Sully Strikes Back

“Amy! Come put on your shoes. I have to run to the store!” Mom’s voice echoed through the house.

I huffed, flinging down my pencil. It bounced off my homework, sliding across the table. I shoved back my dining room chair and stormed through the kitchen. Our pet pseudodragon, named Sullivan, lay sleeping on the counter. As I passed, I glared at him. He’d better not touch my pencil—or my homework.

When I reached the foyer, I leaned against the wall, “Please, can’t I stay home? I’m doing homework.”

“You can do homework in the car. I won’t be that long,” My mother tied off her light blue sneakers, standing up.

“But Mom, I can’t focus in the car. You said that when I turned fourteen, I could stay home.”

My mother paused, “Well… I suppose we did. I don’t love making this decision without your father. But…” She bit her lip, “I suppose we could try letting you—”

“Whoohoo!” I pumped my fist, banging my elbow against the wall. I hissed through my teeth, rubbing my elbow. I heard the scratching Sullivan’s nails scratch the counter as he scrambled up.

He huffed, “Noissy Hoomanss,”

“But,” Mom held up a finger, “If I let you stay, you need to prove you can handle it. That means when I get back, your homework is done, your chores are done, and the house is just like I left it. If they aren’t, you lose dragon riding privileges for a week.”

“But Mom—”

“No buts! If you don’t like it, you can come with me.”

I sighed, staring at my mismatched green socks, “Yes Mom.”

“Good,” She grabbed her leather purse. “I’ll be back by seven.”

Pausing halfway out the front door, she added “Don’t forget, Sullivan started his new diet today. No treats. No snacks until feeding time. And absolutely NO red meat. It gives him gas.”

“Mom, I know.” I was tempted to shove her out the door. “The vet’s paper is on the fridge.” Sheesh. It was like I’d never seen a dragon before.

Finally, she left. Mom’s old Ford Explorer squealed to life and faded into the distance.

A few minutes later, I sat at the dining room table. The house filled with Sullivan’s snoring and my pencil’s scratching. Even the stables were silent as the dragons took their afternoon naps. I couldn’t believe Mom would threaten to stick me with that obnoxious dragonet hatchling again. Everyone else always got all the fun.

I huffed, turning back to my math. Just two problems left.

Sullivan’s eyes fluttered, he stretched, and yawned. His white teeth and red tongue contrasted with his light green scales and his arched past his pointed tail. Pseudodragons were smaller than most other dragons—about the size of a housecat. While all dragons understood human language, pseudodragons could often speak.

He opened his wings and flitted to the dining room table.

His large, green eyes studied me for several minutes, before he announced in his hissing, broken English, “Ssully Hungwy. Want tow.”

I rolled my eyes, “Sully, you know it isn’t feeding time yet. I can’t give you cow.”

“Want tow,” He insisted, scraping the table with his dulled claws.

I ignored him.

“Want tow!” He butted his head against my arm.

“Stop it!” I swatted him away.

He darted back.

Seeing the papers momentarily exposed, Sullivan snatched my homework and launched into the air.

“Hey! Give that back!” I pulled our spray bottle from the shelf and sprayed him.

But he simply dodged, using my homework as a shield. The ink started to bleed.

Sullivan cackled, “Sssstealed homwort! Hungwy Ssully! Eat homwort!”

“No! Stop!” I jumped to catch him, but he darted up to the ceiling, “Sullivan! Don’t you dare eat my homework!”

“Eat homwort!” the dragon gleefully danced across the ceiling midflight.

“Get down here right now, you stupid, scaly, mischievous ball of slime!” I screamed.

“Ssully hungwy! No give tow? EAT HOMWORT!” The small dragon swooped down to divebomb me.

I ducked, grabbing blindly for my homework. He swooped up again and landed on top of the kitchen cabinets, his talons holding the crumpled pages.

I tried scrambling up the countertops, but my slippery socks sent me sprawling, “Give me back my homework!”

“Give tow!”

I pounded the floor, “I can’t!”

Sully didn’t answer, he simply bit the first page. Riiiiiip! The paper gave way under his teeth, “Yuuuummm!”

“Stop! Stop! If I give you cow, will you give me my homework and leave me alone?”

“Tow! Give tow! Homwort for tow!” The small dragon flitted to the fridge, prancing back and forth.

A plan started to form. In the living room, Sullivan’s crate sat empty. If I could get him over there…

I quickly opened the fridge and grabbed a small ground beef package.

“Tow! Tow! Tow!” Sullivan swooped around me, grabbing at the package with both talons. I blocked him. My homework pages lay strewn across the floor, forgotten.

I pulled out a knife and opened the package.

Again, Sullivan dove for it, “GIVE TOW!”

“In a second,” I dodged away, inching toward the crate, “Sheesh.”

Dodging Sullivan’s frantic strikes, I made it.

Carefully, I tore off a piece of ground beef the size of my pinkie—not enough to give him noticeable gas—and tossed it into the crate.

“TOW!!!!” Sullivan dove into the crate and scarfed up the raw meat in milliseconds.

As he did so, I slammed the crate door shut, locking it.

He screeched, rattling the thin metal bars, “Out! Letsss out! Amy liesssss! Give tow! Amy PWOMISSSED!”

I ignored him, sighing in relief.

At last.

Sullivan continued to scream threats, pleas, and even a few curses.

Sealing the bag and washing my hands, I collected my homework.

The pages were crumpled and wet. The top, right corner was missing off the first page, but otherwise, they were intact. Nothing important was unreadable.

I dried the wet pages and set to work on the last two problems.

When I finished, Sullivan had resigned himself to captivity, intermittently grumbling about “Backssstabbing hoomansss.”

Glancing at the clock, I scrambled up. It was 6:45. Mom would be home in fifteen minutes. I scrambled to wash the dishes and tidy up. I organized papers for Sully’s diet, legal forms detailing our dragon-training “facilities,” and my dad’s various stable sketches.

Ten minutes later, I heard Mom’s Ford come down the road, her favorite Toby Keith album blaring for the cornfields—and dragons—to hear.

As she pulled in and unloaded the car, I raced to help, then froze at the door.

Sullivan.

I couldn’t leave him in the crate. Mom would ask questions.

I would have to explain how I got him inside. And why.

Turning back, I scrambled to the living room and threw open his cage door. Screaming bloody murder, the two-pound dragon launched from the cage like a rocket. He zoomed around the room before settling atop the kitchen cabinets. He glared and muttered darkly.

Mom’s voice called from outside, “Amy! Aren’t you going to help with the groceries?”

“Coming Mom!” I bolted outside. The front door slammed behind me.

I returned lugging two bags of onions. Sullivan was perched smugly on the table, licking his chops. My homework was gone.

My stomach dropped, “What have you done?!”

Sullivan gave me a satisfied grin, “Deliciousss.”

“You good-for-nothing slimeball!” I stomped my foot. “You’ll pay for this!”

Sullivan gently folded his blunted talons, “If Amy tellsss, Sssully tellsss.”

More at Eleven

I’m probably the one person under thirty who still watches cable regularly, but I think the stuff that airs past 10 PM is more entertaining than anything you could find online. Whether it’s the insane alien talk and conspiracy theories on History Channel, or whatever the hell Adult Swim decides to air at two AM, there’s always something interesting to see. One cannot neglect to mention the magic that is public access, a true entertainment goldmine. But tonight is a slower night than usual. It’s already 10:17 and nothing good is on, but flipping channels until something catches your eye is all you can do sometimes.

Infomercials, movies from a decade ago, reruns of episodes I’ve seen already. Nothing interesting tonight, an awfully dry selection. I wonder what the forecast is, I could check the weather. Flipping to the news station, I sit and wait for the weather forecast to pop up. I wish it was always on screen so I didn’t have to wait, but if I kill time something interesting will probably air. At the bottom of the screen, the stocks scroll past, green and red arrows that would surely send some rich old fart into cardiac arrest. I never understood stocks, it seems like something my dad would know about. I wonder what the old man is up to these days. I should give him a call tomorrow.

Come 10:30 the weather report for tomorrow finally appears on screen; 13 degrees and overcast, 66% chance of precipitation. I’m going to need a jacket for tomorrow, and I’ll have to find my umbrella. Before I click off the channel, a newscaster in a tacky black suit with unkempt, shaggy black hair comes on screen. Poor guy, I can see the bags under his eyes. I’d hate to work the graveyard shift at a news station. He speaks:

“A recent report states that lightning has struck several monuments worldwide simultaneously, setting them ablaze. Onlookers claimed there were no clouds or any reason for lightning to strike. More on this story coming up at 11.”

That’s somewhat…ominous. Alright late night news, you got me, I will come back at eleven. What an odd thing to happen, lightning from nowhere. I mean, I’ve heard lightning can happen from heat and it doesn’t exactly need cloud cover, so it’s not too out of the question. But several unprompted strikes, all at the same time, all at important monuments, that part doesn’t add up. I continue flipping channels waiting for 11 to come, continually attempting to rationalize what happened. I turn to check the clock on the wall. 10:58. Almost time. I flip back to the news to see what exactly is going on.

The newscaster from before is back on screen. Same suit, same messy hair, same noticeable bags under his tired-looking eyes. Go on, enlighten me.

“This just in, large sinkholes have formed in some of the world’s most populated cities including New York, Tokyo, Shanghai, and Cairo. Estimated deaths appear to be in the millions, and an estimated several billion dollars in damages. More at 12.”

Something is definitely off. First the lightning strikes and now this? The lightning I could write off as some sheer cosmic coincidence, but there isn’t any way I can try and make sense of that. Those locations are so specific it seems like it was a targeted attack, but you can’t just make a sinkhole. And even if you could, you couldn’t make that many of that caliber. I have to know more, I need to. I need to tune back in. Biding my time, I flip through the channels again, but nothing seems interesting. Movie, infomercial, rerun, movie, infomercial, rerun. How could I care about those with what’s going on? Back and forth like this for an hour.

Midnight comes and I frantically switch to the news station. I’m early. It’s 11:56. The caster isn’t on yet, the weather forecast is playing. The temperature changed from two hours ago. The diagram reads tomorrow as being 70 degrees with a 100% chance of rain, all day it seems. A nearly sixty degree jump in temperature? What the hell is going on tonight? Finally, the caster comes on screen, same suit, hair more unkempt than last time, and eyes open wider than before. Just what is he going to tell me?

“We…uh…We’ve received word that all across the globe, a torrential downpour has been raging, causing sea levels worldwide to increase exponentially. All cities bordering the coast have been nearly completely flooded…and..” He pauses to take a sharp inhale. He’s sweating. “And island nations such as Japan, Cuba, and New Zealand are fully submerged. Hawaii has also been lost. More at 1.”

Is the world ending? Is this the rapture? What the fuck is going on? Christ, am I gonna die? I mean, I’m nowhere near the coast, so I should be okay. Yeah, yeah I’m okay. I’m landlocked on all sides, I’m perfectly safe. I hope so, at least. More at 1, more at 1, I have to wait till 1. Like before, I flip through the channels, but I don’t pay attention to what is airing anymore. It’s just noise at this point while I try and wrap my head around the hell going on outside my house. 12:30. More at 1, more at 1. Why is it taking so Goddamn long!? I need to know what’s happening. 12:45. Come on, clock, go just a bit faster. I just want to know. 12:59. It’s time.

Back to the news, it’s becoming habitual at this point. Where is the damn newscaster? I’m on time. Where is he? I need him to come back. For the love of God, I need you to tell me what’s happening. 1:00. And here he is. His suit is a mess, he lost the blazer and his tie is loose. I can spy the sweat stains on his white button up. His hair is drenched in sweat and his eyes are open, just barely. It looks like he might cry.

“M-more natural disasters have been reported internationally, with tornadoes and tsunamis forming seemingly from thin air.”

He pauses, for quite a while this time. His breathing is labored and his whole body seems to be trembling. He takes a deep breath and continues.

“And from eyewitness reports, it seems as though most if not every known volcano, active or not, has erupted, including the, um, s-supervolcano in Yellowstone. All in the vicinity of these disasters are encouraged to evacuate. More at 2.”

There is no way to think rationally anymore. The world is coming to an end. It has to be! How else could this be explained other than it being the end of days? No way around it, it’s over. I’m going to die.

N-n-no, no. Don’t think like that. I mean, I’m still here aren’t I? I’m not dead yet. Who knows, maybe come two this’ll be over and it’ll all be back to normal. O-or maybe this is some kind of “War of the Worlds” scenario and it’s all just a show? Yeah, yeah it’s all a show. A show on my cable TV. I wonder what else is on? I return to flitting through the channels, but it’s so fast I can’t recognize what’s on. It’s all flashing lights trying to distract myself from the fact the world is ending right outside my fucking window and I’m sitting here watching the TV. I place my hope in 2 AM and pray by then it’ll all be over. But at this point I don’t know what sense I meant that in either.

1:50 comes and I flip back to the news early. Just to make sure I don’t miss anything. The arrows scrolling past are all red. All pointing down. The weather isn’t on. Nothing is. It’s just the newscaster sobbing into his desk. I just sit and watch him weep. The clock strikes 2 and he slowly sits up. His tie is long gone, his hair is matted down and his eyes are a blazing shade of red. He’s looking right at the camera. He’s looking at me.

“I’ve just received word that the moon has begun to fall from the sky. Impact is in an estimated one minute, forty eight seconds. Government officials have advised all citizens to take shelter and accept their death. I have done so already. This concludes our broadcast day.”

Static.

Mom

On Valentine’s Day I sat at the bar with my friend Anita with a foreboding sense that tomorrow my whole life would change forever. So, I prepared myself (as much as one can) for whatever lay ahead, sipped my wine, and savored the peace of the moment. The next morning, I begged fate to let me stay in bed. Then Audrey’s text message came in telling me that our friend Kelly was taken off of life support. Kelly was only a few years older than me, and it was her second brain aneurysm a month prior that ultimately killed her. I sat up with a start and uttered the word,” Fuck!” and that’s when the phone rang. It was Dr. Eisenbach, and he needed to talk to my mom. Five minutes later she called me into her room with an expression of stunned terror on her face. She told me that she had Acute Myeloid Leukemia and that she had to get to Duke University Hospital that day. It was Thursday. Mom was in a state of shock. As she waited for her friend to give her a ride up to Durham, she tried to find the strength to fight cancer for a third time. She had already won two battles with breast cancer and now there were no odds in her favor, and she knew it. Mom couldn’t acknowledge me when I said goodbye and that I loved her; she could only walk one step forward towards the backseat of the car. I think she believed that if she said goodbye to me or her faithful dog Duke that it would have been her death sentence. I wasn’t strong enough to watch her drive away, so I turned and went upstairs. Duke sat on the landing for weeks waiting for her return. I went to my room, and I cried and screamed into my pillow. Like a selfish asshole, the only thing I could allow myself to think about was how it wasn’t fair to me to take care of the house, four dogs, and my stepfather who is a diabetic with Alzheimer’s and a functioning alcoholic. That Sunday, we video chatted with mom, and she looked healthier after her blood transfusion. Her spirits were high, but her cough was getting worse. On Monday, she ignored my text messages. On Wednesday, she called, but her cough was so bad that she had difficulty speaking. That was our last conversation. I didn’t want to believe that it was going to be the last time I spoke with her, but deep down in my heart I knew that I needed to tell her how much I loved her and that she didn’t need worry about me and my brother if she had to leave us. Her departing words to me were “I love you.” She even programmed her phone to tell me that she loves me every time I power it up. That evening mom was put into intubation to control her respiration, but we had no idea that she would never wake up again. It had only been six days since her diagnosis. On Friday, I got the call from my stepsister that I needed to get to Durham with my stepfather and that my brother and his wife had better make arrangements to fly in from their home in Europe. When I received that message, I began to shake uncontrollably and my arms went completely numb. I couldn’t accept that we were actually going to lose her. When I saw mom in the Intensive Care Unit she was on a ventilator and her appearance was feverish and pasty. She had no less than twelve tubes going into her arms, and she looked awful, but her toenails were perfectly pedicured and fire engine red. Mom always dressed to the nines; she would have been embarrassed by her appearance. I caressed her swollen hand, and she responded with a quiver. I whispered in her ear, and her eyes opened halfway in her unconscious state. She tried so hard to wake up for me, to see me once more. Mom was always the problem solver and the nurturer, so I had to pretend like I was strong enough to cope with all of this. Most days I feel like I am still pretending. I tried to give her comfort with my words; I even joked about what a pain in the ass her husband could be. At that time, we still had hope that her test results would indicate that she was only fighting an infection, not the leukemia. When the weekend was over, I returned to my life and adopted responsibilities, and then we got mom’s test results. They were not good. Her leukemia had metastasized in her lungs and cranium and nothing could be done to save her. The oncologist said that mom knew she was sick but chose to pass it off as depression and exhaustion. In retrospect, I should have been more insistent that she go to the doctor sooner when she told me about her occasional dizzy spells, loss of appetite, and confusion. One night in late November, I found her on her hands and knees on the kitchen floor trying to pick up nothing. When I asked her if she was alright she replied, ”buz I was try to don know bout why iz has to bazzdid.” I thought she might have been having stroke, but I passed it off because she came to rather quickly, and I knew that she had two glasses of wine and an Ambien that night. Even if she had gone to the doctors the next day, it still wouldn’t have been enough time to save her. From her annual blood test, we now know that she developed leukemia within less than a year. On Saturday, March 3, 2018, I waited for my brother and his wife to arrive and we sat in the calm silence of surrender. I had no choice but to accept my mother’s inevitable death because that afternoon we were taking her off of life support.

In the Intensive Care Unit, I spent time with her holding her hand, caressing her hair, and resting my forehead against hers. I thanked her for being my mom and for always loving and caring for me. I cried a thousand tears and told her how much I loved her and that I would miss her immeasurably. My family gathered around her and we laughed and cried and told wonderful stories about her life and how special she was to each of us. As I sat there, I observed life happening all around us. Everything was in perfect harmony and balance. In that moment of quiet stillness when she took her last breath, I stepped out of my discomfort and achieved a clarity of perception that gave me solace by simply being present and mindful. When it was time to leave, I kissed her tenderly on the forehead and whispered goodbye.