Friday (ish) Fiction: Don't Poke the Demon

I love my wife. Seriously, I do.

But if you repeat what I am about to say, I will deny it. To the grave.

My wife is possessed. The demon has a name, but if you utter it, you will only anger it. Believe me. Every time I catch myself about to call the demon out, I stop and think, Don’t poke the demon, Greg. Fire will spew from her lips, and she will gnash her teeth growling in that freaky, guttural snarl…

She wasn’t always possessed, at least to this degree. Once upon a time I would only see an annoyance flash in her eyes. Now that flash is the ten second warning. I’ve learned to duck and cover or perish where I stand.
As the years have gone by, just locking myself in the bathroom or banging around in the basement have proved to not be enough protection. If I could be seen, smelled or heard, she’d sense my presence. Many times I’ve heard her familiar growl seeping under doors I was cowering behind. “Grrreg! Are you going to take all day in there!?” I swear, when the demon appears, I get as knotted up as last year’s Christmas lights.

My epiphany came from an unexpected source. I happened to pick up and read the cover jacket on the book on my wife’s nightstand, The Red Tent by Anita Diamante. It seems that back in the Old Testament days, those women possessed by the demon were isolated to a tent of their own. Forehead smackin’ genius.

With a little help from Wikipedia, I discovered that some tribes in Africa have a specific hut for their possessed females.

Of course, this is not the days of Abraham, or the plains of Africa. If I tried to sequester her to a hovel in the yard, she would probably divorce me, if I were a lucky man. It’s more likely that she would brain me and bury me in pieces under said hovel.

What I needed was a man tent. A red hut. My very own cowering cave, completely separate from the main house.

Two problems though:

First of all, Iowa is stupid cold in the winter, and the demon knows no seasons. Coleman doesn’t make a canvas structure that can sustain me for a week in twelve inches of snow.

Second, I needed a reason—and a darn good one—to vanish for days on end. I needed a hobby, no-no, a calling, to justify my absence from the demon’s lair.

While I brainstormed the second problem, I took bold steps to rectify the first. The most important detail of the plan was to approach her while the demon was away…

One Monday morning after a long weekend of snowfall, I slid the blueprints for a two story detached garage across the breakfast table. She looked out at her car buried under eight inches of ice and snow, and then gave me a huge grin. The plan was working.

When the spring finally came we broke ground, and by midsummer, my red-brick-man-cave was almost complete. It was time to implement part two of “Operation Dodge the Demon”. I needed to pull out my secret weapon—an unsuspecting accomplice—our pastor.

It might have been the tensest Sunday morning in our history. The demon snarled me out of bed, told me I could barely dress myself and why was she surprised that I couldn’t help her dress the kids, and screamed that if I didn’t get out of the bathroom we were going to be late for church.

The only time my mouth didn’t possess a Tums was when I held the sacraments of communion in it.

When we filed out to shake the pastor’s hand, he asked how the garage was coming along. I projected my voice sideways towards the fashionable demon that flanked my right.

“I’m ready to get all my woodworking tools out of the basement and into the garage loft…”

“Really? Do you think you’ll have some time and space to devote to our More Than Carpentry ministry?”

Cha-ching. “Honey, whaddya think?” I held my breath.

She offered a taut smile, “That sounds like a real blessing. It’d be nice to get him out of the house. Some days I just can’t stand the sight of him.”

As her talons pulled me into the narthex, I glanced back to my pastor who gave me a knowing smirk and mouthed the words, “I’ll call you.”

He better.

Fiction Friday: I Am Chicken, Hear Me Roar

One more. That’s what I said, “Just one more.” The good Lord had a healthy chuckle at those plans, I am positive. And thus it began.

Let me tell you about a little term that the average thirty-something-year-old man cannot wrap his brain around: hyperovulation. Basically, this means that a woman releases more than one egg a cycle. Still not getting it? More eggs=more babies. Three years ago, this reproductive phenomenon gave us Isabella and Olivia; my Bella and Lily. Sigh. They make me two hundred pounds of gelatinous putty in their pudgy little hands.

However—for some men—there is a freakish, testosterone driven compulsion to have a male child. I guess we get wrapped up in fantasies about little league, fishing trips, and carrying on our name.

During the girls’ second birthday party, I whispered into my wife’s ear, “Just one more…” (Insert Divine laughter here.)

With three little words, I infected her with the most contagious of all marital illnesses. Baby fever.

And baby fever is a beautiful thing. Cha-ching.

Now, my part was easy. Hers, on the other hand, included a dry erase calendar on the fridge coded with a frillion different colored markers. There were strange symbols, phrases and abbreviations that meant nothing to me. Five red dots…basal temp…CM…seven green X’s…luteal phase. I asked her once what CM stood for. She told me. You don’t want to know. Seriously. Many times I stared at her baby making chart while sneaking a swig of juice from the carton, just shaking my head. “I’m so lucky to be a man…all the weird and painful stuff falls on women.” (Insert more Divine laughter.)

Before I knew it, my work was done. One morning, my wife peed on at least ten plastic sticks before calling her obstetrician.

Five weeks later, we went for her first ultrasound. As my wife and Dr. Bentley Maserati chatted, I struggled to keep Bella and Lily out of cabinets and drawers. Scary, scary stuff in those drawers. Again, don’t ask.

While Dr. Maserati was squeezing a gallon of goo onto her belly, he assured us, “As I said before, having more than one twin pregnancy is statistically very rare…”

Word to the wise…don’t trust statistical data from a man that delivers babies for a living. It’s the obstetrical equivalent to “cooking the books”; the numbers always get fudged in his favor.

This was a harder pregnancy than the first…

When my wife was about three months along, she had horrible morning sickness, which is never isolated to mornings, by the way. While we were en route to church, she had me pull over. When she got back into the car, she pointed at me while screaming, “YOU mister, are going to make an appointment with the urologist tomorrow!”

“Why?”

“Because I just wet my pants while throwing up on the side of the highway. That’s why! No more!”

I stalled. I clucked. I am chicken, hear me roar. No way.

“Just one more,” gave us two. Girls. Again. Cecelia and Josephine. I dodged the scalpel conversation till after the girls finally came—all healthy and loud. I’m putty in their tiny hands…very tired putty. I have never slept less in my life. Somewhere in a CIA memo was a torture itinerary with my schedule on it.

One morning I watched in awe as my wife tandem nursed Cecelia and Josephine, while Sesame Street blared in the background and the toddlers stage dived off the couch.

She adjusted the football style hold she miraculously maintained. “Hey, did you ever make that appointment?”

“For what?”

“You know, snip-snip.”

Cringe. Cluck. Shudder.

“Er…uhh…no, honey. But what if we change our minds and want to try for a boy?”

At that moment, I heard a sizzle and a pop. It was her brain…

“Are you insane? We have four children, under the age of four, and you want a male heir to the throne? As far as I’m concerned,” she grabbed one of Josephine’s legs and lifted her off the pillow, “this child came out with ‘the end’ stamped on her bottom! Make the appointment, or I’ll do it myself!”

I was afraid she meant she would perform the surgery herself.

The next week I found her staring at the fridge muttering something like, “long luteal phase…”

Come morning I noticed a pregnancy test in the bathroom trashcan.

I wet my pants as I threw up in the Elmo potty chair.

By afternoon I had an appointment.

Bawgawk.

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This is a regurgitated FaithWriter's Writing Challenge story, because I am a lazy blogger. :)

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