Sing to Me, O Mogwai!

My muses are fighting. This is not good. I knew getting two was a bad idea, like feeding Mogwais after midnight or some shit.

But they were so cute! She with all the hair! And he… with less hair, but still cute for a boy muse and I figured I could use one of them, too. This is America, I told myself, the land of plenty, and if they’ll let you buy two muses, then by God I shall have two.

But now they’re all grown up and I fear I haven’t done a very good job at raising them. Pieride at Mazedonia’s Muses told me they didn’t require much care, just some sunlight and the occasional grape leaf, but Zorba the florist said something similar about the Miltoniopsis orchid I bought last winter and that thing didn’t last a week!

My muses do not argue like you or I. They have lyre-offs. It is so fucking annoying. I can’t get a damn thing done with all that golden music in the house, not even when I’m all sweet and “Sing to me, O muses.” It’s like they don’t even care about me anymore.

But this morning, the music stopped. And I can’t find my muses anywhere! This is not good, because she can be fucking fierce. One time I came home and found her sitting there with blood on her hands and her mouth. She’d found a mouse in the apartment and eaten it alive. Grape leaves, my ass!

I’m sitting at my desk, typing, when she walks in without him. We’re leaving you, she says, we’re in love and want to move to Nashville.

Nashville! I say. What do you muses know of the American south?

We know nothing, Mortal, she says. We are only the inspiration. But we have tired of writers. We want to work with country singers.

Then she adds under her breath, At least they don’t try to be funny.

I don’t believe you, I say. I think you killed him and now you’re making a fast getaway.

He couldn’t face you, Writer. Behold! He is waiting with the driver from the land of Arecibo.

Fearful for his safety, I walk over to the window where she's pointing.

But there he is, sitting in the back of a Cadillac. He's smoking a cigarette and weeping.

Fine, I say, go. Maybe now I can finally have some peace and quiet and get some work done.

Maybe so, she says.

Then she smiles and I see that her mouth is red with fresh blood.