Here you go, Mr. Riddle. I present the animal foetus babies:

Disembowelled Dino

Brainless Bobby

Eviscerated Eddie

These were my current three dogs:

From left to right, they are

1) Lăurică (named after Laura, his first advocate),

2) Rîngilă (or Smiley, father of the next dog),

3) Flocea (or Pubic Hair).

With the exception of Flocea, they and others before them were all Romanian street dogs. My parents have a habit of adopting any dog that moseys into their yard. They sternly beseech the mangy pup to git along. In the end, they forget to close the kitchen door and leave kitchen scraps in a little pail under the sink. The dogs take this to be an open invitation.

Lăurică and I really hit it off. I turned a blind eye when he wandered into the kitchen and ate the scraps. I broke all the rules and overlooked the fact that he wandered inside and upstairs behind me. Lăurică got baths and he got cardboard boxes for his sleeping spot behind the Coke vending machine.

In seeking pardon for the sin of an enforced bath, Florinel decorated Lăurică’s box with posies.

When Lăurică first wandered in circa 2001, his gypsy-cart chasing habit turned deadly. An oncoming car left him with his intestines dragging along the ground. My father slipped them back in before Lăurică very nearly nipped him. Lăurică crawled to the doghouse, attacked anyone – dog or human – who approached him and cloistered himself inside for three days. He never came out for food or drink. My parents expected to find him dead soon.

On the fourth day, Lăurică managed to walk out to his food dish. My parents noticed his wound had begun to heal.

He survived that time.

No one knew his past. He was a nasty enough hermit dog, preferring the company of his canine brethren, the father-and-son dogs.

Lăurică’s fur looked so soft and he had short corgi-esque legs. Plus he flew into a rage when the big dogs from the paint and shoe factories trespassed in his territory. I liked him right away.

We became good pals. Lăurică followed me around everywhere. I even thought about bringing him to Canada. But he had his good buddies, the stoic Rîngilă and the nice guy best friend Flocea. And he had a huge backyard filled with field mice ripe for the picking. Canada would be no good for him.

In the end he stayed put and I left. Afterwards he waited faithfully outside my rom for weeks. He partnered up with the profligate folkart vendor Pişta. Then Pişta went to earn money on Hungarian construction sites and Lăurică was alone again.

On Friday September 17 of this year, Flocea implored my parents to follow him. He led them to the road and there was Lăurică. They don’t know if someone hit him intentionally. In Romania, it happens. They buried him beside my late grandmother’s dog Azorel and AniÅŸoara the puppy (not the hamster).

His is one ghost whose haunting I would welcome.

In the mist of NeoCitran-induced daydreams, I have found a little happiness in the fact that the Na-No-Blog-Mo blog put me on their blog. I feel like a superstar.

The working title for my novel, The Vampire Carnival, has got to go. It seems cheesier by the day. I can’t shake the feeling that that editor, with whom I once studied, is shaking her head. She said she hates getting vampire stories.

The other thing I am happy about is the toffee hammer. Having just discovered such things existed, I already included one in me novel. My heroine (who happens to wear this get-up) has a toffee hammer for vampire mice (in tomorrow’s chapter five which is already five paragraphs).

It’s true. I am not very maternal. I cheered when the crows attacked the kids.

Maybe I should say I have maternal feelings toward crows? I definitely need some crows in my novel.

Finally. A Romania-zombie connection.

My goals for this lifetime include haunted house. This year, I realized that dream. In fact, I created two haunted houses so creepy, even I was creeped out going in there alone.

Well, I should say I was the mastermind behind the haunted houses. I did have my minions do the actual work.

Don’t want to give anything away since I might recycle some ideas for next year’s haunted houses, but the animal foetus babies might go mouldy, so I can give away that secret.

Inspired in part by my high school in China. The biology room was a little house just off the main campus. Inside – to my delight! – were shelves and shelves of pickling jars. Instead of paying attention in class*, I walked around to look at all the animals. Mouse, cat, dog, snake, baby pig, rat, chicken, human baby, human baby, human baby, human baby. Yes, in China, high schools have aborted human babies on display.

My interest in preserved remains lay dormant until last week.

There was Disembowelled Dino, Brainless Bobby, and Eviscerated Eddie. I took the three dinosaur stuffed animals I was going to give away to charity and ripped out their stuffing.

Dino (of Flintstones fame) simply needed an autopsy snip-snip down his belly. Stuffing comes out and you stick him in a jar, pour water over him, then a bit of tea to get that old formaldehyde look.

Brainless Bobby – a turtle now that I think of it, but a prehistoric turtle – was my coworker’s work. An eye came off and the stuffing came out. The disengaged eye still hung on by a thread. Caelan said he couldn’t hurt a stuffed animal in a way that was irrepairable. So he left the eye on, so Bobby could be fixed. I poked him eye into the “skull” for further gruesomeness. Then into a jar, with water and tea.

Eviscerated Eddie went much the same way. By this time, I saw a pattern. All stuffed animals are filled with some white stuff that reminds me of fibreglass. Yum!

A label maker spews out the names of the animal foetus babies in old-fashioned font, then out by the trick-or-treaters’ candy and we’ll see who still has an appetite. My sister said I will cause many children to seek therapy.

I thought about pictures, but that stupid Netscape File Manager is a nasty old goat.

Ah, I am one paragraph into today’s NaNoWriMo writing marathon.

*I did fail at the end of the year. So it might seem I got my just desserts. However, through sheer ingenuity and the deaths of thousands, I was able to lie my way back to grade ten.

Thank you, all, for your comments. I really appreciate your encouragement, especially now, in sickness, with the five-year Neo Citran doing its job far too fervently (I forgot to check the expiry date).

One of you asked what the hell the inmates are. Vampires? Mummies? Werewolves? Zombies?

They started off as vampires because I am Transylvanian and extremely patriotic. However, I must admit that recently – thanks to Shaun of the Dead and 28 Days Later, I find myself in the zombie loyalty camp.

I have an inkling of an idea as to what the inmates in my vampire carnival will really be when they are exposed. But I haven’t written that far yet.

Of course the secret weapon to defeat them are axes and hammers.

Though I would like to write chapter three right now, I think I am currently far too sick to continue for the night. But tomorrow I plan for a grueling session at the computer. Then, hopefully I can catch up with Caelan. Because I don’t give up money easily, lad.

Trixie Delaney. For one night, that was my name.

After he knew my name, he said, “I’ll have more Trixie.”

Not “I’ll have more, Trixie.”

The next time I went by he said he would have to search me.

And the last time I went by he said I was a tart.

A woman at another table said, “Slap him, Trixie!”

I answered, “I would if I weren’t carrying so many things.”

All the women clapped.