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Cobweb Bride

Page 3

by Vera Nazarian


  Ah, Earthlings. My dear, oh-so-boring Earthlings. You are mundane, ordinary, grounded on a rock in every sense of the word, aspiring to heights measured in inches rather than feet (convert to appropriate metric, if applicable, dear rest of the world).

  Your greatest excitement is evoked by hybrid car mileage. And your idea of a supernatural lover is someone who knows Kung Fu, understands Algebra, or is vegetarian (that’s so fairy, you think).

  The distant lure of beautiful immortality and blood-sucking good looks touches you with the force of a distant gentle breeze. In other words, you sort of enjoy all that paranormal stuff, and you even watch that spook channel on a regular basis.

  But when it comes down to it, it’s never the hot vampire or smoldering werewolf that catches your attention, but the kickass female or the hunky human detective male that interacts with them.

  You are incorrigible in your delight with the young and the pretty (or at least androgynous) heroes and heroines, whose achievements could place them in the Olympics. But that’s as far as you are willing to go to stretch your inner wings and your love muscle (the inner metaphorical kind—eeow, what did you think I was saying? Jeez, BLEEP!).

  What does it mean to be an Earthling?

  It means you are at least aware of other (non-Earthling) possibilities, but are obsessed with human action—movies and TV, and are likely into spectator sports, medieval reenactments, boy bands (or one-girl-surrounded-by-boys bands), and have a calendar on your wall with someone’s bodacious picture (or as your screensaver or background pic).

  Ideal Mate for an Earthling

  At your supernatural best, you will do very well with other Earthlings.

  However, in recent years you have revealed a somewhat inexplicable love for zombies and hence Jupiterians. It’s definitely not something to be proud of, or encouraged, since animated rotting corpses are about as sexy as, well, rotting corpses. Naturally you say you don’t want to date them, only blow their brains out, from the comfortable distance of your gaming console. But really, we all know that’s just your kind of action foreplay. So go ahead, blow off a little steam (and gray matter, theirs and your own). And then, please, try another less repulsive supernatural obsession.

  Another hopeless attraction for you is a demon lover asshole also known as a Uranusian. You tend to mistake demons for people who know Kung Fu (or for people who think they know Kung Fu), so before you get yourself in too deep, or sign any contract in blood and brimstone (disguised as a sub-prime mortgage refinance loan), just cool it, okay? Go out on a date or two, and see the asshole for what they really are—a person circling their own inner drain.

  As a good match instead, you are recommended a Mercurian or Moon-Lunarian, because they are light as air, wise and cool, and can teach you to cast away mortal dullness, TV remote controls, earthly gravity, and then to lift off and fly. And Quantum Planetoids are recommended for a similar reason, because ghosts and angel wings can lift you up and widen your mind beyond the cable channel lineup.

  Don’t be afraid to try something even more supernatural than you think you like!

  Jupiter—Self Love or Your Zombie Lover

  Oh dear. Here we go. At last, it’s all about YOU. Yes, you with capital letters and bloated head.

  Is there anything more oversized than Jupiter, belching primordial fart gases, hosting a permanent storm “spot” the size of a galactic elephant on one humongous hemisphere, being entirely inhospitable not only to life but to, well, having an actual surface to walk on, and having less overall density then a desert sand storm, not to mention being foul-rotting and undead?

  The answer is, you.

  That’s right, you zombie slow-moving, self-loving Jupiterian, your excesses, demands, and liquefied dripping brains know no bounds. Your notion of romance is a mirror and a box of erotic products in discreet brown packaging. And brains. Anyone’s brains.

  How did zombies get so popular with the rest of us? They are filthy rotting meat sacks. They are animated corpses with exposed bones, decaying limbs and slime. They move with jerks, using malfunctioning body parts. And if they bite you, you are screwed, because they virally transmit their zombie condition to you until you yourself collapse, die, then “wake up” and rot. Good thing they are usually slower than a granny at the supermarket. Gives you (ahem, other people, since the “you” being discussed here is the Jupiterian zombie) plenty of time to escape.

  Zombies also mill around like moo-cows. And if they go anywhere, they usually travel in mobs of infected individuals. Let’s call ’em z-mobs. You know how that works—a pride of lions, a murder of crows, a z-mob of zombies. Normally, supernatural lovers tend to be loners, and no other supernatural entity is into flash mobs to that extent. Especially not such lame flash mobs—totally without synchronized choreography or dance moves, and with only humming grunts and moans in place of a perky techno music track. A z-mob will surround and overpower you by their sheer numbers, crush and then tear you apart from limb to limb. And a single zombie will feed on you exactly the same way, only take way longer.

  So what does it mean to be a Jupiterian?

  Well, for starters, you have a very messed up self-image. And—in a perfect example of what psychologists refer to as transference—you are obsessed with relocating all your non-admitted faults from yourself to an outside object, which takes on the form of a filthy rotting zombie. It’s kind of like that proverbial hidden portrait in the attic that grows hideous, old, and ugly from evil deeds, while the subject remains young and beautiful. Except, instead of a portrait, you transfer your interior crap onto zombies. That way you can hate those very things about yourself from a safe distance, and even use them for target practice. Blast those zombies, baby! And all the while, continue to tell yourself you are “hot stuff.”

  Ideal Mate for a Jupiterian

  It’s easy to just say that an ideal mate for someone with this bloated condition is yourself. However, that’s just idiotic. Put two Jupiterians together and they will never ever never ever NEVER mate. They will just sit in different corners and pretend the other bloated giant is not present, while they blast away at rubbish from their gaming consoles.

  A fairy (fae) Mercurian or Moon-Lunarian is not a good match, because fae are just too prissy to deal with ugly zombie messes, and they will not suffer a fool with liquefied brains.

  Neither is an angelic or ghostly Quantum Planetoid a particularly good choice—though not for lack of trying. Oh, those infinitely patient, sweet angel creatures will flit and blow about and try to make a difference in your futile existence, but there is just no saving a zombie. Seriously, just too much rot.

  Neptunian or Saturnian mummies are equally useless, and at best will be simply ignored by the potential zombie lover, or at worst taken for furniture.

  Werewolves and hence Martians are not recommended, since they will only make matters worse for the meaty bag that is our zombie, by mistaking them for freshly killed meat and trying to eat them. Not too bright, and—Ugh!

  In the opposite direction, Earthlings are also horrible matches, because a zombie will immediately smell fresh living brains and want to eat them in turn. Run, Earthling, just run! (And don’t mock their determined-but-lurching slow approach by whooping, sticking your tongue out while making googly cross-eyes, and chicken-flapping your arms at them. Because, naturally you will trip, get pinned by fallen furniture, and things will then take a grim and rapid downturn . . .)

  So, what’s the supernatural soul mate solution for these nearly helpless cases?

  Prepare to be amazed.

  The one and only time that we can recommend a Venusian to anyone, is in this case. Yes, believe it or not, a hoity toity image-conscious, trendy vampire is an excellent role model for a rotting slob zombie lover. An elegant vampire will quickly relate to their deeply hidden internal angst—after all, both are undead corpses, liable to rot (ahem, we shall not speak of that). A vampire knows exactly what that’s like. But a vampire will not tol
erate that kind of unaesthetic ickiness for even a moment, and all gooey rot will be immediately disguised, modified, cosmetically hidden via metaphysical liposuction. Therefore, the zombie will find itself suddenly feeling much prettier, in control of its eternally decaying and collapsing body, and able to somehow get their sh**—BLEEP! together already.

  Before you know it, a zombie will stop milling in place, pull in its gut (literally, intestines will have to be stuffed back into the abdominal cavity), put on dramatic makeup, and slightly deflate, both in ego and pressurized gases. This is what happens when you find the perfect supernatural soul mate!

  Neptune and Saturn—Your Mummified Object of Fixation or Stalker Mummy Lover

  Being a mummy is such a distinguished undead tradition, filled with colorful history, pointy pyramids, golden treasure, mysterious tombs, dashing archeologists, dramatic curses, and tragic star-crossed lovers.

  No other monster is so versatile as the long-suffering and under-appreciated noble mummy. Who else can be tragic, terrifying, romantic, and funny, all at the same time?

  Consider this—a mummy is often a noble ancient pharaoh or queen who dies tragically, usually involving their lovely bride or handsome groom in some kind of suicide pact or outright murder (think, jealousy, or treachery), and gets magically cursed, and then gets to be mummified (eeow, don’t even ask—natron salts and organ removal and oily rags are involved, and you are basically pickled), wrapped in what looks like toilet paper, is placed in a golden box, and then it dries out for many thousands of years, as it lies there, waiting, waiting, waiting. . . . The poor mummy is waiting to re-start its life again, and to find its long-lost love, and to maybe take revenge against the bad people who ruined its life. Instead, the mummy gets to be chased by ensemble comedy teams in summer blockbuster movie franchises, or stuck in Jane Austen parody mash-up novels. And it never gets the girl (or boy).

  Talk about complex and conflicted! Sad and funny! Ridiculous and sublime!

  Saturn is the grim, big, dark, gloomy pessimistic taskmaster planet of no weekends and icy undefined atmosphere. And that’s just at the office. It has even bigger rings than Uranus, but remains utterly humorless. Neptune is very similar, and much farther out there, a verifiable space cadet, with not too much known about it material makeup. Both are large, gaseous, low-density, stoic, and eternally inhospitable venomous iceboxes.

  So what does it mean to be a Neptunian or Saturnian?

  As a loyal and mummified undead dreamer, you are obsessed with immortal true love, and will wait for as long as it takes. Unfortunately it may literally take forever.

  Poor, stoic Neptune girl and Saturn boy, sometimes it seems you must have been born on a Wednesday. No matter how much you watch and wait and follow and, ahem, stalk your subject of affection in a distant long-orbit holding pattern, nothing seems to be working.

  Ideal Mate for a Neptunian or Saturnian

  Because the mummy-inspired persons are so loyal and willing to wait, and to work so darn hard to attain their perfect supernatural soul mate, their choices are both very narrow and also rather unlimited. Tada! A paradox.

  Neptunians or Saturnians either wait for the right one, or settle for the first one. And that “first one” is usually the first supernatural potential lover in your circle of acquaintances who actually stops long enough to pay attention to you, recognizing for once that you are a mummy and not a piece of antique furniture. What choice do you make? Do you take their hand, or do you retreat into that comfy and safe sarcophagus?

  How very perverse indeed.

  But let’s be optimistic. Supposing that a mummy does not have to settle, what else is there (besides a restraining order)?

  A Martian werewolf is likely to rip into your rag-and-toilet-paper getup and gnaw your crunchy old bones. So, not recommended.

  A demonic obnoxious Uranusian is going to really hold you back (and down) in your personal eternity, and keep you in the nether regions of the afterlife, at the gates of hell, Canoga Park, or Pacoima. Stay away from the assholes!

  An Earthling—usually that very same long-lost lover of your grave dreams—will simply break your heart. Trust me on this, you will never get them to “enter eternity with you,” no matter how well you sell it, or how romantic you are as you beg and plead. Besides, they usually have another living flesh-and-blood Earthling lover already lined up, so you are just an odd third. Yes, it’s sad, but it is also practical. So, just don’t even bother. Have a good cry, in the metaphorical sense (sans tears: you have no water on you, nor eyeballs, nor tear ducts, remember . . . and for that matter, you may not even have a properly attached head), and then just move on.

  Most other supernaturals we will not even bother to mention to you—they are the ones who see you as furniture. You are not a loveseat, so, moving right along . . .

  Your real and best love match is with a gentle Quantum Planetoid, the angel sucker for lost causes, the fellow ghost haunted by their past lives. Together you can haunt ancient places, and remember, and wait for something fair and just, and contemplate the true nature of immortal love. This is kind of very beautiful, and I am getting teary-eyed, because you two will at last be in a better place, voluntarily, and two shall become one.

  Uranus—Your Asshole Demon Lover

  Here is another inexplicable modern cultural dreamboat—a sexy red-hot bad boy (or girl) demon. After vampires and werewolves, demons are probably the hottest evil supernatural hunk out there (since, if you may recall, the yummy hunky fairy folk Mercurians or Moon-Lunarians are intentionally lying low, or have gone completely under the radar).

  Why do we love the bad alpha-boys and the bad alpha-girls so much? Is it the illusion of confidence and power that they exude? Is it the careless “cool” attitude? (Because, you know, caring is so uncool.) Is it rebellion against the status quo (regardless of the actual nature of the status quo)? Aggression pretending to be pure strength? Bravado masquerading as courage—or at least the willingness to dare, to try all kinds of outrageous and extreme things? Pride and attitude? Pride and Prejudice? A Tale of Two Cities? Ahem! The ability to sexually dominate us in bed, and add a little (just enough) safe and consensual pain to heighten our pleasure?

  Maybe it’s more a reflection on us as a society that we are so stuck in a store-brand ritual rut, so boring and timid and developmentally lazy, that we dream of conflict and trouble, and therefore “look up” to powerful troublemakers? Because seriously, a demon is a terrifying fiend, either disembodied or in the flesh, with or without horns and a tail, and it is pure unadulterated evil. How in BLEEPING! BLEEP! is that sexy?

  Well, let’s explore this conundrum. There are in fact quite a few very good reasons for the attraction.

  Demons and hence Uranusians are hot (literally and figuratively) not only because they hail from Tartarus, or Hades, or random San Fernando Valley hellholes, but because they seem to have the supernatural ability to come across as the ultimate expert lovers.

  And okay, because, there’s the tantalizing possibility of redemption involved. Oh, how tempting it is, that redemption thing!

  According to common lore, demons are nothing more than angels gone bad. In other words, fallen angels. And as such, they didn’t always used to be evil.

  Demons come in two flavors—

  A.The redeemable but currently thoroughly evil asshole demon who is resisting all efforts at salvation, and:

  B.The already redeemed former asshole demon who is now on the path to purgatory, but slowly—since he or she is, well, still a demon and not a stampeding hippopotamus.

  C.There is no C. There are no permanent “un-redeemable” demons, because what would be the fun in that? The secret attraction of evil is that it can be fixed.

  Both A and B flavor demons are equally sexy, hot, attractive, desirable, and super-powerful to the average mortal—and to so many supernaturals of other persuasions. Pick A or B, depending on your level of challenge, and have a go at it! Sweet redemption!
/>   The planet Uranus is well known for its amazing concentric rings, basically “fields” of orbiting rock garbage and bits of asteroids and other random space stuff that got sucked into Uranus’s gravitational field or got expelled outward in some primordial hiccup during its formational period. Sounds familiar? Yup, it’s just like your sphincter, after a taco and burrito combo platter “processing” hellfire funfest.

  What does it mean to be a demonic Uranusian?

  It means that you are obsessed with posturing, and looking up your own asshole, and yes, you are obsessed with lashing out at others in the true manner of a jerk. Because you are generally so mean and awful, you are in fact truly dangerous to others. Because you are also attractive and handsome and gorgeous and strong—if you want to be— you are even more dangerous. You can make people and supernatural soul mates commit all kinds of horrors, stupidities, and regrettable acts, as you drag them down to hell.

  Ideal Mate for a Uranusian

  An ideal mate for you is probably another asshole demon. Or, at least, that’s what many would like to say to you, after being screwed over by you so thoroughly.

  However, let’s be honest, even at your sneakiest “best,” you are not the best fit for some people.

  For example, a Jupiterian zombie is thoroughly unsatisfying as a romantic partner. At best you can enter their poor rotting flesh and possess them, forcing them to do the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy (or fae!) in a mauve tutu while lurching about on the street. But the amusement factor will quickly exhaust itself, as you quickly realize that there is nothing funny or fun about inhabiting a broken bloated corpse. Blech! They would never even know you’re in there, as they sit around and chow down on some poor victim’s brains. How uber-lame!

  Vampire Venusians can be exciting for a while, since the two of you are so much alike. But eventually they will not tolerate you either possessing them or trying to date them, so there will be blood. Neither yours nor theirs, naturally, but someone’s blood. And then the two of you drama queens will walk in opposite directions, your black leather outerwear flapping in the wind.

 

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