Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Mewmuring (catfinition) – a soft, satisfied meow t often incorporates a trill or a purr, generally associated with a happy, contented cat and frequently heard just before a cat begins eating.
In use: “Sweet mewmuring replaced the kittens’ strident meowing demands, and then the sounds of eating wet food replaced the mewmuring.”
It was a heavy night of dreams. One was remembered with strength and clarity. I wrote it all up but then decided against posting it.
Then, had imaging appointments this morning. One turned into two because the place where they sent me didn’t have the necessary special equipment needed for my imaging. That required me to go to a hospital in another city, where they had the right gear. The first imaging department told me that they’d spoken to the second, and the second wanted me to go right over. I did. Arriving there, they asked me why I was there two hours early.
Umm, whaattt?
I was told they’d see me when they could but I might need to wait. Rushing out of the house, I’d forgotten the book I was reading so I had nothing to do while waiting, except, gasp, stream music to myself, watch people, and think. Grrr.
Here’s a humorous little sidebar to that. I forgot the book because my phone rang as I went to get the book just before leaving the house. Diverted to the phone, I checked the number and didn’t recognize. Well, I was already close to being late and wasn’t going to answer the phone for a caller that wasn’t identified. As I left, I thought, what if it’s imaging, calling to tell me there’s a problem and my appointment has been cancelled, ha, ha.
I was really surprised when that turned out to be the case. Imaging told me that they’d called calling me to stop me from coming in, etc.
By the time I sat to wait in the proper location, a rant was forming. I didn’t feel up to a rant, but I’m letting some of it leak out now. Just as I’d sat and contemplated the rant, my name was called. The imaging director came out to apologize to me, take me back and get my procedure done, so yea.
That pleased me but then the staff started asking me, what are we doing to you? My intelligent response was, “Ummm.” Next the doctor shows and asked me, “Do you know why we’re doing this?”
I gave him an explanation of my understanding. He nodded. “Okay, that makes sense.”
It was all done twenty minutes later.
Then I was here to write. I had an excellent writing day yesterday. I’d ended on a cliffhanger the previous day. I had no idea where it was supposed to go. But when I ordered my coffee and sat down to write, I knew what to write, and did it. The process illuminated more of the novel’s concept and story, surprising me. I always credit the muses for my creative process’ tortuosity, but I know it’s all my brain. Whether it’s muses or my brain, the process, which is apparently transparent to me, remains a source of surprise and delight.
Got my coffee. Know what time it is? Yep, time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
I pray for hope
I haven’t kept you too
long as I know that you’ll
always be the drink for
me and you, it always
seems like we’re getting lost in the
words can make a difference, especially how
they come and go through the spirals of
our changing lives and times because
what was once familiar has become
strange that I think of this now in
conjunction with where we’ve been and
where things have
gone are the expectations and
dreams are what keeps me
going for the goal that
I pray for hope.
Digging into his pocket, Chasm pulled everything out, dropped it on the counter, and took in the lifetender. Her neck and arms were lean and bare. Alabaster skin and sculpted coal black hair accented her blue eyebrows, green eyes, red pearl earrings, and brown lips.
Leaning forward, the lifetender watched Chasm’s discs take on green, gold, and silver. Her name holo said she was Kymeri and she was not available.
“You got something,” Kymeri said. Her long, flashing red fingernails raked the discs into order as their denominations came up. “Thousand dollar goldisc, a D, silver century, a wide array of greendiscs.” Her fingernails flashing gold, she tapped the individual discs. Each spoke its value. When she’d tapped the last greendisc, she clicked her fingernails together. Changing to green, her nail said, “Seventeen hundred sixty-seven dollars.”
Just short of a day’s pay, a reflection of the six hours Chasm had worked. “What can I get for that?”
“Night room, joy doll, two squares, dozen drinks, new clothes.”
“What would that leave me?”
“Depends on particulars.”
“Of course. There a budget package?”
Shaking her head, Kymeri said in a low voice, “You don’t want a budget. Get a deluxe, at least. You can afford it. Budget drinks are well liquor or piss beer with compiled food, and the clothes are plastic.”
“Can I budget and then upgrade the drinks to IPA? I don’t need many, maybe three bigs.”
Her fingernails flashing green, the lifetender said, “Okay, a budget room is a bed with a pop out commode, access to the ionizer, private sink, standing space and one chair.”
“Bedding?”
“Included. Joy doll?”
“No. Trade in for the clothes?”
The lifetender shrugged with a dispassionate scan over his black plastic-encased torso. “Your stuff isn’t much. Probably a ten.”
The negotiations were continued. When it was done, Chasm had spent eleven hundred. It scared him to spend so much.
He was ported into his pod. Soft white lights came on. No windows, one large monitor, doublewide bed, chair, sink, port token switch for the ionizer, and popout commode, as promised.
Squirming into the chair, Chasm guzzled his first IPA. Decent stuff, but most importantly, cold. Tension sloughed out of his shoulders. It’d been a good day. He’d found work and was promised more. He was off the street, had a clothing credit, two meals paid for, along with the IPA and water, and still had almost five hundred in discs.
Life was good. Kicking off his shoes, Chasm unfolded his laptop from his hip pocket and plugged it in to play some games.
For the first time in at least a year, he was looking forward to tomorrow.
I picture April showers of stars at night,
of singing people and loving sights.
Hopes of April showers of good luck,
keep me going when I feel stuck.
I remember April showers of another time,
when I was young and thought the world would be mine.
I want for April showers when people are less of a dick,
where we help each other
and stop being angry and sick.
She used love and hate extensively. “I love pizza.” “I hate peas.” “I love Ricky Gervais.” “I hate heavy metal.”
He couldn’t remember her saying that she liked something. It always seemed like either love or hate. They seemed like narrow borders on a broad wasteland.
Seeing a stream of ants on the picnic table, Brett began crushing them with his thumb, smiling as he did.
The guy he didn’t know — there were a lot of them at this company picnic — came by and stopped, looking down, sunglasses mirroring the scene in shiny black. “What’re you doing?”
Brett thought it was obvious so he nuzzled a cold beer for a contemplative minute. “Killing ants. They’re invading the picnic. I’m saving the picnic.” He chortled. He was like a superhero.
“Don’t you know that every small creature you kill breeds a new cancer cell in you?”
Squelching his alarm, Brett snorted. “Bullshit. You made that up.” He was ready to stand up and punch the guy. How’d he know about his cancer? He’d just been told last Thursday. He hadn’t told anyone else yet.
“No, I recognized it and spoke it for you. Sorry about your cancer but you brought it on yourself.” He walked off.
Brett said, “Wait. That’s not fair. No one ever told me.”
The other turned to Brett but kept walking backward. “The ants didn’t think it was fair, either.” Pivoting, he strode away, leaving Brett to stare at the ants and wonder.
Awoke at two in the morning with some issues with urinating, went to the hospital at seven, was referred to another hospital at nine, and was discharged and home with catheter in my bladder by one fifteen.
When I awoke at two, I was thirsty. Had a drink and a pee. The pee was problematic because it was a tiny trickle. Drank more water shortly after that, and entered a prolong state of tiny trickles and increasing pain. The pain was in my lower back, flank, and groin, and shut down my ability to sit or stand in comfort. I headed to the hospital with my wife shortly before seven.
Once there, I went into emergency care. I stripped naked, put on a backless hospital, and introduced to a bed. A bladder scan showed my bladder holding eight hundred plus CCs. A full bladder is about one hundred CCs.
My blood pressure was two-thirty over something. A pain med was injected into my right ass cheek by my hip, and an anti-nausea med was given. Attempts were made to enter my bladder with a catheter. First, a size sixteen was employed. It was painful having a catheter pushed up my urethra through my penis. Everyone kept telling me, “Breathe through it.” My wife said, “Pretend you’re giving birth.”
The med team met a wall which appeared to be an enraged prostate gland. The sixteen wouldn’t go into the bladder, but I pissed out a bunch during the attempt. A new bladder scan showed I was down to six hundred CCs. Between that reduction and the pain meds, I was comfortable, and my BP was down to 180/130.
With a numbing agent first injected into my urethra, another attempt using a smaller catheter was made, and failed, and resulted in some bleeding from my penis. The fourteen size catheter lacked the strength and rigidity necessary to reach the bladder. Consulting me, they decided to try another sixteen. This time, a doctor would try. After having the same results, a call was made to a urologist at a sister facility and a transfer referral to the other hospital’s emergency room was issued. I then puked several times. More anti-nausea meds were given via an IV. I was discharged forty-five minutes later.
It was a ginger walk back to the car.
I’d been warned to keep my eyes closed during the thirteen mile drive to avoid nausea. I ended up retching five times once I was in the next emergency room. My stomach didn’t have material to puke.
One again, I was led to a room, took everything off, and put on a backless gown. A new bladder scan showed I was down to five hundred eighty-three CCs of urine in my bladder, but I wasn’t having any pain, thanks to the meds. BP was lower. A new attempt to reach my bladder was attempted. This time we went up to a twenty. Yowza, that hurt. It failed, but more urine was drained out. Hurrah. A urologist arrived with a plan to put a camera up my urethra to see what was going on and determine why they couldn’t reach my bladder.
I was given Fentanyl. The plan was a long, messy, and painful effort, but attempt number five worked in the end. A guide wire was introduced. The guide wire managed to reach the bladder. With it and the camera in place, a catheter was inserted. At last, my bladder was emptied. After that, a nurse gave me my new tube and bag with instructions on how to use it. I was given a cloth to clean up and then dressed. As before, my bed and garments were soaked.
That was my morning and early afternoon. Back home, I tested my movement limits while my wife made me a small meal of scrambled eggs with toast. We joked about how little my poor pecker had looked during these procedures, and how many strangers had handled it that day. I drank twelve ounces of water, ate, and then explored my new catheter and bag arrangement. Some fluid was in my bag, but more was in my tube. Gravity wasn’t letting it empty into the bag. Removing the bag and tube and examining it, I realized it the bag was reversed, which pinched off the receiving end. I fixed that, and now have a steady flow going into the bag.
Through it all, my med team were professionals and polite. They communicated with me about everything, constantly apologized for my pain, and checked on me. Most supporting and powerful, though, was my wife. She made a huge difference by being there with me throughout the day, talking to me, holding my hand when possible, or rubbing my feet.
All this curtailed any writing and walking efforts today. That’s the downside. The upside is that I’m not in any pain, although there’s a small pain where the catheter is in my bladder and bending over and walking have their difficulties. I should have this out in ten days, and then will proceed with addressing the prostate issue.
They — you know who they are — are always talking about how closely we’re connected. Here’s close for you. You cough from your chest, spewing out air, phlegm, and sputum, and at the same time, you fart, and a little urine squirts out of your urethra.
That’s connected.
I sat down on the toilet to do my morning thing. Instantly one of the three household cats graced me with his attention. One always does. Should I get in there and close the door before one arrives, a pitiful protest begins outside the door.
Boo wound himself back and forth against my legs while purring, meowing, and tossing glances at me. I said, “Will I never be allowed to do my business at home without one of you helping me? It’s irritating sometimes, you know. How would you like it if I petted you while you were in the litter box doing your business?”
I swear that his purr when up twenty decibels.
Michael Seidel, writer 