If a nursing home seems an odd place to find the beginning to a fairy tale - well, all I can say is that I have spent copious amounts of time in nursing homes over the past several years, as various loved ones have gone there as their last "holding place" before their death-leaving.
I've had lots of time to think about Moosie and Cooper, and fiesty Beulah Judson.
But that's for another post. Read the entry, check out the contest, and enter with a creation of your own!
COOPER AND THE DEATH-CAT
(347 words)
Moosie the death-cat made another circuit
at Woolsey Nursing Home. She sniffed the air at each doorway, tufted ears
pricked and tail swishing, before moving on to the next room. The overworked,
checklist-choked staff sometimes second-guessed when death was near. Not Moosie.
She always knew.
“Tag on
Judson, room nine,” said the aide to the nurse fumbling with her medicine cart.
“Moosie’s
in the door?”
“No – on
the bed.”
On the bed. When Moosie took to
someone’s bed – you called in the family.
The nurse
left her medicine cart in the hall and peeked in room nine. Beulah Judson was
upright in her hospital bed, talking to her toes.
“Don’t look
at me like that. Cooper wouldn’t like it.”
As usual, thought the nurse (they never
had learned who Cooper was); but where’s
Moosie?
An angry
hiss answered her from beneath the bed. There she was – under the bed, not on
it. Her back was arched, fur bristling, tail straight as an arrow.
“I’m not
leaving yet. Cooper promised.”
The nurse
pricked up her ears. Beulah Judson wasn’t usually this lucid – even when she did talk to Cooper. And what was wrong
with Moosie? This was not her usual bedside manner.
Hiss. Scratch. YOWL. Scrambling beneath
the bed – a blur of striped fur – and Moosie flew from the room, screeching
like a banished demon.
“Cooper!
Leave the cat alone!” scolded Beulah.
Another
voice lilted through the room – a cool, sprightly voice that nonetheless sent chills
up the nurse’s spine.
“The cat
was here to take you,” said the voice. “I thought you weren’t ready to leave.”
“Damn you,
Cooper - what took you so long? I’ve waited decades.”
“Too many
changelings, not enough children.”
“I’m too
old to changeling,” said Beulah, while the nurse looked wildly about for the
source of the voice.
“To have a changeling,” the voice – Is that Cooper? – said. “And you’re
never too old to trick the Others. Do you want out?”
“Hell yes,”
said Beulah.
“Then how
will you leave?” said Cooper. “By death – or changeling? We could use you, you
know.”
Comments? Questions? Let me know what you think!
And above all - check out all the other wonderful entries!
(see links below)
Theme: Unexpected Fairy Tales
Length: 350 words or less.
Details: yearningforwonderland.blogspot.com & www.sjiholliday.com
Timetable: Contest open from April 4 till midnight, April 29th
Twitter: @ruanna3 & @sjiholliday & #ouatwriting
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