Did The Enterprise Really Steal Bigfoot And Chupacabra?

“What is that?”

“What?” Rabbit mused.

“That?”

We sat on the lawn chairs outside soaking up warmth from the Florida sun.  Fall in Florida is my favorite time of year.  Suddenly all the humidity is gone.  Me, Mooch, and the Rabbit can spend all the time outside we desire without fear of wilting from staggering heat and humidity.  

A moment here, if you will. All this time that I’ve been calling my husband the Hubster and Hubby-Poo, well…that’s not really what I call him.  I call him Rabbit.  It’s a nickname that stuck from the time we got together.  Mainly because he is very much like a Rabbit.  Soundless.  One minute he’s there, the next minute he’s not.  I can be talking to him and turn around and realize I’ve been talking to myself.  Likewise, I can be standing in the kitchen washing dishes, thinking I’m alone, and suddenly he starts talking to me from behind.  After I get my heart rate back under control from the sudden fright, I patiently listen to what he has to say without reaming him out for scaring the hell out of me.  It reminds me of the time machine thingie Hermione had in that Harry Potter movie, where she was always suddenly appearing beside Harry and Ron.  I wonder if Rabbit has one of those. 

Plus, Rabbit has Kruger toes.  More specifically, he has dagger-like toenails that scratch like hell, just like a Rabbit.  But mostly, I call him Rabbit because he is born under the sign of the Rabbit in the Chinese astrology.

But I digress…where were we?  Ah, yes, sitting outside soaking up the sun.  And I was asking Rabbit, “What is that?”

He stared at me.  “Can you be more specific?”

I poked a finger on my belly.  “That.  Where did it come from?  It’s all jiggly and jelly-like, and I can’t suck it in.”

He rolled his eyes.

“What?”

“You’re not dealing with middle-age very well, are you?”

“Does anyone?”

“I suppose not.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes.  “It makes me ornery.”

“What does?”

“That.”  I poked my finger on my belly again.  “I never thought I’d have one of those.”

“Neither did I,” Rabbit mused.

I lifted my head off the chair pillow and stared at him.  “I don’t know how to take that.”

“What?”

“Were you meaning you never thought I’d have a belly, or you never thought you’d have a belly.”

“I never thought I’d have a belly.”

I relaxed again.  It’s difficult having a drop-dead gorgeous husband.  Besides which, he has no belly.  He’s reed thin.

“On my wife,” he finished.

“Smartass,” I grumbled.  “Ugh.  I feel sleepy,” I murmured.

“Me too.”

We stared off into the Preserve behind our house.

“I think I see Bigfoot,” I said.

“Nah.  It’s just Chupacabra.”

“We’d make good Bigfoot Hunters, huh.  Can’t even lift a finger to go investigate.”

“You know why no one ever has evidence of Bigfoot and Chupacabra, don’t you?” Rabbit asked.

“No, why?”

“Because The Enterprise stole them.”

“I’d laugh but I can’t find the humor there, Hun.”

“Me either,” he mumbled, too lazy from the warmth of the sun to even move his lips.  “It’s there, it just didn’t come out.  Too tired.”

“Life would be a lot more interesting if I could see a Bigfoot, a UFO, or even your run of the mill ghost.”

“You’ve already seen a ghost.”

“I wanna see more.  Something.  Anything.”

Silence.

“Hun?”

Silence.

I glanced over at my husband.  He was asleep in his chair.  I sighed, poked around on my belly in disgust, and eventually closed my eyes, too.  It’s not an exciting life, but at least it’s a comfortable one.  A few seconds later, I opened my eyes again.  I stared at my husband’s toes.  He was still sound asleep.  This might be a good time to get the toenail clippers out. 

I eased out of my chair and snuck into the house.  A few minutes later I returned with a sturdy pair of toenail clippers.  Mooch lifted her head off her paws, took one look at the toenail clippers, and ran like hell.  (She hates having her toenails clipped.) 

“These aren’t for you, silly,” I called after her.

She watched from the backdoor as I loomed over the Rabbit.  Perhaps it was the vision of a woman grinning madly, whose face was in shadow, looming over him with the sun glinting off a pair of steel clippers that made him scream.  Or perhaps it was the visage of Bigfoot peering over the back fence.  We may never know.  But Rabbit opened his eyes, screamed in terror, leapt from his chair, and bolted for the house.

“Geez,” I muttered.  “Can’t keep the dog or the husband groomed.”

C. D. Blizzard is the author of the novels Blackwater, Broken, and Profile.

Wanna see?  www.cdblizzard.com