Jessica Gruner's Blog

Here's a little flash fic piece I wrote today to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Emily's 13th birthday. Hope you enjoy!


Thirteen for the Twentieth Time


Thirteen black balloons.
Thirteen rough-tongued cat kisses.
Thirteen wicked sparklers on a devil’s food cake.
I’m thirteen today.
Again.

I wake up at sundown to four cats licking my face. The Posse’s annual birthday salute. I gather them up for a group hug, trying to ignore Sabbath’s frantic clawing. He’s not a group hug kinda kitty. Once released, he ricochets around my room, kicking over a porcelain crash test dummy, which crashes into an antique birdcage, freeing the cockroach colony inside, which swarms over a vase full of decomposing flowers. Chittering madly, they consume the flowers within seconds, then move on to an abandoned sandwich, tipping the vase onto my turntable as they depart. The needle jumps, the record’s spinning, the rock is rocking: “Release the Bats,” by the Birthday Party. My perfect jam today.

Mom’s knock interrupts my dervish dance. I launch myself off the bed, grabbing the chandelier and swinging myself to the door. It’s heavily padlocked and booby-trapped, of course, but one retina scan pops it open. A swarm of shiny black balloons competes with my mother for entrance.

“Sup, Patti.”

“Happy birthday, Em!” She struggles to get free of the balloons’ tangled strings, and presents me with a huge black-frosted cake in the shape of a cat face, adorned with thirteen unlit sparklers. “Happy Lucky Thirteen! Ready to celebrate?” She pulls out a lighter and cocks it, but I stop her with a raised finger.

I plop down on my bed. “It’s weird, Patti, but I have the strange feeling we’ve done all this before. The balloons, the cat cake, the thirteen sparklers. Am I kookoo? Or is this some kind of déjà voodoo?”

Mom sinks down onto the bed next to me. She’s showing her age, I think: grey hairs popping out, lines on her face, that tired expression that never really goes away anymore. She drops her eyes. “You’re right. This isn’t the first time we’ve celebrated your thirteenth birthday.”

Curiosity prickles my skin. “Whoa. What’s that about?”

“I think that’s something you have to discover on your own, Em.” Mom stands to go. “I guess I’ll leave you to it.”

A birthday mystery. Not the worst way to spend my special day. I lounge around for a while under a blanket of purring kitties, mulling it all over. Eventually I decide to check out the Strange family history archives. Maybe there’ll be a clue there.

Thirteen minutes later, I’m looking at a shelf lined with videos. Emily’s Eleventh Birthday. Emily’s Twelfth Birthday. Emily’s Thirteenth Birthday. And then…

Emily’s Second Thirteenth Birthday. Followed by Emily’s Third Thirteenth Birthday. And so on, right up to Emily’s Nineteenth Thirteenth Birthday.

But this is too weird. How can today be my twentieth thirteenth birthday? Am I really 33, then? I look down at myself, frowning suspiciously. But thank cheeses, I’m still a kid.

So why am I not getting any older?

I cue up the footage from my first thirteenth birthday, hoping to find some answers.

Thirteen cat kisses…thirteen shiny black balloons…thirteen sparklers on a cat-face cake. I watch myself swinging on my chandelier, whooping in glee. “Lucky thirteen, look at me. Lucky thirteen forever I’ll be.”

I scan the footage, a finger on fast forward. Here we go. There I am, hunched over my workstation in my bedroom laboratory, soldering, tinkering, fine-tuning. This is looking strangely, hauntingly familiar. At last, I hold up the finished product to the camera. It’s a delicate, elaborate mechanism, built of tiny watch parts, miniscule cogs and flywheels turning in a complex dance. A teensy little Emily, complete with black dress, marches around in a never-ending circle, eternally ascending a staircase that loops back in on itself.

Abruptly, the tiny mechanical Me pauses in mid-step and speaks. “Happy Thirteenth Birthday, Emily! Or should I say Emi-Me? Today you are at a crossroads. If you want to stay thirteen for another year, please insert one drop of blood and four cat whiskers into the apparatus. You will have no memory of this ritual. You will not age. You will remain thirteen until next year.

“On the other hand, if you decide you want to move forward in time, you’ll need to smash this device. You have thirteen seconds to make your decision.”

The Emily on the screen doesn’t hesitate. She inserts the required whiskers, then pricks her fingertip with a pin and squeezes out a drop of blood. The machine vibrates all over, there’s a brief flash of light, and then the wee robot Emily resumes her endless march on the infinite staircase of Age Thirteen.

I turn off the monitor, feeling a little dizzy, and go back to my room. My closet door is standing open, and there’s a soft rhythmic whirring inside. I look in, already knowing what I’ll see: my intricate mechanism, marking time. My four cats gather around me, purring. I stroke their cheeks; a whisker falls from each furry face. The tiny Me freezes in the middle of her rounds. “Happy Thirteenth Birthday, Emily…”

I grab a pin, prick my finger. There’s a blaze of light…

I blink, a little blinded by the camera flash. “Make a wish!” Mom calls, grinning big. I smile back, make my wish, and blow out the sparklers.

It's been a couple weeks since we got back from San Diego Comic Con. And I'm still trying to reintegrate to normal life. It's always a tough transition. Where are the cosplayers and celebrities? Why am I speaking in a normal tone of voice and not wearing a wig? Unsettling.

I want to thank all the fans who stopped by our booth, stood in line for the signings, came to our party, and attended the madness of the Emily the Strange Panel Experience. (Videos of that still to come.) You guys make it all worthwhile!

In true Emily style, here's my (over-punctuated) top 13 list of why this was the best Comic Con ever:

1. Rob and I were interviewed by Chloe Noelle for Fox News. Chloe's even dressed as Emily!

2. Dave Lombardo (!of SLAYER!) stopped by the booth to shop for his daughter, who's a big Emily fan. OMG, I'm wearing the same dress...that was a busy day!

3. Four awesome signings…we love you guys…thanks for braving the lines!

4. Maybe this should be #1: the world premiere of the first Emily and the Strangers music video. The song, "Calling All Guitars, " has not left my head in weeks. I’ll post a link when it’s officially released.

5. The insanely fun party celebrating the video premiere. Thanks to Tiger! Tiger! and Gigantic Brewing for foods & brews.

6. Being interviewed for LA Weekly. Thank you Liz!

7. Ed Anderson and Mike Moon. The best! THE BEST!!!!!!!!!!!!

8. Ed’s amazing game SURVIVOR Z. I am addicted.

9. Emily Sangmeister, whose last name means something like “Master of Blood.” Or so I imagine. Probably the coolest last name an Emily could have…besides Strange, of course.

10. Nathan Bransford’s panel on YA fiction. Best panel of the show, every year!

11. The Gotham Group party, where I shook hands with Mike Richardson of Dark Horse. Squeeee!

12. Rob Reger. It’s such a privilege to work with you, dude!

13. And of course, EMILY herself.

Cheers all...stay strange, and see you next year!

Xoxo Jessica