https://www.box.com/s/3tpyb2m8zx76jl6l7j04
What say you, LCN?
ALSO PPA WROTE UP A WONDERFUL SUMMARY BELOW IF YOU DON'T WANT TO LISTEN TO 11 MINUTES OR WHATEVER IT WAS
Rhia is a huge snake, and eyes of ancient wickedness (as opposed to contemporary wickedness, which really declined after post-modernist wickedness took hold). Leaf and his friends enter her house, and Leaf blows soap bubbles. Rhia thus tries to turn the scene into a strip show, but magic gemstones keep Leaf's pants on.
Rhia was raised on rats, which were initially few in number. However, evil schemers bred the rats, and flooded the city with them to spread hunger and disease, so that they—calling themselves “Ratcatchers” could emerge as saviours and gain sway over the people's hearts and minds. The citizens fled the city, and Rhia rose from the depths to claim it for herself. Its former residents founded a new city elsewhere, and called it “Norats”, to honour the fact that there were no rats there.
Though it first appears as if Rhia falls for a blatantly obvious diversion attempt—how easy she is flattered by compliments!—she tries to eat a leaf, but because snakes are carnivores, she dies. DUN DUUUUUN DUUUN DUUUUN DUUUUUUN
Also:
"The boy, Charles, was part of a family of seven -- four children, two parents, a grandmother they called Pippy. He was not the oldest and not the youngest but was eleven when he noticed something: everywhere in the house were pictures of all of the members of the family, together and alone, but nowhere was there a picture of Charles. He said nothing about it, because he made himself believe that it was not true, that somewhere -- some upstairs bathroom or basement hallway -- he would be proven wrong, he would find a picture of himself. Did he ever investigate this closely? Never, of course.
When he was fourteen, he spent a good deal of time at the house of a friend named Alex. Alex's mother, named Scarlet and looking that way, liked to take pictures of Alex's friends; she had a wall where she displayed them all. But as the months went by, and Charles's time at Alex's house implied that he should be on the wall too, nothing of the kind happened. Scarlet smiled at him, spoke to him kindly, but never asked him to sit on the fence in the front yard, where all the other boys posed. Again Charles said nothing, because he figured it was an oversight only, one that, if pointed out, would make him seem gauche or needy or strange.
Many years later, now in his twenties, Charles dated a woman, Reah, who kept pictures on her shelves. Small gold and seashelled frames held photos of her friends and sisters and even her ex-boyfriends -- who were now her good friends and (how nice!) called often. But after nine months together, there were no pictures of Charles on the shelves. Reah had never even taken his photo, or asked a stranger to take their picture together. Again, Charles said nothing. But with each successive slight, from childhood till the prseent, with each odd instance of his seemingly lifelong invisibility, he wondered: Was he ugly? He wasn't, he knew this, but nor was he handsome. Aha! He did have an unshapely nose, and an incongruous chin, and some scars from acne that potholed his cheeks. But was that it? Did the people he knew simply prefer the more photogenic of their friends and family? He knew this was too simple, too crude, too enraging and wretched to be doubted for a moment."
CHARLES IS A VAMPIRE
ALTHOUGH BEING IN HIS TWENTIES HE'LL HAVE HAD TO TAKE A PHOTO FOR HIS PASSPORT AND ID CARD
ARE YOU THE ONE WHO PUT AN EXCLAMATION POINT ON THE VOTE BUTTON? WHEN DID YOU DECIDE THIS WAS THE RIGHT MESSAGE?