444 Submission to 4 Corners Press

Four Corners Press is having a contest! 444 word submissions about dreams, and I continued with a post of another character...

No boundaries. Good thing.

Nuptials from Hell

Busy time of year. Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines.

Dead. Lines. Lost souls get backed up if you don't stay right on top of them. This one isn't happy about where they’re going. That one has unfinished business. blah blah blah. The whining gets to you. Now serving number 8,936,472,785. Next.

Days like this I need an assistant, but good help’s hard to find. Most applicants only see the position as a stepping-stone, and corporate sabotage is always a concern. Some would lift your best spells and curses, some are just using you to climb the corporate ladder (they don't know the back door is at the top), and some have aspirations of Disney. Not everyone is a Sabrina, but they don't want to hear the truth.

My left arm for a Renfield. Yeah, he had a few problems, needed occasional stroking, and fresh blood, but overall he was a loyal employee who was fulfilled by his career choice.

I digress - I was sitting in Reception. We all have to do so many volunteer hours a decade – licensure requirement- and it was my turn. I was sorting the new arrivals and it wasn’t going well. My quill had a leak and blotches of Eternal Ink were staining The Book—turning Hells into Hell-Os. There was no rhyme or reason in the queue of souls waiting. Up, down, the hangers-on ... and in came the Dream Dallier. I groaned.

The Dream Dallier is the After Life’s jester, the fool, and a nightmare to have around (literally). He’s a walking chicken/egg quandary. Have millennia of screwing around in people’s heads made him an odd duck, or, was he the obvious choice for the job because he was an odd duck? Hard to say. He’s a strange dude.

He sashayed into Reception, drunk as a skunk. Giggling and reeling, he raised a pint in greeting to the reception area at large. He had a Banshee by the hand, and she was just as drunk as he.

“Toatht! Toatht! I’ve taken me bride!” he slurred, and they both collapsed into giggles sending rice sprinkling across the cold marble floor.

Whoever’d showered the happy couple with fertility blessings needed their heads examined. What sort of offspring would bless this union? He was weird, and she was worse. Would a toddling Junior cavort through sleeping people’s heads, shrieking? At least the Dallier was kinda cute, but the Banshee was a fright. All gray and wavy, and it wasn’t just ’cause she was drunk.
            I looked around Reception for a security guard. None to be seen, they were likely hiding in the break room watching this from the safety of the monitors. Cowards.

(to be continued)