“What is wrong with me? All I write lately are horror stories?” I didn't intend to sound so whiny when I asked Trixie that question. I rarely accomplish anything that I intend.

Thelonious Monk is playing on the stereo. Monk's piano playing is as brilliant as it is savage. The album is called Brilliant Corners. Sonny Rollins is on it. My favorite sax player.

Trixie didn't look up from the napkin she was doodling on. Trixie is such a goofy fun ball kook. She liked to write her stories out on napkins before typing them up into a partially cohesive flow of a story. Trixie is working on her third book. I try not to get jealous of her having been published more than me. I've had a few articles and stories published but couldn't sell either of the two novels I wrote.

“Some people say that you write what you know,” Trixie said in that sanguine voice of hers.

“So, I'm in a horror movie? Is that what you mean, Trix?”

Trixie still didn't look up. The doodles commanded her ocular focus. She had this quirk about drawing on the napkins too. Somehow it helped remind Trixie of details she wanted to fill in when she started transcribing the tale. Sometimes seeing how easy it is for Trix to write, made the icicle of jealousy twist in my heart.

“Not at all silly man. You know you love horror stories. So, that's why you write about them all the time. There's nothing wrong with that, unless you're bored with it.”

“You're not bored of them?” I asked just to be sure.

“Are you kidding, I love horror stories,” Trixie said as she finally met my eyes with her beautiful brown eyes.

“Ok, I'm writing a horror story,” I said with the biggest grin I ever grinned.

Trixie looked down at her work. “Just make sure, it's horrifying.”

“It will be,” I said as the icicle inside of my heart slowly twisted.