Cabin in the Wilderness of My Mind

                             Cabin in the Wilderness of My Mind

     My asinine, dead end job really has left me on the edge of depression lately. Add to this catching my scumbag boss in the sack with my brainless Barbie of a wife and the fact that my creditors seem ready to foreclose on the precious few possessions I haven’t hocked to satisfy my 15-year addiction to the trotters and you’ll see why I think the end of the road looms for my worthless existence.

     I’ve made up my mind to do it and that’s why I have chosen this ramshackle cabin in the far reaches of the Maine woods as the site of my exit.

      The blizzard that I fought through on my seven-hour drive to my final rendezvous with destiny looks like it is getting even worse. It took me two hours longer than normal to get through the storm from the two-bit condo I call home. 

          Guess I will hunker down where no one will find my body until it’s too late. That will show them and give me my final victory over those who have made my life the hell I have lived through for the last five years. 

         So quiet outside. Doesn't sound like anything is moving.

         I am glad I stopped at Tom’s Superrama on the way up Frostbite Mountain and stocked up on lots of liquor to numb the pain even more, and help make swallowing the sleeping pills easier.

      Tom said he’d probably be the last person I’d see until I came back down--little did he know the return trip would not happen. 

       "The whole area looks like a ghost town most of the year, but more so today," he yelled as I hurried out to my jeep and rushed up to my soon-to-be sepulcher in the woods.

       “Thanks for that bit of real good news,” I said.

      Oh well, glad I have compiled a huge playlist and a number of audiobooks on my Ipad to keep me further occupied while the drugs “work their magic.”

     Don't expect to see any other sign of life unless the weather breaks and someone decides to care enough and attempts to claw their way up to my hideaway to find me.

     An eerie stillness envelopes the area and I am content to be the only person here.

      Suddenly, as I prepare my deadly potion, I hear a knock on the door. How can this happen? It is impossible to get anywhere close either on foot or with any kind of vehicle.

     I grab my trusty Louisville Slugger and get ready for a battle. Nobody is going to stop me from carrying out my plan.

    The door slams open, given a big boost by the 50-mile-per-hour winds and a few inches of snow join me in my retreat.

    There's no sign of life--at least right away. After a few minutes--passing more like an hour--a strange green creature appears before me.

    "I don't know how you got here in this blizzard, or where you came from, but I better get an explanation quickly or they may find your body buried in the snow."

    The green form mumbles something in a language I have never heard, but quickly translates for me when, I guess, the creature figures I don't understand what it has tried to communicate.

    "My name is Mortran. I come from the planet Ugotyte in the year 2050. My home territory has been destroyed by uranium spreading across our planet when a meteorite crashed into Ugotyte. I come seeking a new homeland for my people. Others will follow. We hope to settle peacefully on your earth and to research the origins of this meteorite so we might possibly prevent it from destroying our way of life."

    Great, I can’t even succeed in committing suicide--and, who stops me? Some wacko creature from another planet. Just my luck.

      We then settle down in front of my fire. I offer the creature a few swigs of my "Mountain Moonshine" and, after a few hours, he falls asleep. Now I can carry out my plan without interruption and, by the time he wakes up I will be in an alternative universe of my own.

      For some reason the poisonous concoction I have mixed up doesn’t work as I intended. I don’t die, but instead I have dreamed that creatures from another planet have invaded my cabin and kidnapped me to take me back to Ugotyte so they can sacrifice me to the "Great Spirit of the Meteorite."

       I figure I have slept about 10 hours, and, when I wake up with a terrible headache, the fire is out, there is no interplanetary stranger in my living room and the sun peaks through the forest.

       In addition, I can’t remember a lousy job, an unfaithful wife or a gambling addiction that has put a bullseye on my back from creditors.

       I only remember having decided to get away by myself for a peaceful weekend away from the family so I can concentrate on writing the last few chapters of my latest novel.

        I look out the window and saw several skiers making their way up the mountain. No signs of a blizzard anywhere.

       My jeep easily starts up and, when I get down to the Superrama, Tom says there he hasn’t seen even a small snowfall for months. 

        When I tell him about what happened to me he says, "Oh, oh, the White Mountain Lightning Liquor strikes again."

         Turns out some low-grade hooch sold at Tom’s store has found a number of victims over the last six months.

         The hooch has made me its latest victim and catapulted me into a liquor-infested nightmare. I resolve to get on the bandwagon and to stay there for many years to come.

          I decide if I am going to make a run for the Pulitzer about which I have dreamed for two decades I better get serious about making this writing gig a real profession rather than allowing alcohol to turn the sci-fi plots of my novels into adventures in my alternative universe that blockade my creative juices.