A fleeting kiss was all it took. It was all Melvin needed to be assured this woman was an evil monster.
But no matter, one must not dwell on such memories that may inflict certain mental distress. Besides, it was years ago. Why was he recalling this now? Especially considering his location.
Melvin wanted to say he was meandering in some sort of fairy tale land, but that would not be an appropriate comment. It seemed more like a distorted reality.
The skies were not any special colour that may hold one's attention. They were just blue. Not a cerulean blue, nor a periwinkle blue; they were just a common blue. It was more or less the skies' state of being that made them intriguing.
The skies appeared as if though they were painted by someone who did not have enough money to buy the large can. There were visible white spots that severely annoyed Melvin, though he was not quite sure why. Maybe it was the fact that the skies were not a random colour. Then again, maybe the visible white spots were clouds.
Damn.
There were no cobblestone streets or smooth cement sidewalks, just winding dirt paths that lead to places unknown. On each side of the paths were rows of corn stalks, but as Melvin approached the rows he realized that there were cashews inside the stalks. Cashews? Really?
Melvin knew this was not real. How on earth did he end up here in the first place? Cashews? Why was his mind toying with him? How was his mind toying with him?
Then something dawned on him. He had met up with Ginger earlier today. It would be so like her to slip something into his drink. But he saw her at a public restaurant, with a waiter filling the glasses. Maybe she paid the waiter?
Come on Mel, he thought, what a ludicrous idea!
Though not an entirely impossible one.
Ginger could not have slipped in any psychedelics even if she paid the waiter. Melvin remembered what it was like taking psychedelics even if it was...thirty years ago? It certainly was not like this.
Melvin's trips were vivid and colourful. They were believable, no matter how absurd they would appear to be to an outsider. The place he was in would appear more believable to an outsider but not so much to him. He knew better; he was sober.
Melvin picked up a cashew and popped it into his mouth. It tasted like a peanut. He suddenly felt like the land was taunting him because he was overweight. Being overweight, Melvin was meticulous about closely related foods, and the land knew it. He was insulted.
He held a piece of excess flab in between his thumb and forefinger and squeezed. It hurt. Melvin started to question himself...well, more so anyway.
"This is real Mel," came a voice from behind.
He spun around and saw Ginger with one arm under her chest and a cigarette in her hand. Typical.
Her parents were not really original when they named her Ginger; it matched her hair.
Melvin surveyed her head to toe and then once more. He stopped at her teeth and felt idiotic for not noticing them immediately. Her teeth-more like fangs-protruding out of her mouth, went down to her chin, pointed at the tips.
He literally threw his hand up and said, " That's it! I'm loaded!"
"Don't be such a whino." Ginger shook her head and took a drag off of her cigarette.
"You did this to me!" Melvin exclaimed, waving a shaking finger at her.
"Oh yeah," she said venomously, "It's my fault you won't see reality for what it really is. Real fair!"
Melvin shook with fury and retorted, "Can I help it if you're tricky? You put something in my water!"
"And that, dear sir, is why you are paying me alimony." Ginger smiled cruelly and then produced a pack of cigarettes out of thin air. "Cig?"
"Not my forte I'm afraid." He pulled a face.
"Suit yourself." She tapped the bottom of the pack lightly and tossed the cigarette in her hand, though it was not even half-smoked yet. Then she took a fresh one out of the pack, put it in between her lips, lit it, and then took a puff. Where or how she conjured up a lighter, Melvin was not completely certain.
Taking in Ginger's rather unusual appearance, he found himself rather amused. She looked absolutely ridiculous, with massive fangs and a cigarette. She resembled a tobacco addicted saber-tooth tiger.
As soon as he made that observation, Ginger turned into a fully fledged saber-tooth tiger. There was no dramatic transformation, where she tore off her skin with screams turning into growls. Her body did not contort into odd shapes. She just faded into her new form.
Melvin was utterly nonplussed by this. It was strange that something as trivial as a nut could perplex him, but his ex-wife's change from human to pre-historic cat could not. It was probably dire to the fact that she irritated him more than anything, no matter what she looked like.
Ginger stared as Melvin picked another cashew out of a different bundle of stalk. When he gripped the nut he noticed that it felt fuzzy. It was a spider.
Normally he would have dropped the thing, but instead Melvin slipped it into his mouth with no reasoning behind the action whatsoever.
It tasted like a peanut.
Melvin was again offended and had an urge to give the bird to some. To whom? The bloody land?
He snapped his eyes open and saw nothing but pitch black darkness. Melvin got up slightly, and then fell back down, hearing his mattress squeak under his weight. He turned his head to his left, expecting to hear a female voice tell him to go back to bed, but there was none. He felt around, like a blind man, and felt no one beside him.
Because I'm never totally drawn in. Let your weird world envelop me and poke my brain. Stimulate my imagination. Develop some characters, even (though it's totally optional), and mess around with them. It'll be fun. And you can confuse the reader, which is doubly fun. But the most fun is making your weirdness just subtle enough that the reader thinks you are saying something Very Profound Indeed, and they go batty trying to figure out what it is. But right now you seem quite aware of your surreality, which can deflate the tennis shoes a bit, buffalo.