One Wedding 4 POVs
Here are four special blog entries in honor of Jon & Ela’s recent marriage. May it be filled with joy, fantasy and only the right amount of zombies.
Mark, Claudia, Shawn & Lisa
From the Journal of Beryl Kodiak:
Who knows what these Insiders will think of next.
It's not good enough for them to squat in the woods like everyone else does. Nope, they gotta make a fuss about toilets and toilet paper and air freshener.
And it's not good enough for them to root about for grubs and acorns and roots like most everyone else, or to take the rabbit raw in your munching jaws. Instead, they've got to braise and steam and bake and blanch and dress and marinade and roast and grill and, well, you get my meaning, right?
And it's not good enough for them to sit on the fair green ground on the sweet sighing trees. They've gotta build fantastical castles with ornate desks and credenzas and patios for to suck their fire sticks on. They lose their fur and then they need fireplaces and shawls and wraps and neck strings and pink and blue pocket hankies and I'm not even gonna mention the shoes...
Nope. All of that would be odd enough, but listen: going into heat and making babies out in the open air apparently isn't good enough for them either. They gotta get the whole community to agree. And they gotta do it inside. And they gotta talk and talk and talk about it. It's called a Wedding.
Bat Scat. They are Weird! I'll never figure them out. Not if I live four lives, I won't.
But you wanna know what the Best Thing was?
The Best Thing Ever?
I'll just say this, if anyone ever invites you to a gathering where there will be a Cupcake Tree,
no matter how Insiderly that person might be? Do not think. Do not ponder. Just say YES!
I ate the whole thing. Every single one of those scatting cupcakes. My Dirt Clod, were they good.
I'm not sure what all happened after that, coz just as I was finishing licking the frosting off my nose, they ran me out of the place.
No matter, my tummy was nice and round.
(By Lisa Bergin)
Ela & Jon’s Wedding as reported by Tea Leaf
Airelai crossed over to the window, pushed the panes open, and looked out onto a cobblestone plaza filled with busy people passing between the sea of four and five story buildings that spread out in all directions. She placed her thin, elvish arms onto the sill and leaned out far enough for a puff of wind to catch her silver white hair and blow it across her dark oval shaped eyes. It was one of those perfect, pre-Darktime days where the Father's stark, blue white rays hammered down past the Mother's giant auburn crescent and promised of the cold that was soon to come.
A familiar buzz rushed past her head and she smiled in response. “Tea leaf?”
“Hi, Air!” a tiny, high-pitched voice said from somewhere above her. The buzz raced down to an abrupt stop and Airelai blinked at the tiny fairie’s sudden appearance. Tea Leaf's miniature, elflike body was no taller than the length of a human hand but her silver, dragonfly like wings stretched twice again that distance. She hovered in the air with an effortless grace.
Airelai smiled as she asked, “Where have you been, Tea Leaf?”
“Wedding,” Tea Leaf replied with a nonchalant kick of her legs.
Airelai asked, “Whose wedding?”
“Jon and Ela.”
“I don't know them, do I?”
Tea leaf shook her tiny head. “Me think not.”
“How do you know them?”
“Me not know Ella much, but Jon my critiquer!”
“Critiquer.” Airelai mused over the word. “Is that some strange human thing I haven't learned of yet?”
Tea leaf crossed her twig like arms over her chest. “Me not tell. Faerie secret.”
“Fine,” Airelai said with a smile. “Tell me about this wedding.”
Tea leaf threw open her arms and pirouetted in the air as she said, “Wedding beautiful! Ella dress like snow on illiana leaves.”
“Sounds pretty. What about Jon?”
“Nice uniform,” Tea Leaf said as she puffed out her chest. “Big smile. Jon tell funny stories about working in store. Ella is smelly and fits in his arm.”
Airelai was aghast. “Tea leaf! That's not nice!”
“What not nice?”
“You just said the bride was smelly.”
“Jon said it good smell.” Her brow furrowed as she said, “Like breakfast maybe. Me not remember.” She brightened suddenly, adding, “Jon big fan of Captain America! You know Captain America?”
“I know a Captain Hengest,” Airelai said thoughtfully.
Tea leaf shook her head. “Not same Captain.”
Airelai said, “Tell me more, Tea Leaf. Were there many guests?”
“Many!”
“And how did they look?”
“Amazing! Specially back corner table.” Her tiny cheeks blushed red as she added, “Boys very pretty.”
Airelai grinned as she asked, “Don't you mean handsome?”
“That too!”
“And the ladies?”
“Beautiful!” Tea Leaf said with an enthusiastic sigh.
“Was there food?”
“Oh, yes!” The little faerie began to buzz about as she said, “Wines and fishes and vegetable and cow but best part-”
Airelai interrupted, “What is cow?”
Tea leaf was crestfallen. “You not want hear best part?”
“I do, but what is cow?”
Tea leaf wrinkled her nose. “Big stinky thing. Much drool.” Her face lit with excitement as she asked, “Now tell best part?”
“Yes. Now you can tell me the best part.”
Tea leaf threw her arms wide as she shouted, “Giant cake cup tree!”
“Cake cups?”
Tea Leaf dreamily hugged her arms to her chest as she said, “Giant cups of soft with sweet on top! Me never got to soft. Got full eating way through sweet!”
Airelai laughed. “It sounds like you had a good time.”
“Me did,” Tea Leaf said with a self-satisfied nod. “Me think Jon and Ela make a good team.”
“I'm glad,” Airelai said with a warm smile for both her little friend and the newly wedded couple.
Tea Leaf returned her smile, bent forward in a quick, little bow, then began to drift away.
Airelai asked, “Leaving already, Tea Leaf?”
“Sorry. Me can't stop. Belly full of sweet!”
“Get out of here then,” Airelai said, laughing. “Go work it off.” She turned from the window, shaking her head. Tea leaf was always having one crazy adventure or another.
“Seamus?” She called.
“Yes, darling?” A rich, human voice answered from the next room.
“Do you know a Captain America?”
(By Shawn Enderlin)
The Right Choice
It happened right after they cut the cake. Ela and Jon were about to return to their sweetheart table to enjoy their first marriage slice, when someone stepped on Ela’s train.
“Dude, you’re stepping on my dress,” she said, and turned.
It was a zombie: the vanguard of the horde yet to come. How it’d gotten in wasn’t discovered until much later, after all the bodies were burned and the married couple had enjoyed their first dance. Wanting to provide salmon as a fourth dinner option for their guests, Jon and Ela had needed to cut corners somewhere, and unfortunately hired what turned out to be a sub-par zombie guard unit. Some guy named Zeke, who’d been stationed at the loading dock, had apparently set down his rifle in order to light up a smoke. It was the last thing he ever did.
“Shit,” said Ela, and in one smooth movement, she dropped her dessert plate, grabbed the cake knife with both hands, spun gracefully in her dress and lopped off the vile thing’s head.
“See,” said Jon, who hadn’t moved throughout the entire exchange, and in fact still maintained his grip on his cake plate, “I told you the jumbo knife was the right choice.”
(By Claudia Hankin)
Wedding Crasher
There is no time for this, her angels whispered to Noel.
She ignored them. She couldn’t resist.
She had seen the ladies in their elegant bridesmaid’s dresses on the balcony as she cut through the Minneapolis park. The men in their black tuxedos. A wedding party. She entered the building with the sign “The Woman’s Club of Minneapolis” through a back entrance. The lower levels were silent and decorated in ivory paint and old paintings, the curtains around the tall windows reminding her of French vanilla frosting on a celebratory cake. Etta James’ “At Last” rose and swelled upstairs, the sound filtering down the empty wooden staircase and she followed it.
She snuck through the vacant dining hall where just moments ago people had dined on sumptuous salmon in a dill béarnaise sauce and steaks the size of her foot. Her stomach growled. She hadn’t eaten all day. She noted a lone white frosted cupcake with a trio of raspberries on it, the last dessert in the otherwise empty cupcake tree. She cupped it in her hands and stood at the back of the group of partiers, their backs all to her, focused solely on the bride and groom as they held each other on the dance floor, the bass of the music thrumming along.
“The first dance,” she said to herself and felt giddy, felt for a moment like a normal sixteen-year-old girl. She squeezed next to a clutch of women in their 20s and 30s all gathered in the doorway watching the couple. They looked at her briefly and smiled in amusement, then returned their attention to the dancers. Noel had to look out of place in the crowd of gaily-dressed couples, her black and red hair askew, her t-shirt and short black skirt still damp from the rain earlier this afternoon. She didn’t care; she leaned in closer to get a look at the new husband and wife as they danced.
They were a handsome couple as they moved around the dance floor amidst the circle of adoring friends and family. The bride had short black hair topped with a white lace ribbon, her cream-colored dress spilling around her petite frame. Gorgeous. The tuxedoed groom with his pink pocket square looked happy but focused on the rehearsed dance moves they executed beautifully together. The groom was also dark-haired and something about the upright way he carried his shoulders as they danced made him look a bit like, well, like Superman. Strong, caring, just the sort of man she hoped she could find someday. Years from now, perhaps, when all of this was over. When she could go back and try to put together the pieces of her broken life. Oh to dream.
“…then the spell was cast. And here we are in heaven….” Etta James crooned.
Above the couple, like a million miniature shining stars that only Noel could see, amidst the glowing flame tipped bulbs in the medieval looking chandeliers hanging above the dance floor, floated the Hafaza. Guardian angels. They were drawn to times and places of great happiness. The glowing beings smiled and circled above the couple, an infinity of glowing lights. This wedding was indeed blessed.
A dark shadow passed over Noel and a deep gravelly voice whispered behind her, “Found you. Time to go.”
She didn’t bother saying anything to acknowledge Blackheart’s dark looming shape. She might get away with lingering at the back of this happy crowd of partiers, but if people noticed him it would wreck the whole celebration. Noel turned, her fleeting fantasies of marriage and future happiness dissipating. Back to the task at hand.
“Can’t blame a girl for dreaming,” she sighed, following after his tall, gloomy frame.
“The hell I can’t,” Blackheart grumbled. “We got places to go, demons to kill.”
She paused for just a moment and looked back, watching as the bride and groom ended their first dance in an embrace and a kiss and the applause of their loved ones. For just a moment longer she dreamed she was the bride, there on the dance floor. One day.
Then she turned back into the darkness of the summer evening, following after Blackheart. Getting into his Firebird she took a bite of the delectable cupcake. To her it tasted like true love.
(By Mark Teats)
