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Daily wordcount: 2,284
Total wordcount: 38,890
On/off target: -6,119
I didn't lose ground today, but I made up very little. Still, considering the stress I'm going to call it a win. Can I write 11k+ words in three (maybe really two) days? Technically, yes. I could do it in one if I was motivated enough. Spoiler alert: I'm not. I have zero idea where this is going and don't really care about it beyond the fact that it's a goal I get to cross out of my book. Which is actually a fair amount of motivation, if I'm honest, it's the only thing that has kept me going.
Also I really did drink some bad milk today and my stomach is not happy.
“Well, that’s… unfortunate,” I said, and I felt both a sick and stressed about it, even though there was nothing I could do. If I could be ready maybe I could trap Steve before he could do any harm, but if demons didn’t have to follow the rules of space or time, what’s to say there is anything I could do? Also, if Evan was hiding out halfway around the world, it was already nighttime there. I might just be too late, no matter what I tried to do.
And, let’s be honest, if Evan had summoned a demon to kill two woman, did I want to stick my neck out to try to save him? It would be hard to legally charge him with the crime, unless the courts decided to believe in the supernatural and take a demon’s word for it, so this might be the only way justice could be served. But then, vigilante justice is never a good thing. I was feeling pretty conflicted about the whole thing, and decided to deal with it the way I deal with all the stress in my life – by completely ignoring it. It was a technique that had worked well most of my life, with one glaring exception, and I stuck by it.
“We can try to cobble together a circle and summon him now, it’s not impossible in the daylight, though it is difficult. But without knowing the true name of the demon it’s a little hard. It would be far easier to stick with your plan, and trap him when he shows up.” She hesitated. “That doesn’t mean he might not have time – or already have had time – to do the harm he wants to his summoner. And it would put you in a much more precarious position. If he doesn’t think you’re against him, you’re probably not in any immediate danger?”
She said the last as a bit of a question, which did not put my mind at ease. I was stressed, and tired, and just wanted out of this situation. But I felt trapped. Doing nothing did not seem like an option, because sooner or later, it was possible Steve would turn on me. But doing something was also not without its risks. And that could definitely make things a lot more dangerous, a lot more quickly. So for now, I thought, maybe the head in the sand approach was the best. I’d deal with the fallout when I absolutely had to.
“I think I’ll just see what happens, and keep going on the path I’m on now. I don’t think I can fix this, and I’m not willing to put myself out there, not for someone who is a killer, anyway.” My stomach clenched and I felt uneasy, but I stuck with it.
“There’s also the possibility that if the demon kills the one that summoned him, he’d be automatically called back,” she said. “It depends on the spell used. Some people think it’s a failsafe, but they don’t realize a demon would rather kill you and return, since eventually someone will be dumb enough to summon them again. And I haven’t had a lot of experience, but I’ve never thought demons much liked being on this side. They’re a bit limited and out of place and they can’t go on too much of a rampage without being caught and sent back.”
“How will I know if he’s sent back?” I asked. This was, possibly, very good news. Maybe I could get out of this without doing anything. “And what if he wasn’t, but doesn’t show up anymore?”
“Well, that’s the problem, you wouldn’t know. He just wouldn’t show up at your place, which he could just decide not to do at any time. Eventually someone would either re-summon him or catch him, though what he’d do in the meantime…” she shrugged wordlessly.
“Huh,” I said, dazed and very unsure what to do. Would I be responsible for any havoc on his part if I didn’t try? But like she said, I couldn’t summon him, unless I found the original summoning, or managed to trap him I a circle when he showed up. So maybe my culpability wasn’t that high? I didn’t want it to be. Some of us buy monkey circuses, some of us have monkeys thrust upon us. I never wanted this monkey.
I thanked her for her help, and wandered out of the shop. She didn’t do anything to stop me, and I was free to make my way home and wait to see what would happen. In the meantime, I would do my best to create a circle and get things as close to ready as I could. Just in case.
I got home and got things as ready as they could, and then began knitting. I lit one candle, and started a fire in the fireplace. My nerves were stretched tight and I couldn’t even begin to relax, my stomach was in knots. The more I thought about it, and the more I tried to relax, the worse it got. The worst thing was, there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. All I could do was wait, everything else was out of my hands. You might think that would bring a sense of relief, but it didn’t. It was more like waiting for the other shoe to drop, and you know it will but you don’t know when or what it will be. The feeling of helplessness and despair mixed with acute anxiety was not doing anything good for my mental state. Even all the things I usually did to try to take my mind off of things wasn’t working. Crafting was tied to Steve and the plot to get rid of him. Bad movies were something Steve and I had enjoyed together. Cooking and food definitely brought up memories of Steve. It was terrible, and I just wanted to scream and cry and get passed it, but I couldn’t. Because it wasn’t up to me.
I realized, at this point, it may have been becoming a little less about Steve and maybe a little more about the general situations in my life, things I had been avoiding dealing with. The work stresses, the people stresses, the mess stresses… the feeling of parts of my life being out of control, just a little. Individually, those things didn’t amount to much and I could deal and be happy, but it only takes one things to tip the balance, at least temporarily. That happened once before, a few years ago, with a friend, and I remember having the same feelings of nothing to fall back on that wasn’t tied to them. And it had taken quite some time, but I had managed to move past it, at least, I thought I had. But I can still clearly remember the twisting in the pit of my stomach, the sick feeling, the sadness, depression, and, yes, that little bit of anger.
For the first time in a long time, I wondered what Kate was up to, if she was still in that awful relationship we’d had the falling out over. I didn’t think she’d ever forgive, and she’d said as much, but maybe if she had seen the light and gotten away from Jim, maybe some day she could admit that I hadn’t been wrong in what I said. Tactless, perhaps, I’m willing to cop to that, but not exactly wrong. And maybe I shouldn’t have given up on her, maybe despite the abuse I should have kept trying to get her to end her relationship, but… at some point, you have to walk away for your own sanity. She wasn’t going to see the problem he was until she was ready to. There were lies, and justifications, and she wasn’t ready to listen to anyone. You can’t help someone who doesn’t want help, and she swore up and down she was fine, even the time I caught sight of the bruises.
The thought occurred to me that maybe she didn’t escape Jim, maybe she was still trapped in that relationship, or worse. Maybe it had ended very, very badly. And maybe I would never know. That was a hard thing to accept, the not knowing. The second guessing everything you’d done and wondering what you could have done to make things come out differently. In the case of Kate, as with Steve, I knew that while it wasn’t my fault, per se, there was still the fact that I did have influence, and my actions did effect things. So how culpable was I? How would I feel if I found out Kate had never left Jim, and he’d pushed her down the stairs to her death?
Goodness, maybe Steve was a figment of my imagination... or, pardon the pun, just my inner demon coming out? Maybe he’s just here to make me question everything and try to work through your own problems. I was still fairly sure that reality hadn’t bent so far that the things going on at work weren’t real, there were other people involved and I’d heard the news from multiple sources, so unless I was in a complete dream state slash hallucination, I was pretty sure that was actually happening. Steve, though, Steve could very well be a figment of my imagination, which made me think perhaps my mental state was a bit more fragile than I’d thought. That, and I really needed to get out more.
I got up to make myself a lovely cup of tea, and put the thought out of my mind. The fact that the milk had gone off and I ended up with a bit of a mouthful of very sour tea, and had to re-make the tea sans milk, really took my mind off of a lot. This led me to the realization that I really should clean out the refrigerator, which then led me to thinking about all the things I would rather do than clean out the refrigerator. That list was long, and included other things I didn't want to do that there were other things I'd do as procrastination... eventually, the list was very long indeed, and had gotten ridiculously detailed. But the more items I had, the more I got to cross off! Except I wouldn't, because we all know I'm better at making lists than following through with them.
My stomach was still bothering me, but now I couldn't tell if it was from stress or from the bad milk. Probably a combination of things. But more time was going by that I didn't think about the Steve problem, or the work murder problem, so I figured my ignoring the problem defense mechanism was starting to kick in. Maybe things would be okay, after all, if I just pretended everything was fine, and learned to sniff the milk before I drank it. Could sour milk kill you? I didn't think so. Maybe I should look that up...
I was reaching for my laptop, already chiding myself for what was certain to be another marathon session of procrastinating while surfing the web, when I felt the weird change in the room that happened when Steve popped in. But when I turned around, there was no one there. Stress pinged back along my nerves, and I realized that I hadn't been as relaxed as I thought. Maybe just a little better at ignoring it, but the tension was definitely still there. This might require more work than I thought, but could you even go to a therapist for something like this? What would you say, "hey, I think I might have PTSD from some unresolved demon issues"? I rather doubted they'd believe me, hell, I didn't believe me.
I could talk about the Kate situation as if it were more current, if I wanted to work through something. I didn't think it usually bothered me that much, but in reality, it probably weighed on me more than I would like it to. Life is full of regrets, though, and you really have to move past them. The only thing you can do is look to the future, and take care of yourself. Which, dammit, probably meant cleaning out that refrigerator. Why, universe, why are you making me do this? Couldn't I start it tomorrow? I could make a list tonight, a real, proper paper list, and promise to start working on it tomorrow.
And none of that overly optimistic 'everything will be sparkling clean and perfectly organized' bull, either, because that is bound to fail. Ad there's nothing like setting yourself up for failure. I probably did that too often, so I decided I needed to be more realistic about the number of things I could get done in a day. I could start by emptying the bad food out of the refrigerator and taking the garbage out. No need to clean the dishes, or scrub out the refrigerator. Baby steps. I just needed to get rid of the rotten food. That would be enough.
As I headed for the refrigerator, a piece of paper on the counter caught my eye. Funny, I didn't remember it being there before. I picked it up, and on it I read "Sorry, be back tomorrow. Milk, eggs, break, chicken, red and yellow bell peppers, onion."
Apparently, this was not at all over. I set the grocery list down, all hope of being productive lost as my stomach lurched into my throat and I sat down heavily on the couch, staring blankly at the television as my mind raced. Whatever do I do now?
Total wordcount: 38,890
On/off target: -6,119
I didn't lose ground today, but I made up very little. Still, considering the stress I'm going to call it a win. Can I write 11k+ words in three (maybe really two) days? Technically, yes. I could do it in one if I was motivated enough. Spoiler alert: I'm not. I have zero idea where this is going and don't really care about it beyond the fact that it's a goal I get to cross out of my book. Which is actually a fair amount of motivation, if I'm honest, it's the only thing that has kept me going.
Also I really did drink some bad milk today and my stomach is not happy.
“Well, that’s… unfortunate,” I said, and I felt both a sick and stressed about it, even though there was nothing I could do. If I could be ready maybe I could trap Steve before he could do any harm, but if demons didn’t have to follow the rules of space or time, what’s to say there is anything I could do? Also, if Evan was hiding out halfway around the world, it was already nighttime there. I might just be too late, no matter what I tried to do.
And, let’s be honest, if Evan had summoned a demon to kill two woman, did I want to stick my neck out to try to save him? It would be hard to legally charge him with the crime, unless the courts decided to believe in the supernatural and take a demon’s word for it, so this might be the only way justice could be served. But then, vigilante justice is never a good thing. I was feeling pretty conflicted about the whole thing, and decided to deal with it the way I deal with all the stress in my life – by completely ignoring it. It was a technique that had worked well most of my life, with one glaring exception, and I stuck by it.
“We can try to cobble together a circle and summon him now, it’s not impossible in the daylight, though it is difficult. But without knowing the true name of the demon it’s a little hard. It would be far easier to stick with your plan, and trap him when he shows up.” She hesitated. “That doesn’t mean he might not have time – or already have had time – to do the harm he wants to his summoner. And it would put you in a much more precarious position. If he doesn’t think you’re against him, you’re probably not in any immediate danger?”
She said the last as a bit of a question, which did not put my mind at ease. I was stressed, and tired, and just wanted out of this situation. But I felt trapped. Doing nothing did not seem like an option, because sooner or later, it was possible Steve would turn on me. But doing something was also not without its risks. And that could definitely make things a lot more dangerous, a lot more quickly. So for now, I thought, maybe the head in the sand approach was the best. I’d deal with the fallout when I absolutely had to.
“I think I’ll just see what happens, and keep going on the path I’m on now. I don’t think I can fix this, and I’m not willing to put myself out there, not for someone who is a killer, anyway.” My stomach clenched and I felt uneasy, but I stuck with it.
“There’s also the possibility that if the demon kills the one that summoned him, he’d be automatically called back,” she said. “It depends on the spell used. Some people think it’s a failsafe, but they don’t realize a demon would rather kill you and return, since eventually someone will be dumb enough to summon them again. And I haven’t had a lot of experience, but I’ve never thought demons much liked being on this side. They’re a bit limited and out of place and they can’t go on too much of a rampage without being caught and sent back.”
“How will I know if he’s sent back?” I asked. This was, possibly, very good news. Maybe I could get out of this without doing anything. “And what if he wasn’t, but doesn’t show up anymore?”
“Well, that’s the problem, you wouldn’t know. He just wouldn’t show up at your place, which he could just decide not to do at any time. Eventually someone would either re-summon him or catch him, though what he’d do in the meantime…” she shrugged wordlessly.
“Huh,” I said, dazed and very unsure what to do. Would I be responsible for any havoc on his part if I didn’t try? But like she said, I couldn’t summon him, unless I found the original summoning, or managed to trap him I a circle when he showed up. So maybe my culpability wasn’t that high? I didn’t want it to be. Some of us buy monkey circuses, some of us have monkeys thrust upon us. I never wanted this monkey.
I thanked her for her help, and wandered out of the shop. She didn’t do anything to stop me, and I was free to make my way home and wait to see what would happen. In the meantime, I would do my best to create a circle and get things as close to ready as I could. Just in case.
I got home and got things as ready as they could, and then began knitting. I lit one candle, and started a fire in the fireplace. My nerves were stretched tight and I couldn’t even begin to relax, my stomach was in knots. The more I thought about it, and the more I tried to relax, the worse it got. The worst thing was, there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. All I could do was wait, everything else was out of my hands. You might think that would bring a sense of relief, but it didn’t. It was more like waiting for the other shoe to drop, and you know it will but you don’t know when or what it will be. The feeling of helplessness and despair mixed with acute anxiety was not doing anything good for my mental state. Even all the things I usually did to try to take my mind off of things wasn’t working. Crafting was tied to Steve and the plot to get rid of him. Bad movies were something Steve and I had enjoyed together. Cooking and food definitely brought up memories of Steve. It was terrible, and I just wanted to scream and cry and get passed it, but I couldn’t. Because it wasn’t up to me.
I realized, at this point, it may have been becoming a little less about Steve and maybe a little more about the general situations in my life, things I had been avoiding dealing with. The work stresses, the people stresses, the mess stresses… the feeling of parts of my life being out of control, just a little. Individually, those things didn’t amount to much and I could deal and be happy, but it only takes one things to tip the balance, at least temporarily. That happened once before, a few years ago, with a friend, and I remember having the same feelings of nothing to fall back on that wasn’t tied to them. And it had taken quite some time, but I had managed to move past it, at least, I thought I had. But I can still clearly remember the twisting in the pit of my stomach, the sick feeling, the sadness, depression, and, yes, that little bit of anger.
For the first time in a long time, I wondered what Kate was up to, if she was still in that awful relationship we’d had the falling out over. I didn’t think she’d ever forgive, and she’d said as much, but maybe if she had seen the light and gotten away from Jim, maybe some day she could admit that I hadn’t been wrong in what I said. Tactless, perhaps, I’m willing to cop to that, but not exactly wrong. And maybe I shouldn’t have given up on her, maybe despite the abuse I should have kept trying to get her to end her relationship, but… at some point, you have to walk away for your own sanity. She wasn’t going to see the problem he was until she was ready to. There were lies, and justifications, and she wasn’t ready to listen to anyone. You can’t help someone who doesn’t want help, and she swore up and down she was fine, even the time I caught sight of the bruises.
The thought occurred to me that maybe she didn’t escape Jim, maybe she was still trapped in that relationship, or worse. Maybe it had ended very, very badly. And maybe I would never know. That was a hard thing to accept, the not knowing. The second guessing everything you’d done and wondering what you could have done to make things come out differently. In the case of Kate, as with Steve, I knew that while it wasn’t my fault, per se, there was still the fact that I did have influence, and my actions did effect things. So how culpable was I? How would I feel if I found out Kate had never left Jim, and he’d pushed her down the stairs to her death?
Goodness, maybe Steve was a figment of my imagination... or, pardon the pun, just my inner demon coming out? Maybe he’s just here to make me question everything and try to work through your own problems. I was still fairly sure that reality hadn’t bent so far that the things going on at work weren’t real, there were other people involved and I’d heard the news from multiple sources, so unless I was in a complete dream state slash hallucination, I was pretty sure that was actually happening. Steve, though, Steve could very well be a figment of my imagination, which made me think perhaps my mental state was a bit more fragile than I’d thought. That, and I really needed to get out more.
I got up to make myself a lovely cup of tea, and put the thought out of my mind. The fact that the milk had gone off and I ended up with a bit of a mouthful of very sour tea, and had to re-make the tea sans milk, really took my mind off of a lot. This led me to the realization that I really should clean out the refrigerator, which then led me to thinking about all the things I would rather do than clean out the refrigerator. That list was long, and included other things I didn't want to do that there were other things I'd do as procrastination... eventually, the list was very long indeed, and had gotten ridiculously detailed. But the more items I had, the more I got to cross off! Except I wouldn't, because we all know I'm better at making lists than following through with them.
My stomach was still bothering me, but now I couldn't tell if it was from stress or from the bad milk. Probably a combination of things. But more time was going by that I didn't think about the Steve problem, or the work murder problem, so I figured my ignoring the problem defense mechanism was starting to kick in. Maybe things would be okay, after all, if I just pretended everything was fine, and learned to sniff the milk before I drank it. Could sour milk kill you? I didn't think so. Maybe I should look that up...
I was reaching for my laptop, already chiding myself for what was certain to be another marathon session of procrastinating while surfing the web, when I felt the weird change in the room that happened when Steve popped in. But when I turned around, there was no one there. Stress pinged back along my nerves, and I realized that I hadn't been as relaxed as I thought. Maybe just a little better at ignoring it, but the tension was definitely still there. This might require more work than I thought, but could you even go to a therapist for something like this? What would you say, "hey, I think I might have PTSD from some unresolved demon issues"? I rather doubted they'd believe me, hell, I didn't believe me.
I could talk about the Kate situation as if it were more current, if I wanted to work through something. I didn't think it usually bothered me that much, but in reality, it probably weighed on me more than I would like it to. Life is full of regrets, though, and you really have to move past them. The only thing you can do is look to the future, and take care of yourself. Which, dammit, probably meant cleaning out that refrigerator. Why, universe, why are you making me do this? Couldn't I start it tomorrow? I could make a list tonight, a real, proper paper list, and promise to start working on it tomorrow.
And none of that overly optimistic 'everything will be sparkling clean and perfectly organized' bull, either, because that is bound to fail. Ad there's nothing like setting yourself up for failure. I probably did that too often, so I decided I needed to be more realistic about the number of things I could get done in a day. I could start by emptying the bad food out of the refrigerator and taking the garbage out. No need to clean the dishes, or scrub out the refrigerator. Baby steps. I just needed to get rid of the rotten food. That would be enough.
As I headed for the refrigerator, a piece of paper on the counter caught my eye. Funny, I didn't remember it being there before. I picked it up, and on it I read "Sorry, be back tomorrow. Milk, eggs, break, chicken, red and yellow bell peppers, onion."
Apparently, this was not at all over. I set the grocery list down, all hope of being productive lost as my stomach lurched into my throat and I sat down heavily on the couch, staring blankly at the television as my mind raced. Whatever do I do now?
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