I was late for breakfast, so missed my friends. A quick inquiry at reception and they sent an e-mail to the address Yves had given me; I wondered if it was purely external links, outside Cuba, that were unreliable. Never mind; when I returned from my day face-down in the sea, I had a reply, and an appointment the next morning, which gave me the excuse I needed for an early night, just as Nicole was sorting her footwear out. By early night, I mean some more beer in the other venue, where a soprano of rather more than decent quality was working her way through some opera standards.

Final chapter of my Moments of Madness story.

I really did write this song in a Bob's Big Boy this morning....

The continuation of the story based on my real life experiences.

Once again, there are conversations of suicide and mental anguish, so if you are not emotional able to read on this stuff, please avoid this story.

“You not on a working day, then?”

I shook my head.

“Nope. Actually flying with your lot, this time”

“Where are you off to, then?”

“Cuba”

“Ooh! Packed your dancing shoes?”

“I don’t dance. Packed my snorkel and flippers, though”

It's Christmas season, 1985. Jack Nemo has had no sleep for several nights in a row. It has been one weird interruption after another for this elderly homeless fellow. Terribly fatigued, he boards a city bus, simply hoping to catch a few z's out of the rain. But little does he realize that this bus---and existence as he knows it---are about to take a detour into a chaotic realm of unrelenting strangeness, presided over by a chthonic entity known as...
 

As the virus spread around the world, Maxine and Hayley made plans for when they'd have to go into isolation or as everyone in the media was calling it, lockdown. All the businesses that were part of the Lorelei Investments portfolio were given updates on what Maxine was expecting from them. Mostly it was a complete freeze on both payments to Lorelei and investment in the companies with a few exceptions if a government mandate forced the business to completely close or severely restrict their operations.

Lillyn has been kidnapped!
By her own Little Mule no less.
But who ever is messing with her is about to learn one simple fact:
Lillyn is fresh out of patience.

The drop into despair and the darkness that I had built around me, and set myself up for, crashed over me like a wave. I reached out for help, but could the hand save me, or would it be slapped away as the depth of my sorrow, and anguish overcome me?

Again this has comments on suicide and pretty much my first-ever anxiety attack. So, again if you cannot emotionally read about that stuff, I would suggest missing this story.

Warning on Grammar. While I have really tried to correct a lot of stuff, however, the email was real (in fact all the chapter is how it went down), and I didn't want to overly change the content too much. In saying that, reading the old email again now, .... Jesus grammar can be shit in email communication!! :D

*****
During the years after WWII the Raven family, while in many ways typical for the era, was anything but normal. The backstory began in the early spring of 1944. Then 20 year old Chuck Raven’s unit had just completed paratrooper training, allowing him to come home on leave before shipping out to Britain. Lorraine Rees, a stubborn and feisty 17 year old high school junior, had been forbidden to go out with a grown man. After arguing and sent to her bedroom, she locked her door and climbed from her bedroom window to the front porch roof, then eased over the edge to shimmy down a porch column to go out with him. Lorraine dropped out of school at the start of her senior year, giving birth to a son, Leroy, in January 1945. Since Chuck had been sent to Europe, a shotgun wedding had been impossible. Chuck’s parents lived on a farm a mile outside the town of Grantsport, 8 2/3 miles north of Reading, where Lorraine lived. When the weather turned warmer in the spring, she’d bundle her baby and walk the mile long dirt road out to the farm so the infant could meet his grandparents, 2 uncles, and a great grandmother.

What have I done? I simply got so excited about the dresses I found in the closet that I totally forgot they were not mine and that the owner, Alice, my new roommate, would maybe strongly disagree that I took the dresses and tried them on without asking permission.

“So?” Alice asked, seeming very angry and upset.