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Unnamed Play, Scene 1

BRIAN’S APARTMENT: A decidedly chaotic dwelling, where the only thing that isn’t in total disarray is the bookshelf and his books. BRIAN slouches on the couch, reading one such book. There is a knock at the door. Brian at first seems not to notice. The knock comes again.

MARIE (offstage) Open the fucking door!

BRIAN suddenly becomes alert, and walks towards the door

BRIAN Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore, But the fact is, I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, That I scarce was sure I heard you.

Here he opens wide the door. Enter MARIE, who silently glares at BRIAN .

BRIAN Er… I wasn’t expecting you?

MARIE That’s odd, because I seem to have this vague memory of telling you I’d be coming. About nine times. So don’t give me any of your bullshit. Do you have it?

BRIAN Do I have what?

MARIE My key, you jackass! Why the fuck else would I be here?

BRIAN Well, I suppose a friendly chat is out of the question?

MARIE Fuck you. Here’s your key. Where’s mine?

BRIAN I don’t know.

MARIE You don’t know?

BRIAN I don’t know.

MARIE Jesus fucking Christ what’s wrong with you? You knew I was coming. You knew why I was coming.

BRIAN This is true.

MARIE You said that you had it.

BRIAN That I did

MARIE And now you don’t know where my key is.

BRIAN Not a clue.

MARIE What the hemorrhaging fuck has changed about the status and location of my key since I called you?

BRIAN My knowledge thereof?

MARIE So you only just realized that you didn’t know where it was.

BRIAN Correct

MARIE And naturally, you’ve been looking for it since you came to this realization, and that’s why you didn’t bother to call me and tell me not to come to this shit heap you call an apartment for no reason?

BRIAN Naturally

MARIE Except, you weren’t looking.

BRIAN I wasn’t?

MARIE No, (picks up the book) you were reading Macbeth for the thousandth fucking time (reads mockingly from the book) Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. (closes the book) Boo. Fucking. Hoo.

BRIAN Oh yeah, you should just tell Shakespeare to quit his bitching

MARIE Not Shakespeare. You.

BRIAN I didn’t write that.

MARIE No, but you’ve been living it, Brian. To you, each drop of rain that falls on your head is a personal insult.

BRIAN Is your name Winnie? Are you covered in mud, holding a balloon? Are you looking for honey?

MARIE (cutting him off) I’m looking for my fucking key, Brian! I should at this moment be on the train, either going home or to some bar, to make a valiant attempt to drink away the knowledge that I ever slept with you. Instead, I have to come here and suffer your bullshit once more.

BRIAN What the hell do you mean, suffer my bullshit? All I said was that I don’t know where your key is.

MARIE But you never knew, did you?

BRIAN Well…

MARIE Well… what? You didn’t, did you? Why the fuck did you let me come here for no reason?

BRIAN I…

MARIE Oh let me guess. You thought that if you could just get me to come to your apartment you could have me back. We’d have some heartwarming reunion and then everything’s back to the way it was? What fucking Friends episode did you get this from?

BRIAN They never did that on Friends.

MARIE So you admit it?

BRIAN Not at all.

MARIE Then why the fuck am I here?

BRIAN For this. (takes out the key)

MARIE So I was right?

BRIAN Don’t flatter yourself. I just wanted to see you get pissed off one last time. You have no clue how cute it is. Oh its true, I thought I wanted you back, but I realized something. For three years, there’s always been something wrong with me. I wasn’t fit enough, or neat enough, or ambitious enough, or whatever the fuck it was that day. You really got off on belittling me, didn’t you?

MARIE Well, I had to pick up your slack somehow

BRIAN Nice. Here. (tosses the key to MARIE)

MARIE fumbles, but catches it. BRIAN sits back down and picks up his book. MARIE begins to say something, but BRIAN doesn’t even look up. She exits hastily, slamming the door behind her. Brian looks up from his book and lets out a sigh.

Fade out.

Unnamed Play, Scene 2

COMIC BOOK STORE: A typical hive of geekery. BRIAN, who manages the store, is behind the counter, from which hangs a poster with the Parental Warning emblem, idly paging through a comic and talking to KEVIN, his coworker. A few CUSTOMERS are perusing the merchandise, including a young boy and his mother.

KEVIN I just can’t fucking believe it… since when did you grow balls?

BRIAN Oh come on, give me a little credit

KEVIN You’ve been a little bitch about this for three years! Is there a single time you’d ever stood up to her before then?

BRIAN What, do you want me to run a search through my records?

KEVIN No, I want you to give me an example of one time where you didn’t just waffle when she put you under pressure, because I can think of at least seven instances off the top of my head of her verbally bitch-slapping you without you saying a good word in your own defense. Burden of proof’s on you.

BRIAN Since when were you a DA?

KEVIN Stop fucking stalling.

BRIAN Jesus Fucking Christ you’re pushy! OK, you win. I always gave in. I never stood my ground. I’m a fucking coward. Happy?

KEVIN I’m not trying to give you shit here. I’m saying I’m proud is all. That was a killer move. You’d planned that all along I assume?

BRIAN No, it just came to me. I let her think that I did, though

KEVIN So wait… you were using that key shit to try some last-minute reunion? I don’t fucking believe you!

BRIAN Chill, allright? The point is I didn’t. And if I hadn’t done it, I would have never realized that I don’t need her.

KEVIN Fine. In the interest of speedy justice the charges are dropped.

BRIAN (sarcastically) Oh thank you, your honor

KEVIN So hey, are you doing anything tonight?

BRIAN Kevin, I don’t want to hurt you, but I think that we should just be friends

KEVIN Wow, you’re a fucking comic genius. No, I mean do you, the recently unchained Brian, want to go out, have some drinks, and maybe meet some friends of mine who are eager for fresh meat?

BRIAN Ok, I’m not sure I want to be “fresh meat” for any of your friends given that I’ve never seen them in daylight. I don’t want to go out and have someone etch their name into me.

KEVIN As opposed to your relationship with Marie?

BRIAN Touché

KEVIN What did you see in her anyways?

BRIAN What, besides the amazing, fantastic, borderline illegal sex? Did there need to be anything else?

KEVIN I’m not saying there did. But I know you. You’re pretty fucking desperate, but even you wouldn’t cling that tightly if it was just good sex.

BRIAN You don’t even know what you’re fucking talking about. She teaches Yoga. Can you even comprehend that?

KEVIN What? You think I’ve never made it with a Yoga teacher? This is me we’re talking about. I mean its great and all, but in the end, its still just sex. You can’t tell me that’s all you were sticking around for.

BRIAN (loudly and angrily) Isn’t there something you could be fucking doing instead of sitting on your ass and dissecting my life?

Several CUSTOMERS turn, startled but not surprised. The MOTHER, however, is scandalized

MOTHER How dare you use such filthy language in front of my son.

BRIAN I’m sorry, miss, but I fail to see how it’s any of my concern

MOTHER What!?

BRIAN (Pointing to the Parental Warning poster) You saw one of these on the door, right?

MOTHER Well, yes…

BRIAN And you know what it means, correct?

MOTHER Yes, but-

BRIAN Then why did you think that this was some G-rated happy place?

MOTHER You sell toys here! Why would there be toys here if this wasn’t a place where you can bring children?

BRIAN look over there (indicates a CUSTOMER in his mid-thirties stuffing his arms with Star Wars figures)

MOTHER Oh…

BRIAN So can I help you?

MOTHER Umm… well… do you have (whispers something)

BRIAN opens a drawer under the counter and pulls out a graphic novel, which he hands to the mother.

BRIAN (smirking) that’ll be $6.50

She hands him the money, takes the book, and Exits.

KEVIN Hey, you know… she’s been here before. Always comes for the same thing, too

BRIAN Heh.

CUSTOMER (in a decidedly geekish voice) Hey, do either of you know where I can find a replica of Darth Maul’s lightsaber from the Phantom Menace?

BRIAN They sell them online

CUSTOMER Don’t you think I know that? I don’t have a credit card. Do you know of any store that sells them?

BRIAN No

KEVIN No

CUSTOMER I can’t believe how fucking useless you guys are. Don’t you know anything?

KEVIN (Idly fingering the handle of a katana on display behind the counter) I know a place where I could bury your body without being noticed. I doubt anyone would even miss you.

The CUSTOMER falls silent, then hastily exits.

BRIAN You didn’t have to do that

KEVIN You’re right. I didn’t. Is everyone gone?

BRIAN I think so

KEVIN And is the boss going to be coming by tonight?

BRIAN No, why?

KEVIN Wanna cut out early?

BRIAN What is it, half an hour till we close?

KEVIN Yeah.

BRIAN Sure, why not?

BRIAN and KEVIN lock up and Exeunt

Unnamed Play, Scene 3

A BAR: BRIAN is sitting at the bar, drinking a gin and tonic and trying to make conversation with a WOMAN. He’s had a few already.

BRIAN I’m just abysmal at meeting people for the first time. I just keep fucking shit up. This one time, a while ago, at some party, one of my friends introduced me to his new girlfriend. For some reason I still don’t remember (the evening was at the time far too advanced for accurate memories) he left the two of us alone for about a half an hour. So we got to talking, and the booze was making her seem a lot more interesting, and a lot more attractive than she in fact was. And she gave me her number. Now, I didn’t ask for her number, and I certainly hadn’t intended to give her mine, but there are some things that I’m genetically incapable of doing, and withholding my number from what at least appears to be a witty and attractive woman is one of them. My friend came back, and she acted like nothing had happened, and I vomited all over his shoes, so we were pretty much done for the night. The next day I get a call from her. I was bored, so we talked some more. Keep in mind, though, because this is important, that I was still working with the false image of her I’d gotten while intoxicated the night before, both physically and intellectually. So when she asked me, in the same manner you would expect from someone asking you the name of your favorite movie, about the length of my penis, I gave her an answer. Thinking back I’m still not sure why I did this, but in any case I felt I was owed a measurement. Now, so I don’t seem like a total douche, let me make it clear that when I asked her how deep she was I was joking. She apparently didn’t understand that, and moreover hadn’t a clue, as she’d told me it was an area she’d never explored herself, and now she was curious. It was beyond my comprehension that someone would masturbate for the first time in order to make a measurement. Anyways, I hung up the phone while she was getting to know herself better, even though she asked me to stay on the line. Next day my phone rings, I pick it up to hear a bitter voice say: Thank you Brian, I’m now no longer a virgin. Apparently she broke something… I didn’t ask for details. I guess I should have figured she was a virgin, but she never told me. She told her boyfriend, though. I think that may have been a selling point. Now she has some explaining to do, and apparently it’s my fault. I was just making a joke, I wasn’t trying to make anyone bleed! Anyways, I guess she came up with some sort of a lie for her boyfriend, because otherwise I never would have heard the end of it from him. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen him since, and I’m certain that she had something to do with it. And what’s worse, I’m the only one who seems to be impressed by the fact that I caused a hymen to rupture from fifty miles away.

I’m sorry, I kind of went off on a tangent there. What was it you said?

WOMAN Hello?

BRIAN Right. Hello. Can I buy you a drink?

WOMAN Actually I think it would be a much better idea if you just went over there and never spoke to me again.

BRIAN I understand. It’s like I said… I’m not very good at—

WOMAN Piss off!

BRIAN gets up and rejoins KEVIN, who has seen and heard everything.

KEVIN I’ve got to ask you something

BRIAN Oh?

KEVIN Has there been a single moment ever in your life when you would have been better off telling that story than not telling it?

BRIAN Well I…

KEVIN What did you think was going to come of this? I mean what the fuck? I’m trying to help you out here and you go talking about that shit? Have you heard of conversation? You should try it some time; you’ll find it’s a happy alternative to your fucking hymen story.

BRIAN Didn’t I tell you that I’m no good at this?

KEVIN “Not good at this” is hardly the phrase. You’re like a monkey fucking a football out there!

BRIAN Okay! Christ!

KEVIN Listen, there are three types of stories you tell to women you’ve just met. Triumph in confrontation, triumph in competition, and funny stories that touch upon how great you are. Also, and this is important, never tell stories about someone else. You have maybe a couple of minutes to sell yourself before the guy at the end of the bar who just bought her a drink draws her attention.

BRIAN But I don’t really have any good stories like that

KEVIN So what? You call yourself a writer. Make them up!

BRIAN Well what if I’m looking for something more than cheap, meaningless sex?

KEVIN (ponders this) I have absolutely no idea.

Monologue from Unnamed Play

Note- I'm not quite sure where I'm going to fit this in. Also, I have a few more scenes that aren't done yet. What I think I'm going to do is when the play is done is put my email up and let anyone who wants to read the final draft email me

BRIAN Maybe I've just been playing Don Quixote all this time.

KEVIN You’re not fucking Don Quixote. You don’t fight windmills, you just try to imagine they’re not there, like one of those birds.

BRIAN Huh?

KEVIN In California, they had these wind fields. Hundreds of windmills generating electricity. Clean, environmentally-friendly power. Or it would be, except for these birds. Their migration route runs straight through the wind fields. Shouldn’t be a problem, right? I mean the birds see the windmills, don’t they? They must! So do they fly around them? No! They fly the same fucking way they always do because that’s the only way they know

I saw it happen once. I saw an entire flock fly straight onward as if the way was clear. Maybe they just didn’t believe that anything could go wrong. That something would keep them safe if they stayed the course. I watched, as they all flew headlong into the spinning blades to die in a mess of blood and feathers.

But that wasn’t the worst part. No, here’s what really fucked with me. There was this one bird who was lagging maybe fifty yards behind the rest. There was no question about it. He had to have seen what had happened to his friends. Shit, some of their feathers were still drifting about, and yet somehow caution failed to sway his course. He was, as were all the rest, fanatically committed to his given course despite spinning blades and certain death. And for his stubborn devotion he met the same fate. Bones crushed, flesh shredded, and blood spattered.

He wasn’t the last either. These birds kept flying and they kept dying, and it didn’t stop until eventually the wind fields were dismantled, saving the lives of God knows how many dumb birds.

But no one is going to take down your windmills, Brian. They are there for you and you alone to fight, and as scary as it may be to turn away from what is familiar and face an uncertain future, the one thing that I can guarantee is that you are doomed if you don’t. There’s honor in fighting windmills, Brian, but not in flying without thought into spinning blades.

Tribute to Hunter S Thompson

The following is a scene/sketch I wrote the day Hunter S Thompson shot himself. I never intended to expand upon it

EW

The eternal waiting line. Several SPIRITS stand in wait to be judged. ST PETER is sitting at a desk, lazily working through the line. It is abundantly clear that he simply doesn’t care how long it takes. Most amongst the line seem resigned to the wait, but the MAN next in line is at the end of his nerve. He is thin, of medium height, bald, wearing an Acapulco shirt and a green gambler’s visor. He carries with him a large typewriter and an irritable disposition. When finally the previous client is passed on, he anxiously rushes to the desk.

MAN Jesus fucking Christ do you pigfuckers like to keep a man waiting.

ST PETER Sir, do you know who I am?

MAN It’s no goddamned mystery. I’m in the slowest fucking line in existence, and here I am talking to a man who has all the time in the world. Do you know how fucking long I had to wait, Peter?

ST PETER No…

MAN Neither do I! my fucking watch stopped! And this is a TIMEX! They give these things a lifetime fucking warranty for a reason.

ST PETER Well I suppose they’re glad to know that the warranty has expired

MAN Hey, that’s great. Make jokes. That’s what you scumsuckers do around here, isn’t it? I just left one enormous fucking bad joke. I guess I should have expected the next world to be full of you fucking clowns

ST PETER Since you know who I am, you must know why we’re here. We’re here to judge your life, and you’re not exactly assuming a good attitude

MAN A good attitude? Have you read that file? Do you know how fucked up that world is? Would you leave it with a good attitude?

ST PETER You should know well enough that there is no file. It’s just a metaphor.

MAN Are we going to get on with this or are we going to get into fucking semantics? I’ve got things to do, here

ST PETER (rolling his eyes) I’ve no doubt.

ST PETER pages through the file nonchalantly, with the air of someone who is reading merely as a gesture

ST PETER I’m sorry, but I can’t let you in there

MAN What the fuck? Is that it? No interview, no debate, no anything? You just wait me for however fucking long and then turn me away

ST PETER I’m rather busy

MAN The fuck you are! You took at least a goddamned hour with that last sonofabitch. I know my rights!

ST PETER Sir, you’re out of your element. Your life was a gross display of vice and hedonism. You fought, you stole, you lied, you cheated, and you corrupted innocent minds with your words and actions. By your uniquely horrendous exploits, entirely new sinful concepts unexplored even by Lucifer were invented. Even your departure from the world was violent. What is worse, you committed all these acts in the name of patriotism and the American Dream. You are not getting in. Don’t make me call the guards

MAN Fuck you and fuck your guards. Do you think I’m going to fucking stand for this shit?

ST PETER Bartleby? Loki?

Enter Two angelic thugs, BARTLEBY and LOKI

ST PETER Kindly dispose of this man, please?

They nod

MAN You think no one’s ever tried to throw me out before? It doesn’t fucking work!

What ensues is an odd struggle to say the least. The two THUGS have a clear advantage in height, weight, and strength, but they have an incredibly hard time dealing with this MAN. For several frustrating seconds, he avoids their grasps. When they finally do take hold of him, he breaks free almost instantly. He then grabs the typewriter in both hands and swings madly at the two angels. He connects with BARTLEBY’S jaw, sending the thug reeling. LOKI manages to knock the instrument out of his hands, and is rewarded with a crushing two-fisted uppercut, which knocks him back into BARTLEBY. They stumble back, and regain their balance, then re- advance, more strategically. LOKI feints, and ducks back, drawing a wild blow from the MAN that misses its mark by a considerable distance. LOKI grabs his arm, and the MAN swings his other fist, which is caught by BARTLEBY. LOKI takes the other arm while BARTLEBY takes hold of the MAN’S legs, which is no small feat. The two of him carry him off-stage right.

MAN If you fucking swine think you’ve seen the last of me you’re in for some serious fucking disappointment!

Exeunt

ST PETER Nevertheless, Dr. Thompson, you’re not getting past this gate. Not yet, at least.

Re-enter BARTLEBY and LOKI

BARTLEBY Sir, there’s still one thing I don’t understand.

ST PETER What’s that, Bartleby?

BARTLEBY Well, why the hell did you even have him stand in line? You had to have known that you weren’t going to let him through.

ST PETER That’s true. I just wanted to make sure that I got to meet him.

BARTLEBY Oh.

ST PETER Next!

The Fourth Padded Wall

Things had once again gotten way out of hand.

The young man looked through the one-way glass into the padded room where several straitjacketed men were sitting motionless, staring intently at each other. He turned to face the doctor sitting beside him.

“What the hell is going on in there?”

“Begging your pardon sir, I did just as you said. So far, your plan seems to have worked”

So that’s what it was.

Earlier, he had joked that if they convinced the men suffering from chronic schizophrenia that they in fact were hearing voices as a result of ESP, then the men’s disorders would no longer pose any problem, provided that all of the patients involved remained institutionalized, something which was at this point likely for all of them anyway given their conditions. The theory was, he had explained, that if they thought they had a rational (if seemingly impossible) explanation for the voices, then the voices would take the form of whatever they would expect from that explanation. In this case, each man would believe that he was having a cerebral conversation with the others. The main flaw in all of this, however, was that the entire concept had been meant as a joke.

Apparently, Dr. Renault thought that he was serious.

However, that brought up an entirely different set of questions. So what if the Doctor thought he was serious? He was just here as a volunteer with no medical training whatsoever! It didn’t make any sense!

Obviously there was something he had missed. The facts made that painfully clear. What they failed to do as of yet was tell him what he had missed. This was normal behavior for facts, and he was just sick of it. He was missing things and forgetting things all the time, and the facts always seemed to blow him off when he went looking to them for help. On a whim, the young man looked down at the badge hanging on a string around his neck. The first two letters were he noticed were: “Dr.” Across the bottom of his badge were the words: “Chief of Psychiatry.”

Horseshit.

How had he missed that?

At least that explained why everyone was regarding him with an unmistakable air of respect, and seemed to harbor… yes, that’s what it was… a sort of fear of screwing up in front of . He had until this point chalked this up to his charm and dashing good looks. This new information took him down a peg. However, he had a lifetime and probable hours of therapy ahead of him to deal with his insecurities. Now was the time to deal with the situation at hand, and quickly… this was starting to look like the sort of development that could lead him down a regrettable course of action to an unfortunate conclusion.

“Thank you, Doctor, good job. I think I can take care of it from here. Don’t you have other patients to deal with?”

“Yes, sir.”

The Doctor left the room.

“OK, think”

“I’m trying, nothing’s happening”

“Just calm down, don’t panic”

“You know, now isn’t the time to be referencing the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”

“Did I say that the answer to your problem was 42? Did I suggest that the reason that this was happening was because today is Thursday? No. I told you NOT TO FUCKING PANIC. Maybe you should listen to me instead of crawling up my ass”

“Hold the phone…who the fuck are you, and what are you doing in my head?”

“I don’t know pal, that’s your problem”

He had a lot of problems. This one, he couldn’t address at the moment. In fact, he could address it, and that was indeed the problem. He turned instead to the straitjacketed men who were undergoing the cutting-edge treatment he had apparently invented.

Apparently as a result of an unheard argument, one of the men had lunged forward to tackle another. A tackle is of course a tremendously hard thing to do when your arms are strapped behind your back. This is a fact that is often forgotten in the heat of the moment. Likewise, it is also forgotten that starting a fight in a room full of restless mental patients is a course of action that if consistently followed, will drive your insurance premiums through the roof, to say nothing for the considerable injury sustained. What resulted was a ridiculous melee that would have been hilarious if one was personally removed from the debacle, and not, say, responsible for it.

He decided that this was the perfect time to leave the observation room. He needed to collect his thoughts, and he was in precisely the wrong condition at the moment to do so. He turned away from the window just as one of the patients managed to get his arms out of his straitjacket, and left the room. The instant he did so, he caught sight of a short man with a “volunteer” badge around his neck. There was a doctor to his left who was thoroughly unamused by the short man’s attempts to give him orders. The young man quickly ducked back into the observation room. This time he didn’t even bother to check on the patients, and pulled down the blinds. Had he looked he would have seen the entire group of them sitting in a circle, levitating.

He couldn’t handle it all. He got the sudden feeling that the Universe was rotating around his head at an alarming rate. He immediately tried to counter this by spinning himself in his chair in the opposite direction. The result was disastrous. The first thing that happened he nearly passed out from the sensation of the Universe rotating around him at an even more alarming rate. The next thing that happened was that he actually passed out.

An hour passed before he came to. He wondered if it was safe to open his eyes. What the hell, he thought, things couldn’t get much worse. The fact that that very thought itself makes bad things happen somehow escaped him. Nevertheless, he opened his eyes. He found himself collapsed on the floor. Good, he thought. The floor was something he could handle. He then saw a pair of shoes on the floor. Specifically, a pair of shoes that also happened at the time to be attached to a pair of feet. Presumably, the owner of that pair of feet was also in the room with him, but he wasn’t in a terrible rush to find out. After a long pause, he looked slowly up to see a long white lab coat, and a clipboard. He also found that the owner of the shoes, the feet, the lab coat, and the clipboard was a grayish green alien who, as declared by the badge around his neck, was named “Wowbagger” and held some sort of position that he had never heard of.

Whatever the alien was doing here, it couldn’t be good news

The very distressed young man had no idea what to make of the name tag, or for that matter the face of the alien who owned it, except that it was clear that he couldn’t possibly exist. That was not what bothered him. If “Wowbagger” couldn’t possibly exist, then it was obvious that he existed impossibly, because there was no other way he could be standing there in front of him. What bothered him was the clipboard. He knew perfectly well how to react to the clipboard, and that was panic. In all his life, there was no one occasion in which any good had come from a clipboard.

That wasn’t going to change any time soon.

“ Is this your name?” Asked the alien, pointing to a series of characters on the clipboard that did, in fact amount to his name,

“Yes”

“ Right then. You are without any doubt a pitiful waste of life”

And with that, the alien left.

The young man had half a mind to just fall unconscious yet again. He realized however that his time and energies would be better spent going mad and running away, in either order. He then decided that it would make much more sense to put off insanity until after he had put a few good miles in between himself and the tangle of improbabilities, impossibilities, and just plain stupidity that seemed to have taken hold of the hospital. He realized, however, as regrettable a course of action it might be, that insanity was probably something he'd have to get around to eventually. As he ran out the door and down the corridor, he for an instant met eyes with the short man he had seen before, who was now reluctantly carrying a large bundle of lab coats.

About twenty minutes later, the young man was slowly climbing the stairs to his room, panting. He opened the door, and collapsed onto his bed. Screw madness, he thought. It could wait until he’d had some rest. Procrastination was a hobby of his, and for the first time ever it was having a positive affect on his mental well-being. He slept through the next three days. When he woke up he found a Post-It note attached to his face which said: “Wake Up” He promptly tore the offensive note off of his face and threw it away.

He looked around the room, and found it thankfully devoid of insulting grayish green aliens. He also found that the world was no longer violently spinning around his head, which was another plus. Still, something felt weird. Once again, his subconscious wasn’t offering the faintest bit of help, other than that something wasn’t right. Something wasn’t right. It suddenly occurred to him to measure the angles of the corners in his room. After four quick measurements, he found that they were all obtuse.

He was sick and tired of impossibility, and could only think of one way to deal with it. Given, it was absurd and quite destructive, but he was at his wit’s end. He went to the basement and found a sledgehammer. Using a Sharpie, he labeled each wall with a number. He then drove the sledgehammer straight through the wall marked “4”. Stepping through the hole he had made, he discovered exactly what was wrong.

The first thing he found was wrong was that there was no immediate surface to step on, which led to the second thing, which was that his ankle hurt like hell. The third thing was the fact that there was an enormous, groggy-eyed figure sitting at an equally enormous chair typing on what appeared to be an enormous keyboard in front of him. The giant’s face looked familiar, and wore a look that clearly said, “I’ve been up all night typing.” He had no clue how he was able to discern this, but was determined to know.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I am Patrick Desmond,” replied the giant.

“What? I am Patrick Desmond!”

“I know. I am you!”

“If you are me, then who am I?”

“You are me!”

“Are you me or am I you?”

The writer had at this point taken the device as far as it could go without becoming exceedingly stupid. What he hadn’t thought of was how to end it. He first tried asking the miniaturized version of himself to please go the hell back to where he came from. Failing this, he directed the runt’s attention to the screen, and explained how easily he could write a bullet through his head. To prove his point, he added a part in which the main character of his story suffered a broken nose, which immediately appeared on his fictional self. Defeated, the tiny Patrick jumped back through the hole in the fourth wall. He could feel his nose straighten as a supererogatory paragraph was deleted.

Needless to say, Patrick had a lot to think about. Aside from the obvious problem of facing up to the fact that he was a fictional character, there was the also the matter of his bedroom wall. With some quick thinking and the relocation of a large poster that had been hanging on wall number 2, he solved the problem for the time being. Having one problem solved, he turned his mind to the problem of his mistaken identity. He didn’t get much of a chance to think about it before he heard the doorbell ring. He opened the door, and found the same short man he had encountered three days ago standing on his doorstep in a pizza delivery uniform carrying three pizza boxes. Apparently, things had failed to work themselves out in the three preceding days. The short man also seemed to recognize him, judging by the scowl on his face.

“You!” he shouted.

Patrick did the only sensible thing he could given the situation. Three large pepperoni pizzas later, he realized that there was still an unconscious doctor/pizza delivery man on his front porch. He disposed of the empty boxes, and went back downstairs. He picked up the small man and carried him to the delivery van. Placing the man in the passenger’s seat, he started the engine and drove five miles away. He then pocketed the card with his address written on it, then got out of the car and walked to the nearest bus stop. Five hours later, he arrived home. In his mailbox he found an envelope from the mental hospital he had volunteered at. Inside was a piece of paper with a number that he rather liked written on it.

Returning to his room, Patrick began to ponder what he had seen beyond the large and suspiciously low-hanging poster on his wall. Was his life being controlled by a procrastinating giant sitting at a computer? Impossible, he thought. He certainly felt like he was making his own decisions. However, he really had nothing to judge it against. Another, more interesting thought occurred to him. What if he was the controlling force behind all of this, and the giant Patrick was merely a chronicler. He realized that this was unlikely, remembering that with a few simple keystrokes, the giant Patrick had broken his nose.

Suddenly, Patrick remembered that he had some unfinished business. He immediately saw to it.

Several hours later, he was being dragged down a corridor by two orderlies, his arms strapped in a straitjacket. They came to a doorway, and dragged him into a room full of people wearing similar garments.

“Okay everyone,” said one of them, “I’d like you all to say hello to Patrick Desmond.”

All of a sudden, Patrick heard about a dozen voices shout “You!” in his mind.

VIndication extended

I had failed twice before. This time, I would not be stopped.

I opened my closet and moved the various articles hanging there aside. My selection was vast, but most of it useless for the circumstances. I needed to do the job quickly and quietly. A simple blade, leather gloves, and a pair of silenced glocks. If the time came where I'd need anything louder, I would already be a dead man.

I stepped out into the dim light. As the crow flies, it would be five minutes on foot, but we all know that there is no straight path to Burnham. A twisted network of dark alleys filled with pimps, drug pushers, and real estate agents lay between me and my objective. Being 6'5", most of the scum know enough not to try anything with me, and the few who don't are never worth mentioning beyond the fact that it was a waste of my fucking time. I had half an hour to go and lateness was not an option. No one will miss them. Its entirely likely that no one will recognize them. I don’t have any mercy for cretins who waste my time.

The door. Those who were welcome at Burnham could simply give their name and get on through. I needed to trounce the pigfucker who stood outside it. Problem was, he was packing, and heavily at that. One of my general rules of thumb is not to pick fights when I’m outgunned, and this guy had an Uzi. But I needed to get through. I just wasn’t going to go back home this time. I knew what I needed to do to get by, but it was a damn shame. I threw my coat in the air so that it entered his view at the same level as the fire escape of a nearby building. He fired wildly at it. Guns drawn, I dove out into the clear. He had just about enough time to grasp just how much of a bonehead he was before my pistols chirped and his skull was pierced.

My coat was fucked. Bullet holes everywhere. I needed a coat to hide my hardware, but I’d rather not be seen in one that was fucking perforated. I liked that coat, too. I glared at the dead guard. Surprisingly thin for a bouncer. Pretty tall guy, though. In fact… He was my size! That never happened! He was wearing a hell of a nice coat, too. Slick black leather. Excellent. I decided to take his weapon as well. I figured that even though I was as good as dead anyways if I came to need it, it couldn’t hurt to take a lot of those rat bastards down with me

I was inside at last. The place was teeming with hookers with various levels of contamination. Blood, vomit, and urine were visible in various quantities scattered about the floor and occasionally the wall, which in addition sported bullet holes no one ever bothered to fix. About a dozen passed out drunks, junkies, and whores were strewn about the lobby. You needed to watch your step in a place like this, in all possible meanings of the word. There was evidence of the use of just about every illegal drug in existence here, and that was just on the surface. It wouldn’t take Sherlock Holmes to discover the connection between the management and the vice. The vending machines accepted 100 dollar bills. It only said Cheetos on the bag.

Some sorry sonofabitch who was given the Sisyphic task of cleaning the floors (I'd prefer rolling a boulder up a hill) had the nerve to ask me who the fuck I was. Clearly a new guy. A quick blow to the head and he flew face-first into the crotch of some passed-out whore with foam around the mouth. I might have killed him, but I didn't have time to check. I hope for his sake I did.

And then I caught sight of her in the corner of my eye. Tall and thin, with green eyes, and long, platinum blonde hair. Her name was Alice, and some worthless automaton was carrying her limp body down a dark corridor. And it was my fault.

Shit.

I had called her the night before if she wanted to go with me to the Basin. She must have thought I wanted to meet her there. You don’t meet people at Basin, because it’s a dangerous assumption to make that anyone would make it in alive. She obviously didn’t know what was in store. But I did. Not all of the whores in Basin were there by choice. Some were just taken from the street and pumped full of drugs. What I needed to do was clear. I might get some use of that Uzi yet.

I darted into the black corridor. Too quickly. I heard someone cock the hammer of a .45 as I stormed past their hiding place. I dove, turned, and my pistols cleared the holsters. I fired the first one at an upward angle. A sure miss, but in the flash I caught sight of the scumbag and got him between the eyes with the second. I confirmed the kill. No time to search the body, though. I continued as swiftly and silently as I could. I saw a dim red light at the end that professed to be an emergency exit. Bullshit. I knew where we were. That door didn’t lead to the street. It would lead me to Alice. But it was alarmed.

Fuck.

Well, I had two choices. I could take out the Uzi and charge in there alarm and all. Wasn’t happening. Great way to go out with a bang, but I wasn’t ready for that just yet.

I needed to disable that alarm, and I’d left my tools at home. There was no time. I’ve always hated doing it this way, but there was no other choice. I took my pistol to the alarm box, and fired. To my good fortune it didn’t sound. I pressed on through.

Four guards.

Four bullets.

Four corpses.

Two doors. But I could tell which one she’d been through. Her scent was unmistakable. I went through. A long corridor filled with cells. All were empty save one. Alice was still out cold.

There was one set of tools I never left home without. You never know when you’ll need to pick a lock, and in fact lately odds were in favor of me having to make a break-in on any given evening out. As I set to work I didn’t know that I’d forgotten something. I realized that I’d left one man unaccounted for as his fist connected with my jaw. As I hit the floor I saw an enormous man I’d assumed didn’t exist outside of a comic book. If not for the incredible pain I still wouldn’t have believed it. I barely dodged the next blow, and somehow managed to get to my feet. This guy was too fucking quick to pull a glock on. He’d have it from me in the time it took to draw it and cock it. I jumped back and took out my knife. It would have to do. An enormous fist came my way. I put the knife in his arm. I took the blow to the cheek, but he got a long gash in his arm as repayment. He staggered back for just a second, but it was long enough. I drew my rod, and put a round in his throat. He dropped, but he was still alive. Good.

My knife made his last few moments significantly less pleasant.

I finished picking the lock and took Alice into my arms. As quickly as I could, I retraced my steps back to the lobby. Discreetly, I took her to the ladies room and sat her down in one of the stalls. As rotten a place as this was, no one would disturb her there. I stepped back out. One last order of business.

A man sat behind a counter at the far wall. I strode over and made my request.

"Fuck you"

I buried my blade into the counter and repeated my request. He made a grab for it and I put a bullet in his palm.

A pair of hands grabbed me from behind.

Strong hands. Around my throat. The fucker behind the counter took the knife in his good hand and lunged at me. I kicked him in the kneecap, and he lost his balance and fell into me, knocking me and the scumsucker who was strangling me to the floor. The knife got me in the side, nothing serious. I picked up my glock from where I'd dropped it and shot my unseen assailant in the foot. His grip on me loosened, and I broke free. another shot and he was done.

Which left me with the man who was going to give me what I wanted. I pointed the gun at his crotch.

"Two tickets to the 9:45 Sin City"
"Here, theater 6 on your left! Just point that thing someplace else!"
"Sure thing." I put two in his head.
All done and with a minute to spare. No time to work over the concessions guy, though. A pity. I’d brought the knife with him in mind.

THE END

SIN CINEMA

Fear Itself

His hunger never ceases. It is fear he craves, and his palate is broad. The frightened shrieks of young children. The final wave of terror that stops an old man’s heart. A mother’s fear as she sees her son playing with the power outlet. The general constant fear of the paranoid. Every phobia in the dictionary. He feeds off of them all. It is fear from which he draws his strength, through which he exerts power over others. Fear is his fuel.

And no one fears him. Not anymore

It wasn’t always this way. In fact, this being, this fearmonger was once quite powerful. He visited children in their sleep and they awoke drenched in cold sweat. His very memory evoked a shudder… no one met him once who was not forever scarred by the experience. Bedwetting, stuttering, panic attacks, these and more were his calling cards. He was truly the image of fear.

Until Jim Henson came along and all of a sudden ridiculously formed beasts ceased to be frightening.

Three eyes, green skin, horns protruding from strange angles; these things no longer inspired the fear of death. They could be seen on cheerful, happy things that sang songs about friendship and grammar and why a certain number is cool. No more were the days of nightmares and screams. Out of the feast’s shadow a famine came. People had become impossible for him to scare. However, never having been truly alive, the fearmonger could not die. Instead, he lingered on; walking the earth clinging to the hope that he might turn a corner and someone would emit even the merest gasp at the sight of him. Day and night, he traveled. Through cities and towns, and across the wilderness, growing weaker and weaker until he became little more than a lingering shadow, shrugged off as a trick of the light on the rare occasion that he was noticed by anything or anyone. It was pure luck that he ran into me when he did or else even I’d have missed him.

An idol of mine had taken his own life, and as my way of honoring his memory I was imagining myself in a boat on a river with tangerine trees and marmalade skies. I saw, heard, and felt lots of strange, alien things that I was certain weren’t real. Why I suspected that he might have been more than merely a result of my chemical-induced state is beyond me. But for whatever reason, I called out to him, and the creature, ecstatic at the prospect of actually having been acknowledged for the first time in over a decade. He told me of his troubles, of his sorry state, and how he was in desperate need of help. He also told me his name, but I couldn’t for the life of me repeat it back; too many consonants, and in all the wrong places. I called him Kizzit for no apparent reason. Whatever the name was, it hadn’t sounded anything like that.

What this wayward monster needed was someone to invent ways for him to be scary. He was willing to pay; up until he began fading he had taken advantage of the fame those imposters who had pulled the rug out from underneath him enjoyed. There was a lot of money in looking like a Muppet, and he had hoped that maybe he’d be able to make use of the money to fix his situation. Hopefully he’d just found a way. I took the job, not knowing what I’d signed on for. I started taking notes on his voice, his shape, size, mannerisms, and then I started writing.

Writing concepts.

It is hardly an excuse, but I need to preface this. When I wrote these terrible things, these scare tactics, they were ideas to me. There was some level at which I simply didn’t believe that there was going to be any action taken on them. Part of me thought that none of this was real, but that sentiment was silenced by the large numbers that greeted me at the ATM. I guess it was just rationalization. In the prospect of large cash payments I let myself believe that it was all a game. He was a TV executive or something, working on a pilot. Or maybe he was writing a book and needed contributions. Anything but the truth to let me sleep at night knowing that I was profiting from these terrible deeds.

Perhaps it could have lasted. Maybe I could have kept my illusion. But chance held that I didn’t. One night I was in a toy store with my niece. It was her birthday, and I had promised her she could have anything she wanted. And she saw this fuzzy green stuffed animal. She instantly fell in love. I tried to stop her, but there was no holding her back, not distraction that could draw her from that terrible beast. She held it close to her. My heart stood still.

The fiend opened its mouth. There was a fluffy white bunny in it. I was frozen in my place. I knew how this ended, and I knew I needed to get Michelle away, but my arms wouldn’t move. It was as if Juliet could have seen Romeo standing over her lifeless body with the vial of poison. There was nothing I could do.

Michelle picked up the bunny.

Its intestines fell to the floor.

She stood there in shock. She stared down at the bloody mass on the linoleum floor. She looked at her hands, which dripped red, and up at that bastard Kizzit, whose mouth did the same. She looked into his bright eyes and saw the dementia behind them.

A six year-old girl, innocent, with know concept of malice or evil.

She looked into those eyes and in an instant grasped the horrible truth. Every facet of his sick twisted being flooded her consciousness, and I could see her spirit break in front of my eyes. Her world was shattered; it was her birthday. We were spending the day together for the first time in far too long. Today was supposed to be a good day, a fantastic day that she’d remember for years to come. Now there was no question that she’d never forget.

She tried to scream but found no breath to put behind it. She was shaking uncontrollably, tears streaming down her face and I clung to the hope that the blood in them was only my imagination. Finding my legs, I rushed to her side. I swept her into my arms and told her that everything would be all right. That I was there and would never let anything hurt her. That I loved her.

That I was sorry.

She looked deep into my eyes and I at last grasped the totality of what I had done. That I had not merely committed one horrendous, terrible deed but hundreds. Perhaps thousands. And I had given that bastard power.

It was time for redemption. I could let it go no further. He had to be destroyed.

He had told me he was immortal. The time had come to call his bluff. I brought Michelle home. I told her not to worry, that I was going to make it right. Kizzit would have left the toyshop now, but as it happened we were going to meet tonight. I would be ready.

A knock at my door. I stood to the side and opened it. The creature stepped in. He didn’t see me.

I knocked him to the ground and stepped on his throat. He struggled, but I was ready. I broke off a horn and put it through his heart. He screamed a terrible scream, the amassed sound of every shriek from every child in one terrible voice. The room seemed to shake from its hideous force. It caused a horrendous pain in me to my very core, but neither the fires of hell nor the promise of heaven would stop me. It had to be done. I took his limbs one by one, and his remaining horns. I put each horn through an eye, leaving one to witness the retribution I was handing down, for the fiend lived still

I was counting on that.

I put him on the workbench. Out came a bone dagger and a dark book. It was time to end it. I cut his heart from his torso, his brain from his head. I cut the muscle from the bone of each limb in front of his one remaining eye, and arranged the pieces of his body around the face. I chanted from the book, an incarnation I will not suffer you to witness. The room glowed red. I plunged the knife into his eye.

His life gave out, and he began to fade. I cursed him as he left.

Before he disappeared he whispered, “See how you like it.” What did he mean?

I rapped lightly on Michelle’s bedroom window. She opened it, and screamed.

I was still bloody, I had forgotten to clean.

Or had I forgotten?

Her scream filled me with a twisted ecstasy the like of which I’d never felt. It empowered me. It fed me.

And I laughed. I laughed an awful, terrible laugh, that thrilled me and horrified me.

I was no longer her dear loving uncle. I was now the beast.

Or had I been a beast all along? Here I was, now, high on her fear in a way that nothing in my life had even approached.

It gave me pleasure.

It gave me power.

It gave me life.

But I had been living off of the fear of others since she was born. I was in the employ of the foulest of beasts, and I had known it all along. I could no longer claim innocence.

I had taken pleasure in pain

Gained power from suffering

Life from death.

Worse, this fiendish lust for fear had been in me all along, even before Kizzit appeared to me. I could feel it taking control, but it was a familiar feeling, only more powerful. It enveloped me, and what I thought I knew of myself seemed lost forever. The demon had been lurking under my skin, and the thrill of destroying a life, even one as loathsome as that fiend’s, had brought it to fruition. All was lost.

It took the last of my willpower to bid my niece goodbye one last time before I tore out into the night.

We have a late-breaking story this evening. The PBS studio that produces Sesame Street was destroyed today in an inexplicable act of apparent terrorism. Each and every one of the beloved Muppets was destroyed as the building went up in flames. Police are on the lookout for any leads, as no suspect or motive is forthcoming.

In an unrelated story, investigators are also stumped in what seems to be a suicide. A man estimated to have stood about six feet, five inches tall was found dead in what all evidence suggests were self inflicted wounds, which due to their nature is impossible by any means with which they are familiar. The body was found completely dismembered, with a dagger in the heart and through each eye.

Moving on to sports…