{"id":1113,"date":"2019-04-16T20:05:42","date_gmt":"2019-04-17T01:05:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demo.wphoot.com\/magazine-hoot\/?p=1113"},"modified":"2023-05-26T02:16:58","modified_gmt":"2023-05-26T07:16:58","slug":"fulgura-descenderat-animal-tanto-stagna-discordia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/templeofthemermaid.com\/unicdn\/2019\/04\/16\/fulgura-descenderat-animal-tanto-stagna-discordia\/","title":{"rendered":"Joy Tells You All About Her Friend, Laura (and a little about Ethel)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Laura Merchtchowski (aka Linda Nickel)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Hair:<\/strong> Blue, Purple, Silver, White, Yellow – roots Blonde) (Eyes:<\/strong> Blue\/grey) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Height:<\/strong> 5’6) (Weight: <\/strong>141) (Age:<\/strong> 24) (Sign: <\/strong>Scorpio)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Occupation: <\/strong>Neider Cheese and Dairy assembly line packager\/ quality control associate<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Education:<\/strong> High School Grad, 2 years UW Plateville<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Favorite Band\/ Singer: “Guitar Monkey” (Shirtless Basement Core), “Elmo Hatchethands \u2013 Soundtrack” (Industrial), “Doom Tomb Varoom” (Dirge Electronica), Suzi Quatro (Legend)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I like Laura. I love Laura. She’s my life-preserver. Let me uhm, refine that metaphor. She’s not exactly like a life preserver, like I’m not drowning and holding on to Laura for dear life. So maybe she’s more like a pool-floatie\u2026 like a big, goth, pool-floatie Pegasus-unicorn. She serves dual purposes: life preserver and huggable pleasure-craft. Fuck, I’ve butchered this metaphor. She’s a person, not a floatie. I love Laura. I would die for Laura.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laura is really put-together and beautiful. People don’t realize how much work goes into a well-crafted look. It takes practice. Like for years. But you see the payoff when people see her for the first time, and they are like ‘Damn!’ And Laura sees it too, and it’s great. It’s like getting a little internet ‘like’ only in real life. And she’s just collecting all these ‘likes’ and one day, she’ll cash them all in and be a \u2026 I don’t know. A ‘Supa-stah’ at whatever she decides to do with her life. Not working in a fucking cheese factory, that’s for sure. Though, I think she’s got a decent amount saved up. When we go out, most nights, I try and be the one who buys\u2026 or use my pull to get us free drinks. Not because it’s a competition or power-dynamic thing. But because she’s watching my back (lately anyway) while I get shway-sted, and she shouldn’t have to do that. Bottom line: I should get my shit together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laura’s talented. She makes her own jewelry. She should own a 3D printer someday. We’re due some bonus money at the factory, I should surprise her and buy one. My credit rating is still pretty good. We\u2019ve been talking about going on vacation together to somewhere tropical. I’d go to the fucking equator as long as we could get to a beach and swim! But Laura’s skin is pretty pale. She would fry. I can rock a fucking tan. I wouldn’t have to do anything with my hair other than let it do what it wants. Let it go apeshit. Laura\u2026 I don’t kno-ow. Maybe we could compromise and go to Miami. She has lesser-intense goth-looks that she could utilize. Ha! Shit. She’s totally the chick you’d see at the airport with a metal roller suitcase that is 100 percent all her make-up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, on the topic of Ghosts. You see, there’s this phenomenon everybody hears about where coins fall out of the sky. It’s like when a tornado sucks up a swamp, and a hundred miles away frogs rain down on people. Coins though. It’s kinda supernatural. People say its where all the wishing-well coins go. Some people say its aliens. Which\u2026 psh. Okay. Whatever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m pretty sure its ghosts that do it. They don’t talk about it. Most ghosts are stuck in a loop. Like a performance loop \u2013 or a reenactment. They can’t stop themselves from doing the shit they were doing before they died. Anyway! The less said about it the better. Laura thinks this shit is fascinating, but honestly, it’s hard. These people are by and large sad, sad fuckers. Plus, I gotta have a solid buzz going, otherwise, if I try and find one of these spirits or whatever, sober (!) ugh. Stress headache. It’s not really something I should practice at\u2026 and here’s the thing: People who demonstrate skills in this area\u2026 they get recruited into weird shit. They disappear. The government grabs them. I don’t know. Some produce videos and some write for online magazines. So, I guess there’s a professional track there. It sounds paranoid – I get that. The coins fall on Wall Street a lot more frequently than they drop on fuckin central Wisconsin. If I got paid to snoop around and be loaded, I suspect it would ruin the whole experience of recreational drugs and alcohol. Kind-of a ‘don’t shit where you eat’ type situation. So I don’t want to get paid to do hinky shit, even though I’m good at doing hinky shit. I don’t even want to be on that radar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There’s this one ghost \u2013 little kid ghost. She sees me and Laura all the time ’cause she’s haunting the building across from the bar we always hang out at. It’s one of those old one-screen movie theaters. Historical building. Two drinks and I can see her over there. She appears in the lobby, through the glass doors; or up in one of the building windows; or sometimes up on the roof ledge. There’s no smoking anywhere indoors anymore, so whenever Laura and I step out for a smoke, she’s over there, watching us. I can hear her voice in my head too. I mean, I can hear a lot of their voices. Did I mention that? This little kid though, just a travesty how she died. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laura’s always asking ‘What’s she saying? What’s she saying?’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I’m like, ‘She thinks that we’re drunk sluts.’ Which is\u2026 I don’t know, her ghostly opinion, I guess. Laura’s had a lot of different boyfriends; a whole spectrum. I just had Grant and we went out for more than a year. He always looked like a wild freak though. Ethel – that’s the ghost – Ethel likes us though. \u2026 Or me \u2013 I suppose. Ethel says she likes me in particular because when I communicate with her, she breaks out of her loop. She hates being in her loop. She likes to rag on Laura. Ethel does<\/em>, however, like Laura’s teddy bear backpack that she wears out most nights. I think she secretly likes Laura’s big hair. And she likes Laura’s mermaid tattoo too. She doesn’t like any of my tattoos. What does she know though? She’s a ghost from like 1928 or some fucking thing.”    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Copyright (c) 2023 Matt Schumann<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Laura Merchtchowski (aka Linda Nickel) (Hair: Blue, Purple, Silver, White, Yellow – roots Blonde) (Eyes: Blue\/grey) (Height: 5’6) (Weight: 141) (Age: 24) (Sign: Scorpio) Occupation: Neider Cheese and Dairy assembly line packager\/ quality control associate Education: High School Grad, 2 years UW Plateville Favorite Band\/ Singer: “Guitar Monkey” (Shirtless BasementContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3427,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[31],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/templeofthemermaid.com\/unicdn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1113"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/templeofthemermaid.com\/unicdn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/templeofthemermaid.com\/unicdn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/templeofthemermaid.com\/unicdn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/templeofthemermaid.com\/unicdn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1113"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/templeofthemermaid.com\/unicdn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3428,"href":"https:\/\/templeofthemermaid.com\/unicdn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1113\/revisions\/3428"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/templeofthemermaid.com\/unicdn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/templeofthemermaid.com\/unicdn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/templeofthemermaid.com\/unicdn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/templeofthemermaid.com\/unicdn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}