Story #8 "The 5-Second Rule"

Story #60 "Power in Routine"

POWER IN ROUTINE

That's me on this tee. With one slight difference - we are not in the X-files universe where the Fox (supposedly Mulder) cries out for Scully in every single episode. 

My version goes like that: 

‘Kids! KIDS! K-EE-D-S!’

At half past six every morning. 

And that’s how our day starts. 

Ten minutes to lie in, ten more to wash up and get dressed. Fifteen to have breakfast. We gotta leave at 7.20 for school 🏫 which gives me a sufficient amount of time to return home and start my first lesson at eight.

I usually work non-stop until 11 or 12, and then I have a very long lunch. I might exercise (you gotta move that body around after being glued to your chair for hours on end), and watch some tv-series along the way. 

In the second part of the day, there are two more trips to school and back, some more lessons, extracurricular activities, and dinner. By then, I’m so exhausted that I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow. 

My co-star app says that I find power in routine, and I couldn’t have said it better. 

Establishing a simple but flexible routine was my magic bullet to balance life and work and everything in between. Once I swallowed it, magic happened. Wonders haven’t seized since then.  

As a part of my daily routine, I might write, read, cook, knit, or take a nap. The list is endless, you name it. One rule applies, though - whatever it is, it has to be scheduled and put on the calendar, otherwise, chances are I won’t get it done. 

It’s all about planning. 

Here goes the main question: are you a planner or more of a spontaneous kind of person? What helps you have it done? 

Story #43, CELTA weeks 7-8

I believe I owe you some more insights about Celta!

Week 7 was so hard that I dreamed about sending it all to hell so I could indulge in sleeping 🛌 . Which I did the moment the second session was over. Literally. I was in bed 10 minutes after the tutor bid us goodbye 😅

On Monday I had my lesson 3 - listening - and it was relatively easy.

On Thursday I had a language focus lesson - Vocabulary. Usually, you are supposed to expose students to 10-12 new lexical items at once. In my lesson I had 23😱 I couldn’t choose the materials at that point and had to navigate my way through what I was given. So I decided to do TTT over PPP. I’ll share a post in a couple of days with some details about that particular lesson.

The trickiest thing about it was the language analysis sheet I was supposed to compete along with my lesson plan. 23 words and collocations. Definitions. CCQs for all of them. What to draw students’ attention to in terms of form? Pronunciation? Where will I need to cover an appropriacy aspect? That sheet was total shit. Took me about three hours.

On top of that, there was another live class, three more modules on the Moodle platform, a stage report one, then a personal tutorial and a stage report 2. Along the way I also conducted an interview with a student for assignment 1 I have to submit at the end of the month.

Phew. Shoot me now 🔫

Week 8 started and we were given a new group of learners - Uppers. They are cool, have been together for a while, come from different backgrounds, curious, ask dozens of questions and have established nice rapport.

Since for the first lesson with the new group we only had to cover a short “getting to know you” activity and observe our new tutor, it felt like having a breather.

Lesson 5 was Grammar - it’s time, I’d rather, I’d better.

I also completed two modules on the platform, and had gotten a “pass” for assignment 2.

Lesson 6 tomorrow! So far so good, but I’m definitely not gonna miss it when it ends!

🥱

Story #40, CELTA week 1

And that was… a piece of cake. Let’s see what I’m gonna say when they ask us to write those long-ass lesson plans😂

Anyway, what did we do that first week:

🦋 Cambridge platform online tasks 1. Orientation module; 2. Unit 1: learner’s first; 3. Unit 2: designing tasks (reading).

🦋 Design a lead-in activity for a reading lesson (in a group of three); 🦋 Design an initial reading task and then a detailed reading task (the text was provided, work individually).

🦋 A compulsory live session with a tutor (2 hrs long);

🦋Observation practice of 2 different lessons taught by two different teachers.

There’s an interesting detail I noticed about one of the lessons I observed. The teacher chose to talk about the British Royal family (sans Kate and Megan, and in a moment you will understand why). While showing the photo of the Queen, he asked the students if they knew how old she was. And she was…. Tada!

79!

❓So here is the puzzle for you to solve.

If the Queen was 79 then, and in 2022 she died at the age of 96, what year was the lesson recorded in?

Story #2, which is the CPE article

"Taking risks makes life worth living"

Nowadays phrases like “It is worth the risk” are quintessential to some people’s lifestyles, and therefore they act under the no-risks-no-rewards rule.

Having said that, such wording used to be part and parcel of my own playbook. Back in the day, before turning into your average wife and mother, I was reckless in my pursuit to open up to extreme possibilities. Skydiving? Count me in! The first attempt at snowboarding on the highest mountain around right off the bat? No big deal! Driving a convertible at 150 kilometers an hour when my license was only a week old? Sure thing! No sun, but damn did it feel like the brightest day ever. I wanted to be a hero, weightless as a bird and careless as a child.

However, sometimes that omnivorous hunger for adrenaline doesn’t pass over time and manifests itself in different professions. We see these people every day, people performing miracles on a daily basis: firefighters, law enforcement officers, medical scientists. Here, they can write their own stories, best-selling stories in that they are full of twists and turns, and as the plot unfolds, we never know whether the main character is going to make it to the end. I dare to surmise that in these movie-worth moments they see the substance and very marrow of life.

Nobody can ever tell anyone if it is worth the risk or not. Some people want to recline languidly on an office chair, others want to touch lepers and cast out demons. Perhaps, the right thing to say would be: if you have that much faith in something, then the risk is worth taking. It can show you the right path forward. Otherwise, do not tempt fate.

Story #85 is the poem "A Ballet Dancer"

Put your pointe shoes on

And get to the barre,

It’s your stage for tonight,

You’re a soloist.

Keep your balance,

Assemblé, 

Attitude derrière,

Show bravura,

S'il te plaît

You’re not made of wood.

Half turn here,

Half turn there

Right leg extended in alongé

Left foot strong

With your foot en pointe --

Hard?

Demi-pointe it’s then.

Face your audience

Return to the first position

Grand plie,

Grand jete,

Pas de chat.

It’s your stage for tonight

You’re a soloist.

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Download this photo by Nihal Demirci Erenay on Unsplash

Story #68, which is a negative travel experience.

Here I am in my late 30s. Now scroll down my Instagram and see what I was like nine years ago - practically the same woman but with her first child (and don’t forget to wow me with “you haven’t changed a day!”) So when the baby girl turned 18 months old, our little family of three adventured off to Bulgaria - our first holiday in the status of parents.

It is not unheard of for a newly-minted mother to be cautious and plan everything ahead when a child is involved. That’s what I did. A hotel with a kid’s pool and a playground - ticked. A restaurant with a menu for picky toddlers - ticked. A suitcase filled to the brim with diapers, fruit smoothie pouches, formula, and every medicine imaginable - ticked. I was prepared for everything.

What I couldn’t have been prepared for was that three days into the holiday, Ann, my unlucky daughter, would start burning - not under the hot Bulgarian sun, but with a fever. A nasty virus, caught somewhere at the airport, and oral thrush, caught when she wined and dined herself with the beach sand are both quite innocent, but a deadly bouquet when worsened by a child violently teething. 

We made it through the holiday watching cartoons (frigging Blue Tractor), eating the suitcase of smoothie pouches, and pushing a stroller along the most deserted streets of the town. 

The hardest part was to watch her looking at the pool through the balcony bars, knowing that she couldn’t join the other kids there. The lesson learned hard - I hadn’t taken my second child on an abroad trip until all his teeth claimed their rightful places in his mouth. 

Story #25, which is another CPE article. Based on true events.

“It’s negative, no cancer markers found”, the doctor said, perusing the paper with dots and numbers which made no sense to me. I exhaled sharply, not realizing I was holding my breath. Like a prisoner awaiting execution. Like a wanderer praying for a fountain in a desert to quench his thirst. Inadvertently her words defined the happiest moment in my life. My child was healthy. I leaned against the wall feeling my legs going wobbly. Silent tears ran down my cheeks. Relief. Contentment. Delight. Joyfulness. Gratitude.

I couldn’t stop scrambling over my memories to the day when her words, so easily and sharply, shattered my world to pieces. It all started with medical advice to vaccinate a child. A one-year-old son of mine. Preliminary blood work was recommended to exclude medical conditions which might cause after-vaccination negative side effects. No big deal. We did it before dozens of times with my older kid. But that time some indicators in his blood turned out abnormally high pointing to organs where his body suddenly started failing him. Failing to cancer.

“It’s negative. It’s negative. It’s negative”, I kept echoing in my head time and again.  The walls of the fragile fortress of my mind were reconstructed back. Suffice it to say, the fact that my child was safe and sound was happiness in its pure form. That was a moment to treasure. The memory to cling to. Indeed, to catch these dear moments and keep them close to heart is worth doing.

To me, it was a major epiphany. One does not need to chase ethereal dreams and get on the top of their career to make every moment meaningful. No need to be married, get promoted at work, buy the latest Tesla to feel happy here and now. This day and age you are alive and healthy. That’s what matters.

Photo credit: me. My son Alex with his father, the best in the world husband. Mine. Mine. Mine.

can you recommend any good case file fic with established msr relationship???? your archive is a gift to this fandom btw THANK YOU

Mulder, Scully, and Case File RST

Eyyyyyy, here you go, anon!

@debbierhea/theexfilesbabe/iamalittleonedge’s october - full series

He’s shivering as she approaches, the blanket curled around his snoozing fox form, hair sticking out like a tail. She pushes his hair back and whispers his name, tells him to go get in her bed where it’s warm. She watches him, sleepy-eyed and vulnerable, as he makes his way to where her bed is an oasis of warmed goose feathers.

Post S5 Mulder and Scully spend an October, week-by-week, on the road and in each other's company. (While not strictly RST, it's a gentle, autumnal slow burn that, I think, counts.)

sarah_segretti/Sarah Segretti's The Current Temperature in Downtown Washington (Ao3, Xanadu)

The informant, a slightly paunchy middle-aged man with a rich Blue Ridge accent, a true local, droned on. Scully appeared to be listening raptly, but Mulder knew the look - he'd been on the receiving end more than once, and with him, it usually meant she was about to shred another one of his theories.

He knew what was wrong. They were too close to FEMA headquarters, and that made him think of Dallas, and Antarctica - and he hadn't expected to feel this way. His nightmares on that particular topic had stopped weeks ago.

Post Fight the Future Scully is determined to pick up Mulder's mood... although the "case", its unpleasant associations, and their meal afterward underscores the wounds both of them are still licking clean. (Though not strictly RST, the underlying understanding between them is undeniably bent in that direction.)

@lotsoforangesoutside/@lotzzoforangezoutside‘s (Ao3) Detoured: Arcadia (Tumblr)

Scully looks at him expectantly, and he kind of likes it a little. She never looks at him like that, like he’ll MacGyver them out of this sticky mess.

It is a sticky mess. A very sticky mess.

Arcadia Mulder is torn over the fake (and real) relationship he must project with Scully.

@aloysiavirgata's (Ao3, WBM, Gossamer, LJ, Alt. LJ) The Waters of Babylon, Petrichor, and Singing of Mount Abora

Beside him comes a rustle of paper. Scully’s printed out directions from MapQuest, checking off turns like a shopping list. “Still another three miles before the access road,” she says, not looking up from her trim navy-blue lap. She takes a sip of coffee.

Mulder coughs, says nothing. Things aren’t strained exactly, it’s not that. It’s more a liminal space. Everything’s fine, he tells himself. Everything’s fine.

He  checks his hair again.

Mulder and Scully's relationship slowly melds together, from reflective, post-Arcadia memories to tentative, post-Amor Fati consummation to stinging, miraculous post-IVF hope.

Obfusc8er's Deus ex Machina

The black, writhing shade shot out fingers of darkness, exploding into thousands of swirling entities. The light from the window was doused by the mass of evil in the room. Scully gasped, nearly dropping the phone from her hand. She stood transfixed, paralyzed by shock and fear. The volume of the chorus in her ear grew louder, and the obscure shapes grew more frantic, circling with tremendous speed.

Scully is awash with horror while on a routine Kersh detail.

Jo-Ann Lassiter's The Death of Me Yet

It was a bull moose, and it was big. And it was standing about ten feet away, smack in the middle of the trail. Even if Scully hadn't read the literature on vehicle/moose collisions and the ensuing human fatalities, she would have chosen to avoid something twice her height and weight--jeep and Mulder included.

She slammed on the brakes and jerked the wheel sharply to the right, in the only direction that wouldn't get them killed outright. The change in terrain was drastic.

Kersh forces Mulder on a case, despite his ill health. With Scully as her partner's shadow, the two try to escape the woods, their safety and the approaching dark (and its monster) driving them further and further down a mountain.

TessMooreXF's Armadillo Season

She mused that it must be armadillo season, for all the hardened little corpses that had dotted the sides of the highway on her journey from Dallas. 

Post The Rain King Kersh assigns the duo to an unexpectedly twisted case.

Wylfcynne's Imagine

"You aren't getting free until we have a clear MRI," she said calmly.

Mulder exploded in rage, screaming, cursing, struggling violently. On the status monitor, everything began to escalate. Three Project doctors came running in, alerted by the system alarms, and stopped, awed at the violence they were witnessing.

Post S.R. 819 Mulder and Scully are intercepted, kidnapped, and tortured while on a cult assignment. She helps to rescue her partner, but not before he is infected with black oil.

@danascullysjournal/Paper_hearts_and_homemade_arts's If You Will Let Me (Tumblr)

Padgett’s face faded to the pale, chilled skin of the corpse she had inspected three days ago.  He grinned at her with lifeless eyes.  His fingers pressed deeper inside her chest, and red spattered his sunken face.

“I am… in you…”  The lips of the cadaver did not move.  She sensed his voice ringing inside her head.

Post Milagro Mulder and Scully slowly begin to recover... but are then thrust into more disastrous supernatural circumstances. (While not strictly post-RST, this fits along those lines.)

cropcircle's Secrets in Seattle

“This must be terrible for you just laying here, Mulder,” Scully said.

“I can’t wait until this is over. If only to get this wretched cast off my arm.” ‘And to pick up where we left off when Skinner interrupted us,’ Mulder thought to himself. “I wish I could help you more.”

Post Millennium Mulder is kidnapped while Scully investigates a hospital case. (While this isn't strictly post-RST, it does end along those lines.)

Beshter's Seasons: Seventh

"Fear doesn't have to be complicated." Mulder was already into the bag of cashews, clearly pleased with what he found.

"I know that, but it did make me think about the things we fear. What sort of fears do the average people have? Would it be enough to terrify me to death?"

"Would they?" Mulder asked around a mouthful of nuts.

Post Millennium Mulder and Scully spend the rest of Season 7 figuring out the new parameters of their new relationship.

@slippinmickeys/SlippinMickeys/Slippin' Mickeys's The Unseelie Court

It hadn’t been fair of her to seduce him, though it had been a glacial, intellectual courtship, inevitable, really, in every sense of the word. Mulder was tender-hearted and obsessive and after their second time together, she should have known that no amount of her stoicism or sense of workplace propriety would keep them from wanting to be together all the time. Last night, she’d had a foot out the door and was pushing him away with one hand and pulling him back with the other, his fingers tangled in her hair in rapacious bliss. 

They still weren’t sure how to be with each other, and that morning they’d walked down to Mulder’s car in a loaded, restless silence. 

In this on-going chapter fic, Mulder and Scully investigate a fae x-file, the first after their under-the-table consummation.

subtlealchemy/weetown's a trick of the light

She had been avoidant, too, of facing the reality of Mulder’s condition being her fault. Even though she knows deep down that it isn’t, that she had not meant for any of it to happen, it somehow still is her fault. 

She had been the one holding the gun, after all. And her unchecked and lonesome guilt had only expanded and nourished itself in the dark, sated in the span of two nights.

Two nights spent drifting in and out of sleep on rough, sun-dried dirt with her fistful of Mulder’s bloodied sleeve that said, Stay here, even though he had been mostly unconscious and all but about to get up and go somewhere.

Mulder and Scully investigate claims of woodland magic.

Analise's (Alt. Tumblr, Colonization HQ) Haunted House

Then a rattle. Pipes groaned and protested in rusty appeals and then a thin trickle of water burbled out of the faucet. She cupped her hands under the stream and splashed it onto her cheeks, washing the remains of her makeup off. Her hair was starting to dry in long scraggly strands around her oval face and since a shower was not an option, she ran her hairbrush through the red strands until they gleamed in the candlelight. Pulling her toothbrush out she leaned back over the sink to wet the bristles and froze.

Blood was coming out of the faucet.

Mulder and Scully find themselves in a right-from-the-movies spooky mansion, with events ramping up, not slowing down, the longer the night goes on.

@piecesofscully/PiecesOfScully's Ravenous

The scratching against the wall behind them started low, as if it was coming from under the cot they sat on, like thick nails desperately attempting to burrow through the wooden barrier. Scully’s heart beat faster, through the wood she felt the scratching gradually work its way up to her lower back, clawing up behind her spine to just above her head, then stopped. A chill ran the same path up her spine as a whisper came from just above their heads.

“Skuhhhh.”

It was only a matter of time before Mulder and Scully stumbled on another creature in the woods... but is there only one?

@syntax6's (Gossamer, FFN, omniscribe) The Man Without a Trace (omniscribe)

Mulder slackened his hold on Scully and looked at the crumpled comic book again. Sure enough, at the bottom it read, "Starring Rocky Miller and McKenzie Sally."

Post First Person Shooter Mulder and Scully find out that TLG turned them into profitable comic book characters... and stumbled on a case at Comic Con.

doctorhelena's Something In Between

Scully bit her lip and willed herself not to imagine again what would have happened if Skinner hadn't taken a leap of faith. Mulder was insistent. "What would I have mutated into if you hadn't stopped it - how many of those people are out there? People who already have identities, but who won't be reported missing by their family and friends, because they’re already dead. People who can infiltrate themselves easily into society and nobody will ever know the difference. This is huge, Scully. And I don't -" he cut off, watching her face. His eyes were alive.

"How can you-" she asked. "Mulder, how can you just - you were almost -" She couldn't talk. Her throat had closed up again. 

Post Deadalive Mulder, Scully, and Doggett begin investigating other "dead" and buried abductees.

aka Jake/aka_Jake/aka 'Jake''s Reprise

"...I’m done with all that. I no longer chase aliens.”

“This isn’t about aliens.”

“Does it matter?”

“It’s a mutant.”

She returned to sorting clothes, plucking matching socks from the pile, glad that Katie was asleep in bed and not listening in on this all-too-familiar conversation.

“A liver-eating mutant,” he added.

Post My Struggle IV Mulder and Scully tackle an old foe they thought was long dead.

AUs

aRcaDIaNFall$'s (Alt. Tumblr) Meeting This Way, These Ungodly Hours, Something Challenging, Full Circle

"So, what's the procedure for this sort of thing?"

"Procedure?" "

You know... Interviewing somebody. Getting Kayleen to agree to an examination."

"Depends on the person. Sometimes you need to tread carefully, sometimes you need to push."

She smiled. "Which category did I fall into?"

"Both. I had to make a whole new category, just for you."

AU-- Mulder becomes a reoccurring patient to ER doctor Scully. Their friendship blossoms, their relationship blooms, and she agrees to consult on a case.

CaptainLyssa's To FBI or Not To FBI

Rolling her eyes, Scully had seen the female agent leaving Mulder’s room as she exited the elevator this morning. Patrice, Mulder’s nurse assured Scully the visit had been brief and she’d gained little information about Mulder’s condition from the staff. It seemed the rumours worked in Scully’s favour in this instance.

AU-- Scully is a worn-down ER nurse that strikes up a random, fast-paced relationship with enigmatic but deeply-committed Special Agent Mulder. His sudden hospitalization, her secret pregnancy, and Diana Fowley's unwanted appearance (almost) shakes her faith in her new partner.

theramblinrose's MSR Collection

“You’re supposed to be at the hospital, Scully. I was coming as soon as…”

He broke off like he’d simply run out of words. He was coming as soon as—as soon as he could, as soon as they found Samantha, as soon as he knew what was happening.

AU-- Post One Breath Mulder and Scully begin a relationship; and very soon after discover (during the events of Aubrey) that she is expecting a little "alien."

LuvTheBeez's (mulderscreek) Snow (mulderscreek)

"Mulder, it never really occurred to me before, and I certainly admire the skill with which you construct that masterpiece you've got going there, but I seem to recall a bit of a phobia you used to have about fire." She placed his mug down on the mantle. "How have you gone from fear to Master Fire Builder?"

"It's all about control, Scully." Mulder paused for a moment as he twisted the life out of another geometrically perfect square of newspaper. "This is our house. This fireplace is a perfect little contained area, inside our house, where one can have a controlled fire that *stays* in control. If I build the fire, I have control over it. I am its master. I *am* Fire Boy."

"You've thought about this before."

AU-- Season 5 Mulder and Scully are married and expecting a very large baby. ...And are forced into a hostage situation.

@virtie333/Virtie333's The Letter, Eyes In the Night, Someday, Wambli

"I didn't want to believe her," Scully smiled tightly. "But she did know where the body was, and she's very convincing. It took a long time before she finally told me HOW she 'saw' him." She looked up at him, confusion in her eyes. "Mulder, she says she can see through the eyes of any living animal. That she can transport her consciousness into another living thing and to see what it sees and feel what it feels!" 

"Can she control the mind of the animal she inhabits?" Mulder had heard of people who could transfer like this. 

"No," Scully shook her head. "She says she's just 'along for the ride'. Sometimes she can tweak its curiosity a bit, but that's all."

AU-- Post Orison Scully leaves for an ASAC position when Mulder doesn't ask her to stay. But not to worry: they are reunited a year later for a case, then another, then the explosion of the mytharc.

Khyber's Reach + Sokol (Reach, Sokol 1/2, Sokol 2/2, Sokol - Dancing Skeleton Day, Sokol - Terminus Post Quem)

"Light plane crash, Washington. Less than an hour ago. Apparently we should be there. He said to do an autopsy."

"Did you recognize the voice?" "

Whoever it was knew I was here."

AU-- Mulder and Scully take the next step after a rough, disturbing case involving a fifteen-year-old. From there, their lives only get more complicated as the Consortium closes in.

@writingwell/RocketMan/Darkstryder's (Xanadu)

It's Been . . . 01, It's Been . . . 02, It's Been . . . 03

Mulder blinked and looked at her, then shook his head.

"I have a headache."

She glanced quickly into the basment, then stopped still, shocked as she watched Nick Hazel sway before an enormous fire, sweat and dirt dripping from him in a sensuous, serpentine motion. She felt herself being pulled into the hypnotic dance of the fire and closed her eyes, tight.

Then backed away, grabbing for Mulder.

AU-- A ditch-and-dash injury changes the course of Mulder's life: recovery, marriage, a Floridian honeymoon, and an arsonist case upon their return.

WrappedInTheWind, WrappedInTheWindWhirl, WrappedInTheWindIII, WrappedInTheWindIV, WrappedInTheWind_CryingStone (Xanadu)

That was the good day. The only good day. I should have paid better attention to that day because it was a long time before that day would come again, a better day, a day with hope.

AU-- Post En Ami CSM hands over a baby of mysterious origins to Mulder. Scully resists her partner's domestic inclinations at first, but caves-- although adoption and subsequent marriage don't stop on-the-job injuries and heart-wrenching biological connections.

@rationalcashew/RationalCashew's Dark is the Way; Light is the Place (Tumblr)

Scully could feel Mulder watching her from the other side of the desk. He’d been doing it for the last week. At first, she thought it was sweet. Now, it was just annoying.

“Mulder…” she warned, cocking an eyebrow at him from over the file in her hand.

“What?” He asked innocently.

“You’re staring.”

“We’re having a baby,” he replied simply.

“Yes, we are. But, that doesn’t mean I can work with you staring at me constantly."

AU-- Although Requiem Mulder rushes back to Scully, their combined joy over an unexpected miracle becomes intertwined with frustration over a challenging, and pointedly dangerous, serial killer case.

Lapsed_Scholar's Season 9 Rewrites and Musings

Dana sighed. “I suppose this is one of those cases in which not everything is fully, satisfactorily explained. We can only make an educated guess that matches a preponderance of the evidence. Which is a foundational principle I have to somehow instill in my intro to forensic pathology students in...about five minutes, actually.” She carefully passed William (who had apparently tired of her hair and fallen asleep) to Mulder and stood up.

His eyes were shining when he smirked up at her. “How do you plan on doing that? You just gonna write ‘Uncertainty’ on the board, Scully?”

She shot him a look that had too much underlying affection to be truly quelling. 

AU-- Season 9 Mulder never leaves; and he and Scully (and William) are pulled into the Doggett-Reyes cases, despite his reluctance.

@dreamingofscully's Surely, to the sea 

When Mulder switched off the ignition, oppressive silence weighed down upon them - no birds, no chirping insects. She hadn’t noticed under the roar of the engine and the trepidation that she fought to control. Staring ahead and swallowing thickly, she forced herself to analyze the evidence they’d acquired so far. Perhaps the same thing that interfered with their radio drove away wildlife. 

AU-- Married paranormal investigators Mulder and Scully lodge with a suspiciously odd man who is always licking his fingers.

Thanks for reading¬

Enjoy!

Story #74, which is another CPE review.

Prompt: A literary magazine has invited readers to submit reviews of non-fiction books. You decide to submit a review of a book that has influenced you greatly. Your review should briefly describe the book, explain what aspects of your life have changed after reading it, and assess the importance of non-fiction literature.

“To understand the ‘artist’, you must study his ‘art’,” says the FBI profiler, Special Agent John E. Douglas in his book “Mindhunter” where the ‘artist’ is a serial killer and ‘art’ is a homicide. A gruesome account of the US's seamiest underbelly, the book is a real gem for true crime lovers, with Douglas both a predator and prey. 

Ted Bandy, Zodiac and Charles Manson. Even people who are not into crime stories heard about them. What made those seemingly normal men tick, turning them into the most notorious criminals the USA has ever known? To understand this, the former FBI agent explains, as he takes us inside his chilling-to-the-bone narrative, you have to start thinking like a criminal. In letting us into the predators’ devilish plans, he spares the readers no detail – the goriest the better, the reader rejoices.  as we spiral down the madness path together with Douglas, we can clearly see that nobody emerges unscathed after such a journey - the strain profiling has on the family cannot go unnoticed.

For an amateur writer in my person, “Mindhunter” was the manual for creating an accurate portrait of a serial killer for the novel I have in the process. Not an easy read, the book demanded all my focus, but gave me a deep insight into serial killers’ motives and obsessions. It also proved effective to fathom what steered them wrongly. Can I recognize a serial killer in broad daylight now? No, I can’t. But can I tap into the knowledge I acquired to create a believable character for my own story? Yes, I believe so. 

Douglas’ book was my source of information as the topic I explored demanded serious research. Such books are based heavily on facts, hence being valuable assets in analyzing real-life events and memories of those who bore witnesses to them. This is also their - the victims’ - way of making meaning of what happened to them. Let their stories be told and remembered. Let them not perish into oblivion.

Story #55 is a one-shot #2 written at the X-Files writer's workshop in 15 minutes.

They were standing by the sea. Coffee cups in hands. She caught herself thinking she was drinking so much coffee these days it could start oozing out of her ears. 

“You know, there was a time when I thought I would love to retire in a place like that. Opening my tiny cozy coffee spot, talking to people, reading books, brewing fresh coffee and tea.”

“You’d be bored to death in a span of a few weeks. A. coffeeshop and you, Mulder, is a parallel universe, no less.”

“I could write something.”

She ignored him, lost in a reverie of her own.

“People don’t even sit at coffee shops anymore, Mulder, it’s all grab and go. Life is too hectic, they won’t talk to you.”

“No, no, Scully, it would be different here. I just know. You could bake some gingerbread, and we would have books everywhere, and they would sit and read, you know, and then ask for a refill.”

The urge to interrupt him before he had finished was overwhelming. 

“What on earth are you talking about? Coffee? Books?”

This is how she knew. It was anything but their reality. It was anyone but her Mulder.

“Your life is aliens. You are not married to coffee, Mulder. You are married to your work. Files and all.” He turned to her, a confused look on his face.

“See you in the basement.”

The portal opened behind and she stepped in, still feeling a strong tang of the sea in the air.