Act I
in which our weary protagonist is met with an untimely end
“I’m sick of this,” I tell Adam, “let’s get out of here.”
“No, man, this place is too great,” he says, his ruddy eyes bugging out as an effect of whatever drug cocktail he had consumed over the course of the evening.
“Seriously I’m fucking tired.”
Caroline crashes into me and laughs. “Oh hey you,” she says. She tells me she needs to go to the bathroom.
“Go for it,” I say.
“No please come with me,” she says, lengthening the ‘ee’ sounds in ‘please’ and ‘me’.
Caroline has no trouble relieving herself, but getting off the toilet proves much more of a challenge. The struggle doesn’t really bother anyone. Whoever is in this restroom other than the two of us are either unconscious or experiencing intense orgasms.
I ask Caroline to give me the car keys.
“Hey, baby, I’m fine to drive, don’t you worry about me.” She throws up in the sink and wipes her mouth with a pair of pants hanging from the soap despenser. “Seriously though, girl, it’s fine. You been drinking too, so no mothering from you. Plus who wants to go home? This place is the shit.” Caroline grabs a purse from the floor and drags me out of the bathroom.
Adam stumbles over a homeless man on the sidewalk talking about this great falafel joint he had been to a few weeks back. The man doesn’t move. Caroline puts some money and cocaine in his pocket, saying, “fuck, that shit wasn’t even mine, maybe he can go out like a dream.”
Adam says that his uncle did that three years ago, and that he told him all about it at a party he was at in March.
I ask him how that was even possible.
He says he has to introduce me to Franco Jungman. “The guy is a shaman, and he can conjure the sickest spirit dances,” he says. “He allowed me to step into my mother’s body while she was giving birth to me. Fucking intense.”
After finishing his falafel Adam rests his head on my shoulder. “I love you, Holly. You are the best.”
“Hey what about me?” says Caroline. “Holly ain’t the best, I am,” she says motioning to herself. Her shirt is inside out and there is vodka and tzatziki stains down the front.
Adam tries to defuse the situation by saying we are both the best, but Caroline won’t listen. She grabs her purses and shoes in one hand and drags me out of the falafel joint with the other.
I am in the passenger seat of the car due to caroline’s drunk beligerence and my passive drunkenness.
“Lets just go home,” I say. She agrees and starts the car. We pull out and are immediately hit by a semi. We both fly out the windshield. I slam into the side of a tree. This impact knocks me back into the front of the car. I am on the pavement before I even think “fuck”.
Caroline crawls over to what remains of my body. “I’m so sorry, I thought I’d be okay to drive. I’m gonna call for the ambulance.” She gets out her phone. I cough once. It is a very wet cough. I assume that it is blood.
“I’m so sorry baby darling,” her voice trails off as she starts talking to the emergency service operator.
I am gone by the time the ambulance arrives. They take my body and zip close the bag, and take Caroline along with them. Caroline keeps apologizing. I can’t respond because I am dead.
Act II
in which our hero’s killer is shown the meaning of justice
Caroline stares at her computer as often as she can manage. It isn’t as if she enjoys it, only that this is as close as she has to a friend. Her roommate Adam barely sleeps in his room, and has perhaps moved out without her noticing.
Her computer had nothing too great about it, and pornography often made her nauseous. But sometimes a nice bout of planned boredom was intoxicating. She still didn’t enjoy it in any sense of the word, but it was her own impulsive masturbation. So, she tried her best to let it happen.
Caroline sits in her little green office chair and stares at the computer. For one hour she waits before turning it on. Fifteen minutes later she lays in bed with a cold can of ravioli.
Her boss looks just like Jeffery Tambor. Caroline would find this funny if she knew who Jeffery Tambor was. But she doesn’t, so to her Fred Jones is just a bald moron with all the charm of a pus-filled chimpanzee. Her boss chastises a soon to be former coworker about his inability to treat customers as family members. The soon to be former coworker often commits customer service incest in the family bathrooms between the baggage claim and the Starbucks near the baggage claim.
Caroline eats a sandwich for lunch. It is terrible, however she somehow manages to enjoy it. Masochism is the only thing keeping her in her line of work, that and a lack of college degree and her inability to obtain a job anywhere else in the city.
Her favorite part of her job has been the last two years. Nine-Eleven really made working at an airport even more amazing. Caroline and her soon to be former coworker often made bets on who would set off the metal detectors. Caroline won much more often than her soon to be former coworker. He likes to think of himself as a progressive non-racist, but non native English speakers were Caroline’s favorite to harass. They often don’t even realize when she is screwing with them.
Caroline watches a movie with Morgan Freeman in it. She didn’t know anyone who looked like Morgan Freeman. She had only ever known one black girl personally, but she had committed suicide in the third grade.
That night, Caroline turns over in bed and looks at her wall. She can’t see it very well as the lights are off. She wakes up in the morning and the wall is still in front of her. She doesn’t really notice that fact. Why would she? It is a blank bedroom wall.
She shaves her legs in the shower. She uses lemon scented soap and green colored conditioner. She forgets to use shampoo.
Caroline sits in a gate at the far end of the airport. She watches men in orange jumpsuits running around, using their hands for unspecified tasks, and generally looking busy. Caroline doesn’t like them very much. They make her feel rushed. She picks another seat. This one faces a wall. She nibbles on today’s terrible sandwich and squeezes mayonnaise packets onto the floor in front of her.
Her soon to be former coworker had asked her to drinks somewhere in the city. She accepted, knowing that she wasn’t doing anything. They commit coworker incest. She doesn’t enjoy it. His lips are dry and flaky and they make her itch when they scrape across her skin. Her soon to be former coworker starts to choke on a cherry. It was his fault he had tried to mix food with sex.
A dragonfly lands on her soon to be former coworker’s window. She hits the window. Her soon to be former coworker yells at her and takes a bottle of Windex out of his cabinet. Caroline walks over to the bed and asks her soon to be former coworker if he likes his job. He opens the window and starts cleaning the outside.
“No” he says as he closes the window. He sits down next to Caroline and admits that there really isn’t anything else that he wants to do.
Caroline smiles. She leaves her soon to be former coworker’s apartment without saying anything else. When she arrives at her apartment she threw her computer keyboard out the window and slept on her sofa.
She buys a candy bar at a convenience store and makes heavy breathing noises as she ate it on the bus. When she gets to the airport she hears a gunshot. Her former coworker had shot Fred Jones.
She gets the day off, so she goes to the park. She sits next to an old man on a park bench. The park bench stands silently, though everyone know what it’s thinking. It begins to rain quite heavily. Caroline watches a squirrel run up a tree to try and find shelter. The old man walks away but leaves his umbrella on the bench. Caroline picks it up. The park bench thinks about how much it hates the rain as Caroline walks away.
Caroline’s new boss had been nervous all day, so after work Caroline follows him to his car and gives him a blow job. She asks him if he has a computer. He says that he does not. She smiles and tells him that she likes that. He thanks her and drops her off at her apartment building.
She makes eggs for dinner. The TV news station reports that her former coworker had committed suicide in jail. She sits on her sofa all night and watches reruns of Cheers.
Act III
in which we meet the fabled master of the spirit realm
The light creeps up over the buildings facing Franco’s bedroom windows. He chose his apartment based upon the spiritual energies in the area, the relatively low price, and the fact that his bedroom window faces to the east. He also likes the fact that many buildings between his apartment and the horizon are much taller than his apartment building, the effect of which is that he doesn’t see the sun until around ten in the morning.
He puts three eggs to boil in the previous night’s bong water, not wanting to let it go to waste. He rolls a cigarette and opens his kitchen window. Outside an elderly man is dragging an orange kitten on a leash. Franco feels the kitten’s turmoil, as he too had just been awoken by the state of his world.
Franco lights his cigarette on the stove, and takes off a kettle of reheated herbal tea. Pouring himself a mug, he picks up the city’s monthly nondenominational pagan newsletter and scans some of the headlines. He pauses to sense any disturbances in the local planes, satisfied he puts down the newsletter and walks over to the window again. The man and his kitten have gone from his window view, but he can still sense the kitten’s pain.
Franco meets Adam at the elephant exhibit at the zoo. Franco produces a glass pipe from his pocket and packs the bowl. After taking a long drag, he offers it to Adam. Adam declines, opting instead to take a tablet of LSD. Franco takes another drag before putting the remaining marijuana in a film canister and both items in his pocket. He motions to the park bench. Adam sits down as Franco paces back and forth for some time before joining Adam on the bench.
“Now, my brother, I have called you here to not only witness the immense majesty of Loxodonta africana, easily the most majestic of living elephants, but to offer you an apprenticeship in the shamanistic arts. You have had a rough patch these last few weeks, and because of this the emotional pathways required for initiation.”
Adam opens his mouth to speak but Franco quickly silences him. “We must go immediately, but please remember this sight. This beast in front of you may help you along the process as a spirit guide. Use his rough exterior to burst through the psychic dam that guards your brain against the truths of the spirit realm.”
Adam unlocks the door into his apartment and walks in on Caroline asleep at the foot of the television, which is playing an old Star Trek movie. He goes into his room and brings out a bag hastily packed full of assorted belongings. He opens the cupboards in the kitchen, until he finds what he is looking for: a large vodka bottle full of change. He grabs this and a half eaten jar of peanut butter and stuffs them into his bag. He locks the door as he leaves and Caroline does not wake up until her new boss calls informing her that she is late for work and needs to come in as soon as it is possible.
Adam arrives in front of Franco’s apartment building. He, Franco, and Julia Desinda who works at the nearby health food store all get into Franco’s ancient pickup truck. Most of it is red, from rust and the paint job, except the purple passenger side door. Along the way, Adam is forbidden to speak. The only sound on the trip is the cassette tape of Whipped Cream and Other Delights by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass and the occasional passing of other cars.
The Thrilling Conclusion
in which our hero is vindicated
I had been staring at the sky for months, elated that I felt both relaxed and energetic. But now I notice the wind begin to darken, and the sky begin to fade. I become swept away with feelings of nostalgia and dread. I sit up for what seems to be the first time in ages as all color fades from my sight. Everything is white, misshapen and yelling obscene words at me. After a while a naked man wearing a stuffed owl on his head is formed from a white shape that resembles a dolphin and one that looks more like a frog wearing a cape. He steps up to me and says my name.
“Come with me,” he says, offering his hand.
I take his hand, unable to resist. The man is incredibly unattractive, but I am physically compelled to take his hand in mine. As I do, my surroundings become less misshapen and more colorful. The man with a stuffed owl on his head is writhing around on the floor as if in an epileptic fit, even foam is flying from his mouth. The obscenities fade to a low chant of nonsense emitted by the various people surrounding the fire over which I stood. Everyone other than the man with a stuffed owl on his head wore tie-dye or leather. I hear Adam’s voice behind me and then I remember. I spin around and look him in the face.
“What the fuck is going on?”
“Hey, girl! I’ve missed you a bunch, thought I’d pop in and say hello. How have you been?”
“I’ve been better. Death has been great, and if you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to enjoying it, now.”
“Hey so I told you I’d introduce you to Franco Jungman, that shaman I was telling you about the night you died.”
“Oh yeah, I remember that, I wanted to go home and then we went to eat falafel, and then Caroline crashed the car.”
“Yeah, what a night, huh?”
“I fucking hate falafel, Adam. Don’t wake me up again.”