Drawing: "I have this friend named Sherlock..."

"...he is tall, and very clever."

I could not resist doing Sherlock and John in the style of Lauren Child's "Charlie and Lola."

Because "Sherlock" is my favorite and my best.

Story: Elevator

All Keith knew was that he was stuck in a cramped elevator with a man who looked like Santa Claus, a woman dressed like a hooker, and the spider dangling by a thread from the ceiling. The air smelled slightly of stale pretzels.

The elevator music was still playing, despite the breakdown of everything else. It was the foreboding chorus of Carmina Burana, and Keith somehow sensed that wasn’t a good sign. He focused his attention on the spider, which was flexing its long, spindly legs.

“Well, this is just great,” the hooker said, pulling out a cigarette and a lighter from a slim pocket on her dangerously tight jeans. She stuck the unlit cigarette between her red, red lips.

“Don’t light that in here!” the Santa figure barked. “Do you want to asphyxiate us all?” The woman glowered at the bearded man, the piercing in her eyebrow glinting as severely as her eyes. She fingered her lighter before huffily putting the items away.

Keith snuck a look at his watch. He was already late for a meeting with his co-workers, and he hoped they wouldn’t worry about his absence. He wondered when the elevator would start up again. The Santa man started pushing the emergency button rapidly, muttering a string of four-letter curses under his breath. For looking so much like Saint Nick, Keith found the man wasn’t very jolly. Keith swallowed and looked at the spider again. He’d lost track of it, then found it dangling slightly lower.

“I already pushed that button like five minutes ago,” the hooker sneered. She was starting to make Keith feel uncomfortable. He couldn’t help but notice that her naval was also pierced. He began to wonder just how painful that would be to pierce. So he focused again on the spider. One of its legs seemed to be conducting the rousing opera as it moved back and forth, back and forth.

“Well, we aren’t any better off for it, are we?” the bearded man growled. His cheeks were rosy red now, but not with Christmas cheer. There were some curious colored splotches on his grey t-shirt, and Keith was quite sure the stale pretzel smell was coming from him. The spider lowered itself some more. Keith loosened his tie; he was sweaty behind his shirt collar, and he cleared his throat.

“You got something to say?” the large man growled, turning on him.

“No,” Keith said. Then, “No,” again. He was starting to worry that the large man was actually part of a motorcycle gang. So he focused on his shoes. One of his laces was untied. As space was utterly limited, Keith forwent bending down to tie it.

“Maybe we can, I don’t know, like pry the doors open,” the hooker suggested as she pulled out a stick of gum without offering any to the others. She popped it into her mouth.

“With what? Your high heels?” the bearded man asked sarcastically. The hooker sneered at him and it turned into a stare-down. The music ended and Keith silently sighed with relief. He was hoping for a more soothing song, something like Brahms that would ease the tension and relinquish feelings of murder.

Instead, Carmina Burana began again. Keith clenched his fists, restraining himself from reaching past Santa and pushing the emergency button himself. Instead he checked his watch. He wished he hadn’t left his cell phone on his desk at the office. “Do either of you have a cell phone?” he asked, tapping at his leg.

Santa and the hooker stopped their stare-down, turning their glares to Keith. “I would have used it by now, genius,” the hooker snapped with a roll of her eyes and a loud pop of her gum. In the tiny space it was as loud as a gunshot. The Santa man just growled and clenched his gargantuan fists. Keith wondered if he could be part gorilla.

The spider crawled back up its thread and started skittering across the ceiling. Keith followed its trail.

“Ugh, I hate spiders,” the bearded man said. He pushed the emergency button again with his thumb. There was silence, save for the surging music, which ended once more.

Then it started again. “Didn’t they already play this song?” the hooker snorted.

“It’s annoying,” Santa stated. Keith silently agreed. No offense to the composer, but the song was becoming a death trap. Keith stuck his hands into his pockets, feeling extremely uncomfortable and slightly nervous with the present company.

He felt some smooth and square items in his pocket. Pulling them out, he found that he had a handful of caramels. Keith smiled. His daughter, Kylie, must have put them there that morning. She had recently taken to leaving little ‘presents’ in his pocket for him to find at work. Sometimes, in her four-year-old scrawl, she would leave unintelligible notes on pink paper. Keith found himself grinning.

“What’s so funny, Business Suit?” scoffed the hooker.

“Would you both like a caramel?” he offered, holding up his handful of candy. He didn’t expect much of a reaction, but he noted that both the man and woman softened slightly. As he handed them each a small wrapped candy, he said, “Courtesy of my daughter.”

The hooker took hers. “How old is she?” she asked, peeling back the plastic wrap.

“Four,” Keith grinned, popping a caramel in his mouth. “Funny little thing.”

The Santa man put his caramel and his hands in his pockets. He shuffled slightly. “My daughter would be four this year,” he mentioned, looking directly at the ground. Keith didn’t know what to say. Luckily, the woman spoke up.

“What happened?” she asked. Despite the dramatic music, the scene felt somber.

“Wife left last year,” Santa said softly. “Took her with.” There was another uneasy silence as he fumbled around in his pockets. He extracted a wrinkled and fading photo, handing it first to Keith. Keith took it and observed.

The man was much more pleasant looking in the picture, and a little blonde-haired girl sat on his lap, her hair in wild pigtails. She had a wide smile. Keith grinned, handing the photo to the man who then passed it along to the hooker.

“What’s her name?” Keith asked. The man smiled, and it made his eyes twinkle.

“Sarah,” he said.

“Good name,” said the hooker. “That’s my name too.” She looked at the picture, smiling warmly. She handed the photo back. Santa took it, looking at it again himself, caressing the picture with a thumb. Then he stuffed it back in his pocket, staring at the floor again.

Carmina Burana began yet again, and the hooker leaned against the wall. Keith thought she could be really pretty if only she didn’t dress so trashy. “I always liked this song,” she admitted. “We sang it in choir one year.”

“You still sing?” Keith asked. For some reason, he could imagine her with a nice voice. She hesitated, shaking her head.

“No,” she said. “At least, never in front of people.”

“You should pursue that,” the Santa man suggested. He’d lost his hard edge. The hooker shrugged.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve just, I don’t know, gone a different way with my life. I do like singing. I feel a bit free when I do it.” The spider had fled to its web in the corner of the elevator, hiding amongst the nearly invisible threads. It walked up and down the intricate lacing, weaving more strands.

Keith pulled out the rest of the rest of the caramels, offering some more to both the hooker and Santa. The mood had lightened considerably, and Keith no longer felt afraid or uncomfortable. He was just sharing a story about how Kylie had infamously drawn a marker mural on the kitchen wall, and how his wife had decided to keep it, when the elevator jolted abruptly, and the familiar hum of mechanics resumed, the elevator continuing its downward descent. The three of them burst into applause, then laughter. They all smiled, even Santa. When they reached the ground level, the doors slid open easily.

Keith held out his arm, allowing Sarah to walk out first. She smiled and left. Keith walked out, followed by the bearded man. Carmina Burana echoed behind them.

Drawing: Content

Drawing: Conversation

The question is, what are they talking about?

Drawing: Hedgie Balloonie

Up, up and away!

Drawing: Sherlock and John as Dogs

John's a Jack Russell Terrier, and Sherlock is a Greyhound.

Story: Thoughts on Revenge as told by The Raven

This is a short poem-story I wrote from the perspective of the raven from Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven."

Night after night after night

I just want to sleep.

But the man in the house by my nest

Won’t stop pining for his dead lover.

I try to shut him up, tapping on the window with my beak,

Rat-a-tat-a-tat-a!

He opens the shutter,

Sad eyed and low in spirit.

I fly in, land on a decapitated statue,

And tell him to stop: “Nevermore!”

Alas, he keeps monologuing and so I think—

I’m going to get revenge

For countless nights of interrupted sleep.

I’ll stay here all night.

The man keeps crying, cursing my name and yet

I am still tired.

And my revenge isn’t going as well as I planned because

It sucks on my end too.

I should just move

And leave this sorry bloke to his wallowing.