There were signs. There were clues. For example, when a beloved physics teacher asked Michele to stay a minute after class, she should have known. He handed her a test back saying that she was the first student in all of his many years of teaching to answer problem number 26 by looking at it backwards. Her test was then returned 2 days later than the rest of the class, not because he had lost the paper but rather it had taken him 48 additional hours to figure how she had come to the correct answer.
Since that time, there has been more evidence in this case and the conclusion is that Michele sees the world from strange and weird perspectives. This curse or ahem…rather….talent? makes for an interesting storyteller. She conjures bizarre scenarios from spouses jealous of seductive, slutty automobiles (she did grow up in Detroit, the motor city after all) to dark matter ghosts, the inverse of time and its effects on pirates, senior citizens who melt into the monsters they really are and lest we not forget gangly immortal teen gods who enter contests of planetary proportions all in the name of winning the heart of a gorgeous goddess.
Michele is a harpy (no really, her day job is teaching harp and music.) But her bad taste in fashion and her hot headed temper confirm the notion. She currently resides in Michigan with her husband, two children, four cats and a polar bear named Lulu.
She is the recipient of the Joy Humanist award for poetry (an entry about trying to walk in the opposite direction in a crowded subway station). She has one published children’s book called “Winter Solstice and the 1,000 Pancakes” which has a accompaniment CD of Michele performing harp. She has been a columnist for Raven’s Call Magazine, Blessed Bee Magazine, Acorns Magazine and a blog and her Brittany Girl harp site where she has several CD’s of her work.
These aren’t my stories. I’m just the person cursed for eternity to write them down and tell them to the world. In my former life, I was a harpist. I played music that was lovely. A little over a year ago, I bought a strange antique harp in a second hand shop. The awkward old man at the counter told me that it was once owned by a Bard, who it was said sold his soul for success. Everyone who played it ran out of his store. I didn’t choose the harp. But the harp chose me. I couldn’t help but bring it home. That night, I played and my mind was filled with stories from the other side, from places unseen; from the damned. The story I’m about to tell you is one strung note by note and composed in the night.