Frankenstein's Girlfriend

1: Transyl-Date-Ya

Two faint glows connected two lonely souls one dark, desert night. Their love soon burned bright––not as bright as the stars in the onyx sky, or as bright as an illegal bonfire started by some college sophomores, but about as bright as the dim monitors themselves. Not all lovers are star- crossed, and not every love story is the greatest love story ever told. Sometimes people just need anyone to love, and most importantly, someone to kill time with.

The first glow came from a bedroom in Chupa Valley, where a pair of soft, saucer-like brown eyes scanned the empty inbox on her screen, anxiously awaiting a new message. Dana read that other girls who tried online dating were inundated with gross come-ons and insults from the losers whose messages they chose to ignore. This was never the case with Dana, after unsuccessful attempts using MatchMeNow and Hookupz.buzz. Her lack of response was largely due to her scowling, intense webcam profile picture. She assumed the picture was more of a formality, so she didn’t give it much thought, believing that most eligible suitors would be enamored with her crisply written, well-reasoned profile. Unfortunately, no guy on the internet was brave enough to message that scowl, or click through to read the profile answers she labored so diligently over. Judging her solely by her picture, they assumed she would somehow rip their hands off over the internet if they engaged her via instant message.

Dana didn’t like the way she looked in photos, and though she was aware of how ridiculous it was to think it, she believed that somehow, in someway, cameras were out to get her.

A week previous, on a lark, Dana signed up for a site called Transyl-Date-Ya, a monster themed dating site. The blinking animated banner of a lightning bolt striking behind two monsters holding hands – Frankenstein and his streaky-haired Bride – lured her away from a video preview of an upcoming episode of Kings and Conquerers, a TV show about warriors beheading one another that she described as “cute” on other profiles. If she had read the “About” page on Transyl-Date-Ya, which described the type of visitor they expected to sign up, Dana would have immediately clicked away from there. In fact, she might have falsely reported the site to search engines as containing “malicious content.”

It was a rare bit of carelessness on Dana’s part signing up for this site, but her inbox on Transyl-Date-Ya received far more messages than on others. One inquiry in particular caught her eye, from a lean looking boy who smiled inside a coffin. According to his profile, he was older, gainfully employed, and enjoyed horror movies. Dana wasn’t into horror movies, but did approve of the older and gainfully employed parts. She also liked his question for her: “you’re in a haunted house. all doors and windows are locked and boarded up. how do you escape?” Hypothetical questions were the key to Dana’s heart.

She replied:

“There are endless possibilities. I might...

·  Form an alliance with the ghosts to provide an

escape route, in exchange for tying up loose ends for them in the mortal world. (All ghosts need these services. No one ever dies before sorting out all their dirty laundry.)

·  Find one of those bookshelf walls that flip around, by quickly pulling every book once. The secret room might lead to a basement tunnel of some sort.

·  Use an axe, bloody or plain, to break through the locks, assuming the locks aren’t made of magic or anything.

How would you escape?”

That’s why she was waiting, staring impatiently at the inbox. The site told her this “FrankKing42” was online and that he read her message. She wanted to know what was taking him so long (elapsed time: 4 minutes) to respond.

Soon enough, a response from Frank:

“i was gonna say axe, but after reading your message, if i was trapped with you, i wouldn’t want to leave.”

The blue of the screen masked the blossoming red on her normally pale cheeks. Cheesy flattery was another key to Dana’s heart. In fact, there were several keys: the words “I need you,” foot massages, and recovering misplaced bobby pins without being asked to do so, just to name a few. Flattery was particularly intoxicating for Dana, because she so rarely received it.

Several playful messages later, they arranged a casual meet-up at a coffee shop. After so much wasted time with high school jerks, Dana finally achieved the seemingly impossible: a real date with an older guy.

Of course, little did she know the source of the second faint glow. Miles away, in the middle of a bleak desert, there stood an abandoned castle. On the roof of that castle, the tiny glimmer from Frank’s mobile phone. The white glow illuminated his face, which looked startlingly different from his profile picture. His skin was rough and discolored. A scar tore through his cheek, which peeled a little when he smiled.

Finally, the disfigured man thought to himself, my love life is... alive!