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Posts Tagged ‘Magic’

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WMSP, Part II: a third entertainment

In Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Sci-Fi, Theatre on May 15, 2019 at 12:06 pm

(This is an ongoing series. If you enjoy confusion, read the rest of this post. If you want a firm foundation under your cottage of delights, start here.)

ACT I, Sc. 3

(We are on a small, wooded rise. Dead, dry grass and pine needles surround a small, dry dirt clearing, at the center of which stands a round, hand-built stone tower of about nine feet in height. It’s late on a summer night. There are pine trees bordering this clearing—shorter downstage, taller in the back, but they have the bedraggled, drought-stricken appearance of bedraggled, drought-stricken pine trees. None are more than twenty-five feet high. There is some trash visible: a Starbucks cup, an empty Fritos bag, a used condom and the like.

Interlocutor enters.)

INTERLOCUTOR
We are in a very different part of the forest now, ladies and gentlemen. On a certain level, it could be said to be a different forest altogether, though from a purely geographical, topographical standpoint, it is not too far from our last encounter with our intrepid be-khaki’d adventuress.
I think, however, that you will find her efforts less-than-successful in this, the final scene of the evening’s entertainment.
Brace yourselves: this will be bloody.
And should any of you find the idea of a young lady flayed alive upsetting to your sensibilities, remember this: she is a sinner like the rest of us, and therefore deserves everything coming to her. Better thee than me, as the sentiment goes. Ah, here she comes now!

(Reader enters, dressed as she was in Sc. 2, but dustier, dirtier, her hair askew. She holds her hat to her head, a large bump on her forehead, glancing behind her as she runs up the slope to this tower.

Interlocutor stands back and watches during the following, perhaps crossing his arms, perhaps bouncing in place, willing her to fail and unable to contain his delight.

Reader circles the tower, searching it for something. She consults a journal she carries on her person, eyes on the book as she leans her staff against a tree and removes her backpack to lean next to her staff. She speaks during all of the above action.

As Reader speaks, a figure appears—unseen by Reader—from the trees beyond the tower: the Hooded Thing from the last scene, lurching and hungry; it hears her, pauses, sniffs the air, rubs at its groin and steps out of the robe, shifting shape to a human female form in early 20th Century dress; though her garb is everyday wear, she is somewhat formal in her bearing. Her hair is in a bun. Head bowed, she is a shadow, a silhouette moving with dark purpose. She stands on the opposite side of the tower. She opens her left hand; a large axe slides into it, as though it came from within her sleeve, which it did not. The head of the axe hits the dirt with a soft thud, the base of the handle resting in her hand. She raises the axe, ready to chop. Her head remains bowed. This is Axe Lady.

All of the above takes place during the time it takes for Reader to enter, set down her burdens and speak her monologue below.)

READER
As Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came, so do I circle now this monument to that shadowed tale. I see no markings, I sense no shift in power, no tingling foreboding. I must check my notes.
This night is strangely warm, the lights of the city brighter and more abundant than from any other vista on this mountainside.
I find no traces. On the other side of the tower, perhaps I missed—

(As Reader crosses toward the other side of the tower, Axe Lady screams, swinging the axe at Reader’s head; Axe Lady’s head remains bowed.

Reader ducks, axe misses.

There are cries from offstage, male voices and the sound of three men approaching.

Axe Lady falls to the ground, head facing upstage, clutching her side and wriggling in what looks like pain.)

AXE LADY
Help, help. /She’s trying to kill me. Come closer. Please help me.

(/Three men enter; they are not of this time, not of this story: an actor in his mid-40’s, a writer-filmmaker in his mid-twenties, a singer in his mid-twenties.

Reader picks up axe, whirling to face the newcomers.

Interlocutor is not amused, but knows how this will end. He waits.)

ACTOR
What the fuck?!

READER
Who the heck are you fellows?
And why do you cuss so much?

AXE LADY
Don’t let her kill me, please. /Please help me. She followed me in the night with an axe. She stole my husband. She’s nothing but a slut!

SINGER
/The one with the axe is the girl who fell.
I don’t know who the talkative lady is. Who are you, lady?

READER
Why are you following me? And how? My steps are untraceable, my path forever winding!

WRITER
She didn’t have an axe a minute ago.

AXE LADY
Please come closer, I’m bleeding. I’m bleeding because this girl chopped me. She chopped me because my husband was so hard for me when he got home!

(Writer steps toward Axe Lady.)

ACTOR
Wait. Something isn’t right.

(Writer stops, looking at Actor.

Actor points at Axe Lady.)

There’s no blood.

(Axe Lady’s head snaps around backward. Face fully revealed for the first time, her eyes glow white.)

AXE LADY
I am the biter of penises!

SINGER
Kellyanne Conway?

(Axe Lady drags herself across the ground toward the men, arms and legs at wrong angles, blue chunks dripping from her mouth.

The men back away, she tries to corner them in the clearing during the following.)

WRITER
Something tells me we should go /now.

AXE LADY
/Mine is the mouth that turns your dreams to dread, the tongue that snakes into your boyholes while you dream your secret lusts!

SINGER
(to Actor)
See, this is why I prefer men.

ACTOR
Right now I get it.

READER
Do you not know how much danger you’re in?! Why are men so stupid?

(Reader leaps toward Axe Lady, swinging axe with a wild battle cry; she’s clearly had some experience with this. The axe will take off Axe Lady’s head.

The men stare, shocked.

Just as the axe is about to make contact, Axe Lady catches the blade in her hand: it is silent, literally all sound disappears for a moment as the contact is made. Reader is helpless, dangling in the air, unable to let go of the axe.)

SINGER
Time to go.

(Singer turns and runs back the way they came—but hits an invisible barrier, is thrown back, landing hard, the breath knocked out of him. He lays there, horrible hurking noises coming out of him as he struggles to breathe.

Writer is looking from Singer to Axe Lady, frantic.

Actor is searching his pockets, also frantic.

Axe Lady opens her other hand, flicking her index finger into a long, tapering needle-sharp point.)

AXE LADY
The darkness must be fed. Interfering sluts get what they deserve.

(Axe Lady slowly runs the needlefinger up Reader’s leg, toward her groin.)

ACTOR
Fuck! No salt! Ghost Child Mary, can you help us out?

(Ghost Child Mary appears atop the tower.

Interlocutor staggers back, shocked; possibly even damaged.

As Interlocutor is shocked, so is Axe Lady; their movements mirror one another, but Axe Lady does not lose her grip on Reader, pulling her close, staring her bright white eyes into Reader’s eyes until Reader goes limp.)

GHOST CHILD MARY
Mama says you got yourself all tangled up, Mister!

INTERLOCUTOR
Abandon the slut! Take the child! Her sightless eyes see too much!

(All see Interlocutor now. Actor, Writer ad-lib realistic reactions. Singer is incapacitated.

Ghost Child Mary, initially focused on Actor, sees Interlocutor, Reader and the Axe Lady.)

AXE LADY
I hunger to peel her skin from her flesh!
I hunger to peel her flesh from her /bones!

GHOST CHILD MARY
/This scene is supposed to end badly.
I know that girl in khaki; she thinks I don’t see her, but she’s always running, hunting, searching.
Oh, but that man hides the truth of events. That lady is made of bad things. Not a person at all.
Mama, can I help?

(A wind blows; pine needles rain down like snow.)

Please, Mama?

(Wind blows stronger. Dust and pine needles whirl up, blinding everyone—including Interlocutor and Axe Lady, who drops Reader.

A little to the side and back of the tower, the dust and pine needles whirl more tightly into a violent dust devil.

All variously cry out, over which we hear:)

But I wanna help!

(From the center of the dust devil steps an old man in a black coat, with a full white beard and crazy white hair.)

OLD MAN
Room! Room to turn round in, to breathe and be free!

(As he speaks, he gestures: the air above the tower fractures. Wind intensifies.)

To grow to be giant, to sail as at sea

(Another gesture, a fallen tree branch sweeps Interlocutor and Axe Lady off into the night. Wind is howling like a tornado now. Still, the Old Man’s voice carries easily.)

With the speed of the wind on a steed with his mane

(The fracture in the air forks down into the earth on either side of the tower.)

To the wind, without pathway or route or a rein!

(Lightning strikes the tower; what was a fracture now shatters: but what, if anything, did it affect?

The wind ceases.

Ghost Child Mary has disappeared.

The Old Man stands there, smiling, surveying his handiwork.

Actor sits up.)

ACTOR
Everyone okay?

WRITER
(from his position on the ground)
How the fuck do you get anything done if this is what your nights are like after rehearsal?

(Singer sits up.)

SINGER
Yeah, no, I’m done.

(Singer stands, leaves; as he exits:)

Bye Felicia.

(Singer is gone; Old Man watches him go, bemused.

During the following, Actor and Writer sit up, dusting themselves off, wary eyes on the Old Man.)

OLD MAN
I once sat alone in the moonlight,
In the moonlight soft and fair,
And a thousand thoughts stole o’er me,
While penciling, sitting there;
And the cricket was chirping, a chirping
And sang as I sat alone,
How green grows the grass around you?
What path beyond tower of stone?

(Old Man vanishes in a swirling of thistledown. Actor and Writer react, standing, looking around for him.)

WRITER
How many times can I say what the fuck in one night?

(Snow is falling. Actor and Writer notice it through the next three lines.)

ACTOR
I’ve seen that guy before. Backstage at Woodminster in … 1994, I think.

WRITER
I thought your first Woodminster show was in 2015.

ACTOR
Long story. I thought you … read it …

(A cold wind blows from the trees upstage; Actor and Writer turn to see:

The moon coming out from behind clouds upstage, revealing the same landscape, but covered completely by snow; it looks like Norway at Christmas.

Actor clicks on his flashlight, illuminating a set of tracks leading off upstage, into the snowbound forest.

They stand staring at the footprints. Actor turns off his flashlight.

Snowfall increases.

An owl hoots.

End of Scene 3.)

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Fong’s Part VI

In Fantasy, Fiction, Fong's, Sci-Fi, Writing on May 31, 2015 at 11:45 am

Penny Onehole was struck by those words, remembering for the first time in years how, once her feet had healed and her fever cleared, Fong had bought her new clothes and given her money to take a ferry across the bay. “Go and find your father,” he had said. “This is no place for you.”

With money for travel to Saint Raymond, she’d crossed the fog-wracked water on a day that she discovered, upon arrival at the other side, was warm and breezy. Breathing deep her freedom, she made her way from the docks at Oak Landing to the stagecoach office, sitting prim in the shade, watching the fresh horses being harnessed to the very coach that would take her to safety. At least the Mormons had been clean. When she had first arrived in Saint Raymond, with everyone so polite and smiling in that weird Mormon way, she had never expected to long to return to that place.

A voice spoke from behind her, saying, “Sweet thing like you, hard to forget,” and Penny turned to see a scraggly-bearded man leering at her through an open window. His face was familiar, and just as the memory surfaced – this was the man she’d knocked down on her flight from the flophouse where she’d awakened weeks before – she was yanked to her feet and came face-to-face with a well-dressed, short, pale man who smelled very good. His hair was slicked back, his thin moustache stuck out to the side in points like two long, thick rat whiskers. Penny had seen him before, watching him through peep holes at Fong’s as he’d threatened her protector on repeated visits, the threats diminishing in strength as the opium took hold.

“Rivard,” she breathed.

“I paid good money for your fiery little cunt,” he purred, caressing her face. She could feel that nobody was watching them. Rivard’s reputation was as pervasive as the fog that choked the city across the bay. His hand closed over her throat. “So lucky for me, the one day I step across the bay, to find you. I haven’t been here for years. Do you see that man holding my hat?”

With Rivard’s hand crushing her throat, Penny could only glance in that direction.

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Fong’s Part V

In Fantasy, Fiction, Fong's, Writing on May 30, 2015 at 11:45 am

Knucklebrow looked ready to shit himself.

“Have no fear, Mr. Twosie,” said Fong. “You are among friends. Enjoy your whiskey, and cast your mind back to a time and place when you felt safe, loved and valued.”

Knucklebrow stared at Fong, frowning as he said, “You think I don’t feel safe? You think I’m not man enough to take care of myself?”

“I think you’re letting good whiskey go to waste, Mr. Twosie. I’m certain you can take care of yourself, and several others. I imagine you could take care of an entire brood. But what I think doesn’t matter. What matters is what I know. And I know you will enjoy that whiskey,” said Fong.

Knucklebrow sat still for a moment, like a volcano measuring the value of an impending eruption, then reached for his glass.

Fong murmured, “Double,” gesturing to Heifitz for a refill as Knucklebrow downed his whispey. Heifitz obliged.

Knucklebrow downed the double and wiped his mouth with the back of the hand holding the glass, his eyes focused on the frame of the mirror behind the bar, his soul focused on protecting the memory of someplace safe. A single drop threatened to fall onto Knucklebrow’s shirt front, but was caught by Fong on a tiny folded paper flower. Placing a cup of steaming coffee on the bar, Fong set the flower to float in the dark liquid and said, “Black mirror, white flower, show us now your ancient power: does this Twosie tell the truth? Or does he lie from heart uncouth? Dig beneath his lifelong sediment, thus uproot his speech impediment!”

Knucklebrow reeled back like he’d been beaned with a brickbat, then shook his head to clear it. He was winding up to lunge across the bar when Fong blew a pinch of white powder over the steam of the coffee.

The room slowed, the lights dimmed, and from the steam of the coffee a young girl’s voice said, “Petey, help me! I’m lost and I can’t find my way!”

Knucklebrow’s arm fell to his side, his face crumpled, he stared at the coffee. It spoke again:

“Petey, Papa’s gonna sell me! Please find me!”

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Specific Exploration

In Uncategorized on October 5, 2013 at 8:54 pm

It’s a warm early October day here in Livermore. My nephew came out here from Oakland yesterday and spent the night. We’ve been drinking espresso and eating breakfast and discussing new Magic decks while listening to John Lewis’ J.S. Bach: Preludes and Fugues. Various obligations we’ve had for the day have evaporated and as of now (1:08 pm), it seems that all of our horizons are clear and we are free to do whatever we please. It’s a bit of a shock, actually. The general consensus is, “Now what?”

I have something I want to do, and my plan is to talk the fiancee and the nephew into it. The main obstacle is the price of gas. Getting the fiancee to commit to any leisure activity that requires major expenditures for gasoline is problematic, at best. I can’t use the argument that it’s research for my blog — which it definitely is — because I don’t earn any money from the blog. You would think, with over sixteen thousand pageviews, I could earn some money. But Google hath decreed that my blog is adult in nature (because my characters and I all swear a great deal), and that I am therefore ineligible for monetization of the blog. So that argument is not going to work. I’ll have to come up with something else.

What I want to do is go for a drive. On a very specific road, South of Livermore. It’s an incredibly beautiful drive, and I’d be able to take some pictures for reference. Maybe that’s the argument. I could also show her some spots of which I’ve spoken to her in the past, places she’s never seen, on a road branching off of the main road. I can honestly tell you that she will not be terribly interested in these things. Maybe I can convince her to let me take the nephew on this journey of discovery. That might be just the tactic, but it again involves gas, which means money. Right now, things are tight.

The fiancee never wants me to write about our financial status. It makes her very angry. I’m supposed to “just not mention it,” even though it is absolutely central to every single thing we do, central to my decision to turn down every theatrical job I’m offered that doesn’t pay a living wage (which is all of them), central to every moment of our lives. It’s the source of the tension which causes her to grind her teeth in her sleep, the source of the tension which has wound around our relationship like a creeping, choking vine — strangling light, happiness, comfort and overall pleasant demeanor. She broods about money. Broods about it. I’ve always felt that a positive attitude will get one further than dark, angry obsessing. Perhaps I’m wrong. But she has yet to embrace my approach, and I always manage to pull money out of a hat at the last possible moment when we’re desperate.

I’ve got some writing plans that could expand into other areas of late, but of course they require attention and completion. Getting these sorts of things done can be tricky while socializing. I’ve begun to feel that I am losing too much time during the day if I’m not writing something. (I have this time right now because the nephew is in the shower.) There was a time when I would meet three days a week with some filmmaker cohorts, but since they moved in together we basically never meet. And since many of those meetings ended up being nothing more than pleasant, coffee-fueled debates, I look back on them with the distinct feeling of opportunity missed.

To be clear: I do not begrudge the nephew or the fiancee or anyone else my social time. I simply ache to get something written, to get at least 2,000 words of fiction saved, before I go and do something else. I also understand that balance is essential — one needs to get out of the house and do other things. I have been the charismatic housebound introvert for months, now. Perhaps a day simply out and about is all I need.

Here’s an idea: I’ll record the day. An audio recording to be transcribed and fictionalized, adapted to one or more 2,000 word short stories. Then it’s totally justifiable. Which, ah, now opens my mind to the possibilities I’d forgotten in these last months: every social interaction is a possible short story. I’ve been holed up here in front of this computer or my typewriter since May. It hasn’t been healthy, but it has occasionally been productive.

I need to go to some parties. Preferably raging topless bacchanalia. I’ll add that to the shopping list.