wounds

February Drabble Challenge

day one

day two

day three day four *

day 5 - mirror

(tw for child cancer)

*

“Mommy?”

Chloe stirred at the voice, inhaling deeply. She blinked in confusion, her eyes adjusting to the light before her expression softened at the sight of her daughter. “Hi sweetie. Are you okay?”

Tess held up her hand, where a chunk of red hair lay. Chloe felt her already heavy heart break and was suddenly wide awake. “My hair is falling out.”

“Oh, Tess…” she sat up and swung her leg over the side of the mattress just as Beca came to.

“What’s going on?” She murmured, propping herself on her elbows.

“Is it gonna grow back?” Tess asked, her voice shaky as her eyes filled with tears.

Chloe lifted her up and onto her lap. Her heart squeezed over how light she had gotten over the past month. “It will. It’s going to take a while, but it will, I promise.”

Beca shuffled over and sat beside them, wrapping an arm around Chloe’s back as she pressed a kiss to Tess’ forehead. They knew this was bound to happen, after five weeks of chemo, but it didn’t take away any of the crushing pain they felt watching their eight-year-old daughter go through something no child should ever experience.

They had explained to Tess that she would probably lose her hair, and that would mean that her treatment was working. They had picked out colorful scarves and beanies for when it eventually did fall out.

“It’s okay to be sad and angry,” Chloe murmured. “It’s okay to cry, or scream, if you feel the need to.”

Tess sniffled as she looked down at her handful of hair. Tears slid down Chloe’s cheeks; she wished she could take that pain and carry it herself. “Can we cut it off?”

“Of course we can,” Beca whispered. “Are you sure?”

Tess nodded. “Yeah.”

Chloe sucked in another sharp breath. “Alright. We can do that.”

They picked out a beanie, one that sported flowers, and Chloe plugged in the clippers in the bathroom, trying to hold it together as more and more hair fell into the sink with each stroke of the blades.

“All done,” she announced after turning the device off, watching as Tess gazed at her own reflection in the mirror. She set the clippers down and wrapped an arm around her daughter’s shoulders. “I’m proud of you. You’re so, so strong.”

“And that means the treatment is working,” Beca added softly from Tess’ other side.

Tess nodded. “Can I go play with Barney?”

Their golden retriever had been Tess’ rock during her battle with cancer. He rarely left her side, cuddling up next to her when she didn’t feel good and bringing her spirits up some.

“Of course, sweetie. We’ll be down in a minute,” Beca said, brushing another kiss to her head before Tess shuffled out of the room.

Chloe could tell her wife was on the brink of losing it, the tears in her eyes getting thicker and her hands shaking slightly as she started to gather the hair from the sink. Chloe had broken down countless times since Tess’ diagnosis, but Beca… Beca seemed to have tried to keep it together for her sake.

“Bec,” Chloe whispered, stepping closer.

“It’s not fair,” she croaked out, bracing herself on the counter as a sob wrenched from her throat. “She shouldn’t be going through this. She’s– she’s a fucking child.”

“I know,” Chloe murmured, her own voice breaking. She wrapped her arms around her wife and Beca melted into her as more sobs wracked her body. “I know,” she repeated, silent tears running down her cheeks as she tucked Beca’s head under her chin. “But she’ll beat this. We’ll beat this.”

“I just want to take her pain away,” Beca said, her voice muffled by tears. “I just want to make it all go away.”

Chloe brushed a kiss to her hair, holding her tighter. “I know.”

Their battle with leukemia lasted fifteen months. Tess had been in remission for three years now. Her hair had grown back, she had put on the weight she had lost, and could live the life of a healthy kid again, much to her moms’ relief.

“Are you sure?” Chloe asked as she took the scissors.

Tess nodded excitedly. “Yes!”

“Alright, alright,” Chloe said with a grin, holding on the tip of Tess’ ponytail and cutting it at the base, right above the elastic band. “Here we go.” She held it up so Tess could see it through the mirror, then placed it in the waiting bag that was to be sent to an organization making wigs for kids with cancer.

“Your turn, babe,” Chloe told Beca, who switched places with Tess so that Chloe could do the same. “We’re all going to have matching bob cuts,” she said with a chuckle.

“I wanna too!” Came from Chloe’s left.

Beca ran her hair through their toddler’s brunette curls. “Yours is not long enough yet, sweetie.” Emma’s face crumpled. “Okay, maybe we can cut a few curls at the base. How does that sound?”

“K!”

Chloe was up next, then Emma, who proudly added a few snippets of her thin hair to the bag. They sealed it up, then headed to the nearest letterbox. Tess dropped it in, grinning proudly.

“Shall we go get ice cream?” Beca suggested with a smile, blinking the tears gathering in her eyes.

“You said you wouldn’t cry, Ma,” Tess teased.

“Yeah well, your mom is crying too.”

“Hey,” Chloe meekly protested with a playful glare. She softened a beat later, hugging Tess to her side. “Ice cream sounds great.”

Wacky Raceland #6

Coming soon to an America near you!

Pat Pending has almost certainly stuck his dick in that giant brain.

• Last issue was called "The Butcher Shop, Part One: Revelations." So you might think that this issue would include, somewhere in the title, "Part Two." But you'd be wrong! You probably weren't surprised by that revelation since that was such a standard set-up. No, this issue is also called "The Butcher Shop, Part One: Revelations." I guess that means it's Part Two of the first part of The Butcher Shop story although it doesn't make that explicitly clear. • Pat Pending's wife is the all-powerful Announcer. He blames her for destroying the world after she went insane. He doesn't explain how or why she went insane but I'm willing to put twenty dollars on "Pat stuck his penis in my amygdala." • The Announcer decides to blast some Wacky Raceland history into the heads of all the racers. Please oh please let it be that moment that I've mentioned twice now about the pinky and the brain. • The Announcer tells everybody about Pat Pending's experiments to help enslave the world: weather control, nanite swarm death panels, dwarf clone armies, and weaponized Scooby Dogs. I knew this was the same universe! Now to just have Slutty Velma behind it all, making plans and gobbling dicks, and I'll be happy! • Too bad for Pat Pending, his experiments revolted, led by the Slag Brothers. In the riot, Pat's wife was mortally wounded so he stuck her brain in a jar. That seems like a shitty idea. Could you really keep loving your partner if they were just brain? I'd bring women home to have sex with and they'd be all, "What's with the brain in the jar?" And I'd be all, "Just put a sheet over it." Then because I was stupid enough to hook the brain up to censors and microphones and computers, it would be all, "What's that sound? Tess? Are you fucking another whore?!" Man, just let her die, Pat! • Angelique, who probably goes by "Ann" since that works for Announcer too, became Godlike in her powers over the world being linked directly into the World Wide Web. She decides to kill the world leaders and take over. I'd probably do something like that if I were a brain as well. • You know the most worrisome thing about a Trump presidency? I once fleshed out one of our No Apologies! Press characters from the Galactic Hero Corps called Global Thermo-nuclear War Dude. I revealed that his main goal was the destruction of everything because he couldn't bear to die knowing that the world would still go on without him. I have a feeling if Trump gets some kind of health news where it's revealed he doesn't have long to live, he's taking us all out with him. • Pat's wife not only killed all of the leaders, she destroyed the Earth.

And they're off!

• Pat Pending's plan was to train the Wacky Racers until they were strong enough, and a cohesive enough unit, to take down his wife, the Brain in the Jar. He probably could have offered to change out her brain water and then "accidentally" dropped her on the floor and kicked her under the fridge. Although that probably would have been a short comic book series and it wouldn't have involved the Wacky Races. So I'm glad it was done this way. • The Announcer's jar is impervious to most weapons. But it has one weakness! It can't stand up to the Wacky Racebot! That's the robot that the Wacky Racecars turn into when Pat Pending initiates secret FuckCar Protocol 777. We all know why 69 is 69 but 777 is when a bunch of cars stick their dicks in each other to become one giant car. • The Wacky Racebot defeats the brain by putting a cancer bomb inside of it. That's one way of like ten million ways to destroy a brain, I suppose. • Afterward, all of the Racers head off to get drunk. But Pat Pending stays behind because he's not Pat Pending anymore!

I fucking hate it when this happens.

The Ranking! +1! Um. I guess that's it? I wasn't prepared for this to be over so soon. I guess I'll just have to go stick my Wacky Races DVD in and pretend they're racing through the end of the world. At the very least, this version will probably always shade my reviewing of the cartoon in a positive way. I always loved the cartoon because it's fucking silly. I mean wacky! But I also always loved the "competition" cartoons where you never knew who was going to win each week. Although when your favorite character is the guy who is never allowed to win and his dog, it made for some sad Saturday mornings. But come on! Dick Dastardly should have won them all! And the Really Rottens should have won the Laff-o-lympics every week! We all knew it was true! Anyway, I'm sad this is over although I'm always kind of happy to find out I've got one less comic to read each month! That's me! Always* looking on the bright side! *Always represents between 1 and 3 percent of all of the times.