“Roar”: An Occult Short Story I Composed in June, 2009

Once again, she’d misread the sign. The sign outside St. Cornelius Catholic Church on Foster Avenue announced, in actuality, “Eucharist Adoration.” She, however, saw the ridiculously paired words of “Aquarium Addictions” instead. 

She took a long drag from her clove cigarette and indifferently noted the single file of traffic-jammed vehicles ahead of her. She turned on the radio and turned up the volume of the car stereo two notches in response to the announcer’s promise that the first act of Wagner’s Siegfried would conclude after the commercial break. 

These kinds of drive-by misinterpretations have been occurring with a frequency that was beginning to disturb her somewhat: “Trauma” instead of “Truman College” while zipping south on Lake Shore Drive; “Prior Experience” instead of “Panda Express” by the Lake Forest Oasis; and, most nonsensical of all, she managed to transform a billboard’s message of “Diamonds Are Forever” into “Demons Wear Burberry.”