Here at MY WRETCHED LITTLE BRAIN we're proud to announce that Video Theater of the Mind is now providing, direct to your home entertainment center, free, uninterrupted, no commercials whatsoever service.   So without further ado, the premiere installment of a new feature we like to call.....

                                                     YOUR WEEKLY SOAP

            Suds up and follow the continuing adventures of Beelzebeth, Roger and the rest of that rascally Rollins clan.  Share their heartbreaks, their triumphs, their ridiculously elaborate dinner menus, their bonehead mistakes and fashion faux pas in the oddly compelling saga.....

                          
                  DREAMS OF VERMILION SHADOWS



Beelzebeth Doddard Rollins

Roger 'Roger Dodger'  Rollins

(not to be confused with anything you may have seen, read or unwittingly been exposed to however vaguely similar the title or one or two of the characters (hell, just about the whole damn cast) might seem.  After all, dreams are a funny place, you know, the familiar and the strange mixing and merging seemingly with no intent other than to profoundly confuse, and frighten, the Bejeesus out of you.  Here at My Wretched Little Brain, through the auspices of our free, no charge Video Theater of the Mind, we are proud to make our own humble contribution to this honored, neigh, hallowed, subconscious nocturnal regurgitation of all things horrid and frightful. So lay back, relax, enjoy, then after the show let those droopy eyelids fall and allow your soul to be tormented and laid to waste by Hell's own premium cable channel as you sink further and deeper into the carnivalesque nightmare that is the pitiless sleep of the damned.)





Rollinwood

                                                   
                             Episode One

                 Strange Departures
                                                   

               Beelzebeth Rollins, matriarch of the Rollins clan, stands just inside the entryway to Rollinwood Mansion, massive, twin oak doors open to the night.

Coming, or going?

     "The night seems a time for odd comings and goings around here, doesn't it, Candida?"
       "It certainly does, Ms. Rollins."
       "Don't close the doors just yet.  And please don't call me Ms. I've told you how I detest such societal degradations."


Candida Repast

       "Yes, M.. Mrs. Rollins.  Aren't you cold standing there in just that Titian red, Jackie Kennedy-ish two piece suit with the sleeves that come down only to just below your elbows and matching, open toed pumps, no stockings, legs beneath the just above the knee hemline naked to the wind, looking out into the storm filled darkness where there's  nothing to see except the oddly twisted, gnomish looking trees of  Rollinwood Woods?"
       "You know I like listening to the boom and hiss of the Atlantic as it endlessly, relentlessly, smashes itself against the rocks at the base of Rollins Bay Cliff before I go to bed."
       "You've been standing there longer than usual tonight."

       "I have so much on my mind, Candida.  My brother Roger has been away longer than usual on one of his incessant business trips, the phone lines are down, the road is washed out, that irresponsible, so-called caretaker Philly Gloomis has disappeared again, my dearest, darling  Mircalla, the daughter I always yearned for but never thought I'd have is out somewhere with that no-account beatnik boyfriend of hers..."
      "I think they call them hippies nowadays, ma'am."

     "What does that have to do with anything!"
      "Nothing, ma'am. My mistake ma'am. You broke you're heal again stamping your foot down so hard again, ma'am."
      "Damn this heel!  Damn these shoes!"
      "Please don't throw them so far out into the woods ma'am.  It's always the devil's little tea party to find them in the morning."
      "And damn you, too!"
      "Yes, ma'am."
      "And to top things off, that despicable Mason Deguerre just won't shut up with his baseless insinuations about my involvement in that mysterious occurrence years back, and that other thing."
      "Didn't you know?"
      "Know what?  Nobody tells me anything around here!"
      "He's gone."
      "What?  Again?  Gone where?"
      "I don't know ma'am.  Him and that Philly Gloomis are always coming and going with nobody seeing them come and go."
      "Two peas in a pod!  Hopefully we've seen the last of them."
      "I doubt it, ma'am.  Their things are still in their rooms."
      "Did you look through them?"
      "Yes, ma'am."
      "What did you find?"
      "Nothing out of the ordinary, ma'am, except that Philly Gloomis painted another one of those encircled pentagram things with all the funny writing around it on the floor under the rug, and after all the time it took me to scrub away the other one, and Mr. DeGuerre had this here mysterious looking map in his underwear drawer." 
      "Hmmm, I don't think I seen this one before."
      "No, ma'am, looks new to me, too."
      "You put the other ones back where you found them?"
      "Always, ma'am."
      "And you never managed to decipher them?"
      "No, ma'am.  Even Professor Van Pelt down at Rollinwood University couldn't figure them out with all those dusty old books of his."
      "Another useless man!  Well, we'll just have to see what that shiftless no-account with his phony Irish accent is up to."
       "I always thought it was French, ma'am."
       "That's just what I mean!  You can't be certain about anything with that man, even his phony accent!"
       "Well, ma'am, whatever it is he's up too, I'd bet anything that good for nothing Philly Gloomis is involved."
      "I wouldn't be surprised."

                                              

                               TUNE IN FOR NEXT WEEK'S EXCITING EPISODE OF

                                     DREAMS OF VERMILION SHADOWS

                                                          RIGHT HERE ON......

                                                      YOUR WEEKLY SOAP

         a presentation of Video Theater of the Mind, a My Wretched Little Brain production