celebrants to end the festival most tempestuously.

It’s the Tornado of Souls.

Look closer! At the top of the soul-storm is a wicker chair, stationery despite its position. The twister slowly diminishes as makes its way towards the campgrounds, giving all present parties a better view of both the chair and the individual sitting in it. He is aged but regal. Grey-haired but black-hearted. Avuncular but assailing.

Riding into the grand finale of the OCTOBERFEAST on a goddamn tornado-chair, this is figure represents evil incarnate in a way no other ever has.

This man is Christopher Lee. And he’s responsible for more cinematic villainy than anyone else on the planet.

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