The Parselmage Necromancer

I don't really know why I did it.  I'm normally a very nice, sane, polite person.  I certainly never intended to somehow get a reputation around town as being The Parselmage Necromancer.

It had started like any other day.  I woke up creaking, popping, hurting, and groaning as usual 'at my age.'  If I hear one more doctor or nurse use that phrase on me, I'm going to....  Oh, I digress from the story.  My apologies.  It tends to happen more often these last few years or so.

Anyway, as I was saying, creaking, popping, hurting, and groaning and I hadn't even gotten out of bed yet.  Once I did I stumble my way into the bathroom to attend to morning duties, such as standing before the porcelain torture device waiting for something to happen that had seemed so urgent only two minutes ago in my bed.  I got into the shower and once again cursed myself for not checking the bathroom fixtures before I signed my lease, because I would never have done so if I had noticed that one large knob that was supposed to control both the pressure and the temperature of the water in my shower.  In my day we used three knobs for that and were never disappointed by our showers not being strong enough, being too forceful, too hot or, too cold.

I got dressed and was dismayed that the button at the waist of my favorite pair of jeans went flying across the room when I bent over to pick up my shoes.  They really don't make things to last these days.  I've only had these pants since I started college.  They're barely thirty years old.  What a time for the button to grow weak and fly off.

By this point, I was already in a less than optimal mood, and unsurprisingly discovered that my loving husband had listened to my doctor against my wishes and failed to procure sufficient bacon for a proper breakfast.  I had something called turkey sausage befouling my refrigerator.  Do you see what I did there?  I've always been funny that way.

I remembered that my loving husband has a doctor's appointment that day at that brand new medical building beside the hospital where they took him last month.  I went to my room and redressed in something appropriate for going out.  It seemed the only things I could find to wear were all black.  It's never been my color.  Nothing to be done for it though. 

So I will freely admit that I wasn't in the best of moods as I sat in the big waiting area between several doctors' offices.  Over there was the office of my loving husband's cardiologist.  That lovely little receptionist girl waved to me and I handed her the recipe I had promised her two months ago, apologizing for how late I was getting it to her.  She just smiled at me rather sadly and said she understood.

I sat down and opened the only laptop you can ever count on to always work as it is intended, a spiral notebook, and started writing the next chapter for one of my online stories.  I've always found that writing my scenes out longhand in cursive like a proper gentleman and then transcribing them to the implement of Satan that is a computer works the best for me.  When I transcribe, I edit as I do so, so my work improves with age as do I.

I barely noticed the obnoxiously happy and overly caffeinated, sugar buzzed little imp sit down beside me.  I couldn't be sure of the age of course.  I was never any good at such things.  Suffice it to say that this was a child, meaning under the age of thirty.  Annoying little beasts they can be at times, but God willing, they will eventually get a brain one can only hope.

From my good side, I heard that soft young voice far too close to my notebook as it spoke.  "Hey Mister, what is that?  I've never seen writing like that before," she said as a small, wrinkleless finger pointed at my work on the page.

Now I could have simply said that it was cursive, but clearly, that would not have meant any more to this uneducated and uncouth spawn than the words in my notebook did.  I responded before I could second guess myself.  "It'sssss parsssseltongue.  HISSSSSS."

I confess I was smiling as the youngster shrieked and ran away from me.  I also smiled later when the same child saw me leaving the building and poked her companions and pointed to me.  "That's him.  He's the parselmage I was telling you about."  Their faces all displayed their wonder and horror at the mere sight of me.

"You're all ssssssafe children," I said softly.  "I am only interested in spells that will return my loving husband to me.  He's been gone for some time now."  I was referring to the fact that he now lives in a nursing home due to Alzheimer's, but they clearly took a different meaning.

"You're a parselmage necromancer," my earlier visitor squeaked.  "That is so wicked," she grinned excitedly.  Her companions all bowed to me reverently and I got in my car which just happens to have a bumper sticker on the back stating that my other transportation is a Nimbus 2000.  I could see pointing and grinning and squealing young people in the rearview mirror as I drove away feeling much better about my day.