Marla the Lemur

By Jules Okapi

Marla's boyfriend, Billy, might live a little too much in a fantasy world. Then again, Marla sees lemurs in the apple tree outside and wonders if the little man she sees screaming at her from Billy's shoulder is really there. Insanity might be one way to get out of a bad relationship. Following your boyfriend into his imaginary world might be another.

Keywords: women's fiction, dark humor, humor, fantasy, dark fantasy, gaming, domestic violence, bad relationships, insanity, psychosis, neurosis, revenge fantasy, magical realism, witchcraft, witch

• Language: English
• Publisher: White Sun Press
• Release date: Jul 31, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465759641

Jules Okapi

Jules Okapi has worked as a freelance journalist, writing essays on graffiti art, psychology, journalism, meditation, movies and other topics. Jules has also lived or spent considerable time in India, Vancouver BC, San Francisco, Albuquerque, Portland, Los Angeles, Seattle, New York, San Diego, Prague, London, Berlin, Sydney and Swinoujscie, Poland. She currently lives in McLeod Ganj, India, where she writes full time and does volunteer work. For more information about her and her writing, visit http:julesokapi.blogspot.com

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Synopsis

Marla’s boyfriend, Billy, lives a little too much in a fantasy world. Then again, Marla sees lemurs in the apple tree outside and wonders if the little man screaming at her from Billy’s shoulder is really there. Insanity might be one way to get out of a bad relationship. Following your abusive boyfriend into his imaginary world to duke it out with him there might be another.

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for Amelia

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MARLA THE LEMUR

The book slammed against the wall, making Marla jump.

Or really, maybe her startled jerk had been more of a delayed reaction to the thing whizzing a bare inch from the tip of her nose on the way towards the wall.

Or maybe the whole thing had been more innocuous still. Perhaps the air pushing past her face from the flying book merely pulled her unwittingly out of her rather pleasant daydream.

Perhaps the book itself was merely incidental.

In any case, it fell to the table in front of her, landing so that the cover faced her.

It was then that Marla realized...as in really realized...that he had been aiming for her. He’d meant to hit her with that book. Marla felt a brief whisper of indignation that evaporated like smoke in less than a hummingbird’s heart beat following its arrival.

Its absence left her confused.

Confused, and just the slightest bit relieved that he’d missed.

One bonus of his severe lack of athleticism. He often missed.

Well, maybe not often. But often-er, perhaps.

Certainly more often than he would have, if he’d been, say, a pitcher for the Yankees. Or even just moderately physical in his busy and clearly exhausting day-to-day life of not working. Or even if he simply took an extra fifteen minutes out of his day to use his skinny, pock-marked frame for anything more than walk from his computer chair to the bathroom to the kitchen in odd, concentric circles.

She’d seen him do that for weeks on end, at times, without contemplating setting so much as a toe outdoors. He’d complain if the refrigerator was empty, or if he ran out of his favorite brand of chips, but he couldn’t usually be bothered to collect more food.

The last time he’d left, in fact, it had been to purchase a video game he couldn’t figure out how to download illegally online.

Back when they first met, it had been different. He’d go shopping with her.

Sometimes, they would go see a movie.

She tried going for walks with him, too, but even at the beginning, she found those exhausting. Not the walking part, but the fact that the vast majority of him never really left his shag-carpeted room with the computer she’d bought him with her tip money. He spent the entire time during those walks telling her about his cool idea for stumping all of his friends in their weekly role-playing game...and the pornographic avatars he was designing that would make him rich and win him millions of jealous enemies.

Wherever he was, she noticed, he was never really there.

Usually, he wouldn’t let her be wherever they were, either.

In fact, he seemed to take it as a personal affront when she tried.

But then, Billy took a lot of things personally.

Marla continued to stare down at the cover of the book on the table as she thought about this. She realized she wasn’t breathing then, and did her best to remedy that situation, too. She was still gazing down as she exhaled a breath she hadn’t known she held, when she noticed the title of the book from its curling cover.

It read: Nonviolent Communication: A Guide to Finding Love.

She cocked her head, reading it again.

She considered laughing, then considered that it might not be wise, laughing, under the circumstances. In fact, it might not be wise at all. She knew from experience