Every once in a while I have to write something that is completely unrelated to dissenting. Today is one of those days. I am usually a non-fiction reader and writer, but over the years I have had a few ideas for fiction stories, but developing some of these ideas never really took off. I’m sharing a couple that have resurfaced through memories today. One was a story I made up for my children when they were little, as we ran out of books to read…

The first came to mind after watching the original Beetlejuice film. Do you remember the scene in purgatory of all of the office workers doing clerical paperwork, because they took their own lives… …and these souls were stuck doing public service for the dead for eternity. I had a short story idea based on this public service work for the dead come to me while driving somewhere.

The character in question is Maude. She was an accountant for the Internal Revenue Service, and in a fit of depression caused by a job punching numbers endlessly, took her own life through an overdose of barbiturates. Once she arrived in purgatory, everything was fine. She stood in line and waited her turn for check in. At check in she would undergo an interview to determine if she was assigned to hell or heaven, and what job she would work for in eternity according to the other souls standing in line.

Just as she was getting close to the check in desk a man opened a door, and asked her to follow him. He told her she was receiving special treatment and was being rerouted for a special program. As she followed him through the endless corridors, and aisles of cubicles they stopped at Soul Resources. At Soul Resources a woman named Bette welcomed her to the floor. Bette informed her that souls that committed suicide were subjected to an eternity of public service. Bette then ran through her extensive experience in accounting, education, and experience. Maude stood by Bette’s desk with her mouth open. Was this a trick? How could this be? Bette then informed her that if she finished her work there were opportunities for advancement and promotion. She cited herself as an example. She made it to Soul Resources in a modest 2,000 years. She then showed Maude her wrists…

Maude was then led to her workstation by the man in a state of shock. At her desk was the work schedule: 6:00 a.m.-5:30 a.m. Lunch 5:30 a.m.-6:00 a.m. taped to the top. On the left side was an antiquated IBM 280 computer with floppy disk drives, and on the right was a stack of paper that ascended into the sky. Sitting beside the computer keyboard was the Employee Handbook for the Recently Dead.

The man told her to read through the job description and begin working immediately. Maude read the directions. Using the spreadsheets on the right she was to tabulate every US citizen’s total time within each city/county/state/territory/country for their entire living life for the whole of the 20th century. Maude then realized her job was not in purgatory… She had arrived in data processing hell…

The second story was about a dragon named Sepulveda. She lived in a cave in rural Illinois near a village called Mt. Carroll. Sepulveda had lived in this cave for centuries. She grew as the cave grew. She ate when she was hungry, slept when she was tired, and drank from the Straddle Creek when she was thirsty. She rarely saw any of her own kind as the great ice age killed off many of her ancestors, but since she lived in the Driftless area she survived the glaciers.

One day she heard a noise outside her cave. She wasn’t familiar with the sound, so she peaked out the entrance of the cave and saw two men walking along the creek occasionally stopping to gather some sand and washing it away in their pans. “Did you find any gold?” one said to the other, “No,” was his reply. Then they were gone.

Sepulveda heard several other men from time to time, but they did not notice her cave, until one day a group of children hiking through the woods with some adults saw her cave opening. Sepulveda saw them slowly approach. This frightened her. She had never been this close to a human. One of the adults started to cross the creek toward the cave. His feet remained dry as he had on hip boots with suspenders. Just as he was about to climb to the entrance, thunder could be heard in the distance and a slow steady sprinkle of rain started to fall. The humans left.

Sepulveda knew they would be back, so she scrambled throughout her cave looking for a place she could slither or fly out of the cave when the humans came back. She found a small spot that had potential, so she started pushing the stones, rocks, and gravel out of the way. After hours of hard work she had nothing to show for her effort. She could hear running water through the cracks, but as far as she knew it could be hundreds of tail lengths away.

The next day the hikers came back to explore the cave. She heard one of them say “YMCA” and another say “Camp Merrill Benson.” Neither made any sense to her. Sepulveda did not want to hurt these little creatures, so she hid in her dugout that she made the previous day, pressing her body nearly flat against the rock, trying to blend in with the grey stone. She heard them enter the cave and she saw light flicker from flashlights. They came closer and closer. They seemed to be looking for something. The children asked if there was gold. The adults said they would see iron pyrite or lead before they would see gold.

After a short time they started to get close to Sepulveda’s hiding spot. They noticed that the cave was getting narrow, but sensed there was a larger opening ahead based on the air moving in the cave. It was Sepulveda’s slow and silent breath that they were feeling. Just as the hiking party got to Sepulveda’s hiding spot a child sneezed, and rocks started to fall down from above. The hiking party started a hasty retreat, and as they yelled to move back a larger cave-in fell upon Sepulveda’s hiding spot. The cave-in was so massive it pinned her tightly against her dugout. Sadly, Sepulveda died from the rock squishing her body as it fell.

No one knew about her until years later a father and son visited the cave and as they walked back into the cave they saw where the rock had fallen. It looked as if it had settled over the years. When the little boy pointed, “Look over there dad.” They saw several large flat rocks of a slate grey color. When the father picked up the dinner plate sized rock, he noticed a strange color emanating from the rock as his flashlight shown upon it. Then he felt the texture of the rock, scratched it with his fingernail, and then he tried to break it on a bigger rock, and all it did was flex a bit. The father looked at his son and said, “Son I think we found a scale to an animal of some sort.” The two of them collected five scales and shoved them into the father’s back pack.

No one believed them that they had found scales from a large animal. Scientists ignored their requests for consultations. The idea of dinner plate sized scales was too far fetched to believe. Then on night the little boy awoke with a fright… His father heard his scream, and went to check on him. The little boy’s nightmare was about the animal in the cave. The little boy said the animal’s name was Sepulveda, and she was a dragon. She spoke to him in the dream, and the Legend of Sepulveda was born…

There you have it… two fiction stories that have occupied the gray matter off an on for many years… I hope you enjoyed these fragments, as they will never see a full development… It isn’t non-fiction… …so it goes…