“Are you SURE this doesn’t make my boobs look big?”
“I’m sure,” Llama rolled her eyes and reassured her best friend and idol for the fourth time.
For a pseudo superhero, Alaska Girl sure had a bad case of low self-esteem. Others looked at her and saw a confident, donkey kicking badass. What they didn’t see was a woman who thought her ass looked big in her jeans, she had no noticeable beauty to mention, and that she’d never amount to more than a three lined obituary in the local paper that only listed her birth, her death, and that she still owed the funeral home for bribing mourners to shed crocodile tears for her.
“I still don’t understand why we have to do this,” Alaska Girl whined to Llama.
“Because the world loves a hero,” Llama tried to reassure her.
“How does saving a moose calf from a rabid tourist constitute being a hero?”
“And that is why we love you.”
Alaska Girl gave up. She knew she wasn’t going to get the answers she was looking for from her friend. Those could only come from deep down inside of her. The deep, dark, murky place she wasn’t ready to delve into yet.
As Llama pulled Alaska Girl’s black leather corset tighter, her mind began to wander back to that fateful evening when she had been out walking the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail and a chain of events would change her life forever. It had been a beautiful summer so far, warmer than the usual July in Alaska. Because of that, many ghostly white Alaskans were abandoning their cabins for a chance to explore the ‘outside,’ working on thawing out from a long winter, and generally enjoying not being cooped up.
As Alaska Girl, formerly known as “she who used to have a normal identity but wished to remain anonymous after being thrust into the lime light,” was nearing a boggy marsh, she had heard the excited voices of what would turn out to be a small group of tourists from Newfield, New Jersey gawking from a stand of alder and spruce trees.
They were excitedly pointing, gesturing and taking pictures like hyperactive Chihuahuas on speed.
“Marsha, what do you think that thing is?” asked the plump, middle aged man wearing a Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts. Obviously, he was one of the mental giants that thought, just because the maps showed Alaska next to Hawaii, it too, was a tropical paradise. Paradise, maybe. Tropical? Not for the past million years, give or take a century.
“It has to be a baby cow. It’s brown and goofy looking,” Marsha explained.
The third person in the group, Marsha’s best friend, and the tropical reject’s secret lover, shook her head and said, “No, I don’t think they have cows in Alaska.”
Alaska Girl’s head began to pound; the quickest way to a migraine was listening to tourists try to figure out things they had never seen before. She reached the group after a few more steps and stopped behind them, watching with her hands on her hips. They ignored her, too intent on the flailing creature stuck in the swamp mire. It was a moose calf, born this past spring judging by the size of the poor thing.
She looked around for the momma moose, more commonly known as a cow moose. Apparently, the obnoxious tourists had driven her off. The calf’s cries were quickly dying down as its struggling became less and less; it was too tired to fight the muck that was imprisoning it. If someone didn’t step in soon, it would drown in the swamp water.
The tourists weren’t going to be any help. Without thinking, Alaska girl sighed and pushed thru the little crowd, heading for the calf. The startled tourists gasped and started recording with their cellphones. There weren’t gonna believe this back in Newfield!
The water was just as cold as Alaska Girl imagined it was going to be as goose bumps broke out from head to toes. “Well, this was a good idea,” she shuttered. A few yards in front of her, the calf watched her with wide, frightened eyes.
“It’s ok, little guy. I’m not gonna eat ya. Let’s get you outta this mess and back to your momma,” Alaska Girl reassured the terrified moose. The calf noticeably calmed a bit and began to relax as Alaska Girl quickly covered the distance between them. She felt the mud rapidly enclose on her legs; she knew she’d have to work fast or become marred in the sludge like the calf. She reached her right arm under the shivering moose and drew it close to her chest, hoping she wouldn’t be met with a fight. The calf leaned into her. Alaska Girl wrapped her left arm around the moose and pulled. The calf didn’t budge. She pulled again, harder, and felt the mud give way ever so slightly. Taking a deep breath, Alaska Girl pulled with all her might and the moose was instantly freed. Maybe she pulled too hard as they fell backwards, Alaska Girl landing on her ass in the mud with the soiled and smelling calf laying on top of her.
“Oh, that’s just lovely,” she thought as the mud wormed its way into the top of her jeans and down her ass crack, giving a whole new meaning to the term ‘swamp ass.’
The calf began to bray, calling for its mother, prompting Alaska Girl to finish the job. She pushed the calf off of her, stood up, then picking the calf back up, she worked her way back to the shore where she was greeted with a much larger crowd than she had left. A dozen locals and tourists cheered her as she set the calf down, which immediately scampered off towards the woods where its mother shyly appeared.
Bending over with her hands on her knees, Alaska Girl caught her breath as the crowd around her clapped her on the back and congratulated her for the amazing rescue. “It was nothing,” was all she could muster.
“Hey, are you listening to me?” asked the Llama.
“I’m sorry, what were you saying?”
“Are you ready?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Alaska Girl admitted, glancing at herself in the full length mirror and not recognizing herself. She had to hand it to Llama, the woman knew how to put together the perfect costume for a cosplay convention.
The leather corset covered a white, lacy long sleeve Poet shirt with a plunging neckline. Llama had chosen a matching pair of leather pants that ended in a pair of elegant, high heeled black suede boots. Alaska Girl’s usual pony tail was replaced with a mop of red curls that reminded her of Medusas’ snakes. The black lace mask that covered her face from the top of her nose to just above her eyebrows added the finishing touch.
“OH! I almost forgot!” Llama said as she grabbed Alaska Girl by the arm. She placed a gold pin on the blouse emblazoned with a red “ALASKA GIRL.”
“OK, now we can go,” Llama smiled as she pulled Alaska Girl towards the door that would lead to the staircase down to the convention floor. Alaska Girl felt nauseous. Before she could throw up, the doors opened to an anxiously waiting crowd. They all stared at her.
“Don’t fart,” whispered Llama.
“Have I ever told you how not helpful you are?” she whispered back through clenched teeth.
“Every single day. Now go get ‘em!” Llama said as she shoved her best friend out into the spotlight.
“Presenting our newest superhero, Alaska Girl and her before unknown sidekick, Llama!” announced an unseen voice booming through the massive room. The audience clapped and ‘whooped.’
Alaska Girl felt eyes burning into her forehead. As she scanned the crowded room of aliens, geeks, superheros, and freaks, she spotted him. The shitstain kinda stood out. He looked like a pile of shitty trouble. She knew who he was instantly; Shit Streak.
“Llama,” Alaska Girl said as she poked her friend in the ribs while they walked down the seemingly endless staircase, “I think we have some trouble.”
“And so it begins,” Llama laughed.
You have to check out the story of Shit Streak here!
