These are my responses to the Writober Day 2 prompt post Hybrid
I was so determined to get that gator head on that woman, I’ve exhausted myself. I thought it would be a simple, practical effect of perspective. It shouldn’t have been that hard. But persistence and determination kept me going, and now I have a Gatorwoman. I feel like I understand the obsession of the mad scientist. Now that I’ve screamed “It’s Alive” and done my maniacal laugh, I’m not so sure the world needs Gatorpeople. Oh well. Such is the plight of the mad scientist.
New Poem
I tried a couple of poems following Lorine Niedecker’s “Popcorn-corn cover.”
Gatorgirl
Rubber Mardi Gras throw
propped over
a plastic talking doll
until she alligatored a hybrid
into being.
Brainstorm
Morning’s brainstorm
on slips of paper
in the yellow happyface vase
so the first idea
can’t Gatorgirl the whole
day away
Flash Fiction
An Ounce of Forethought
Dr. Kleever was attaching electrodes to his most recent specimen when his wife stumbled into the lab. He startled and almost gave himself a jolt. His wife never came into the lab. Never.
“I’m sorry,” she panted. “I’m so sorry.” She waved her arm extended in front of her face. banged her hip into the table.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked.
“I went outside. Just for a minute. I wanted some air, and a cobra.”
“A cobra? Oh darling.”
“It spit in my eyes. And then the damned thing bit me.”
Dr. Kleever ran to his wife and picked her up. “How long has it been?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.”
He carried her up the stairs. She only had a half an hour after the bite. The nearest emergency room was too far. If only he had some anti-venom. Why didn’t he have any anti-venom? What kind of scientist sets up in a Philippine jungle and doesn’t have any anti-venom?
“It’s going to be okay, honey.” He pushed her damp hair from her face. Her breath was shallow and labored. She didn’t respond.
He put her in the passenger seat of their Jeep and sped off as fast as he could on their barely-there jungle path, giant fronds and branches smacking the windows on all sides.
“We’re almost to the road, Lena. Just hold on,” he said. Then a huge black shape filled his vision. A screech. A clunk. He slammed on the brakes. Pain in his chest, his forehead. Then he slammed back against the seat, hitting the back of his head on the headrest. “Lena!”
He hadn’t put on her seatbelt. Her head had gone through the windshield. He jumped out and ran to the front of the jeep. A Rufous hornbill flopped its wing a couple times before it stopped moving on the ground. “What were you thinking, bird?” He looked at his wife’s mangled skull splayed on the hood, then down at the bird. There might still be time. The cobra venom in her veins could be just what he needed to make this work.
Back in the lab, Dr. Kleever worked with speed and precision. He had dreamed of experimenting on a human body, but never imagined a circumstance where it would be possible. Lena’s thin neck lined up perfectly with the hornbill’s. The surgery was much simpler than he had expected. Probably the adrenaline making him laser-focused. “Please, let this work,” he said, as he connected the electrodes and sent voltage into his hornbill-Lena hybrid.
The hornbill’s eyes fluttered. It moved Lena’s shoulders, screeching wildly. It appeared to be trying to fly.
“Come on bird. Figure it out,” Dr. Kleever said. He gently touched Lena’s hand. The hornbill-woman pulled it back. “There you go. You’re getting it. What are you going to do with your new body?”
It closed its eyes and passed out.
“Yeah, that’s a bit of a shock, huh bird?”
Dr. Kleever was suddenly hungry and completely exhausted. The creature would be out for a while, he thought, so he went upstairs. He snacked on a jackfruit, falling asleep while eating it. Something woke him up: piano music. “Lena? Why do you always have to play that song? You know I hate it,” he said.
For a second he thought it had all been a crazy dream. The cobra. The accident. The hornbill. He saw the dropped bit of jackfruit on the floor now covered with ants. Music filled the room, louder, more confident. Dr. Kleever hurried into the next room. The hornbill-woman sat at the piano playing that stupid piano song that Lena played to torment him. Ever since the piano went out of tune and they couldn’t get anyone to tune it, she had used it as a weapon to express her displeasure. He suddenly realized his mistake. Muscle memory. Of all the things Lena’s body remembered with its new hornbill head, it had to be that song.