all dice #1

spider/(ghost noises)/witch's shoe/coffin/speech bubble/elephant/alarm clock/frowny face/eye/hand

Well, the cat didn't do any damage to my bike, and I don't think I hurt it too much, just gave it a good scare.  It was the tree that I swerved and skidded into that mashed the wheel all up.  Just what I need now, no bike.

With nothing else to do, I started walking.  As I said before, I didn't really have anywhere to go, I just didn't want to be at home.  It was a summer morning, but not too hot yet.  Still, I could feel it in the cheerful rays of early sun that it was not going to be too comfortable on the street in a couple of hours.  I might as well be a vampire with how much I can't stand hot days.  I've spent entire weeks in the basement during July and August.

So, just a leisurely walk then, no hurry, no particular destination, just out for some air.  No need to draw attention to myself.  But of course-

"Hey, long time no see!" came the voice that was just about the last one I ever wanted to hear again.  Gertie means well, but...let's just say there are problems with boundaries.  I shouldn't have turned around, I should have kept walking like I had earbuds in and didn't hear anything (almost unbelievable with her voice, but worth a try), but I automatically turned my head.  And shoomp she was right next to me and plastered onto my right side.

"Hello Gertie," I managed before the floodgates opened.

"Oh my god, I have to tell you all about this new club I joined!  It's so cool!  We do all these craft things with natural ingredients and stuff!  I feel like I'm in a witch's cult!  You should come with me next time!  It's just the best!"  I couldn't even bring myself to correct her use of "cult", I just wanted to find an excuse to get away and into a calmer space.  I let her chatter for a while, looking for some object of interest to fob her off on, cursing myself yet again for living in a small residential town instead of someplace with a shopping district.  You don't even see people in their front yards most often.  But, as I was dragging my new accessory down the street I started to notice a much higher number of spiderwebs than normal.

Now, they weren't like in those pictures of towns covered in blankets of spiderwebs that go viral and it turns out there's a migrating spider population or something, they were normal kind of fine webs, but like...lots.  One between fence slats and one on a car mirror.  One over the top of a garden bush.  One stretched over a streetlight.  And as far as I could tell every one had one spider right in the middle.

"So I just had to get these boots 'cause I think they go with the whole atmosphere, you know?  I think Wolf will really like them, he hasn't seen them yet, but what do you think, aren't they great?" Gertie was hopping along beside me, holding out a tightly booted foot to be admired.  I don't know if it was footwear for a witch or not, I would have said it was more, I don't know, steampunk or something, but what I said at that moment was, "Hey, aren't there a lot more spiders than normal?"

I learned something about Gertie that day.  I learned she had a bad case of arachnophobia.   I feel a little bad about making her tear off down the street swatting herself all over as if she was crawling with bugs, but I did get her off my nearly literal back.

Now that I was alone again, I wandered down to the high school, where they were setting up for some summer school theater thing.  I was never much into theater myself, but I was impressed by the props and scenery that these kids often made.  They were real artists, some of them.  I hope they got into creative professions.  Now, I don't know what play they were putting on this year, but it looked like something with a Halloween theme.  The parking lot was full of foam gravestones and cardboard coffins, which made for a weirdly organized looking cemetery feel.  I browsed the stones to see if they had put any joke names on them, but no luck.  Not even funny epitaphs.  Must not be a comedy.  Then, by a stack of brown stained coffin boxes I heard a low moan.  I looked around grinning, thinking some kid was playing a little trick on me, but there was nobody close enough to make the noise.  It sounded like it was right next to me, inside the coffins in fact.  I was going to lift the lid of the top one just to make sure nobody was hiding inside, but I realized as I touched the top of it that there was no lid.  It was all folded and taped shut.  I was ready to go through the pile to see of one of them did have a lid and a body inside it, but I was accosted by yet another bouncy voice.

"Excuse me, have you registered to vote?"

"There isn't even a campaign on right now."

"You should be registered anyway, elections happen all the time.  Our local elections are important too!"  Certainly the peppy teen wasn't old enough to vote herself, but I couldn't fault her enthusiasm.

"Well, I mean, can I even do it here?  I don't have anything to do with the school..."

She laughed like a cheerleader and said, "No, we just give you the information here and tell you where the best place for you to register is.  You can find everything online too, of course, but a lot of people just want to hear it from a human voice."

"A little nostalgic maybe?"

"The human touch is always welcome," she stated firmly.  Who did she remind me of?  Young Reese Witherspoon maybe?  I noticed the elephant on her button.

"Are you guys going to complain about whatever weirdness this play is going to be?  Corrupting youth and that?  No ghosts and blasphemy?"

She laughed again, with real amusement I think, and answered, "We're Young Republicans, not Young Fundies.  I know what a lot of people in the party say on TV, but our group is firmly in favor of separation of church and state.  It's constitutionally correct!"  Then she leaned in and seized my arm with fingers with perfectly painted nails, looked me dead in the eyes and let the words pop out like cubes from an icemaker: "We're the good ones."

She let go of me and cheerily walked off, calling back a reminder to register over her shoulder.  I swear the cold dead eyes my senator shoots through the TV screen aren't as scary as that Young Republican's secularism.

It might have been the weird happenings of the morning that made me more susceptible, but I was starting to feel the tingle of observation.  The pressure was growing in my throat, and the sensation of little voices in the back of my head was picking up.  I wished I had a job to go to.  Maybe I should look into something on my way back.  Problem is, if I have to deal with people there will be incidents.  Just like there were when I was working before.  I guess it's time to go back home and see if Janelle has seen more spiders than normal too.