Cry of the Mock Turtle: The Shattered Looking Glass, #5

By Hatter

Hatter’s novels always have a way of speaking truth into the confusion of daily life. While most readers pick up a novel in order to escape from the chaos of living and find solace in stock characters and a linear storyline, readers of Hatter’s work are drawn to her precisely for the absurd realism that she is able to capture. Life is not neat and tidy, and neither is this work. Within the pages of Cry of the Mock Turtle, you will see yourself, not as you wish to be, but as you really are. Told by the characters themselves, the most endearing thing about the book is its cast of characters and the truth they expose both about the darkness of human nature and the redemptive quality of the human spirit. Author, Editor, Book Critic

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cheshire Grin Publishing
• Release date: Sep 22, 2014
• ISBN: 9781942182993

Book preview

Table of Contents

Cry of the Mock Turtle (The Shattered Looking Glass, #5)

Dedicated to my cowboy! I love you even after forever....

further dedicated to

Rev. Old Man Laughing Bear,

Rev. Robert Kay

Rev. Ruby Rodriguez

Rev. Barbra Parker

Rev. Bianca Rodriguez

Rev Sandra Ruiz? Riaz? Reyes?

William Hunt

To all you cleric types and ALL those who still dare to move in the spiritual... Ride on!

Cry of the Mock Turtle

Rev. Little Turtle

Book Of Shadows -Journal

July 31, 20-

I listen to the train off in the distance, behind the whir of traffic and I wish that I could hop an old, rusty rail car and find my way home. I want this only because car horns loud and brash will never match the howls of Old Man Coyote up in the hills. It isn't just the automobiles that insult the ears either. It's the people ... crowds and droves during the day. Milla told me it'd be good for business, a good place to hang out my spiritual shingle as it were. Might meet somebody interesting to pray with, she said. If interesting don't mean crazy, I'm guessin' she was wrong.

A lady came in today with her mother insisting I heal her. It was obvious that the woman was suffering great duress ... well, both of 'em actually. The older lady was howling in pain and the daughter was blind in one eye. When I asked the daughter what the older woman's trouble was she got all snotty and asked why I didn't know. I told her I'm a shaman, not a doctor.

She snapped that her mother had cancer and told me to make a spell. I told her the only magic that had a chance of curing her mother was called chemo. She got real angry and called me a fraud. Told me that her mother was in stage 4. I asked why the older woman wasn't in hospice, on morphine. She got even angrier and slapped my face and ordered me again to make a spell. She tried to leave in a huff, but I had already called the ambulance. I had excused myself to make a spell because that's what the blind girl told me to do. I didn't know there was a spell to cure cancer, but I knew a magic place ... Sunset Methodist.

I don't think I'm going to take to city-folk right nice. Time for prayers.

Blessings,

Old Man***

So OMG! Greta, Traci is wagging, swaying. I have to hold her up just to keep her from falling down the steps. She is drunk beyond reason, probably stoned too ... knowing the high-school crap she hangs out with. She's queen of the scene at school. Me? Hell, I'm just a stupid nobody. She has no clue that I exist until she wants something. Tonight she wants to party. Same thing she wants every night, but tonight, she's out of cash. She remembers my name magically when she needs a fix or money. By the time homeroom bell rings in the morning I will be reduced back to Hand job and Gretel or just plain Geeky Gretel.

It doesn't matter. Tonight I got to go to 'the" party. This time they even let me come in since most of the kids had gone home. I was only allowed inside long enough to help Jeanie dress Traci who had lost her blouse somewhere in the vicinity of the keg. Then I was banished back to the land wherein my entire job is to make sure the head-cheerleader doesn't go partying again unchaperoned. The rest of her clique pays me for this. The understanding is that I take her bar-hopping until last call or her credit card is maxed-out, whichever comes first. They don't pay me in money, but as long as I do this they don't beat me up as much. I hope they never figure it out ... that I never do take her bar-hopping. I hope they never find out where we really go. They'd pummel me for sure. Jocks are like that. I guess brains do beat brawn after all.***

Oh! I just joined a yoga class and I'm all signed up for cross-fit, the old lady tells.  She leans her head back so I can wash out hair-dye. She's been telling big noise in English this entire hour. She never stops to think that my English is not-so-much good. She didn't even listen when I tell to her this, This make your hair not blonde. Your hair too dark, Mrs.

Like usual she don't hear me. She keeps her lips wagging, You'll see, Kimberly! When a man dies you don't waste time crying!  You cut loose! You see that life is too short and you let your hair down! Am I right or am I right? she squawks like a Fairy Pitta bird I see once in the tree-tops in Korea.  I just say, Yes, Mrs. Then I don't say no more because I am very big mad. She call me Kimberly but my name is Ming Kim ... my father wanted much a boy.

I pull her chair up and I use dryer that she sits under because I don't want to hear her voice. I turn the dryer on but she still barking like an old cur. I can't hear her. I walk behind counter to watch her hair turn pink and I smile as I tell, Yes, Mrs. She keeps talking like I can hear her until another lady walks in. I ask her what she wants me make her hair look good because the chairs are full and I need her not to leave. I much need money.

She smile at me and asks for haircut so I put her name down. She says, You know Meejha, I'm learning to use chopsticks! Then she smile at me and I am confused. This maybe is America custom?