Read The Humdrum Lives of Cryptids, Monsters, and Villains Page 17

however that he had not been paying attention during the part about the orange grove, but he did not tell her this. He had not even realized that there had been an orange grove involved at all.

  "Yes. When the dean and the centaur are juicing the oranges together, symbolizing the relationship between the worker cryptids and the elite bourgeoisie cryptids in eighteenth century Central Europe..."

  "Oh... Right, right, right," Bigfoot said repeatedly nodding his head. "No, I think it was spot on. Really intriguing, interesting stuff." Bigfoot was sure that it was intriguing and interesting, but having it read at him nonstop in the middle of a scone-scent laden café was not the right setting for it. The centaur seemed pleased with his response nonetheless.

  "Thank you," she said as she smiled warmly and rose from her seat, returning to her own table.

  Bigfoot, confounded by the interaction he just had, decided to keep his laptop closed and just enjoy his scone. It had cooled enough that steam was no longer rising from it, but was still warm to the touch. The outer crust was crispy, but as he picked it up, he could feel the firm but flexible inner dough compressing as he grasped it in his muscular ape-like hands. He took a bite and allowed his eyes to roll back into his head in ecstasy. It was the best scone he had ever eaten, and that was really saying something.

  He opened his laptop and quickly typed 'Scones and Screenplays: A Trip to the Cryptid Café' in the heading of his blog. He typed furiously, describing everything from the outside of the building, the nature channel on the television, the werewolf behind the counter, the crowd of café patrons and their various agendas, and most importantly - the scones. He would never forget those scones, and he hoped that he conveyed them in such a way that his future readers never would as well.

  He read and reread what he had written multiple times, and with a feeling of immense satisfaction, he posted his first blog. He looked around him, expecting applause and to be lifted above the shoulders of the rest of the cryptid customers, but of course, they had no idea that he had just posted his first blog.

  Bigfoot, having finished what he entered the café to accomplish, closed his laptop and prepared to leave. As he strode across the gleaming tile floor, the sound of coffee grinders and keystrokes, and whispered conversations mingling together and echoing off of the tall windows, he was struck with an idea. It would almost be criminal for his fiancé not to try one of the Cryptid Café scones. He stopped by the counter, slid another two Crypto Units to the werewolf and waited for them to package a scone to go.

  He trod merrily through the forest, restraining himself from skipping down the trail leading away from the Cryptid Café. The return trip to the Crypto Condo Residential Caves felt much shorter than the first journey. Bigfoot held his hands over his ears as he walked through the door. The banshee receptionist was in the middle of one of her howling fits. Although her eyes were rolling wildly in her eye sockets, she caught a glimpse of him and managed to wave momentarily. He did not take his hands from his ears, only nodded briefly at her before sprinting through the doorway that lead to the hall in which his condo was located.

  It appeared that his fiancé had not moved since he had left the condo. The pages of her book seemed to be the only difference from the scene he had vacated hours previous. She looked up as he entered and asked, "How'd your walk go?"

  "I did it! I blogged. I'm a blogger now," Bigfoot said triumphantly, hoping for more of a reaction than he got.

  "That's great babe," she said, returning to her book. Then she took a great sniff at the air and placed the book face down in her lap. "What is that smell? It is divine..."

  "That, my love, is a scone from the Cryptid Café. I brought it for you. I wrote all about it in my blog," he said as he pressed the scone into her eager hands.

  She could hardly even speak as she ate the scone. Bigfoot, giving his fiancé a knowing wink at the sensations she was now experiencing, sat down opposite of her and opened his computer. His new blog had gotten one view during his walk home. He had done it. He had really done it.  Bigfoot was a real blogger.

  A Day in the Afterlife of Bigfoot’s Ghost: Renewing A Library Card

  The full moon was high in the cloudless sky, but its beams passed directly through the wispy, eerily translucent body of Bigfoot's ghost. A breeze blew the tall grass in which Bigfoot's ghost stood, ruffling it like ripples on a pond, but the shaggy iridescent fur of the tall, ape-like ghost of a sasquatch remained motionless as the wind passed through it.  

  Being the ghost of a cryptid was tough. As formerly living cryptids, the ghosts were familiar with spending their whole lives avoiding the gaze of humans. That continued in their afterlife, but as ghosts of cryptids they had to avoid being seen by living cryptids as well.

  Those who are mourning the fact that Bigfoot is deceased and is now a ghost should be aware of this simple fact within the cryptid community: Bigfoot is a ceremonial title. There have been many Bigfoots in the past and there will be many more Bigfoots in the future as long as there are sasquatches to roam the earth. Another Bigfoot lives, and is currently working on a blog entry at his home in the Crypto-Condo Residential Caves just a few miles through the hills from where this particular ghost Bigfoot found himself creeping behind a tree trunk, peering through a vacant parking lot at a public library.

  The ghost of Bigfoot brushed away his ethereal fur and glared at his translucent wristwatch. It read 1:57 A.M. He had at least three minutes to pass until he could approach the library. That was the best case scenario. If the elderly centaur librarian that ran the library while it was open to living cryptids was working with her usual enthusiasm, it could be as long as twenty minutes before the library would be open to the non-living mythical creatures.

  The ghost of Bigfoot loved the library, but the aforementioned problem was one thing that he did not appreciate about the institution. This one public library building had to service the human population in the area, the living cryptids, the non-living cryptids, and the non-living humans. He was aware that he could have just downloaded an ebook version of the book he was seeking, but he did not have much to do that evening and wanted the full library experience. 

  The humans had access to the library during what one may call the "peak hours" of operation. They had full run of the library from early in the morning until fairly late in the evening, usually around eight or nine P. M. Once the human librarian locked the library's doors and was safely out of sight, the elderly centaur librarian opened it up to the living cryptids in the area. The cryptids could come and go as they pleased for about six hours, then the centaur would raise her spectacles from the chain around her humanoid neck, lock the doors of the library, and trot away into the woods until the next night.

  After this sequence of events, the ghoul of a sea serpent would slither from the depths of the most ghostly portions of the sea and sit behind the library's main desk until the sun rose so that the ghosts of the area cryptids could rent books, movies, and periodicals for a low fee. The sea serpent would then lock the door and exit the library, leaving it vacant for the ghosts of formerly living humans to use until it opened to the living humans once again.

  Some cryptids, ghosts of cryptids, ghosts of humans, and even some living humans found this system to be inadequate, but there were few alternatives. The local cryptid government did not have the funds or interest to open a library solely for them, and the ghost cryptid local government had even less funds or interest. So, for the time being and the foreseeable future, this balancing act of library operation times was just the way it had to be for everyone to get the media they desired. The cryptid books were mixed in with the human books and no one ever seemed to notice.

  Bigfoot's ghost watched the front door of the library anxiously, waiting for the centaur to appear. He had been waiting all day for the library to open. The entire day had found him pacing restlessly through the darkest recesses of the forest, trying in vain to piece together a long-forgotten scene from one of his favorite literar
y works.

  As a ghost, he no longer slept. At least he no longer slept in the sense that humans or creatures or living cryptids sleep. However, the previous night he had found himself in a ghostly state of rest, his mind wandering idly, when a line of dialogue entered his spectral mind. It was a line that he had not thought of in ages and ages, perhaps not even since he had been a ghost. It was from 'Some Ado About Literally Everything', a book adapted from a play by the most famous dragon playwright of all time: William Snakespeare.

  'Some Ado About Literally Everything' was one of Snakespeare's least appreciated works while he was living, but had garnered something of a cult following in the wake of his death. It was rumored that Snakespeare lived on as a ghost dragon somewhere in Great Britain, but that's beside the point. The play, and the subsequent novelization of it, was about an evil sasquatch scientist that was trying to bring about the end of time, but finds love in a most unexpected turn of events and has to reverse the destruction of the universe before his wedding day.

  Bigfoot's ghost remembered that part of the play well. What he was struggling to recall was an exchange between the main character, the evil sasquatch scientist named