Any Way the Wind Blows... Part 2, because plagerism is fun!

Last time on Any Way the Wind Blows, we learned our heroine Kelly’s dad ditched her family when she was four, her mom has killed people and it’s possible Kelly has too, and her young looking geriatric aunt gave her an evil ring from Mars, which is causing her to hear a strange man‘s voice in her head. What can possibly happen next?

Chapter Two--Innocent

[*snort* Hardly.]

About the time I started writing in a diary. When I got home that night my mother surprised me by telling me Aunt Laurella had stopped by and dropped of an old book.

It was brown on the outside, and was made out of leather. My name was inscribed on the inside cover. And that made me happy. The pages had all faded to a dull yellow and I could tell that it was old. And that was OK with me because I liked old things.


I wrote in it about my crushes, my hopes, my fears, and all my dates with boys. [You’re fricken SEVEN!] It was a very private.

Also, the day after I got back from meeting Aunt Laurella, something happened to me.

It was recess, and I was sitting in the grass showing my ring to my best friend, Sarah.

Sarah Beth Fear [Told you this was a Fear Street fanfic.] wasn’t exactly rich, but she wasn’t all that poor, either. Sarah wasn’t exactly pretty. She wasn’t ugly either. [This story isn’t great. It’s not good either.] Sarah had long light blond hair, and dark brown eyes that never showed any emotion what-so-ever.

Sarah was seven--like me--and we were in the same class. Her family lived right next door to mine.

Sarah’s father was in the car selling business. He took old cars and restored them like new. Her mother on the other hand worked for a modeling agency. She wasn’t a model herself--she had tried to be but was too short--she was vice president off the agency. Julie Fear was pretty famous. [Because other models FEAR her. Yeah. I said it.]

Sarah’s family owned the south half of the town practically. The Fear’s owned Fear Street, The Simon Fear Mansion [Why haven’t they torn it down?], The Fear Street Woods, Fear Lake, Fear Island, and The Fear Street Cemetery. [Can city cemeteries be privately owned?] They owned a lot. Hell, they even owned our house.

For I lived at 97 Fear Street. [Next door to 99, the house of evil.] But they didn’t charge us any rent because Julie and my father had grown up together, and she and my mother were quite close. [I wish I had friends like that. ^_^]

Well anyways, Sarah and I wre sitting on the grass looking at the ring, when Xena Anderson [Who is actually still in the current day version of this story, and she’s still a bitch.] and her fan club--Mara Zuchensky, and Emily Morris--walked up and grabbed it out of my hand.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Xena?” I asked.

She held it up to her pale face with her left hand. “I thought you had better taste for jewelry than this, it ain’t even real silver.”

I jumped to my feet. “Give it back,” I demanded holding out my right hand.

“Oh, it’s sentimental value to you,” Xena said very melodramatically. “Why, Kelly, I didn’t believe that feelings existed to The Ice Princess.” She raised her right hand up to the small of her neck as she said this.

That’s also another thing about me, along with ’The Ice Princess,’ I had about half a dozen more stupid nicknames; Kelly K, Hold ‘em, Thrill ‘em, Kiss ‘em, Kill ‘em Coffield [Oh Lord did I actually take this from the song from Batman Forever?], The Megabtich, Kell Bell, Whore around Coffield [Well, from the sounds of her dates she kind of earned this one.], and Kell.

Xena was standing there so strongly, and confidently. Her long light blond hair flowing gently in the breeze. Her clear jade green eyes staring directly into my demonic once. So cruelly, as if challenging me to do something if I dared. But then something just went off.

I grabbed her pale skinny neck, pushed her down and banged her head into the ground. That stunned her. Then I grabbed the arm where she was holding my silver ring. I raised her wrist up to my mouth and bit her as hard as I could on her vain. [Is her ¾ demonic nature actually vamparic?]

The pale, blonde, and beautiful, Xena Anderson who I hated so that moment screamed all her bloody hearts content and dropped the ring. [Mission accomplished, or Nimnu kanryou as Heero would say.] Then Mara and Emily started screaming too, while as Sarah just stared. [She’s thinking about what a freak her best friend is.]

I picked up the ring and walked off licking the blood on my lips. I didn’t know why I licked the blood, I just did. But all too soon I heard Him again. [No, not God.]

“Very good, Kelika.”

I stopped. “Who are you?” I asked.

“I might as well introduce myself,” He said. “I am Kratine, of the ancient past.” [Those who get this win a picture of an apple!]


Quickly, before ‘Kratine,’ or whoever he was noticed, I turned back to see what was going on back at the playground. Xena was crying hysterically, and our second grade teacher was trying to get her to shut up. I saw all the kids in my class, along with other second grade classes were gathering around to watch. Among them I saw my sister, Laura, and her own best friend, Angela Goode. [I had to work one in somewhere.] But she wasn’t all that good. [Haha! Bad joke!] In my life, I did a lot to Angela. A lot of stuff that hurt her. Now that I think of it, I’m not sorry for any of it. [Since I never made it that far, I’ll go ahead and explain. Later when they’re in their twenties Kelly steels Angela’s husband.] And I just kept walking till I got home.

I was surprised to see my mother home. I wasn’t quite sure what she did for a living, but I knew it paid handsomely. But why we didn’t live in a better nationhood [Or pay their generous friends something], I found out alter in my life. [I don’t think she actually ever did.]

“Mother,” I said as I walked into the dining room. “What are you doing home?”

Mother was staring into the mirror right beside it on the wall. “Just thinking, Kelika.”

“About what?” I asked. I looked at my mothers reflection in the mirror. Her long blond hair was scraggly and unwashed. Her bangs hung in her face, and I saw tears in her cerelean blue eyes. I had never seem her cry before.

“My parent,” she said. Mother sighed and put her head in her hands. “I am weak,” she said forlornly.

“Why?”

“Because I’m crying.” She rose her head out of her hands and a wry smile crossed her beautiful pale face. “About my parents.” She looked at me. “Crying is a weakness, Kelika. Don’t ever do it. Especially not in front of anybody.” [Because repression is so healthy.] She turned away from me and looked back into the mirror.

“Mother,” I said.

“Yes, Kelika.”

“Things have been going on with me.”

“What kind of things?”

“Well, there’s this lizard, and--”

She cut me off. “Lizard? I think you’ve been spending too much time by yourself.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I looked up at her. “I know it sound crazy, but he’s really there. He made me do something today. He made me bite Xena Anderson’s wrist.”

She was just staring at me then, as if she was trying to project a part of herself into me. “Did this ‘Lizard,’ have a name, Kelika?”

“Yes,” I replied softly. “Kratine.”

She stared at me and her face when pale. Then she smacked me right across my face. “Never mention him to me, again,” she said through clenched teeth. Then she stood up and started to walk back to her room when she turned around to look at me. “Never!” she screamed.

I just sat there till the others got home.

“You wouldn’t know cool if it bit you on the ass,” I heard my brother Michael yelling from the front hall.

“I would so,” my sister Laura replied.

“You shouldn’t swear, Michael,” my sister Megan said that too him. Boy was she ever a goody-goody.

Jus then Jennifer came running in. “Guess what, Kelly?” [You’d think they’d be asking her what happened in school]

“What,” I said with no emotion.

“I’m getting skipped to the fourth grade.” She looked so happy. Her curly black pigtails bopping u and down.

“What” I was surprised. I knew Jen-Jen was smart, but I never guess that she would be skipped a grade.

“Well at least I actually have friends, Jennifer. I don’t go around acting like I’m better than God,” Michael said.

“Well you act like you’re better than shit.” [???]

“I am better than shit.”

“No you are not.” [This is the girl whose getting skipped a grade.]

“I am too.” [I grow weary of the siblings. They added nothing to the story, anyway. I don’t even know why they’re there. Or why so many. In later versions I got rid of Michael and Laura.]

This never ending battle between Michael and Jennifer was getting old and tiresome. “Will you both shut the hell up,” I said. They were both quiet and turned to look at me. “Jen-Jen, Michael is better than shit.” I said looking at her. Then I turned to look at Michael. “Michael, Jennifer does not think she’s better than shit. [I think you meant God, Kell.] Ok.” They didn’t answer. And Laura spoke.

“Why did you do it, Kell Bell?” she asked me, ger green eyes penetrating into mine.

“Huh? Do what?” Megan asked, her cerelean blue eyes wide with envy that Laura knew something she didn’t.

“Yeah, what did you do, Kelly?” Michael asked. “I heard rumors that you were a vampire, an tried to drink The Anderson Bitch’s blood.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Laura said. Sweet Laura. Always sticking up for me. Would she ever stop? [They were intended to have the Elizabeth-Jessica kind of relationship. Gag.]

“First of all, what did Kelly do?” Jen-Jen now had control of the group that was trying to figure out what I did, and I wasn’t even a part of it, when mother came out of her room. No one got to answer Jennifer’s question.

“What the hell are you kids doing home so early?” she said to the other four. But not to me. She knew why I came home. And no one answered her ridiculous question. “I’m going out of town for a little while. “It was then I noticed her suitcases behind her. Mother took out something from her pocket. “Here,” she said. It ws five bills of money. The first one to Jen-Jen. The second to Laura. The third to Megan. The fourth to Michael. And the last to me. I tooka look at it and was surprised to see a one hundred dollar bill.

“What’s this for?” I asked.

“I’ll be back in two weeks.” She went to get her bags when Jen-Jen stopped her. “What do you want, Jennifer?”

“I just wanted to tell you that I’m getting skipped to the fourth grade.”

“That’s great, Jen. Bye.” And she left. [I think Suzy pwns at bad parenting. And in case it wasn’t mentioned, Michael is the oldest at ten, Jennifer’s eight, the twins are seven, and Megan’s five.]

“I think she just wants to get away from us,” Megan said. “She doesn’t love us anymore.”

“I don’t think she ever did,” Michael chirped in.

“You’re such a downer, Michael,” Laura sad to him.

“No he’s not, he’s sexist,” Jen-Jen said.

“Will you all shut up. I’m getting really sick of your fighting.”

“Kelika,” Laura said sweetly. She was one of the few precious people whom I allowed to call me by my real name. I didn’t even look u at her as she said my name. I just got up and left the room.

After my mother got back, [What? Nothing about the two weeks she was gone? Nothing about how they didn’t have anything to eat and spent their money on the crap they didn’t get from their mother? Nothing at all?] she started making me see a psychiatrist. His name was Dr. Nesbit. He was old and had white hair. Dr. Nesbit fit the description of what most people think that a psychiatrist looks like. Child patients often have a choice to do something constructive when we were talking to the guy. [Not that I know from experience.] I myself was painting a picture.

“What do you think your problem is, Kelika.” [He fails as a psychiatrist.]

I wlake over to him confidently. “First thing’s first, ass hole. Don’t you ever call me Kelika again. I don’t like you, and I should hope you don’t like me. So I’ll call you Dr. Nesbit, and you sure as hell have better not call me Kelika.”

“Well then what would you like me to call you?”

“Kelly.”

“Alright Kelly. What do you think your problem is?”

“I ain’t got no problem.” I walked back over to the painting stand, and started painting a picture.

A little while later, Dr. Ass Hole--as I’d like to call him--came over to look at my painting.”

“Tha’s a very interesting painting, Kelly,” he said nervously. I could tell he was afraid of me. It was one of my powers. I could sense fear. I allways thought it was funny. Half the people I knew’s number one fear was me. Even Sarah and Kyle. I’ve explained Sarah, but not Kyle. My dear Kyle. He was my worst enemy for half my life, but not all of it.

“What is it, Kelly?”

He was looking at it to see if it had hidden meaning. If it was a metaphore. I often spoke in metaphores, but his was not one of those times. [I think I was confused about what a metaphor was.]

What Dr. Ass hole was looking at, a blond girl laying I a coffind, a man with black hair, and another woman with blond, staring down at the dead girl, it wasn’t exactly a metaphore, but it wasn’t necessarily far from the truth as well. Those two people staring down at the dead girl actually came to her funeral, 20 years into the future that is. [This is foreshadowing.]

“It’s me,” I said.

“Excuse me?”

“It’s me.”

“Kelly, you don’t have blond hair, you have black.”

“I’m going to dye it in the future.”

“Well who are the other two?”

“The guys my husband.”

“And the other?”

I shrugged.

After that I went home and never went back. [Well wasn’t that…pointless…]

My life went on somewhat normally for the next three years. Till I reached age 10. Fifth grade.

Kratine stopped speaking to me shortly after my visit with Dr. Ass Hole. He pretended to leave, and I believed it for a while.

When I was ten I met someone very vital in my life. She almost stole my votes for Miss Shadyside. Nearly stole my boyfriend. Tried to drive me insane.

She may have done a lot of horrible things to me, but I did worse to her, and a lot of other people.

Let’s just say that I don’t like to be ignored.

The Maxx, Episode 2

Last post I mentioned that this is a six episode series. That was both right and wrong. It's actually 13 episodes, but when it aired on MTV it aired in six episodes with five half hour segments containing two episodes each, and the final episode being an hour long with a recap of eps 1-10 and then eps 11-13.

But anyways, onto episode two. It begins with Maxx educating us about some of the creatures of the Outback.



The Outback Slug: "It can leap nearly a quarter mile straight into the air, but it has never mastered the ability to land. It has no predators. It is just...stupid."


The Great Northern Crabbit: "It can land and jump. But it has a natural enemy. The izs."

The Izs: "It can jump and land and has no predators. Unless you count...ME! "

And Maxx crushes it with his fist, killing the creatures.

Back in the city we have a voice on a radio informing us that Mr. Gone has thusfar killed 12 people and the cops are baffled. Maxx and Julie are walking back from the police station, Julie lost in her thoughts. She's thinking about Maxx. How he doens't have any idea what's really going on and justifies getting into trouble with the law with the excuse that in another world he was protecting the Jungle Queen. She thinks it's sort of good that at least in his dreams he's a hero. Overall she's pretty cynical. She thinks the city's full of people who are experts at avoiding reality. That no one really wants to know what's going on out there. The best thing is to not think about it and move on (very important facet of Julie's character).

When they get back to her apartment Maxx falls asleep on the couch and has another dream of the Outback. He quickly wakes up and Julie tells him it's almost night, he needs to go. She got him a coat and hat though. Maxx is more interested in toast.

Meanwhile in a dirty laundromat elsewhere, a girl named Glorie is doing her laundry with her boyfriend Tommy who is touching her ass. She's playing with a large butcher knife her father gave her for protection. She dresses like a ho so she'll probably need it. Tommy slips his hand down her panties and she tells him to lay off and get them some cokes. He goes and immediately after he leaves Mr. Gone appears and his evil cap seems to stretch to cover all the machines in the vicinity as if it has a life of it's own.


Mr. Gone starts going on about how he can feel the beating of her heart and calls her a "small, delicious slug." Ew. He then sends out his evil minions to maim her.


Vicious little buggers. All goes dark and we next see Tommy coming down the walk gathering up the courage to tell Glorie they're going steady. He sees her body and faints.

Back at Casa Julie Maxx feels bad that the woman he was trying to protect got hurt. She tells him it's not his responsibity to try to save women who can't take care of themselves. As he leaves Julie's phone rings and it's Mr. Gone telling her "The others cry out for you, Julie Winters. Their screams of agony are the kisses I place along your neck." She's had the line tapped and asks him to go on. He's aware of it and tells her so, saying he's having a servant place this call. Outside as Maxx is walking by we see a little nasty blue Isz using a payphone while holding a wireless one (old cell phone?) beside it.

The Iz notices him, smiles, and runs for it. Maxx realizes it's a dark Iz and isn't sure what's it's doing there. The Iz goes through a narrow alley and Maxx runs around and catches him a trash can. He opens it up to deal with it and sees it's gone, it bit through the steel of the bin. He finds it climbing a drain pipe an chases it all over the city, ending up at a gas station where it leaps to it's splattering death. Maxx is greeted by Mr. Gone, who we really get to see for the first time.


Wouldn't want to roll over and see that thing in the morning. Maxx asks him who he is and he's very surprised Maxx doesn't remember and mentions that he normally hates killing amnesiacs. Maxx sees the Izs and remembers everything about the Outback, and now knows it's real. Mr. Gone confirms this and tells him it's too bad he'll be eaten before he'll have a chance to mutter it to anyone and we end with the evil little creatures giggling maliciously (or whatever it is they do).

The Maxx, Episode 1

Way back in the good old days when MTV didn't suck and a small ten-year-old girl watched it as though it would answer all the secrets of the universe, there came along a cartoon called The Maxx, about a purple clad super hero who was homeless and got arrested all the time, all the while shifting between this world and a parellel dimension of his social worker's creation. Confused? Yeah, there was some fucked up shit going on in this cartoon. But I drank it in. I recorded every episode and watched it every weekend to the point that even NOW, I know the whole damn six-episode series by heart. Though I still have my tape my VCR stopped working some time ago so I haven't actually seen it in years. So imagine my delight in a vain attempt to find it on DVD I discovered that MTV put online. So many ideas for my stories came from this series, the characters from Jimmy Dearest were pure plagerism. It had such a tremendous effect on my writing and I can see it's effects even now. As soon as I saw the opening my mind screamed MUST.RECAP.THIS.NOW. How could you not love a show that opens with this:

Most of us inhabit at least two worlds. The real world, where we're at the mercy of circumstance. And the world within. The unconscious. A safe place. The Maxx shifts between these worlds against his will. Here, homeless, he lives in a box in an alley. The only one who really cares for him is Julie Winters, a freelance social worker. But in Pangea, the other world, he rules the Outback and is the protector of Julie, his Jungle Queen. There he cares for her. But he always ends up back in the real world. And me, old Mr. Gone, only I can see that the secret which unites them could destroy them. I could be helpful. Ah, screw it. I think I'll have some fun with them first. Mwahahahahahah!

Yeah. That was from memory. *the shame, the shame* So yes, I lift from obscurity a childhood obsession for others to enjoy: The Maxx.


So Maxx is a big guy who wears a purple suit and a mask and lives in a box. He has amnesia and has no idea who he really is. The show starts with an ass hole cab driver Renny dropping off a woman on her way to the theatre on the bad side of town where two of his lackey's, Fridge and Tigo can jump her. Maxx tries to save her and ends up killing Tigo, but the body falls out of site as does the woman. The Maxx is arrested for messing with Fridge and as the cops lead him away the serial killer that's been terrorizing the city attacks the woman. I love irony.

As Maxx is being driven to the station the cops complain about cleaning up his mess and how it must be great being nuts. Maxx has a habit of talking out loud and they tell him to shut up. He gets a headache and blacks out, waking up in the world called the Outback (aka Australia; aka Pangaea). How you can tell the difference is in the Outback he has a mane of gorgeous blond hair rivalling that of Zechs Marquise. Well, not quite. Creepy little white hands errupt from the ground and pull him under. The Outback isn't the Australia we know, it's more like a primordial land with volcanos, giant caveman, weird dinosaure-esque creatures, flying wales, my favoriet--the crabbits (which are exactly what they sound like, half crab, half rabbit) and the Izs. The Outback is ruled by the Jungle/Leopard Queen, who is always as scantilly clad as her real world counterpart and runs with a leopard. Maxx declares he can be a hero for her and rips free of the clinging arms (also ripping the arms from the bodies they belong to).


We flash to Julie Winters, who is a freelance social worker (does such a job truly exist?) She asks a homeless client the standard questions (like who's the president right now?) and he says she looks like a hooker. She classily throws him out of her apartment. She gets a creepy call after he leaves.

"I did it all for you, Julie. The pain. The sex. It was all for you."

She hangs up on him. Julie is a heroin with common sense. Gasp! The phone rings again and she calls the caller filth and turns out it's the cops on the phone, wanting her to pick up her old pal Maxx. She agrees and as she leaves mutters saracastically that if it weren't for the corruption and violence, the city wouldn't be any fun at all. As she walks through the rain to the police station she reflects on the fact that Maxx is always getting arrested for something different, and that he really seems to think he's a super hero. When she arrives Sargeant O'Conno tells her she should be careful, that women send out certain signals that attract men like Gone (the serial rapist and murderer going around the city) and that with the way she dresses isn't she worried about sending out the wrong kind of signals. Her response is to ring out her soaking wet hair all over his paperwork. I love Julie.

She tells Maxx it's getting harder to get him out of there and he claims it was his mask that did it. They leave, her promising to get him new clothes and hot bathe. As they walk off we see a radio playing and cloaked figure stomps on it, maliciously evil dark creatures giggling menacingly. God I love this show.

Any Way the Wind Blows, just how much can one girl plagerize Christopher Pike

Kella Coffield is my oldest character. I created her when I was ten years old. And, like all my best ideas, she came from a dream. In it I was Kella (Well, back then she was Kelly), one of a pair of twins that belonged to a much detested family who lived on Fear Street. They lived at 97 Fear Street, right next door to the famous 99. Next to her lived her friend Jimmy and on the other side of his house their friend Elsie. I don't remember what happened in the dream, but the characters were born and survive to this day in another version of the story called Summer Days Ain't Coming Back.

By the time a friend convinced me to put this insane tale to paper two years had passed since it's birth and it had grown to encompass elements of all my stories and shows. So without furthur ado, I present my seventh-grade masterpeice, Any Way the Wind Blows.

Chapter One - A Falling Star

I was born June 13, 1967. [I was very into exact dates. I even came up with a little method on pinpointing what day of the week things happened and mentioning them repeatedly in my storeis] I was the third child, second daughter, to Peter Coffield and Suzin Hanson.

I was five minutes older than my twin sister--Laura. My mother named me Kelika. Kali Ma. The godess who embodies both creation and destruction. It was a Vedic name. Who I was.

I am not sure who will one day read this. I’m not sure why I’m even writing this down. But let me make one fact clear; I am not evil. There was a reason I did everything that I did. To you, I was probably just an irrational child. But let me assure you, I’m not. [Me thinks you sound a wee bit paranoid, Kell Bell.]

Life’s an ironic thing. It has ways of teaching you things like nothing else does. Each and every thing on the planet has one purpose or another. I had one too. I don’t think I was ever clear on what my destiny was, but I am not what I used to be, so maybe things have changed.

My story begins when I was a child. My brother, Michael, was simply adorable. Everybody loved him. He had wavy black hair and dark green eyes. He was born on July 22, 1964 [My birthday, though 20 years earlier.]. He was sweet and everyone loved him. Michael was very protective of his little sisters, all four of us.

My sister Jennifer was born a year and a half after Michael. On Febuary 15, 1966. Jennifer was extremely smart and preferred to be called Jennifer rather than Jenny. But I always called her Jen-Jen.

Jen-Jen had long whispy black hair and sapphire blue eyes that were hardly found in anyone other than toddlers. She was a very mature woman and didn’t have much fun in her childhood.

My younger sister, Megan, was born on August 2, 1969. She was two years younger than me, and the most annoying little sister a girl could have. Megan made me sick half the time. Instead of having black hair like the rest of us, she had golden blond curls. Along with Jen-Jen’s blue eyes. She was like a breath of fresh hair, most people would say. Especially for the Coffield family. [Was it her “breath of fresh hair” personality that nauseated you?]

Then there was me and Laura. The Coffield twins. We were both positively gorgeous [No modesty here. And for the record, in my head Kelly's always looked like Mila Kunis. When I first saw Gia back in '97 and saw Mila Kunis I was like "Holy shit! It's Kelly!"]. With our long wavey black hair, and our demonic green eyes. But we were the rarest of twins. For Laura was ¾ human and ½. . . . Something. But it was the opposite for me. I was ¼ human, and ¾ something. [Now it gets weird. Had you fooled in the beginning, didn’t it?]

Laura was the good twin. She got good grades, good boyfriends, and she had a good attitude. I, on the other hand, was the screw-up. I never did what I was told. I never took orders from anyone. In fact, I acted like a total bitch most of my life. I think it’s funny. But maybe it’s not so funny.

My story starts when I was four years old. When my parents got divorced and Daddy left.

It was about one “o” clock in the morning and my parents were fighting. Even though they were poor, and had us when they were teenagers, they were good parents. They never fought in front of us. They never even seamed to have anything bad going on between them. But I knew better. I knew them. I could sense when something was wrong. It was sort of a gift I had. Knowing when things were wrong. Usually what’s wrong. Knowing when people were lying to me. Most people wished that they had my gift. But I wished I didn’t, throughout my life, it just caused me nothing but pain and agony.

My parents were yelling at each other very loudly. I wondered why the other’s didn’t wake up.

“Suzin,” my father yelled at my mother. “What the hell are we gonna do with her. It’s one thing having a wife for a murderer. It’s another thing having a daughter for a murderer.” [So Suzin’s a confessed killer. Wonder which daughter they’re talking about…]

“Look, Peter,” my mother said calmly and rationally, like always. “If you don’t like the way things are, you are a 23 year old adult. You can take care of yourself.” [Ye Gods, 23 with five kids. Probably a good thing he left before they could spout out more of these Coffield hellions.]

“What are you getting at, Suzi?”

Then my mother went off. She grabbed his neck and screamed, “Don’t ever call me Suzi!” Her fingernails were digging into his neck and then a drop of blood appeared. Mother seemed fixated in a trance. Frankly, I thought she was going nuts. [Me too.]

I know when most kids caught their mother trying to kill their daddy, that they would get scared. But not me. I was almost as fixated as my mother. I knew that my mother couldn’t kill him. She loved him too much. That’s why she tried to not fall in love. She was never able to kill those she loved. And that would once again after this incident come back to haunt her.

Suddenly, my mother stopped, and she left go. They were in the big living room, with me in the hall. This is how our house was set up.

[I'll get this picure up later, my scanner's not set up.]

“Get out, before I changed my mind,” my mother spoke restraining her temper.

“Alright,” he was quickly getting out of there before Mother killed him. I didn’t blame him.

But before he stepped into the hallway I stepped in front of him.

“Daddy, where are you going?”

He nealed down in front of me. “Daddy’s got to go away for a while, Kelly. There are certain things you’ve got to understand.” [She’s four.]

“Go back to bed, Kelly,” I heard my mother call to me.

“Goodbye Kelly,” my daddy kissed me on the cheek and walked out the front door. I never saw him again.

I walked into the living room and sat next to me mother. She was squeezing her temples with her eyes closed, and she obviously didn’t know I was there.

“Mother,” I said touching her shoulder. It was when she looked up I saw she was crying. “What’s wrong?” I said.

She just looked at me as if I were crazy. “You know, Kelika. You always know.” She got up and walked towards the kitchen, but then she turned around and looked back at me. “Go back to bed.” And I did what I was told for once of the few times in my life. But only because she used my real name.

Kelika, I never really hated the name, I just liked being called Kelly.

Nothing much happened in my later life. [If that were the case, this story would be much shorter.] I went into school the next year. And I was a straight A student.

Then my life took a turn when I was seven. Mother told me to meet my Aunt Laurella. She was who Laura was named after.

Aunt Laurella was born on May 15, 1882. The woman was 92 years old. But she didn’t look a day over 25. [People would kill for her secret.] It was October of 1974.

Aunt Laurella had just gotten off the tran. I knew she could not see me, but she knew I was there. And she walked right to me.

“Hello, Kelika,” she said when she reached me. She was a gorgeous as a model. Her hair was long, almost down to her ass. And it was black. It was not died though, it was completely natural. She was tall, at five ten. She had a wiry lithe figure. And she was wearing an old fashioned black dress that most people wore when she was a kid. [How does she know all this?]

“Aunt Laurella, how did you know it was me?” The question seemed to amuse her for a moment, then it frightened her. [Laurella’s bipolar.] Almost as if she knew me. Many people who knew me were afraid of me, even though at that point I hadn’t hurt a thing in my life. Most people knew what I was even before I knew. I think now that that was the only thing that frightened me in life. People getting to knew me. Because I wasn’t like other people. I didn’t even know myself. Because I was a walking time bomb. And God only knew when I would go off. [She does like to ramble.]

“Silly girl,” Aunt Laurella said, the smile returning onto her narrow pale face. She reached into her handbag and too out a ring case.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“It’s for you,” she handed it slowly over to me and took off her sunglasses. It was then that I saw her eyes. They were almost as dark as mine. “Here, take it.”

I reluctantly took it from her and opened it. It was a plain silver band. [Ahhh! What happened to the ring that was the self eating serpent with the emerald eye? It must’ve been in an earlier version. Or maybe a later. Damn that ring was so much cooler.] An odd gift, I thought.

“It’s from Mars,” Aunt Laurella told me excitedly. “It’s a part of you.” [And Laurella’s been smoking some weed.]

“What do you mean?”

“there’s more to it than what meats the eye.” She smiled. An evil smile. A smile that sent shivers down my spin. I just stared at her. Waiting. Waiting for what? Perhaps what happened next. I’m still not sure.

As I stared at Aunt Laurella’s evil smile, something happened at that moment to change me forever. The smile seemed to start to crawl all the way up her face till it reached her eyes. It wanted to eat her eyes. Then slowly, everything except Aunt Laurella, turned black. And all I could see was that smile. That stupid smile. Her eyes started to dissolve. And soon her whole face. Till there was nothing left except that smile. That smile I hated so. The smile that sure as hell didn’t belong to her.

Then I saw who--or should I say what--that smile belonged to. It was an ugly green demonic reptile. He was scaly and smelly--yes, I could actually smell it. It was so nauseating, I thought I would die. So I closed my eyes and screamed. And screamed. And screamed. [Well so far she seems a smidgent smarter than Gracie and Dawn. Screaming is an appropriate response.]

When I finally opened my eyes, I automatically stopped screaming. Everything was back to normal. With Aunt Laurella shaking me.

“Kelly, are you all right?” I pushed her off me.

“Yeah. I’m fine.” I turned and started funning. Running faster than I had ever run in my life.

“Kelika!” I heard my aunt call and I stopped. She quickly caught up to me. [Pretty quick for a 92-year-old woman.] “You forgot the ring.” I quickly realized that during my hallucination I had dropped the ring case.

“Why are you giving me that ring?” I asked. [More importantly, how did you get ahold of a ring from Mars? Or, why do you look so young?]

“Because it’s a part of who you are. It will help you.”

“With what?”

“Your powers.” My powers? How did she know about them? I had never told anybody. “Just remember this.”

“What?” I whispered.

She leaned down and whispered in my ear. “Any way the wind blows, life is like a black rose.” She rose and left. The next time I saw her was ten years into the future.

I took the ring out of the case and put it upon my thumb on my left hand.

I stared up at the sky and was surprised to find that it had grown dark. How long had I been out there? Then I took a look at my surroundings. How did I get this far? I was at the hanging tree. [Yes, because the very backwards town of Shadyside had a history of hanging witches in the nineteenth century. Including Laurella’s twin sister. Why do I remember this crap?] Three miles from my house. How could I have possibly gotten this far?

It was then I heard it. It. “Hello, Kelly,” It said to me from inside my head.

I squeezed my temples and said, “Who are you? What are you doing in my head?”

It just laughed. It had a deep baritone voice. “I’m here for a reason, Kelly.”

“And what’s that?”

“To help you. To show you?” [Apparently he’s unsure.] The to show you part struck me as insane. [That’s the only part?]

“To show me what?”

“Yourself.”

I had been walking towards my house all that time, and I finally reached the lake. The lake was just down the street from me. God I had walked fast.

I walked over to the crystal clear blue water to see my reflection. I was so pretty. [And so narcissistic.] But I didn’t see my face. I saw the ugly reptile instead. It was sort of like that story about that girl who was really vain and selfish, so one day she looked at herself in the mirror and she saw a really ugly girl. [So she recognizes the fact that she’s extremely vain.]

But this was different, I wasn’t that ugly thing. I was simply there, hearing, listening to the ugly thing.

It was at that moment something made me look at the sky. Some people say when you see a falling star, you’re supposed to wish upon it. And if you don’t tell anybody what you wished for it would come true.

But not for me.

Because in the instante I saw that falling star something clicked.

I was that falling star.

Because in my brief, but unbelievable life, I hardly learned anything. Life is a precious gift. And you should live it to it’s fullest.

I truly was that falling star. My life had highpoints, and it had low points. But that’s life. [How melodramatic can you get?]

What is the green reptire? What powers does Kelly have? What kind of anti-aging treatment does Laurella use? Who did Kelly kill? What the hell is going on in this story. Find out next time...maye...