Writing Letters is Hard…

Dear Mum,

You probably know this already, things being what they are. Okay, this is pretty funny, actually. So I was talking to a psychic last night (no, that’s not the funny part. Some people go to the bar; some people play MMORPGs (I’ll explain that one later); I talk to psychics. It’s like sports entertainment Pay-Per-Views), and guess who showed up?

Well, I was kind of expecting you, to be honest, but you’re probably in some bonspiel somewhen so you weren’t around. ANYWAY, yeah. You’ll never guess. No, seriously, you’ll never guess. Okay, fine, technically, you *will* probably guess, things being what they are, so I’m just going to tell you.

Great Gram McG!

No, seriously!

I **KNOW**!!

So, when I told my psychic that that was really funny because I was the only person in the family she actually *liked* other than her own pre-marriage-to-Great-Granddad-John A., the psychic said, “oh, she just said ‘I *tolerated* her’”. And that made me laugh really, really hard, because I remember one time when we were camping with Auntie Isa at Cypress Hills, and Auntie M (yes, I know. It’s ironic that I have an Auntie M) was there, and Nama, and you…remember the time y’all got me to plant a pinecone in the dry, dry dust outside the trailer and then pour some whiskey over it and then in the morning, there was a *little wee tree* growing there…(and yes, I’m aware that you all had me utterly convinced that whiskey and my own magic grows trees overnight until I was fifteen)…remember that time? I was pretending to be asleep in the bunk in the trailer and you and the Aunties and Nama were growing trees in your belly with whiskey?

You thought I was asleep. And, as it was wont to do at those times, the conversation in the dark, dry, hot night turned to Gram McG. “Isn’t it odd,” Nama said, “how that horrible old woman was so keen with cenobyte?”
“Isn’t it?” laughed Auntie M. “She hated every other Goddamned person in John A.’s family.”
Then the lights in the trailer flickered. Auntie M trotted out to check out the power connection. Ours was the only trailer with flickering lights. She hollered this news in from the place where my tree would grow.
“Jesus Christ, Carrie,” Auntie Isa hissed. “We can talk about you all we like now. You’re dead, though not long enough.”
The lights kept flickering until Auntie M got back in to the trailer. “Always was a vicious old bitch,” she laughed. “And you know I’m talking to you!” She said to the air.
The lights stopped flickering.
And you said, “I wonder why she took such a liking to cenobyte?”
And Auntie Isa, the eldest, smiled her powdery, luscious smile and her blue, blue eyes that looked so much like John A’s twinkled and sparkled and she leaned forward over the table conspiratorially. She winked over her whiskey and in a stage whisper she announced: “That nasty woman didn’t like a goddamned thing. She only tolerated cenobyte because cenobyte was the only one still young enough to believe in witches.”

Anyway, I thought it was funny. And I thought you’d enjoy it.

Miss you lots,
love
cenobyte