Foreword: Finished half of the Day of the Triffids book, and I am happy to report that the Triffids and Claudia are very different. In the picture above, Claudia spreads by sending out pollen on the wind, planting her children anywhere and everywhere there is a copy of her (she’s both male and female on a whim); however, the Triffids had primitive branch-like feet for locomotion. So far in the book, wind isn’t a tool. The Triffids book reminds me of the writings of Camus.
—
2. Hard Times
Bob called in to Brewster and Brewster Real Estate to arrange for a string of sick days. Yes, Bob was saying from a distant point in his brain, the pain is really like a migraine that won’t stop. What? Cancer. You’re right. I’ll drop in on Doc Evans and get a check up. Yes, I will let you know the moment I know. Right. Ok then, thanks.
It’s just me now, he said aloud. David can’t be trusted. I saw the sheen in his eyes. Went bad fast. Take him off the shelf and into the bin. The sheen is what’s all about. You get it, and you can forget it. Badgers are bad for business. Barking dogs are good guardians, but not timid ones. Someone’s in the fore part of my brain. I can see their shoulders moving as they work the controls.
He came back into consciousness with a pound of raw hamburger in his mouth, chewing hungrily. He was having it out over the kitchen sink like a good Southerner, tongue licking his cheeks for the fine shreds of meat that escaped him, or the “other” in him.
Finishing, he washed his hands under the sink and then submerged back into the bliss of Claudia’s will.
There were other odd moments like this. Coming back from Save-Now, he found he had decided to buy a few cans of pig brains. Brains! How they disgusted him. But badda-badda-bing, he had five cans stacked neatly in the back of his pantry. Odd things happened like this ever since Claudia came into his life. Like waking up naked in the forest—had to be the Edmon estate—staring at the horizon, his penis half erect. How he got back home without spending the night in Bret Johnson’s jail, free of charge, was far beyond him. It was the whim of Claudia, that’s all.
But the drug-trip lifestyle took a turn when he woke up facing an open window of a strange house. His little friend inside him had caused him to chafe his naked chest by failing to pull himself up into a neighbor’s bedroom. His stomach was knotting in hunger even now. How sickening! In a flash of pure will, he was able to sneak away, forcing himself to vanish into a scrub of trees until he got his bearings. Claudia’s mojo was getting stronger, forcing him to go along for the ride too many times. He was not going to be a cannibal. He was adamant about it. That would mean prison or a mandated stay in a mental ward. Something had to give, and it wasn’t going to be him.
—
End of Part II
Note: As I have mentioned before, “I, Claudia” has a great original that spawned her in my brain. No, make that two great originals. The first is the king of supernatural horror: H.P. Lovecraft. Some of his beings like the Fungi from Yuggoth (first picture below) have been in my brain for quite a bit; also, the haunting visuals from VanderMeer’s Annihilation trilogy (and movie) descend from Lovecraft of course. VenderMeer’s novel was a big kick in the butt that made me think about the dark side of plants. The old novel cover is second below.
