The Lamentations of L. L. Zern

1. And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,

2. Daughter of Eve speak forth of thy posterity, keeping nothing back, that others may know wherein thy happiness doth arise.

3. And I do make an accounting, to prophesy unto Sherwood, our patriarch, that our flocks doth flourish under the tender care of the junior shepherds of our tribe; our goats escapeth only on occasion to go forth and eat mine tender flowers. Our goats wandered through all the yard, and upon every sandhill, but they cometh quickly to the sound of oats in a bucket.

4. Lamentations, the word meaning, how? How doth goats escape so easily from both goat wire and gates chained with chains. 

5. And I did sigh much.

6. But the junior shepherds of our tribe brought much joy to overcome any lamentations, and they did include: Zoe Baye, called forth to California to teach and serve the tribes of that land; Emma Sarah, who sought much learning by faith and also by works; Conner-Boy who doth work much, to earn funds to purchase a signed poster of Jeff Goldbloom; Kipling Sherwood who sets for himself many high and lofty goals; Sadie Jolee playing well of the piano and being most helpful for Sunday dinners, Zachary Jon who waiteth with joy for his muscles to appear; Scout Harper, who loveth much and worrieth some also; Reagan Baye-Love, much healed and now playing of the flute and watching Anime; 

7. Hero Everdeen, who seeing a young woman dance forth in a public fountain dressed both in thong and cowboy chaps, playing forth on a cowbell, this Hero dideth speak forth, saying, “Boy! The big city sure is fun.”

8. Griffin Henry, using his own funds did buyeth a lovely picture with real feathers at a yard sale, saying, “YaYa would love that!” And I did truly love it;

9. Leidy Hazel, independent and talented and gifted, did make much her own cheese bread and hot chocolate, needing others almost not at all.

10. Ever Jane, a girl ready for any party or celebration or hockey game, perhaps one day joining forth her cousin, Hero, in “the fun big city.”

11. Silas Aricson, a large and mighty boy, who might yet grow taller than his YaYa before much more time passeth.

12. Boone Thomas, both sweet and kind, enjoyeth the approbation of his teachers to be an Otterrific Otter. 

13. Ellie Mae, a girl who delighteth both in dolls and dirt, rejoiced much in her aquarium where she keepeth lizards and other interesting creatures.

14. And finally, Ender, 16 of 16, three years old, who did argue much with his mother over the right way to decorate for the Christmas season, their contentions becoming heated, of which his eldest brother, Conner, quipped, “When decorators collide.”

15. Therefore thus saith the keeper of the record that it mystified how so much life and laughter hath come to us . . . it must needs be the Lord’s will for none other could have brought so much to be contained within our tents.

16. I make an end, and ye my flock, the flock of my pasture, are beloved now and forever this year of our Lord, two thousand and twenty-two. 

 

Why I Write Post-Apocalyptic Fiction

 I’m a reader. I’ve read it all—from cereal boxes to mammoth, generational, historical sagas (think Michener). I love them all.

As a child, books swept me away from a world I could not control.

As a teen, books invited me to discover truths no one was talking about.

As a young mom, books filled the gaps and kept me entertained when snotty noses ruled my days . . . and nights.

But of all the books, of all the stories, post-apocalyptic fiction fired my imagination like none other. 

“Lucifer’s Hammer” and “Alas, Babylon” had it all: built in drama, sensational conflict, and unlimited possibilities.

Now, I write post-apocalyptic fiction because the genre makes everything important again—food, water, air, family, children, security, relationships, sex, life, and death. 

A good story requires conflict. All good writers understand this. The old writing adage says write characters you love, run them up a tree, and then . . . throw rocks at them (Nabokov.)

Post-apocalyptic fiction? Done. It’s all there. The story spins out like a tapestry of trouble and triumph. Our characters can’t help but find themselves “up a tree” and the rocks come automatically.

It’s a genre that owns action, adventure, and survival. 

I used to think that mysteries must be hard to write. I never know who “done it.” But then I realized that mysteries, like post-apocalyptic fiction, have built-in drama—someone’s dead, someone is going to be dead, someone is making sure someone is dead. Bam! Drama!

And drama is the air our characters breathe.

Don’t get me wrong. I still read it all. But I’ll always find my way back to post-apocalyptic fiction where anyone can imagine themselves up that tree and the rocks just keep on coming.

  

  

White Coat Magic Mattress

I have white coat syndrome. I contracted it at my doctor’s office, and I got it from my doctor. 

And now I cannot convince my heart—run by my brain—that it is not going to be stabbed, poked, probed, burned, drained, cut, stitched, or beaten about the head and neck. 

Okay, I made that last bit up because hearts don’t have heads and necks, only the brains that run them do.

Over the years, my heart—run by my brain—knows that when someone says, “Expect a little pinch” what they’re really saying is “here comes the pain killer that’s going to burn like a boiling lava lake to dull the pain of the slicing knife.” 

My heart—run by my brain—calls B.S.

And now it, my heart—run by my brain—calling B.S., pumps up my blood pressure like a dollar store pumps up helium balloons for a buck. 

My doctor is convinced I have high blood pressure. I don’t. I have a brain that can’t lie to my heart any more. My doctor—convinced of the high blood pressure, cholesterol choked artery theory—makes me monitor my blood pressure at home for two weeks after I come close to stroking out in her office. 

It’s all good; no white coats at home. In fact, when I lay down on my magic mattress at night, my blood pressure is so low, I could be just this side of dead, which, in its own way could be a problem.

Thus, proving the importance of purchasing a decent mattress. 

At the end of the latest health crisis/pandemonium, I made Sherwood buy me a new mattress. Stuck at home, courting more than a few conspiracy theories, and napping on a daily basis, I said, “I refuse to sleep on a mattress with the fluff and heft of a grilled cheese sandwich.”

At the store and refusing to look at price tags, I flopped up on every mattress in the whole darned place, I looked at the saleslady and said, “This one. It’s the most expensive one in the place, isn’t it?”

With a greedy gleam, she nodded. 

“Wrap it up,” I said.

“I love this mattress, babe,” I said to my darling of forty-plus years.

“You should. It’s the same price as a down payment on a first class go-cart.”

“I love it so much I want it to line my coffin.”

“It’s too big.”

“I give you permission to cut it down to fit.”

“That’s morbid.”

“I told you that this is the mattress we’ll probably die on.” 

Later, after the last mattress we’ll probably die on was delivered and the blood pressure cuff squeezed my arm into two bloodless pieces, he asked, “How’s your blood pressure?”

“Non-existent!”

“Then our work here is done.”

I sunk even further into the ever cool, positive ion charged, body hugging, blood pressure reducing magic that is a decent mattress. 

Now if I can only drag my marvelous, decent, magical mattress to my next check-up.

Linda (Heart Health) Zern

Farming 101

BIG TRAMP IN HIS TEENAGE YEARS!

 

We buried Big Tramp today. Standing on his hind legs, he stood over six feet tall. In his prime, he weighed close to two hundred pounds, and he was our American Alpine herd buck. He was quite a guy.

Shaggy and massive he gave us a lot of darling goat kids and scared a few grown men back into their pickup trucks. But he never hurt a soul or wanted to. He was our gentle giant.

Burying him put me in mind of what farming or ranching is all about.

Farming is knowing that sooner or later your favorite buck or doe or bull or cow will not show up for breakfast in the morning.

Farming is getting up in the middle of the night to check on whoever is sick out in the barn.

Farming is watching for the signs that one of your flock or herd is in trouble.

Farming is being worried when the medicines you rely on to keep your animals healthy skyrocket in price.

Farming is pressure washing the barn before breakfast.

Farming is studying the good, better, or best ways of raising whatever you’re trying to raise.

 Farming is prayer for rain in due season.

Farming is not having to guess what the “circle of life might be” because you see it every day.

Farming is figuring out how to keep goats or pigs or cows where they’re supposed to be and not where they think they want to go, which is a mile down the road in the neighbor’s vegetable garden.

Farming is sun and sweat and dirt and heartbreak and the most darling babies you’ll ever see in the spring.

Farming is tough with a steep, steep learning curve. 

Farming is life . . . and death.

Our Tramp was a great guy who lived a great life in green pastures with lovely ladies out in the fresh air and sunshine. He lived up to the measure of his creation, and we were lucky to have had him.

Linda (Just a Hobby Farmer) Zern

  

Fire and Brimstone

 

Boxes Full of Hell Fire

If everything you bought at the box-store came in its own shipping box and you brought it home in those individual boxes, how many boxes would be stacked up at your front gate? Exactly. 

So many boxes . . . 

People think I get a lot of mail. Okay, yes, true. I get a lot of mail. But mostly it’s just boxes—lots and lots of boxes—which may or may not contain anything from a single sheet of paper or salt from the Himalayas. I like to play “Guess What’s In It.” People think mail means shoes, but it really means anti-fungal shampoo for Charlie, the itchy horse. Sometimes it means shoes, sometimes. But it always means stuff dropped off at the front gate in the long grass under the shiny Florida sun. 

Recently, I ordered an assortment of power bars that arrived in . . . you guessed it . . . a box . . . left at the front gate. I was excited to check out the new, exciting flavors.

Oldest grandson brought my eagerly awaited box, full of foil wrapped power bars, into the house.  He set it on my bed. What a good grandson!

A bit later, I picked up the box full of new, exciting flavors. Halfway to the kitchen my hands caught fire, and I screamed. Fire ants boiled out of the box that had been dumped in the long grass under the shiny Florida sun, apparently in a fire ant hill with a sign on it that said, “Come and get it.”

I chucked the box; ants cascaded to the floor, the wall, the atmosphere.

Drawn by the new, exciting flavors of the power bars, approximately ten thousand fire ants had taken up residence in the box and were working on carrying off my assortment.

I opened the box. The bars were covered with angry ants full of fire. They poured over the kitchen counter. I threw the foiled wrapped, not cheap, bars into the sink and tried to drown a mountain of ants. They backstroked their way out of the sink.

Screaming, I ran back to my bed where the box had been waiting for my happy arrival. There were pissed off ants, looking for a quick snack of not cheap power bars, in the bedspread, under my pillow, pouring down the bed skirt. I screamed some more and slapped at biting ants on my hands, arms, and hair. I threw the bedspread into the yard, probably on top of more fire ants, dropped kicked my pillows into the bushes, and stripped the bed down to the frame. 

“All I wanted was a low-cal, high protein snack that tasted good,” I wailed. 

Trying to save the power bars, I threw them into a Ziplock bag and then dumped them into the freezer. This morning I took them out of the freezer. Fire ants, slowed but still alive, crawled out of the Ziplock bag looking for someone to blame. I screamed and smashed ants.

I get a lot of mail—stuff in boxes. Most of the time it’s happy fun. Most of the time . . . 

Linda (Fire and Brimstone) Zern

 

   

 

  

BRAIN TEASER

 “Brain and brain! What is brain?” 

It’s a great line from one of my favorite Star Trek episodes. A planet of sexy, alien babes steal Spock’s superior brain to run their entire planet: electric, water, air, and apparently sewage. 

The sexy, alien babes have to use a special computer helmet to juice up their own atrophied brain power to be able to perform the surgery necessary to steal Spock’s brain and then install it in the planet-wide power plant.

When Kirk and company show up to retrieve Spock’s brain, the sexy, alien babes have reverted to their sexy, alien, baby state, and they don’t even know what a brain is. Thus, the fabulous ‘what is brain?’ line. 

Kirk keeps insisting they return Spock’s brain. They insist that they are stupid.

Once in a while, I feel a bit like those sexy, alien babes who can’t remember how they managed brain surgery without a college degree.

Like the time I lost my car keys . . . for two weeks . . . in my own purse. 

“Hey, babe,” I said, breaking the news. “I can’t find my keys.” I paused. “Anywhere. And I’ve looked.”

“Did you look in the truck?” he asked. 

I taped my finger against my chin. “That would be the anywhere I was referring to.”

“How about on the desk, the bed, the kitchen, the office, the barn, the passenger side door . . .” The list continued.

“How could I have lost them in the passenger door? I had to open the house with the house keys located on the same keychain as the key to the truck key.”

He sighed. “Your purse? Your pants? Your closet? The refrigerator?”

“The refrigerator!!!!!  Isn’t that a sign of mental disease or defect?” I spluttered.

To say that the conversation deteriorated from that point would be unnecessary.

I chalked up the loss of my keys to life and living, also the slow melting of my brain due to overuse rather than atrophy, until the day I noticed a tiny, barely-there pocket in the side of my enormous laptop case-slash-purse. 

“What’s this?” I asked the silent universe. Tucked carefully into the barely-there pocket were my keys. I was happy, as happy as a sexy, alien babe might feel after stealing Spock’s excellent brain to power my whole darn civilization.

I was happy . . . also chagrined. I mean who can’t find their own keys inside the confines of a single, multi-use purse? A sexy, alien babe, that’s who.

Brain and brain. Where did I put my brain?

Linda (Sharp as a Tack) Zern