watermelon Jolly Rancher that day.
The paper crinkled under his fingers. He withdrew the letter. “Dear Mr. Marky-Mark,” the letter began. “I am sorry to inform you that your manuscript, THE WEEPING HEALER, has been rejected by White Tower Publishing. We found your story of exploding Frisbees, maniacal pirates, alien slug-dogs, Mormon missionaries, and incompetent doctors entirely implausible for our audience. We wish you the best in finding the right home for your manuscript.”
Mark let the letter fall to the ground like the last leaf falling to the ground from a tree that had been planted in the ground. His heart felt broken, but not in a good way. He grimaced in defeat, which meant adjusting his prosthetic jaw into the proper expression. He would never be a published author now.
He looked up from where he stood on the beach. “Jenny,” he called. “I don’t feel so good.”
“Well,” the pirate captain called down from where he stood atop his ship. “You don’t feel so WELL!”
The captain gave a sharp nod of his head and two of his piratey crewmembers shuffled forward carrying a lumpy rug. They unrolled it and out fell Bad Brad and Park Motts.
Park looked up at the pirate captain. “What’s next, boss?”
"What's next?" the pirate captain mob boss said. "Next is what to do with this pretty lady who dared to steal our stash of Jolly Ranchers!" He pointed at Jenny with his pointy finger and cackled. His first mate threw a rubber chicken at Jenny's head.
Jenny ducked and the rubber chicken hit Mark in the face. Which was good on the one hand because it knocked him from his dazed stupor at realizing his dream of being a writer was never going to happen. But it was also not good because rubber chicken. Obviously.
"Get with the program, Mark!" Jenny yelled in her yelliest voice. "Don't just stand there. Do something!"
She was right, Mark realized. It was time to do something. Something totes dramatic. Totes unexpected. Suddenly he knew. Mark began running. Running running running. In a circle. Round and round, working his way out on each pass. So a spiral, really. A super-duper *tight* spiral.
With his super duper tight spiral Mark was able to create a sand tunnel. The sucking vortex of terror was the unjolly-est thing the pirate captain had seen on land. It pulled the sails from their riggings, knocking Jenny to the edge of the ship that was hard to hold on to but easy enough to hold on to until she could be rescued.
The vortex that Mark created pulled into it all of the pirates, with the captain still cackling, because, and all of the Jolly Roger's Jolly Roger Jolly Rancher candy, and the rigging and sails. Everything was spiraling super duper tighter and tighter and super and duper, until it reached the water level of the ship. The water was more super duper, so it consumed the vortex.
And the sea ran red with watermelon Jolly Rancher.
With the evil pirates, Bad Brad, and Park, (who had decided to switch employers and work for the pirate captain once they bested him in his own rug rolling game) safely buried under a mountain of sand from his vortex, which was no match for the water, Mark stopped running.
But the world didn't stop spinning.
All his spiral running depleted his insulin levels. He needed something to eat. Fast. But all the Jolly Ranchers were buried in the sand or dissolved in the sea. The edges of his vision started going black. He could just barely make out Jenny swan diving like a graceful swan from the now vacant , riggingless, sailless ship. She started swimming to the beach.
And then Jenny woke up to see Bad Brad standing behind Mark as Brad was yelling for joy at opening his clearing house sweepstakes letter. She blinked really really slowly and moved really really slowly to grab Mark's super duper secret top secret envelope to hide it from Brad.
"You do know that I see what you're doing right, Jenny? Cuz I'm bad remember? Bad Brad!" And he laughed wildly with a maniacal "Bwahaha haha!"
Little did anyone know that Mark held a dark secret. Mark used to work for the Rug-R-Us company as a sales rep. He was a rug rep. A rugged rug rep. Mark used his rugged rug repping prowess to try and woo Jenny's heart. Each week, he'd deliver a new rug to her house. Mark couldn't handle the financial strain and started selling rugs under the table. One rug here. One rug there. Before he knew it, he had become a rug dealer. A rugged rug dealer.
He tried to get out of rug dealing by writing. He thought he could refocus his mind if he quit the rug trade. The rejection from the publishing company was almost too hard to bear. But at least he had the sweepstake prize to look forward to. Mark didn't see Jenny reach for the top secret letter, which is a good thing. Bad Brad had a bad wrap for taunting people with their failures. That would've pushed Matt over the edge.
Ginny snatched away the top secret very important letter before Mark knew what was going down. She sniffed it like a child sniffing mail. She didn't know what to do about it or Mark, but she did know for sure that she was subconsciously falling in love with Mark.
Matt saw Jenny with the letter. His face twinged all twingy like.
Bad Brad connected the dots, like an above average 4th grader that gets her work done before anybody else so people hated her, and piped up before Jenny's love was realized. "Jenny open it! I'm bad as a Bad Brad but I'm not half as bad as bad Matt/Mark/Milton. You can't be a rug dealer without rugged good looks and a ragged past. He's been coaxing you along."
Jenny was cornfused, like 2 stalks of corn that had been glued together.
Brad came closer. "Think Jenny, was he really choking to death?"
Jenny was even more perplexed, like a duplex, or an 8-plex or a multi-plex.
Matt rushed toward her. "Don't open it. I can explain everything super duper clear and stuff."
A thick misty fog had begun to blanket the place like a wet blanket. Mark could sense that Jenny was developing feelings for him. Finally! How many rugs had it taken for her to notice him? He was always in competition with Park Motts, who had used Mark's rugs for illegal body hiding. But now, after CPR resuscitation and the near-death experience with a Jolly Rancher, Mark felt that maybe . . . just maybe, he had won the heart of Jenny Shroeder.
But now that Bad Brad was trying to sway Jenny's heart and mind like a mindless palm tree in the wind, Mark was getting concerned. He was relieved to see that Jenny was unswayable. Her heart was falling for Mark . . . and falling fast.
In fact, so fast, that it put Jenny in cardiac arrest. Mark was helpless as he watched Jenny fall to the ground. But he remembered Jenny's lifesaving maneuvers that she used on him, so he proceeded to do the same with her. "Could this day be any more ironic," Mark thought of this ironically ironic twist of fate.
As he began to perform CPR, his jaw slipped and slid, preventing anything resembling good suction. If only his prosthetic jaw would stay in place he could save her and put Bad Brad and his bad use of precious rugs in the place they belonged. But what could he do with his wretched jaw and all?? Time was ticking, like his rejection letter, and he was running out of time and running out of ideas. Also, luck. He was running low on that, as well.
As Mark was wondering how he could save Margret, the neighbor’s dog came running on the beach.
The dog licked Jenny's face and she woke up!
Suddenly, Mark remembered a dog licking his leg earlier when he'd passed out! But wait? Was the dog the Weeping Healer? He looked at the dog more closer, right in his sparkling eyes that were surrounded by a fringe of dark lashes.
"You finally figured it out Mark! I've been here all along and you just had to really really look hard like super hard at me to see! I'm the one trying to help you get better!" said the dog. He panted his moist breath all over Mark's face. Then said "Ruff" for good measure to keep his cover.
Mark jumped up and ran around like a dog chasing his tail! And looked around at Jenny and Bad Brad! "Did you hear that? The dog just talked to me! Did . . . did you hear him?" Mark knew he had diabetes but he also knew he wasn't crazy. Like Jenny's crazy . . . which he found adorable. Besides the dog was a bl
ue healer! He should have known!
The Weeping Healer, now revealed, rose slowly off the ground glowing in a nimbus of light colored like the rosy fingers of dawn, tears rolling joy, arms and paws spread in wisdom. "Yes. It is I."
Jenny gasped. Mark gasped. Park gasped. Bad Brad gasped.The pirates gasped. Sparky could talk??? Just how much more strange could this day be?
The Weeping Healer continued, " I am more than just a dog. I heal wounds with the tears that I weep from my eyes," Sparky said, as he batted his sparkling eyes that were surrounded by the fringe of dark lashes.
Whoa!" Mark said "this is such a trip! I'm definitely freaking out!" What more could possibly happen today?
Jenny was at peace, despite feeling uneasy about using dog tears to heal wounds. I mean, this a dog we're talking about, she thought. Who knows where those tears have been?
Sparky spoke to the spurious spokesman sporting the sparkly spandex. "Bad Brad, you are now healed of your ego and your nefarious rug wrangling. You are now Glad Brad."
Bad Brad ran from the pooch but Sparky leaned in hard with projectile tears and shot him a gusher. Glad Brad rose, turned ever so slowly, and revealed his perma-grin. The Weeping Healer began to weep. Then he looked at Mark and whispered something in his ear. Then, just as quickly as the dog appeared, it disappeared, appearing as if it's appearance, and then disappearance,