Dreams! Ah, dreamy, dreamy, dreamy dreams! Dreams are often said to be our subconcious mind's way of telling us things. Well, if that is true, then i wonder what the following dream I'm going to narrate (dreamt on the way to Lancaster) says about my subconcious mind and me. This is how it happened:

"Ah, Lancaster. It will always be one of my favourite places.

I have visited all too many on my, er, pursuits, to pick one, though that barn would have inched its way to the top.*sigh* Oh, well.

So as I rode down the street, my new cat sitting next to me, pawing away ( I swear, that cat was nearly as annoying as her previous owner in the beginning), I realised that things weren't all that bad.

Okay, they were bad. I had killed two men (of sorts) in the past hour, and two more in the hours before that. Four men in one day. That was pretty bad.

But not that bad.

I had money (mun-ney!). That was one major issue solved. People will do anything if they see enough of green stuff that folds.

So on the way, I decided I was tired. I saw a boarding house - that was before the motels came along - and decided to stop. The police, I figured, were still blissfully unaware of my latest activities, and I could rest for one night before starting out early the next day.

If I'd had any inkling to what was going to happen, I would have slept in the carriage itself, to hell with the cold.

Or maybe not.

So there I was, banging the door to this boarding house, getting more annoyed - and more chilled - by the second. I had half a mind of scaring whoever it was behind the door when they finally did open it by trying the she-devil look again, but as I was contemplating that, the door was thrown open by another strange character (like I hadn't had enough of those already).

He (yes, again) was taller than me, and rather strangely, very dark. His clothes were strange even if they hadn't been tattered. And then, as if he couldn't see me, he yelled, "Whozair?"

I winced. Stupidity was clearly making its way down the evolutionary ladder. Why else would this man see me, and still ask ME, ZXY HEMENDIP, who I was?

It's like they never learn.

"I'm right here," I reminded him, holding my cat in his face and watching with satisfaction as he jumped backward, sneezing.

"I'm Zxy Hemendip," I continued. "And I want a room for the night."

He peered at me. "What did you tell?"

And I died. At the hands of this man's grammar.

Okay, I didn't. I'm not easy to kill, as you may have figured out.

But I did gag.

"I SAID, my name is Zxy and I want a room for the night."

"For the night?"

I was already imagining banging his head against the wall behind him, his blood dripping to the floor....

It was hot. \m/

"Yes," I said, shaking my head. No. No. Not one more. Not tonight.

Plus, this man didn't deserve a death at my hands. He was too lowly.

"What kind of room?" he asked with mild interest.

"What kind do you have?" I imitated his tone.

"There is a small one, and a big one, and a bigger one...and one with a man."

I blinked. "With a man?"

"Yes. And one with a woman too."

This man was officially on my crazy-people list.

Then I understood. "You're a pimp!"

Well, that wasn't exactly what I said. The word 'pimp' hadn't been coined yet,
but I forget what I called him.

Anyway, he said, smiling hugely, "Yes. You're the smart woman."

The one and only.

"No thanks. Can I have a normal room please? The big one."

"Okay."

Then he went around this big wooden table that had an old name plate that said Jared
Arsenic (ew!! Though the arse bit fit) and pulled out a pen, thumbed through a few papers in a leisurely manner, telling me about how he was a beggar by day and a pimp by night, as if I had all the time in the world. Keeping me, ZXY HEMENDIP, waiting.

I don't wait. Believe me. I don't.

I am patient, generally. Really. But not when I am cold and holding an overexcited
cat and on the run after killing four people in one evening.

"Can you hurry, please? I intend to actually sleep tonight," I said through gritted teeth. Was it too much to ask for a nice, understanding concierge? Apparently so.

He looked up, surprised by this revelation. "Really? Why? I'm coming up too."

I was blank. Then I realised I was being propositioned. I gagged again.

"That," I spat, "is disgusting. Why would I want that?"

"Because," his brow furrowed in obvious confusion, "you are a prostitute, right?

That's why you don't want man or woman."

My shoulders sagged as I gave up. "I am going to kill you."

He took that as a good-natured comment, and laughed. Laughed weird, like a cackle mixed with grunting. It only infuriated me more. Why do people who laugh like that exist?

Then I looked up, and he stopped abruptly. I could imagine how much more fearsome I looked in the flickering candlelight.

"Madam Zxy...??"

He looked so freaked out, I swear that if I hadn't killed him, he would have died of a heart-attack anyway.

I saved him that trouble.

My hands locked, claw-like, around his oily hair (blech), and before the man could comprehend what exactly was happening to him, I was bashing his head over and over into the wall.

Within a few minutes, the picture of my imagination was in front of me. He was slumped against the wall, his expression saying 'What just happened?' as if he still couldn't figure out that he'd been offed.

Oh, well.

Another man dead.

On the upside, Hilda seemed calmer. She went around trotting in the pools of blood, leaving pawprints all over the place.

It was so beautiful! I actually wiped away a tear! Me!

Then, a sudden wave of exhaustion hit me. I mean, killing five people is tiresome.

So I went upstairs, found an empty room, locked the door and went to bed.

The next morning, I snuck out early.

I had to get out of there, and fast.

Oh boy."

I woke up with a start, feeling thoroughly flushed, and surprisingly, in good spirits. Eh, well, when have I ever reacted like any other mortal?

Did I mention I had managed to secure a carriage for myself at the last minute? I saw one just as I was on the brink of becoming hysterical for the third time that night, and actually HEAVED a sigh of relief. Let's not concern ourselves with my journey there, shall we, as what happened IN Lancaster turned out to be WAY more important than the 5th man I killed that night (the carriage-man, of course, but I doubt he matters in the big scheme of things, foxy as he was *wink*).

***

So, here I was, off to Lancaster, unaware of the history I apparently shared with the place.

The history of my birth.

The history of my birth mother.

The history of Rosita Gerald.

***

As you know, the rain was still not letting up, but I had important plans to carry out before I continued with the rest of my life, and Lancaster had seemed the right place to do so. Sure, hiding the body of the carriage-man had turned out to be criminally easy but that was not what I was complaining about.

Oh, how wrong I was! Lancaster turned out to be the last place I should've stepped my foot in, considering what happened as I reached there....

I had Hilda with me (stolen from that bitch, Zed), and she wasn't proving to be a very, how do i say this...EASY pet. She often peed and pooped at the wrong times, and actually WAILED and howled when she was hungry, or when I was suffocating her, ESPECIALLY when I was beating the crap out of her! But more on that later, this story has way more important things that need to be discussed.

So, Hilda was getting all wet and annoyed because of the rain, stopping every few minutes to pee or something, and that was starting to piss ME off a little bit. Of course, since she was a cat, my threshold of annoyance at her was way more than even my threshold of annoyance at Valerie, but then who's wouldn't, when you had SUCH a cute kitty-kat! Pity she had to die at my hands...

Basically, thanks to Hilda, we were progressing at a very slow pace, and we only reached Lancaster the next afternoon. Once there, I started moving quickly, securing a place for me to camp out so that those darned Londoners wouldn't be able to find me. As I was done with the carriage-man, I quickly disposed off with his remains, and went around town to look for someone to help me with the pain in the arse Dead Smith's cat had become.

As fate would have it, or as the calendar dictated, it was a Sunday afternoon, and it was turning out to be a terribly tedious job to look for some sort of a veterinarian.

So I decided to go where I had once vowed never to step foot.

I went to the house of God.

Now, sure, people revere him and all, but I really don't see what all the fuss is about. I mean, it's just God. I don't get what all the fuss is about that guy. He's okay.

God too didn't want me in his house, it seemed, as before i could step into the 'holy ground', I met the bishop out front.

He introduced himself. "Good Afternoon, young lady. You don't seem to be from around here. I'm the Bishop in charge of this church, Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow, Abrams Poe. Can I assist you in any way?"

"Yes, Your Excellency. I'm Zxy Hemendip. My cat..."

The stunned look on Poe's face didn't let me continue with my problems with Hilda.

"Is something the matter, Your Excellency?"

"You're Zxy Hemendip?

"why? Is there some law in this area that suggests otherwise?"

Wise-cracking is OBVIOUSLY one of my best traits.

"No, no, of course not. I'm just surprised, is all. Are you in any way related to Lord Edward Hemendip? Perhaps a distant relative or something?"

I was getting a little fussed-up now.

"Distant-schmistant. I'm his daughter. Why do you ask?"

Then that silly man, His Excellency Bishop Abrams Poe gasped!

The gall of the man, gasping in front of Zxy Hemendip like he was some sort of commoner! Such men don't deserve to live, I tell you.

Wel, since we couldn't just keep standing there forever, I implored him to reply, and reply he did.

Quite colorfully, too.

"Holy Beelzebub! You're Edward's daughter? You're THE Zxy Hemendip? Dear lord of the flies, this means that...."

Then he huffed and puffed a little, and turned around and went away, muttering to himself.

I hate these kind of old silly men. Spooks, I tell you, one leg already dangling in the grave.

Since I didn't have anything else to do, I started looking around for other people. I didn't really find anyone besides this old Boho Beggar woman lying near the wall of the church. Desperate as I was now, about both, Hilda, and Abrams Poe, I decided to talk to her regarding the services of a veterinarian.

What she ended up telling me blew my mind.

And ended her life.

Oh, well, every war has casualties, and Alcoholic Anita, as she was called, was about to become one.

*****

'What do you want from me, eh? Stop poking me!'

Gawd, first in my dreams, and now in real life, why the hell did people talk to me like that? It's like they couldn't hear themselves.

Say, in this case, it would actually be true, considering that Anita was an alcoholic.

Who even drank that much in that day and age?

Didn't people realise what alcohol did to their innards?

Anyway.

"I'm looking for a veterinarian, you filthy old woman!"

"Vet-ry-naar?? Wot you talk about, eh? Had too much to drunk, eh?" And then that filthy old woman LAUGHED. That's right. She actually had the gall to be rude to me like that and then laugh. In my face.

And you ask why I killed the 'poor woman'.

I counted to ten, and asked in my most controlled voice,"I'm. Looking. For. Abrams. Poe. Where. Is. He?"

"Madowot?? First you asks fur my vet-ry-naar, and then for my Abra-poo."

And with that horrendous little outburst, she (thankfully) fainted.

Hoo, boy. Now I had two animals to take care of.

FML.

*********

Don't ask me how, but being the greatest being that ever walked this Earth that I was, I managed to get both Anita and Hilda to a hospital.

To THE hospital, I should say.

The Rosita Hemendip Memorial Hospital.

And that's when the mystery of my birth really started to unravel.

Huh, that just WASN'T my day!

********

"Welcome to the Rosita Hemendip Memorial Hospital, miss. How can I help you?"

Ignoring the fact that the Hospital and I shared a name, I proceeded to get Hilda and that ruddy, foul-smelling alcoholic woman admitted into the hospital to be treated immediately.

It turned out that the hobo's name was Anita.

In the vernacular, she was called Alcoholic Anita, but her official name was Anita Smith.

She was the one who told me two horrifying stories. One was the story of my birth. The other was the story of her death. Teeheehee. *evil grin*

********

Let's start with the more pleasant story, shall we (Just 'cause I'm feeling nice)?

This story was the story of my birth. The story that connected me to the Rosita Hemendip Memorial Hospital.

It all started when I went to visit Anita Smith.

For once, I found the woman sober and tolerable enough to talk to.

After exchanging pleasantries, and her apologising for her horrid behaviour, we got to talking about me (well, duh, why wouldn't we? ;) ).

When I told her that my full name was Zxy Hemendip, she gave a reaction similar to the old fogey Poe.

"What?? YOU are THE Edward Hemendip's daughter?? No, wait, you are THE Rosita Hemendip's daughter?"

I have to admit, for once in my life, i was SPEECHLESS.

But then again, I recover pretty fast from shocks of such kind, as you are about to find out.

"No. What are you, still DRUNK? My mother was Suzanne Thomas. And how the hell does everyone in this town know my father??"

"Huh. I think you need to sit down."

I obliged.

"Your father, Edward, was married to Rosita Hemendip nee Gerald, before he married that hag, Suzanne."

"Hey, watch your tongue, lady! Suzanne may have been many things, a whore and a liar, among others, but she was NOT a hag. YOU Are a hag!!"

"SIT. DOWN. Don't interrupt me again, or I shall never tell you the story of your mother."

Now, usually I wouldn't have backed down, but I could see her ears and nose going all red and fierce. So I thought, Just this once, I'll listen her out.

"Fine. Continue."

She raised an eyebrow.

Gawd, this woman was INCORRIGIBLE!! And SUCH a stickler for manners! I hated her already!! I promised myself that I'd kill her the first chance I'd get. But for right now, i had to listen to what she had to say.

"PLEASE."

"Sure. So, your father was married to Rosita Gerald, The Belle of London. And Lancaster, for that matter. Everyone loved her, apparently! Of course she died before I was born, so all I know about her is from the stories I've heard my mother tell me over the years. She and Rosita were very good friends, apparently, and even debuted together! Anyway, Rosita bagged the most eligible bachelor of the season, in the fourth week of the Debutante Balls itself. Your father. Now, HIM, I've even had the pleasure of meeting. A most agreeable man, I must say! You're a VERY lucky girl!"

Oh, she had no idea!

"Your father and Rosita spent around a year and a half in marital bliss, during which time my parents too got married. Soon, your mother was pregnant with you. Oh, what a joyous occasion it was for the family! My mother tells me it was one of the Golden Times of your family! There was laughter all around you house! Your father made several large donations in several hospitals, and got a special wing made in the then General Hospital,named after your mother, where YOU, apparently, were to be the first child to be born. The wing was almost complete by the time your mother's nine months were over, and indeed, you WERE the first baby to be born in that wing. But your mother was also the first person to die in that wing."

Inspite of myself, I gasped.

"She died during childbirth. My mother, around two months pregnant with me then, was one of the midwives for the birth. She witnessed the whole thing. Your mother was a very short, frail young woman. She had a rose in her hair, as usual, the day of you birth, and she was very excited about you, her 'child'. She loved little boys and was actually hoping for a boy, but God decided to give her YOU, a beautiful little girl, instead. Anyway, her birth was VERY painful. There was blood everywhere! A doctor suggesting aborting you at the last minute, but she wouldn't hear of it. She just wanted to hold her 'child' in her arms. So she persisted. But frail and of a little stature as she was, she couldn't handle the pain, and died. Not before hearing the sound of your crying, though. In her last breath, she asked to see her little boy, and no one could bear telling her that she had in fact, given birth to a girl. They all just looked away from her bloody, lifeless body, and when they looked at her again, the rose in her hair lay wilted. It died with her, it was said. It couldn't survive without her nurturing presence. Your father would have died too, had it not been for you. He took one look at you, said, "she takes my breath away, she looks just like Rosita", sold his house in Lancaster, gave all his money to the now Rosita Hemendip Memorial Hospital, packed his bags, moved to London and married Suzanne Thomas, so you'd never feel like you didn't have a mother. Great man, he was, really!"

Yeah, so great that he couldn't see his own wife having an affair with a young, though spritely, doctor, I wanted to comment, sarcastically, but held my tongue, since this woman so evidently had a crush on him...

"Oh. Okay. Good to know. Thanks. So tell me about you. I have some time to kill before I go pick up my cat and get the hell outta here."

"Me? I'm an alcoholic. You know that already."

"Yeah, but tell me about your past. You obviously weren't born an alcoholic, something made you this way."

"Oh, that. Two words. Broken Marriage."

Now, THIS sounded VERRRRY interesting.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Here, I inserted my concerned look.

"Sure. Everyone knows all about it anyway. My husband left me."

"For??" I prompted her.

"For another man. Yes, he seduced another man."

This sounded VERY familiar, and not in a good way.

"What did you say your full name was, again, Anita, darling?"

"Anita Smith."

My mouth ALMOST dropped open.

It was my own fault. I should have expected this. Two young men in their prime would OBVIOUSLY have been married, even if they were gay (and dead, no pun intended).

"Are you, perchance, Dead Smith's wife??"

The question escaped my lips before I could help myself.

"Not 'ded', ZED. Yes, I am Zed's wife. How the Beelzebub did you know?"

"Just a calculated guess, you could call it. So how did you...I mean, when did you...I mean...DIDN'T YOU KNOW HE WAS GAY??"

Another outburst, pardon me.

"Stop talking such slanderous things about him!"

"you STILL love him??"

"Obviously! Why else would I have married him in the first place?"

I ignored the fact that she fell in love with that disgusting, filthy, Grey-loving BEAST in the first place, and asked her about her marriage.

"Oh, it was LOVELY! At first. I'd known him forever. He used to hang around Grey George and some snouty bitch all the time when we were kids. I tried to talk to Grey once, since he was obviously the leader of the clique, but that brute (i sighed) never allowed me in that group."

And thank god for that, I thought to myself.

"It was just the three of them, that clingy bitch and Zed always running around Grey. They did all his bidding, like he was some sort of a God. Grey used to like the girl, used to flirt with her a lot, and I saw them kissing and holding hands discreetly on occasion too (I smirked), but what really got my goat was the fact that Zed used to worship him, and he always acted uncomfortable around him. I guess he wasn't ready to accept that he was in love with Zed then, and tried to prove his manhood by being all cozy with the snouty bitch."

At this point, my resolve to kill her had increased a million-fold.

"Anyway, the snouty bitch went away to London after her holiday-time. In fact, if I remember correctly, a whole group of Londoners, including your father used to come down to Lancaster every summer to spend it with his old friends. How come I never saw you with him??"

Because, I was never WITH him, you dumb little Zed-Lover. I was always with Grey. My father and I forgot that the other existed the moment we saw our old friends.

Ofcourse, I didn't voice this out loud, and said, instead, "Must be a coincidence, holidaying in the same place and never meeting."

She was too preoccupied with her precious Zed to realise I wasn't really answering her question. She continued,"Anyway, enough about her. Slowly, Zed started noticing me. He started spending time with me, and over time, we fell in love. He proposed marriage to me in the second week of the Debutante's Balls, and we got married soon after. Ah, those were the days. Zed and me, and Grey and Shontelle!"

"Excuse me. Shontelle?? Who the Beelzy is Shontelle??"

What she said next made my blood run cold.

"Why, Shontelle Jay. Grey's wife! Didn't you know??"

Before I recovered from this startling piece of news, she continued with her story.

"Shontelle and Grey were married soon after us. She had lived in India all her life, and when her parents died, and she came of age, she was sent back to Lancaster to make her debut. Boy, She was the most gorgeous debutante in our year! She debuted around three weeks after I did, so Zed couldn't get his hands on her, but Grey, being the most eligible bachelor in you year, did. He proposed to her the minute he saw her. It was love at first sight, for both of them! They made a BEAUTIFUL couple, him, so handsome and she, the quintessential English Rose, brought up in India, so she wasn't as devious." Here, that wretched woman gave me a conspiratorial WINK. Gawd, I hated her so much!!

"Those were some good days! The four of us had quite some good times! We travelled a lot, together, given how close Grey and Zed were, and Shontelle and I used to tag along, as she loved to travel, and would get bored with just Zed and Grey, for company."

"yeah, yeah, yeah. you had fun. where is this Shontelle now?"

"Now? Why, she's at her home, with Grey, obviously!"

"Oh, no, she's not. Grey's dead", I said, without thinking.

"WHAT? No! Grey's not dead! He can't be! I met him, what, a year back??"

Sick of pretending all was fine, I told her my side of the story. The barn and all.

Needless to say, she still had feeling for that scum of the earth Dead Zed, even after all this time, and she didn't take too lightly my killing of the two of them.

She swore on the holy grave of Beelzebub, and lunged at me.

Now, usually, I'm a good sport, and just move away when people lunge at me. No, really. I know it's hard, but seriously, I'm NICE.

Anyhoo, this time, I was really annoyed at her. And since I'd already decided to make a corpse out of her, I didn't stand aside. Instead, I tackled her, and then sitting atop her, asked her to meet me at a fixed time and challenged her to a fight.

We decided to meet the next day, at dawn, near the Church.

I collected Hilda, and left, searching for the ideal weapon to kill this smarmy Alcoholic Anita Smith with. I already had a slight idea, though, of what I might do....

******

The next morning, I met Anita at dawn behind the church.

Luckily for me, she was back to her usual self, drinking again. That made my job just SO much easier!

"Before we start, I wanted to say something."

"Says it, you husband-killer! SAYS!!"

Gawd, could this woman not speak properly when inebriated??

"I think we should have a little meal before we begin. I'm guessing you haven't eaten all night?"

"well, of course not! Fine. Let's do that. I AM hungry."

"Perfect, I've brought along a ham sandwich for each of us."

And then I handed her her sandwich.

********

A few minutes later, she lay on the ground, moaning.

"AAAAAH...some-ins hurtzing! wots didja puts in my san-wick, you bitc..."

Poor woman, never completed her sentence. The poison in the sandwich worked too quick.

oh, well, boo hoo.


I completed my sandwich, and walked towards the church. I found the confessional box and started speaking.

"Forgive me father, for I have sinned."

"Say what you have to, my child, I'm listening."

Ah, the Disappearing Bishop, we meet again.

"Oh, it's YOU, your excellency!"

"Yes my dear. Get it all off your chest."

Of course, I thought, as I took out my knife and stabbed the man through the heart.

Pesky little old man, with his stupid bald head and white beard!
Such a hindrance.

*****

I got out of there (duh, staying in Lancaster now would be like walking towards the noose), collected Hilda from the motel room I'd rented for the night, and got out of there. Where I was going, only God Himself knew. London was out, and I'd just ruined my chances in Lancaster. FML.

Oh, but not before I "took care" of Shontelle Jay, the woman who dared marry MY Grey.

Oh, well, that's a story for another day, and as Suzanne had always taught me, "ALWAYS leave them hanging, baby. ALWAYS leave them wanting more...."

;)