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I am outside looking for a field mouse that helps me write. Annabelle comes outside. I tell her to wait that I am trying to find something. She leaves and I assume she has gone back to the school.
I find the field mouse. It is in one of those plastic containers that come out of those gum ball machines that have toys in them. I ask a lady that passes me if she can please take it to the classroom. She holds it up and asks why anyone would want it but takes it from me anyway. I look for Annabelle everywhere but can't find her. I return to the classroom and the field mouse is there, the whole class loves him, he is writing on the chalkboard. No one knows where Annabelle is and I realize it has been over two hours. I am worried she has run away, her teacher is worried she has been kidnapped. Everyone in the school gathers to help me look for her. One of her teachers calls the police. I decide to look in the basement of the school because it is the only place inside that hasn't been checked. It is dark and when I turn on the lights they are those fluorescent lights that flicker and sound like bug lights. Against the walls are bright orange hospital beds on wheels, the kind EMT's use. I am feeling a little nervous. I walk in to the next room and an old lady is sitting on one of the hospital beds. Her hair is long and white and tangled so bad it looks like matted dreadlocks. She cocks her head and smiles at me, says "Have you come to be my wife?" I say nothing. I am terrified. Under the flicker of the fluorescents her skin has a blue tint. She has one leg hanging down and is sitting up on the other one, as if she had been attempting to sit cross-legged and got stuck. She is dressed like a child but in layers of clothing, bulky tights, several ratty skirts and shirts bunched up underneath a sweater. "Come here and lay with me" she says. I turn to go back up the stairs and she shouts "Are you married?! I run up the stairs but they seem to go on forever. I can hear her chanting, "be my wife, be my wife, be my wife".
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AuthorMichelle Tinklepaugh Archives
June 2023
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