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by Michael Owen Reeve
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Four deranged monks. (Pages 1-4)
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Claude in mouring. (Pages 4-6)
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She was gorgeous. (Pages 7-14)
In an abbey in the far east of the charted world, before all maps had
been drawn, there lived a small contingent of monks. These were old men who had
no other place to live. They were not the sort of men who would be welcome and
easily wore out their welcome not very long after they had first arrived in a
new place. Now, if you will listen, I believe you can hear these unwelcome
monks returning home.
“Scourges upon scourges.” The other four continue walking, then
look back to see that the fifth of their company had slipped in the mud and
fallen to his back. He was a very tall and heavy man dressed in what had been a
gaudy costume of expensive clothing. He carried no weapon upon his person, but
possessed such strength that had he wanted to, he could kill a man (or even a
bear) with his barehands alone.
His four comrades stared at him and suffled their feet, waiting to
see if he’d ask for assistance. It wasn’t wise to offer unsolicited help to
this fellow. He was a proud, insufferable man. “Tinli, would you mind?” he
asked, holding his hand up.
Tinli, the smallest of the four cautiously walked back to where
the large man lay upon the floor. He said not a word.
“Would you mind holding the bottle?” asked the large man. Tinli
took the bottle and stepped back a pace. The large man stood and brushed
himself off. He checked himself quickly for bruises and satisfied that he had
taken a little tumble without sustaining much harm to his person, snatched the
bottle back. There was only the slightest bit of liquid left in it, but he had
carried it for a thousand miles. Perhaps the first dozen of those miles it had been
full.
Tinli lowered his eyes to his feet as if he’d been caught stealing
the bottle. The large man snatched at his wrist, turned the palm upward, and
dropped a coin into it, then closed the hand. Tinli put the tip into his pocket
and made sure to wait until the large man was no longer looking before rubbing
his wrist.
“Well, I do hope that the gods weap. Now look at me, Tirskon Varg,
once a good monk and then a merchant, and now an intinerant beggar. Look where
I have been placed. Look at the misfortune that is upon me.”
“Varg, if I knew who could be blamed for your being with us, I
would promise that person would die a horrible and excruciatingly painful
death. At mine own hands.” A woman wearing a black cloak said this.
“Now, it is doubly amusing to hear a rich man speak of the gods
and to have a sister speak of murder,” commented an elderly man wearing a white
cloak. He smiled for a few minutes, but then decided it prudent to stop smiling
since no one else seemed to find his joke amusing. “Forgive me Varg. I hadn’t
meant to contradict your claims of poverty.”
“Uloin, this is probably one of the few moments in all the time
that we have been acquainted with each other that I feel I would regret killing
you.”
“I wonderful time for firsts,” agreed Uloin. He wiped sweat from
his forehead. Varg nodded gravely at him.
“To what shall I bless with my final swallow?” asked Varg, holding
the bottle up by the neck. “Well, besides the chance of finding another
bottle?”
“That would be a wish,” commented the fourth person who had been
quiet this whole time until now. <Beneath the long, shaggy hair and the
beard, what one would think to be a man, was actually a woman. She glared at
Varg without fear.> This one was covered in a curly, matted hair and had a
medium-length beard.
“It would be so easy to forget that you were a woman, Manke. It
wouldn’t take much effort in fact.”
“Insulting me is the simple part, Tirsk. Backing up those words,
however. Well, you might find yourself in for quite a lot more effort than you
usually would put into anything else. Do not bless me with your poison. Do not
curse me without either.”
Uloin stood between them, raised his hands, then thought better of
touching either person. So he lowered them back down to his sides. “Have any of
us put any thought into the meaning of our strange predicament? What is it that
the amulets we wear signify? Or why it is we carry such odd objects?”
“It is the burden of Habakkuk,” put in the last member of the party to speak. His was the heaviest pack among the group and he also wore a harness on his shoulders and dragged a cart full of wares as well. Tinli took up the rear and endeavoured to push on the rear of the cart but not to help for he was too hard small to lend much assistance. Yet he felt safer having something between himself and the others.
“Do shut up, Yosef,” interrupted Tirsk. “You are hardly Habook-material.” He drank the last few drops from his bottle and then tossed it negligently behind his back. The others ducked their heads to prevent being hit by and it and it flew completely over Tinli’s head and shattered at his heels. He didn’t complain, though.
Uloin took his hat from his head and worried it between his hands for a moment. Many times he regretted being the peace-keeper in the group. “I don’t feel he means himself. I think he had meant the amulets we wear are said burden.”
Manke scoffed. “We don’t even know who this fellow is. Surely if we did, we could return the burden of them to him. I for one am tired of speaking in tongues. People don’t like being accused of showing off their ‘iniquity’ and ‘perverseness.’ Not very good way to start a pleasant conversation among people you hadn’t met before.”
“Aye. And nearly everyone is put off by us saying
‘destruction and violence and strife and contention are riseth up before me.’”
Tinli piped up. Then he scratched his chin for a moment. “Aren’t those all the
related to the same thing? The strife & contention are basically ways of
describing a fight and the other two are the usual results of such rows.”
“You’re quite right, Tinli,” Uloin raised his head to smile, but
lowered it again when Tirsk growled at him. “Sadly we’ve been accused of starting
those arguements. ‘Hey, you’re lying! Nobody was fighting anyone until you
showed up. So the strife starts AFTER you arrive and not before.”
Manke laughed. Tirsk growled at her, too. “Sorry, this beard keeps
tickling my nose.” Tirsk grunted his disbelief. Well, lucky for us, sometimes
they’ll look outside their gates to the next town over and decide to blame them
instead of us.”
“Oh, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not
hear? I cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save,” put in Yosef.
Manke glanced at him. “Metaphorically speaking.” Manke raised her eyebrow. “I
wasn’t saying you were crying, dear.”
“Don’t wonder marvellously if I will not believe everything you told me.” Manke smiled sardonically.
“I’m not sure if we are or are not justice.” Tinli bumped his knee
on the cart, leaned down to rub it with his hands, then bumped his head on the
cart as he leaned. He cursed.
Uloin: “What do you mean?”
“Perhaps ‘the law is slacked,’ yet we couldn’t be because ‘justice doth never go forth.’ That can’t be true of us because we’re always traveling. Yet if we are righteous, then wickedness surely does compass all about us. But then again, if we are justice, I don’t like the idea of us going forth ‘pererted’ because that seems to mean we’re tainted by the evil around us and our goodness is diluted.”
“Right you are. And, really what nation isn’t ‘bitter and hasty’? Each and everyone is just raring to ‘march through’ and... devour the bread of the world? I’m not sure about that part, but certainly they wish to ‘to possess dwelling-places that are not theirs.’”
Manke scoffed again. “All you men are alike. You all set your faces forward, are ‘terrible and dreadful.’ Even though you kid yourselves into believing your ‘dignity proceeeds’ from being ‘more fierce than the evening wolves,’ you forget that you once were toothless babes who wouldn’t survive without the love of your mothers to defend you from the brutality of the world. Sure you men find your pride in your swords which you won’t let the women carry; if she isn’t allowed to carry a sword, then he would never have to suffer the blow to his dignity of finding out that she might actually be better at swordsmanship than he, should she be given the chance to do so. Sure, speak of your swords. But without a woman’s womb or breasts, those are useless as you yourselves are.”
“Speak for yourself. You bloody women need us men, too,” groused Tirsk.
“Um, maybe she meant both were needed and niether one is more important?” Tirsk and Manke both gave angry looks at Tinli for saying this. “Perhaps not.”
“Besides, what fool would collect sand as he journeyed in the desert? I don’t mean to say having it accumulate on your person, but to have actually to put some in your sack on purpose as you travel so you’ll have more sand than the other travelers who would come before or after you. Why would you be collecting sand in the desert? Because likely someone would tell you it could be made into diamonds or gold. Who’d believe such a thing and do such a thing? A man.”
Tirsk roared. “Come off it, woman! Now don’t you start telling us that that is how the dunes are formed! I will not hear such foolishness!”
To be continued... (Go to top)
TFNY: “How could you do this to me?”
CLD: “You aren’t making any sense. How could I do what to you?”
TFNY: “THIS!”
CLD: “I don’t know what you think I’ve done to you, Tiffany.”
TFNY: “You’ve been treating me like a stranger. As if you
TFNY: “don’t know me or you’re afraid to hurt me.”
CLD:“I don’t want to hurt me.”
TFNY:“You don’t want to or you tell yourself you don’t
want to, “
TFNY: “but you’re still hurting me.”
CLD: “How am I hurting you?”
TFNY: “You blame yourself for her death! You’re afraid
TFNY: I might be next!”
CLD: “Even if I did blame myself. How can that affect you?”
TFNY: “You do?”
It was suddenly very hard to hold onto the phone. He leaned
against the broken husk of something that had once been a bath tub. Atleast he hoped
it was a bath tub. He didn’t want to allow his mind to think of it as a coffin.
Didn’t want to see her in it. The tragedy was all too recent in his memory. The
metal shaft passing though her back and out her stomach, the shock of her navel
having birthed five feet of curved steel. The curious lack of blood.
TFNY: “Are you there, Claude? Claude? The conn is still
open. Speak to me!”
CLD: “Do you mind, Tiff? I need to cry here.”
TFNY: “Call me… when you’re ready to talk. I’m trying by best to
TFNY: “sound sincere about this.”
CLD: “I hadn’t detected any
sarcasm.”
TFNY: “Well, I detected
some from you just now, but… call me later
TFNY: “when you want to
talk about it. I’m hanging up now.”
And with that, Tiffany was gone as well. Gone. Claude lay in desolation, lying against the bathtub that so depressingly reminded him of a coffin. The cell-phone fell from his limp fingers and scooted into his jacket pocket by virtue of the retractable chain it was attached to. Claude was the sort of person who felt taking something out of his pocket manually was okay, but putting it back into his pocket after he was done with it was a waste of time. Claude lay weeping among the trash of the decrepit city dump.
He wasn’t unusual in such a place. Everyone about him in this squalor was filthy as he was. His blond hair was shaved very close to his skull and his beard was blond as well even though it currently was black from tar and ash.
He lay weeping, rubbing away the tears that came from his eyes and leaving sooty dark circles instead. It was a dreary, rainy night. His clothes were covered in muck, sodden and sticking to his skin. The night was miserable and he was appropriately miserable as well.
Claude had no idea how long he lay like this. A day passed without his knowing that the sun were in the sky. No one ever knew when the sun was out anyway in these lower reaches. The electricity for the few lights that still functoned in this dreck had gone out more years than anyone wanted to count.
By this time, a dog had urinated on him nearly three times without his noticing. He was too encumbered by his own grief to notice. All he heard was her voice. All he saw were her eyes. All he felt was his pain. She was just simply as gone as gone could be. He couldn’t understand why it was that he lived, why he should breath in a world where she no longer would.
Claude plucked the small phone from his pocket, held it to his mouth like a tricorder, and spoke into it. “COMM: TFNY.”
(Claude’s words are in Japanese spoken aloud, the phone transcribes it instantly so that it appears on the screen as English.)
(Tiffany’s words are in German spoken aloud, the phone transcribes it instantly so that it appears on the screen as English.)
CLD: “I was just thinking. It somehow pains me that we are
CLD: “communicating with a dead language.”
TFNY: “I suppose you’re in a morbid mood today.”
CLD: “DON’T SAY THAT!”
TFNY: “I’m sorry. Well, you don’t understand German and I don’t understand Japanese.”
CLD: “There isn’t any other, living languages that can be a middle-ground?”
TFNY: “French was outlawed, remember? I’m not getting arrested”
TFNY: “just because you’re feeling gloomy.”
CLD: “You’re cold.”
TFNY: “Again with the morbid talk.”
CLD: “Do you have to comment on my behaviour?”
TFNY: “What do you mean?”
CLD: “We’re just making pithy conversations without any real substance.”
TFNY: “Pithy?”
CLD: “Don’t ask me what it means. That’s just how it was translated.”
TFNY: “Hm.”
TFNY: “This conversation is too subjective and not philosophical”
TFNY: “enough for your taste?”
Claude stood up and stretched. Who could sense that Tiffany thought he was arguing with her. And he knew that he didn’t want to argue with her. He yawned. By this time he noticed the smell coming from himself. He made a face. Checked his pocket for his key card. Good. Still had it. The bio-lock on the front door of the apartment building was broken, so he had to cut in through the side-door on the alley with the older locks. He leaned forward and put his hand lightly on the smooth metal lid of the…. box he’d been lying against. Didn’t want to think of it as a coffin and he’d forgotten what that other thing he’d been thinking it was had been. Maybe he was feeling morbid today…
CLD: “Where are you, Tiff?”
TFNY: “I’m at home, sitting on the couch. You remember where my couch is?”
CLD: “Yah. As for me, I’m… well… sitting in an unpleasant place. Hm.
CLD: ”you probably could call it an alley or something… honestly, I don’t know
CLD: “what it’s called.”
TFNY: “How did you wind up in a place you don’t know the name of?”
CLD: “Too busy grieving to check the signs when I walked here.”
TFNY: “Well, track your signal and then figure out the best way home.”
CLD: “You always loved pointing out the obvious things.”
TFNY: “Trust me. They aren’t as scary as the difficult ones.”
CLD: “I have no idea how I’m going to eat. I can’t remember if I have food”
CLD: “Uh. Well, I’ve got no pets, so there won’t be anything dead rotting there
CLD: “when I get back.”
TFNY: “It’s not funny; a joke like that coming from you in the mood you’re in
TFNY: “right now. That’s just not funny.”
CLD: “See me in UltiQue if you want to change my attitude. But later.
CLD: “When I’m home.”
TFNY: “Typical guy. You always want to settle things in a fight.”
TFNY: “You guys and your Ultimate Quest battle arenas.”
CLD: “Typical girl doesn’t like guy stuff.”
TFNY: “Okay, so we’re both atypical. UltiQue it is.”
Claude logged off. He spoke the “find me” command into the phone. A green dot appeared on the screen. “Going home.” A green triangle where he was headed for appeared on the screen as well. A dotted line connected the two and showed the distance between them. Half-a-mile. He was going to have to walk for quite a bit. He took a moment to consider how much the yakuza liked him this week.
To be continued... (Go to top.)
CAP ONE:
She was gorgeous. A tall, slender, pretty thing wearing a simple red dress, a white blouse, and a blue blazer overtop. Her auburn hair was tied back and up in a curt, professional style. She had the gait of a gazelle loping about gracefully in a hot African savana. Her eyes were emerald green, clear open, thoughtful. Her nose was the right shape. Her mouth.
IMAGE ONE: ATTRACTIVE WOMAN, AS DESCRIBED ABOVE, WALKING DOWN THE CENTER OF AISLE TOWARDS CAMERA. (POV-shot.)
CAP
TWO (THOUGHTS):
Didn’t I see you on page five
of the catalouge? You were modeling the underwear I am wearing right now. Of
course, you looked much better in them than I do…
IMAGE
TWO: A GIRL WITH BLACK HAIR, NOT STYLED VERY WELL, A LITTLE ON THE HEAVY SIDE.
HER EYS ARE CLOSED AND SHE’S LICKING HER LIPS. SHE’S WEARING UNFASHIONABLE
GLASSES.
CAP
THREE:
Liz immediately regretted the comparisson.
IMAGE
THREE:THE GIRL WITH BLACK HAIR (LIZ) OPENS HER EYES AND FROWNS.
CAP
FOUR:
She forced herself to divert her
own attention from the approaching nymph and instead focused upon the mannequin
across the aisle again.
IMAGE
FOUR: POV SHOT OF MANNEQUIN THAT IS DRESSED LIKE THE ATTRACTIVE WOMAN.
CAP
FIVE:
She
looked back, smiled ironically.
IMAGE FIVE: LIZ, SMILING A LITTLE
ON LOWER LEFT SIDE OF THE FRAME, THE ATTRACTIVE WOMAN DOMINATING THE REST OF
THE FRAME.
CAP
SIX:
They
must be sisters.
IMAGE
SIX: SIDE-BY-SIDE COMPARISSON OF THE ATTRACTIVE WOMAN AND THE MANNEQUIN.
CAP
SEVEN (THOUGHTS):
Did she model it? That was
something, wasn’t it? Not only to get a taste of fame and immortality from
looking pretty while wearing a simple pair of panties, to having your own
plastic clone in the store you work in. She must have a perfect life. Stop
it!
IMAGE
SEVEN: LIZ TURNS HER BACK AND LOOKS AT THE MIRROR, WATCHING AS THE ATTRACTIVE
WOMAN APPROACHES FROM BEHIND HER.
IMAGE EIGHT: LIZ SNATCHES
SOMETHING RANDOMLY OFF OF THE SHELF AND DOESN’T NOTICE WHAT IT IS.
CAP
EIGHT (SPEECH):
“Can I
help you?”
IMAGE NINE: CLOSE-UP OF ATTRACTIVE
WOMAN’S REFLECTION ON RIGHT SIDE, HALF-FACE REFLECTION OF LIZ ON LEFT.
CAP
NINE::
This
question is savored.
IMAGE
TEN: SAME IMAGE AS NINE.
CAP
ELEVEN (THOUGHTS):
You
can help me by wrapping those long legs of yours around my face so I can…
IMAGE ELEVEN: LEGS, PLUS SIGN, LIZ’S FACE.
CAP
TWELVE (SPEECH):
“Can I
help you?” a slight anxious smile on that flawless face.
IMAGE THIRTEEN: SAME AS TEN, BUT
THE SMILE LOOKS A LITTLE LESS SINCERE ON ATTRACTIVE WOMAN’S FACE.
IMAGE
FOURTEEN: LIZ FACING THE ATTRACTIVE WOMAN.
CAP
THIRTEEN (SPEECH) :
IMAGE
FIFTEEN: POV OF A PAIR OF SOCKS ROLLED UP IN LIZ’S HAND.
IMAGE
SIXTEEN: LIZ BLUSHING.
IMAGE
SEVENTEEN: ATTRACTIVE WOMAN PUTS HER RIGHT HAND ON LIZ’S LEFT SHOULDER.
IMAGE
EIGHTEEN: ATTRACTIVE WOMAN HAS REMOVED HER HAND AND STARES AT IT.
CAP
FOURTEEN: (SPEECH)
IMAGE
NINETEEN: ATTRACTIVE WOMAN HOLDING OUT HER HAND TO LIZ AND SMILING.
CAP
FIFTEEN: (SPEECH)
IMAGE
TWENTY: LIZ SHAKING ELOISE’S HAND, THEY SHARE A SMILE.
IMAGE
TWENTY-ONE: LIZ AND ELOISE AT-EASE.
CAP
SIXTEEN: (SPEECH)
IMAGE TWENTY-TWO: LIZ IS OBVOUSLY
VERY SURPRISED AND HAPPY THAT SHE”S JUST BEEN ASKED OUT.
CAP
SEVENTEEN: (SPEECH)
ELOISE:
“Uh? Can we get back to the usual customer-store-employee routine?”
END SCRIPT
Liz walked carefully from the
clothing store to the food court. She looked around quickly and didn’t see
Eloise anywhere. It was a large room, though. She couldn’t remember if she were
supposed to buy coffee for the two of them or if Eloise was or was she supposed
to just get coffee for herself. So many questions she hadn’t thought of asking.
She shuffled over to a table that wasn’t somewhat in the corner of the food
court and not near any of the occupied seats. As soon as she sat down, Eloise
set the two coffees down on the table and Liz, shrieking in surprise, fell
backward onto the floor.
Eloise, “I guess I scared you. But
I had said ‘hello’ almost twice.”
Liz, “I’m deaf. Well, not
completely, but I have trouble hearing sounds that aren’t coming from directly
in front of me.”
Eloise, “So if you’re looking at
it, you can hear it?”
Liz, “Right.” She glanced at the
hand that Eloise was offering her. She did her best to get up on her own power
before shaking the hand. “Ooops! You meant to help me up. God, I’m so stupid!”
Eloise frowned. “Don’t say that. I
wouldn’t have asked you for coffee if I thought you were stupid.”
“You just met me. I’ve known me my
whole life.” Liz looked down at the other woman’s elbow when she said this.
From there she looked at her own hands.
“Same to you, yet I don’t think
I’m a loser.”
“I said I was ‘stupid.’”
“My sister said she was stupid at
first. Then she was a loser. She said those things up until she killed herself.
You look like her. I’m not letting two women die on me.”
“I’m sorrry that she died like
that.”
“There are other ways to die. Most
people don’t have the luxury to choose when they perish.”
“So you’re attracted to suicidal
girls?” Liz bit her lip. She looked up again at this point.
“Honey, every girl is suicidal.
Heck, every person alive who isn’t suicidal is already dead.”
“So what is it that attracts you?
Potential?”
“I think you are a wonderful person, but you
could be better in some ways. You are definitely a somebody, but you could be a
better somebody,” Eloise was saying. Liz groaned but El didn’t seem to hear
her. “We all could use a little ‘tweaking.’”
Tweak? So I’m a witch now? Is
that what she’s saying? I can tweak my nose and suddenly be able to cast spells
like Samamtha? Darn. I don’t need a Daren in my life. Heck. I AM a Daren as it
is. Despite her thoughts, Liz smiled
because it was the polite thing to do. She also decided to ask a question
because that was the proper way to feign interest. “So I have ‘wonderful’
potential that needs ‘a little tweaking?’”
“You don’t sound very enthusiastic
for one. But, hey, that’s what I like about you. You wanna ask questions before
you do things… you’re not one of those blind-faith people. Which is very
adorable.”
“Adorable?”
“I stand corrected. Admirable
then. Just my opinion, no disrespect intended. Please don’t mind.”
“You’ve got adorable opinions.
But, well, don’t minds turn you on?”
“Looking at MRIs makes me horny. I
lost that job because I kept embarassing myself. People don’t seem to like the
idea of passionate, beatiful techies. Wonder why, though?” Eloise laughed at
Liz’s surprised expression and she leaned forward, taking the coffee from the
carrier. “Mocha fine?”
“Coffee and chocolate. Mmmm.” Liz
reached for hers, yet her eyes were still looking at El’s clevage. She managed
to pick up the coffee anyhow and take a sip from it. It wasn’t neither hot nor
cold, a very pleasant medium. Eloise
seemed to have an impecable sense of timing.
“Well, when it comes to it, I’m
pretty ambivalent when it comes to choosing between chocolate and vanilla
girls; but my coffee’s always mocha.” She smiled. “Listen, my theory is:
appearance is not every thing; but I think its important enough for us all to
look our best. Because it think it helps you blend in with the crowd, which
always feels better.”
“You went from being a techie to
working in a clothing store?”
“Ugh. Well, it’s a very boring
kinda job, but I do get to see plenty of women with their clothes off, which is
always a perk.” Laughs. “When I look in the mirror and I see myself as pretty, it makes me feel good on the inside. Yah, I
know. I’m ecstatic them I’m an incredibly clever person. Heck, I mostly dress
myself with clothing people return to the store. Amazing! Sewing seems to fallen
out of fashion. Rather than five minutes sewing, these yuppie ladies toss out
an entire wardrobe if the tiniest little hole appears anywhere!”
“Very
resourceful. I look in the mirror and I feel like I look crappy. I seem to love
it when I feel really terrible.” Liz sighed.
“Well,
honey, I’m not sure, but I think if I made you look ravishingly beautiful,
would you think you’d be happy or really miserable?” Eloise sipped her mocha.
“Don’t answer that. You’re one Cinderella who’d be very irritated if someone
tried to ‘improve’ her mice or her pumpkin.”
“It’s
really awesome that you’re beginning to talk like I usually do. Gives me the
opportunity to hear myself talking and yet have the words spoken by a more
pleasant voice.” Liz said rather dolefully.
“HEY!
There’s an idea! You ever thought much about doing screenplays? I’d love to
read any scripts you could write down.”
“Nobody
ever said anything nice about anything I’ve ever written.”
“See?
That means you’re positively great at it and they’re beside themselves with
jealousy!” Eloise laughed. What is it that you do, anyway? Besides drooling
over pretty girls anyway.”
“I was
drooling!?!”
“Well,
maybe not from your mouth, but you were coming all over yourself when I stopped
to talk with you.” Eloise set her mocha down.
“You’re
finished with yours?”
“Nah.
Keep drinking yours. You don’t have to pretend to be done when I’m done. I’m
patient as it is.”
“I feel
so utterly transparent. Thank goodness I’m wearing my lead underwear.”
“Haha!
And people call me ‘Lois!’ You’re quite the catch, Beth.”
“Um,
don’t be terribly offended if I prefer ‘Liz.’ Sorry.”
“I’m
just glad that I don’t have to lay THE SPEECH on you. Always more fun not
having to stick to something rehearsed that you honestly don’t care much for.”
Eloise sorted through her purse and passed a lamenated piece of paper to Liz.
Much of what El had said about beauty earlier were listed on it, as well as:
·
I
think if you look at yourself in the mirror while you’re wearing your favorite
clothes, well I bet it would boost you into a better frame of mind.
·
Self-Confidence mostly means liking how you look.
·
(Save this one for skeptical men.) Why do you think girls wear
make up? Because if we look in the mirror and see dark circles under our eyes
and a pimple from our latest episode of PMS, well we’d just be more bitchy.
Make up helps some people feel better about themselves.
·
Better looks = Better folks.
·
For
others, it’s clothes, or the car they drive or their teeth being white. As
shallow as it may sound, it’s just how our society is. So I’m not being totally
shallow here.
·
I
feel onnce I am happy with what’s on the outside, then I feel more prepared to
work on what is on the inside.
·
But
that’s just me. (Smile.)
“Before
I comment on it,” Liz said, “I have to ask who wrote it.”
“Well,
sometimes you’ve got to write something you know in your heart to be dreadful,
but… dreadful lies are very welcome to most people’s ears I’m afraid to say.
Uh, so I wrote it. I did a wonderful job of not vomitting while I wrote that
stupid list.”
“Thanks.
You saved me the effort of pretending I liked it.”
“Every
morning, the first thing I do when I wake up is take a piss on that damned
list. Then I wash it clean. That’s why I lamenated it.”
“I like
potty mouths.”
“Ack! You
don’t mean you like having girls piss in your mouth?”
“Argh,
no! I just didn’t know how to lead off from what you’d said about why you
lamenated the card… so… you were kidding?”
“Right,”
smiles Eloise. “You made your joke, I made another.”
“Okay. I
don’t know many people… I guess it’s because I never know when people are
kidding.”
“With
me, I’m always wishing they’d STOP kidding and just be serious about something
for a few minutes.”
“A
serious relationship that lasts a few minutes?”
“That’s
not what I meant, but…” Eloise catches herself and laughs again. “You’re witty.
Even though you don’t believe you are, you’re actually very amusing AND also
insightful. Most people are threatened by that sort of thing, they don’t know
how to deal with someone who isn’t easily classifiable.”
“I’m the
nerdy chick who thinks her snatch is used for storing her slide-rule,” Liz said
mornfully. “Not literally ofcourse.”
“So. When do you usually ask a girl if she’d like to get naked with you? After the first or fourth cup of coffee?”
To be continued... (Go to top.)
Alternate:
Liz (sighs). (Inclines head to stare at ceiling.)
Narrator (aka Narr.): The dream of the auburn-haired beauty is desolved and is inadequately resolved into the gray, depressing reality of her singledom.
Liz (talking to self): “It seems that the only goal I can accomplish is the one I really don’t want to but seem to have a nack at achieving; failure. Not that I conciously wish to fail at anything.
Eloise (voice over): “Who’d want to do such a thing?”
Narr: Liz starts, surprised. Then she composes herself.
Liz: “The certainy of doom never leaves me, it’s always looming large in my mind. I just see the faults in everything I simply can’t appreciate the good part of anything. It’s like I’m inflating a balloon with only the express interest of bursting it and starting over again. What a sick game. I can’t even let myself hope that some day I’d actually have a nice balloon around to brighten my day up.”
Narr.: Eloise walks into scene.
Eloise: “You’d blow your balloon up, then when it was filled up, your fingers would lose grasp of it’s string and it’ll fly away into the sky out of your own reach. You’d feel sad because you were down on the ground and couldn’t follow it on it’s happy voyage into the sky.”
Liz: “What women doesn’t have issues with abandonment of some kind?”
Eloise: “Everyone loses something.”
Liz: “I’m dreaming again.”
Narr.: Eloise’s image shimmers for a moment, becomes a wire-frame to show that it is a simulation. Eloise does a Threepio-worried motion (arms rigidly bent at the elbow ninety degrees, swivel hips, turn head left and right) to show that she is a machine. Liz laughs.
Liz: “That move is SO three-kay years ago! I’m surprised you would have known how to do that.”
Eloise: “You watch that film serial sim enough times for me to find a pattern.”
Liz: “Really, what pattern?”
Eloise: “You seem to watch ep6 the most. I bet you love seeing that woman in the uncomfortable lingerie strangling that approximation of masculine over-indulgence.”
Liz: “Right. The chick in the metal underwear strangling the big slug-dude.”
Narr.: Eloise’s image shimmers again. The clothes evaporate, leaving a nude woman with a bald head. Then, she becomes a simulation of Princess Leia in black-leather dominatrix regalia and high heels. She even has a dog collar around her neck with a chain, the chain held about her shoulders like a stoal.
Eloise: “I could become solid and show you pleasure. You know this.”
Liz: “A vampire can only enter into my home if I invite it. I’m not in the mood now. Anyway. We were having a conversation.”
Narr.: Eloise becomes a rabbit sitting on a drum. The rabbit hops up and down on the drum and manages to bow. Liz ignores this.
Liz: “I’m just sorry I didn’t call myself ‘Bonnie’ at first. It was so obvious, his name being Claude and all. But then again, I didn’t want him to think I was making fun of him… maybe he wasn’t serious. Maybe ‘Claude’ was his joke and he’s disappointed that I hadn’t reciporcated appropriately?”
Eloise: “Get serious, Liz. You change your name as often as chicks in earlier decades would’ve changed the color of their hair or something else as frivolous. ‘Oh, I’m tired of being the red-headed-chick, I want to be the-blond-haired-chick from now on! That’s who I’m going to be!’”
Liz: “Names. You’re saying names are frivolous, Eloise?”
Eloise: “Gawd. Don’t you hate it how people would cement themselves into believing their identity is DEFINED by a name? How the name of their family is important to them?”
Liz: “You’re right! Crap, you don’t even decide your name. Your dang parents GIVE it to you when you’re a baby the minute you’re born while you’re still naked and shivering and scared shitless that you’re suddenly not in the womb any more.”
Eloise: “Yah, we all start inside of a woman. A part of her body, grown within her. And that isn’t where our ‘legacies’ begin. Of course not! Some guy who pokes his dick into the woman, who barely does any of the work gets most if not all of the credit.”
Liz: “Hey, he’s pissed off because he’s missing a rib. The rib from which she was formed. Yah, right! Only a man would say ‘Hey! It doesn’t count that I came out of a chick’s cooch. Because, you see, God --- who was a very important MAN --- yanked a rib outta some dude’s chest.”
Narr.: The rabbit becomes an egg. The egg cracks and a baby is shown inside.
Eloise: “You ever wish you were
born in an egg? Like that guy in the red pajamas?”
Liz: “We’re straying from the point here. God, to be prisoner to something as ridiculous as the name-game! How many girls who could have done something positive for the world were murdered as infants because their fathers hadn’t wanted to lose his dignity, his pathetic legacy founded on deciet?”
Eloise: “So what? You’re saying you feel that the only coupling that has got integrity at all is one without some dude spoiling everything?”
Liz: “Now don’t you try to simplify anything!”
Liz had in fact reflected many times how men, in this ridiculous game of “marriage” and the procreative frenzy that it enleashed, must construe their becoming fathers to daughters a defeat. If he should only have girls, then he would lose to when some other, luckier father’s son had stolen his own legacy from him. It had become common practice for girl-babies in some parts of the world to become abandoned or killed outright to avert the shame of such a defeat. After all, the prestige of the last name, the family name, is more important than any member of a family’s life. Outright lunacy. Sitting alone in her climate-controlled loft, even with the heat on, Liz shuddered. Thinking such things never failed to really creep her out.
Eloise: “You should be creeped out by a lot things. The fact that I’m a hologram representation of one of your alternate personalities who is speaking to you through thoughts in your mind. By the fact that you are talking to yourself. And I can read your mind AND worse yet, you mostly think of yourself in the third person. That’s MAJOR creepy. But anyway… so… perhaps, on an intellectual basis, perhaps… this could explain your own leanings towards lesbianism? Women loving each other mutually rather than falling prey to traditionalist idiocy and pillaging by the male menace. He hasn’t called.)
Narr: Liz smirked.
Liz: “I can’t help it. It’s all terribly amusing that I’d be thinking ‘male menace’ and then next to that I’d be worried about a boy being late to call me. It wasn’t as if I had any plans of dating this Claude person. That Martian-uncle guy who was somebody’s favorite would be a more likely suitor for me. But still…”
Narr: The phone rings. Claude’s face appeared between them.
Eloise: “Our time is up.”
Narr: Eloise vanishes, leaving only Claude’s simulated face hovering in the air.
To
be continued... (Go to top.)