The Sun-Dragonfly

I didn't realize I was awake this morning, when I first opened my eyes. I was looking at this great golden dragonfly, which had affixed itself to my drapes. It had eight wings--no, ten, twelve, fourteen, each pair layered on top of the last--and its body was brighter than the sun. No, as bright as the sun. Precisely as bright, indeed, seeing as it was the sun, and all. I was staring at the sun through my eyelashes. I'd forgotten you could make a dragonfly that way. The light gets all refracted, sort of thing, through the lachrymal fluid. That makes the wings, and then the body is...well, that's the sun, itself, and you really shouldn't be looking at it. I squinched my eyelids as close as they would go without actually being shut, and watched the wings stretch out to touch the walls. Squinch, unsquinch. Squinch, unsquinch. The wings flapped in slow motion. I might've stayed there all day, but then a gust of wind parted the drapes, and the sun came battering in full-force. My eyes started watering, and I pulled a pillow over my head.

"I hope the Stong's man doesn't come right now," I thought. "I'm wearing yesterday's clothes, and I have stupid hair."

As if on cue, the buzzer went--the Stong's man, of course. I changed quickly while he was on his way up, and put up my hood to hide my hair. It's not that I have any particular need to impress the Stong's man, or anything, but one doesn't like to be taken for a sloppy sort.

I got some instant bacon this week, that pre-cooked stuff they've been advertising on the telly just recently. You stick it in the microwave for five seconds per slice, and it comes out hot and perfectly crisped. (Well, that's what it says on the box, anyhow. In reality, it's a lot like those microwave chicken wings you can buy--yes, yes, I do buy them; yes, I am ashamed, but real chicken wings get stuck together in the freezer, and...oh, pish. I'm off-topic again.) What was I on about? Oh, right. The bacon. It's supposed to come out all lovely and crisp, but what you really get is this brittle, shoe-tasting stuff. Sad, really. I'll buy it again, though, because it costs less than real bacon. You get fourteen strips of fake bacon for the same price as nine strips of real bacon. Same with the chicken breasts: a pound of genuine chicken can cost as much as fifteen dollars, but a whole bag of micro-breasts is only eleven dollars. I wonder what it's really made out of? It can't be chicken. It's too spongy to be chicken. Maybe it's some sort of plant. Who knows, nowadays?

I got a bag of crisps, as well, and some truly horrible dill dip. I wish I hadn't bought that, now. There's a whole huge jar of it, and it tastes so awful even Stella won't touch it.

On the good side, I got loads of canned meats (corned beef, flaked chicken, et cetera)--Stella loves those, and I'll eat them too, if there's nothing better on offer. I got three boxes of soup cubes, and three bags of fresh vegetables. I'm going to make vegetable soup this Saturday, and freeze it for later. (This is in keeping with that one New Year's resolution I made, where I'm supposed to learn to cook. Even I can't munge up vegetable soup too badly.)

I also bought two boxes of cereal (one of Oatmeal Crisp with raisins, and one of Special K). Mother keeps saying I should eat breakfast, so I'm going to start. Well, I'll start tomorrow. I'm not hungry enough this morning. (Oh, man. I know how this is going to end. Tomorrow, and over the course of next week, Stella will drink all the milk. I'll keep putting off my great breakfast project till later. Two years from now, I'll be cleaning out the cupboard over the fridge, and those cereal boxes'll still be there, unopened. Stella, she'll weigh fifteen pounds, and have teeth the size of boar-tusks.)

No, in all seriousness, I've got to take better care, this year. I can't die till I've done at least one thing worth remembering. Can't have my eulogy going "This here in the coffin, this was Socar. She...er, drew a lot, and now, well...." More to the point, I can't die while my mother's still alive. She'd be crushed. I've got to hang around another twenty years, at least.

(I've been reading Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers lately, by the way--hence, I should think, the above morbid aside. It's not as good as I expected it to be. Although there's quite a bit of crunchy detail, the author never quite gets to the nitty gritty. There's never enough, is what I'm trying to say--it's a slight sort of book, without much meat on the bones. It raises more questions than it answers. Also, the narrative voice isn't particularly engaging. I kept finding myself jolted off the page by awkward turns of phrase and near-miss witticisms. The Loved One still remains untouched, as far as gleeful gravedelves go.)

Anyhow, this is the year I'm going to do that worth-remembering thing, I think. I've no idea what it's going to be, but I'm going to do it. Maybe I'll even do it today. I'm finishing up a horrible zombie picture--perhaps it'll be so horrible, so gruesome and fleshdrippy, that it'll be emblazoned on the public consciousness forever--an icon of rottenness, so to speak. A bit like Night of the Living Dead, but without all the legmunching extras.

(Then again, perhaps this requires more thought. I've drawn loads of manky zombie pictures, and none of them have achieved quite that effect. Maybe I ought to do something nice for a change, eh?)

Any road, sitting here talking about doing stuff isn't helping at all. The sun's stopped glaring on my monitor, now, and it's time to get to work.