Story 28: Life in the Slow Lane

            Traffic, that cursèd organism with a mind of its own, literally inches forward in the daily parkway ritual of lane closures, accidents with their inevitable offspring of rubbernecking, backed-up exits, backed-up entrances, and nowhere else for the imprisoned participants to turn.  In short: Hell on Earth.

            The regulars know their parts and resignedly play them.  The most intricate of the routine is the maneuver dubbed “The Waltz of the Sedans” which, when properly executed, is a thing of beauty.  It involves two or more vehicles simultaneously swapping lanes, akin to synchronized swimming and producing much the same awe to any observer who can steal a glance.  Those who stumble in this pas de automobile wipe out spectacularly and earn the sudden horror and subsequent wrath of their fellow travelers, followed by pity when the tragic results are seen.  The ones caught in the wake hours later settle for wrath because it’s easier.

            The amateurs – the out-of-staters, the vacationers, the student drivers, and the fools who just do not know any better – invariably either drive at the speed limit (aka the suggested starting speed) in the far left lane, or never know when or where their exit will show up.  The regulars do their best to go around and beyond them, but one sap always will be trapped behind an amateur trundling along with its right blinker on for the past five exits, hoping the next will be “the one”.

            Rush hour usually is rush day, except between the hours of 3:00 and 4:00 a.m. every other Sunday.  If you are lucky, the DUIs race past you with only your car rocking in the slipstream as evidence of your narrow escape.  The state trooper not far behind is planning the next phase of his career: race car driving, with its dangers of crashing and burning making it the infinitely safer life option.

            To avoid this horrible, convenient roadway, it is best to memorize the myriad backroads to your destination.  The journey will be just as long if not longer, but the advantages are that you will be in motion the entire time rather than idling; you pay for just gas rather than gas and tolls; and the scenery is better.  A few of the downsides include traffic lights and the pedestrians who step into the road just as you approach because they want you to hit them.  They are a wily bunch, tripping you up by crossing against lights, walking in non-people-designated areas, and appearing out of thin air as your car is in mid-turn.  Don’t let them succeed in their suicidal goal: stop short, blast your weak horn, shake your fist mightily, and shout a blessing that they have long lives in spite of their self-destructive tendencies.

            To avoid this nice, inconvenient roadway, take the parkway.  Yes, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity, but sometimes one must just endure it.

Story 27: The Call During the Movie

           The perils of the modern age: bright and noisy electronics have invaded that sacred hall of darkness and silence, the movie theater.  All it takes is one user to distract an entire audience from the awesomeness happening on the screen.

            One afternoon, a theater in the heartland of the U.S. of A. had only eight people in it, since the current blockbuster was already in its third week on the marquee and therefore almost dead.  Half of the attendees had seen it at least once and were still trying to figure out when exactly the villain had tipped his hand before they even knew he was a villain, the sly devil.  Sixteen eyes were staring at the flickering screen, blinking only if absolutely necessary, when the jarring beep-beep-beep-boop-boop-bip-beep-beep resounded.

            The response was a mix of “Argh!”s, “Ssh!”s, and kernels of popcorn thrown at the sound.  The siren call could not be ignored, however, and was answered in a whisper.

            “Hello?”

                "Sssssshhhhhh!!!!”

            “You saw a what?!”

            “Take it outside, man!”

            One repeat viewer didn’t mind missing a boring scene to drag an usher in and bodily evict the caller, who was struggling out of his seat and down the row, blocking the view of people behind him, and dodging more popcorn.  “Don’t kid about stuff like that – I don’t believe an actual alien spaceship has just landed next to Stonehenge.”

            This got everyone’s attention.  Those with super phones consulted the oracle that is The Internet for confirmation of the news.

            “Holy crow, a spaceship just landed next to Stonehenge!”

            “This has to be a hoax.”

            The caller covered one ear as an usher with the helpful audience member came up to him in the aisle.  “My friend’s over there right now – ” He glanced at his phone.  “She just sent me a picture of it!”

            Everyone got up from their seats and ran over to see.  The spaceship looked like a cross between an aircraft carrier and a tugboat, and was coated in a strange shade of mauve.

            The usher yelled up to the projectionist.  “Hey Mark, get down here, you gotta see this!”

            The caller put the phone back to his ear.  “Is anyone coming out of it?”

            “Put it on speaker!”

            “It doesn’t work.  Someone’s coming out!”

            “What does it look like?”

            “A… slug?”

            “What?”

            “Ew.”

            “What’s it doing?”

            “Does it have a ray gun?!”

            “It’s looking around… it turned around… it’s sliding back into the ship….” The sound of a roaring engine was heard and the caller had to hold the phone away from his ear for half a minute until it was done.  “Brenda!  What happened?!”

            “Oh no, the invasion’s beginning!”

            “I knew something like this was going to happen today!”

            “It left?”

            “To where, New York?!  They always go to New York.”

            “They never go to New York, there’s not enough room to land.”

            “No, she said it went straight up into the sky, back into space.”

            Phones were consulted again.

            “It left!”

            “That’s it?  No war of the worlds, no insight into the mysteries of the universe?”

            “Brenda, what’s happening?”  He listened and hung up.  “She had to give her phone to the G-men.”

            Everyone looked at their phones.  “Hey, the photos were taken down!”

            “I can’t find any of the discussions I was in the middle of!”

            “They can’t wipe out everything about this, can they?”

            “Who’s ‘they’?”

            “You know, ‘they’.”

            “You may never see Brenda again, you know.”

            “We need to fight this!  We can’t let them get away with a cover-up of this magnitude!”

            “They can’t find out that we know what really happened!”

            “We have to go underground – I have a bunker!”

            They all followed the usher in determined panic after he said this.  The house lights came on as the credits rolled.

            One attendee turned back.

            “Hey, they made me miss the end!”

Story 26: What Happened to Ernest Frankenstein?

          (Based on a recent book club pick)
 
          I loved my family: no one could have had a more blessed childhood than I had in 18th-century Geneva.  My parents, though distant in age, adored each other and their children; the two girls we had incorporated into our clan had their beauty equaled only by their virtue; and our little brother William was everyone's favorite.
          And then, there was Victor.
          Do not misunderstand me: I loved my brother as I loved all my relatives.  It is only that there was always something, well, how to explain: not quite natural about him.
          From a young age, he had become interested in alchemy and achieving eternal life.  Honestly!  Father should have kept a tighter reign on that boy's reading material, if anyone had asked me, but I do not begrudge the freedoms we all enjoyed.  We were allowed to frolic anywhere we wished like well-behaved hooligans, getting ourselves into all sorts of orderly mischief.  My blood siblings were Victor and Saint William, and our parents adopted Elizabeth, the Mother Superior, and Justine, our social equal until she would come of age to be our servant.  Elizabeth was our sister in almost every sense of the word but everyone, her included, expected her to marry Victor, which I found a bit distasteful and added a disturbing layer to our childhood games; however, no one asked for my opinion.  Come to think of it, few people ever asked me about anything.
          Victor's departure for university was delayed when Mother died, as mothers nursing sick adopted girls tend to do.  I do not know if her passing significantly affected the turn his studies took while he was at school - that die seemed to have been cast well before that tragedy could have been used as an excuse.  He wrote not once - not once! - while he was studying in Germany.  I could understand several weeks or even a few months, but years?  That was when I first started suspecting that he was not entirely well.  In the head, I mean.
           Our friend, Henry Clerval, then wrote to us that Victor had fallen ill, which naturally had us all worried for him.  We were soon distracted from that by The Saint's martyrdom - that is to say, poor little William was found randomly murdered.  Odder still, our mother's miniature portrait that he was wearing on a whim that day was found on Justine.  The finger of the law pointed to her and no other.  I myself thought it odd that someone who would do such a thing would then leave incriminating evidence lying around for others to find in her possession, but no one asked me.  Poor Justine confessed so she would not burn for eternity, and was hanged for it.  On his return home during the trial, Victor was extremely upset about the whole thing, even more than the rest of us: he beat his chest, pulled his hair, and groaned a lot.  He also spent much time walking around and rowing on the lake.  I mourned as well, then had to continue studying for my exams.
          After one of his walkabouts, Victor asked Father's permission to study in England.  England!  As if Germany hadn't been enough!  Clerval wanted to go with him, the better to complete his training in spreading The Word to foreigners, so Father acquiesced.  I had yet to be allowed to join the service and see the world, yet there was Victor, on his second international journey.  Well, someone had to keep Elizabeth company while he was gone, at any rate.
           Time passed (onward, as it must), and we received word that Clerval had met an unfortunate end and Victor had been arrested for it.  That news most assuredly set us astir, until we received word later that Victor was proved innocent by eyewitnesses stating that he was in the vicinity of his island laboratory with its foul stench at the time of the murder.  That was certainly a relief.
           The inevitable then happened: after Victor came home, he and Elizabeth married.  I spent the whole ceremony holding back the feeling of sickness as I watched them sickeningly make their sickening vows of love and destiny and virtue and ad infinitum to each other.  When we received word later that Elizabeth had been found dead on her wedding night, I first thought she had expired in self defense.  Then I thought Victor had finally snapped and killed the one he loved, but he claimed that some "monster" (he always exaggerated) had murdered her.  Father gave way to the tidal wave of grief and joined Mother, who was the lucky one out of all this, in Heaven.  And then Victor disappeared, leaving me, well and truly, alone to face the cold world.
          Some time later, I somehow came across letters written by a sailor to his sister that detailed his meeting Victor in the middle of the Arctic, of all places.  The whole sordid story of my brother's attempt to play mother (twice) by creating a living human being from the parts of dead human beings, his responsibility for our family members' and friend's deaths (except for Mother's: that was all sick Elizabeth's fault), and the possibility that his "man" was still running around wreaking havoc despite its claims to the contrary just about killed what was left of my spirit.  Having said all that, the one act of Victor's that I absolutely could not forgive was his behaving as if his entire family was dead when I was still alive and had to hear about all this years later.
          I think Mary Shelley forgot about me. 

Story 25: Lust at First Sight

            Their eyes met across the crowded room, both pairs desperately searching for happiness.  Once locked onto each other, they could not tear themselves away.  The eyes led, and the bodies followed: they met at last in front of the bar at the height of happy hour.

            There was just… something about him.

            She was beautiful in her loneliness – he knew she needed someone like him to take care of her.

            This was the real deal: this was true love.

          Each of their families disapproved of their moving in together the following day, but the blood relations just didn’t understand the magnetism, the chemistry, the biology, not even, most importantly, just how hot the other person was.  Sure, he was a bad boy; sure, she was a bad girl.  Each needed the other desperately - it was plain for all to see.  The rest would come some time later.

            SOME TIME LATER

            She saw the court order in the mail.

            “You pay alimony?!  You never told me you were married!”

            “You never asked.”

            “I never asked if you were a deadbeat either, but it seems that’s been answered, too.”

            “Which one is it?”

            “Which one what?”

            “Which wife.”

            “How many….?!”

            He held up three fingers.  She threw a plate at his head, which barely missed him in spite of her aim.

           “Wait, does separation still count as marriage or should that be considered divorce?  `Cause if it’s the latter –” He held up four fingers and received another plate.

            “I don’t believe this!”

            “Just a head’s up in case you also see this in the mail soon, maybe now’s a good time to mention my five kids – those checks’ve been a little behind, too.”

            “I can’t imagine why.”

            “Hey, you’re one to talk – what about all those stripper photos I saw posted of you, huh?”

            “You weren’t supposed to see those!  I was supporting myself through college!”

            “And I would applaud your entrepreneurial spirit, if it didn’t also involved B&E and grant theft auto.”

            “I thought those records were sealed!  You are such a hypocrite to throw those in my face – I was a kid!  Kids do stupid things!”

            “You were 35 years old, and it was last year.”

       “I thought you didn’t care about my past!  You said the past doesn’t matter, only our future, remember?”

           “Not if our future involves me being charged as an accessory after the fact!  I always knew you didn’t buy that van that's been sitting in the garage.”

            “I need wheels for my kitchen!”  She covered her mouth to retroactively take back what she said.

            “Oh, I knew it – you have a mobile meth lab!”

            “Don’t get all sanctimonious on me, Mr. Floating Poker Game!  I followed you one night and saw you’re both the organizer and the kneecap breaker!”

            “It cuts costs!”

            “And what’s with the offshore accounts you hid from me that’ve suddenly disappeared?”

            He started crying.  “So much money!”  He suddenly stopped.  “How’d you know about them?”
            “The IRS came calling this morning.  I said you were out, but, in good conscience, I don’t think I can keep lying for you.  The good news is, you’ll have your choice between federal prison and plain old prison.”

            “If you rat me out, I’ll rat you out!  And another thing – that ballet you dragged me to last Saturday was boring!”  She gasped in horror.  “How could you think I’d like it?”

            “I guess I was under the same delusion you were when you dragged me to that tennis match!”

            “You said later you liked it!”

            “It was boring!  Don’t you know me at all, John?!”

            “My name’s Brian.”

Story 24: No One Really Wants to Know

          My typical day starts the same as most people’s: the comforting land of unconsciousness is brutally shattered by the forced awakening into the prison that everyone insists on calling “reality”; I shower off the filth of the previous day and night so as not to offend the senses or invite infection; and I insert food and drink into the machine that is my body, enabling it to function for yet another day.  I then head to the bus stop, as my commuter membership requires that I be transported with other like-minded souls who also choose to live far from our places of employment in order to reduce our take-home pay by that much more.  I arrive five minutes early at the area where we all mill around and I grimace at one of the regulars, who is very polite and takes it as a smile.

            “Good morning," she says.  "How are you?”

            “Bad.  My heart stopped when I woke up this morning and my feet hurt.”

            “Oh, that’s too bad.”

            “Glad we agree.  How are you?”

            “Good, thanks.”

            We go through the same routine every morning – she never gives up on me, the sweetheart.

            At the office, I see the mailroom guy who doesn’t come up to our floor often.

            “Oh, hi!"  He waves at me.  "How have you been?”

            “Not well at all – my sciatica’s acting up again and my aunt’s in the hospital.”

            “Oh no, I hope it’s not too serious.”

            “It is.  How have you been?”

            “I’m doing well, thank you.  Take care now.”

            “You, too.”  I’ll probably never see him again.

            Lunch is another force-feeding session – will I never regain my sense of taste? – and then it’s back to the paper shuffle.  My boss stops by my cubicle.

            “So, how’s it going?”

            “Terribly.  The report’s going to be late, I misplaced a file, and I think I’m losing my vision staring at the computer screen all day.  How’s it going with you?”

            “Uh, let’s talk in my office.”

            We have a nice chat about this and that, and I get an almost-free visit to the eye doctor out of the deal.  As I head to the bus station to make the return journey to my haven, the doorman stops me.

            “Hi, I’m the new evening doorman.  How are you today?”

            “Not good, thanks – I’m in constant pain and this afternoon I almost got fired.  How are you today?”

            “Oh, I’m good, thanks.”

            Why does everyone lie to me?

Story 23: Fax From the Past?

             Ring, ring: 718-555-7342.

            “It’s that number again!”

            “What number?”

            “Listen.”  She hit “speaker” and picked up.  “Accounting, this is Sheryl, how may I – ”  Booooop – buzzzz – crackle-crackle-crackle – “It’s that fax machine calling here again!”

            “So call it back.”

            “No one’ll answer.”

            “Sometimes it’s also a phone.”

            “Oh, OK.”  She hit “speaker” again and dialed.  After a few rings: “Click.  This is an unregistered number in --- Company.  If you know your party’s extension, please dial it – ”  She disconnected.

            “You heard that?”

            “I did.  That’s weird.”

            “Weird?  We’re getting phone calls from a phantom fax machine!”

            “Just try faxing a notice to it telling them the right number.”

            “Good idea.”  She did that.

            From the fax machine’s speaker: “Click.  This is an unregistered number – ”

            “It’s a phantom fax machine!”

          “Calm down.  Just let I.T. know and maybe they can track down the number for you.  For Pete’s sake, do I have to think of everything?”

            “Yes.”  She spoke with I.T. for a few minutes and slowly hung up.  “That number was disconnected and hasn’t been used in years.”

            “What number?”

            “The phantom fax number!”

            “Oh, you’re still going on about that?  Just let go – it’s stopped calling.”

           "Don’t you understand the implications of all this?  A number that’s not in service is calling here now.  Someone from the past is trying to send us a message and dialed the wrong number!”

            “Um-hm.”

            “Are you listening to me?”

            “No, I’m typing my report.  Would you please go back to work?”

            “How can I work when we’re experiencing a temporal phenomenon?”

            “Concentrate harder and block out distractions.”

            “If only they had dialed the right number.  What lessons could that past figure have taught us that we can’t already learn through history?”

TWO YEARS LATER

            “I can’t believe we all got fired!”

            “Not ‘fired’, ‘let go’.  ‘Fired’ means it’s your fault, ‘let go’ means it’s their fault.”

            “I’m already locked out of my computer!”

            “I’m surprised Security isn’t here yet to gently throw us out the door.  They must be busy with the rest of the floor.”

            “I should’ve taken that job I told you about last month.  Now my life is ruined!”

            “Why not fax your past self and warn her about all this?”  Snickers.

            “You’re right!  The new fax machine got assigned the phantom fax number and that means it actually transmits to the past, not from it!  This is my only chance to save myself!”

            “Save me too while you’re at it, would ya?”

           “Sure!”  She scribbles frantically as two security personnel approach their area.  “I only have one shot at this – keep them busy!”

            “No.”

           “Just knock your stuff on the floor!  Minimum effort!”  She jabs the message to her past self into the fax machine, dials, and hits “Send”.  “Yes!”

            The security personnel arrive.  “Time to go.”

            “I don’t think so, my good men, for in five seconds I will have vanished into thin air before your very – no!”

            “Our very what?”

            “What is it, Sheryl?”

            “I dialed the wrong number!”

            The causality loop is now closed for business.

Story 22: The T.V. Lawyer

          This is it – don’t let them think they have control, don’t let them think they have the power.  Show them who’s boss of this situation.  Yeah.

          Look at them in there, grilling my client, What’s-His-Name.   All smug and self-righteous, thinking they have it all figured out, and that not only is he the scum of the earth, but he’s also an idiot for getting caught.  Little do those fools know they are about to be stonewalled.

           I burst through the police station interview room door and point at my meal ticket.  “Don’t say another word!”  The wall camera has me at a good angle – that usually doesn’t happen on the first try.

            My client and the cops all say: “Who are you?”

            “I – AM – HIS – LAWYER!”

            Water drips and eyelids blink.

           “That’s right, I’m doing all the talking now.  I have a list of demands I’d like to review with you before we get started.”  I settle myself on the only other chair there, rip open my briefcase, and whip out my boilerplate ultimatums.

            The cops stand.  One of them parts with: “We’re done for now.  You can go, but don’t leave town.”

           “And you’d better not leave town either, madam,” I return.  That always throws them off on their way out.

            My client is new to the process.  “I don’t get it – am I still in trouble?”

            “You bet, but don’t worry: you’ll never see the inside of a courtroom.  Not with me on the case.”

            Six months later, I’m ready for the opening statement.

            “Your Honor, as I have consistently maintained, my client is a victim as much as the murdered victim.  He is a victim of harassment from the so-called ‘Justice Department.’”  The stenographer hates it when I do air quotes – always good to have people remember your distinctive qualities.  “We will be counter-suing The State for pain and suffering once he is acquitted, and no offer less than $300 million and documentary film rights will be accepted.”  Need to have a strong opening to get everyone’s attention, else they’ll think you’re weak.

           The District Attorney plays dirty: “Your Honor, we have DNA, security and cell phone video footage, and 10 eyewitnesses implicating the defendant as the murderer.”

           Oh, you and your evidence.  I have to stop this: “ Objection!  Supposition!”

            “Overruled.”

            “Allegation!”

            “Overruled.”

            “Hearsay?”

            “Overruled.”

            “May I approach the bench?”

            “You may.”

         The nosy D.A. has to tag along.  The Judge covers the microphone so no one else can hear him embarrass himself.  I have no such compulsion: “Your Honor, I’ve conducted my own investigation, and I have proved beyond a shadow of a doubt who the real killer is.”

            “You’re just bringing this to my attention now?!”

        I make sure everyone can hear me by rotating 360°.  “I was going to save this for after I had browbeaten the witnesses, but the real murderer is in this very room.”  The gasps are rewarding.

            “Counselor, you are bordering on contempt.”

            “The only contempt I have is for the miscarriage of justice that is taking place here today!  I will put an end to this farce, once and for all, and declare that the murderer is none other than that man there!”  I point the finger of law and order at the true culprit.  My triumph is complete now that I am now both lawyer and private investigator, as all of us in the profession dream of being.

            “Counselor, you’re pointing at your own client.”

            Hm, maybe that was why figuring it out was so easy.  Time to close.

            “And justice is served.  This court is adjourned!”

        As I exit dramatically from the courtroom, I decide that now’s the perfect time to retire from my practice and pursue my true aspiration of running a dog grooming salon.

Story 21: The Encounter

             “I feel like a ghost haunting my own childhood.”

            The man sitting at the library computer at first didn’t realize the comment had been aimed sideways at him.  The speaker tried a different tactic and faced his now-listener directly.

            “Don’t you ever feel that way about your life?”

          The next two seconds spanned an infinity for the listener, whose reactions ran the gamut of panic, anger, uncertainty as to what answer, if any, would not be stupid, rude, and/or wrath-inducing, and panic again.  The result: “Uh… sure?”

           That was enough: “I mean, really, like, we work through school, man, and, like, college, and, like, everyone expects you to be successful and rule the world, and here I am, still living in my parents’ basement.  Don’t you think the government and this country’s gone down the toilet since World War II?”

           The listener realized the subject had abruptly changed from the futility of youth to politics.  “Uh… sure?”

            “I mean, you had the Cold War, right, and Korea then, and Korea now, the Middle East for, like, ever, recessions, Darfur, the IRA, and the rich getting richer.  What’s the point of it all, man?”  He waited for The Answer.

            The listener saw some sympathetic glances shot his way.  Sympathetic, useless glances.  “Uh… nothing?  I mean, well, just… try… to do the right thing.” 

            “Yeah, but the CIA, man!  I’m telling you, it all goes back to World War II!  And then the Soviets – ”

            A stroke of genius: “Bees.”

            “Huh?”

            “The honeybees are dying everywhere.  No one knows why.”  It was pretty much known why.  “The honeybees are us.”

            “Ohhh….”

            “Gotta go.”  He got up and left.  A librarian stopped him on the way out.

            “I was about to ask if you needed help – he tends to trap anyone who listens.”

            “I’m fine, thanks.  He may need help, though.”

            “I’ll speak to his mother again; she’s hoping he’ll grow out of it by the time he turns 7.”

Story 20: Vive L’Opera, Act II

Il Mascalzone (The Scoundrel)

            (The setting: a quiet street on a busy day in 19^th-century Florence)

            (Enter: Two Servants)

            Servant 1: <Our master is a scoundrel!>

            Servant 2: <And his next target is the maiden living next door!>

            Servant: <How his shenanigans brighten our days!>

            (Exit: Two Servants.  Enter: The Scoundrel)

            The Scoundrel: <Aria!  My life is very sad because I have no one I can really talk to.>

            (Enter: The Maiden)

            The Maiden: <Aria!  I spend my days marking time until I get married.>

            The Scoundrel:  <I can solve that problem for you.>

            (Enter: The Maiden’s Male Relative)

            The Maiden’s Male Relative: <Halt, The Scoundrel!  You will not denigrate my female relative into a notch on your disgusting belt!>

            The Scoundrel: <Flee!>   

           (Townspeople materialize from the wings; Servant 1 picks up The Scoundrel in a car and they drive off)

            The Maiden’s Male Relative: <What was that demon horseless carriage?>

            Townspeople: <Demon horseless carriage!>

            The Maiden: <I must plot how to preserve my honor!>

            (Enter: Servant 2 in disguise as a child)

Servant 2: <Allow me to assist you, wink, wink.>

            Townspeople: <What could possibly go wrong?>

            (Intermission)

            (The setting: The same street with darker lighting)

            (Enter: The Scoundrel, grandly, through the automatic doors of his mansion)

            The Scoundrel: <Aria 2!  I have scored yet again.>

            (Enter: The Maiden, wearing rags)

            The Maiden: <I am a ruined wretch!  How did I let this happen to me between acts?>

            The Scoundrel: <Let me recount.>

            (Puppeteers enter and re-enact the sordid story in pantomime.  From the direction of the void that faces the characters (aka “The Fourth Wall”) comes the shout: “What a dastard!”)

            The Maiden: <Tragic Aria!  Now what will I do with my life?>

            (Enter: The Foreigner)

            The Foreigner: <Now for something completely random – let me regale you with stories from my native Japan.>

            The Scoundrel: <You’re not from Japan.>

            The Foreigner: <I never let that stop me.>

            (Exit: The Foreigner.  Enter: The Maiden’s Male Relative and the Two Servants)

            The Maiden’s Male Relative: <A plague on ye for corrupting my female relative!>

            The Scoundrel: <Next time keep a better eye on her, honored elder.>

            The Maiden’s Male Relative: <Strike you!>

           (He strikes at The Scoundrel and misses.  Servant 1 mortally strikes The Maiden’s Male Relative; The Maiden mortally strikes Servant 1; Servant 2 mortally strikes The Maiden; and The Scoundrel mortally strikes Servant 2 in order not to be left out of the action)

            Dying Characters: (In four-part harmony) <Alas!> (They die)

            The Scoundrel: <Ah me, onto my next conquest!>

            (Enter: The Foreigner)

            The Foreigner: <Little does he know that this is the just the right cause to avenge that I have been looking for all my life!> (He discards his disguise and reveals that he is in law enforcement) <Halt!  Police!  Your dastardly ways are at an end!>

The Scoundrel: <Alas!  And woe.>

(Justice is served, but too late for any of the good guys)

THE CURTAIN CRASHES DOWN ON THE TABLEAU OF GLORIOUS DESPAIR

Story 20: Vive L’Opera, Act I

At the local opera house, it was the third of the six-performance run of Il Mascalzone (aka: The Scoundrel), the second of “The Dastardly Man” cycle by the great Immortale.  Any kinks that had revealed themselves the first time around had been ironed out by now: after all, even though this was a new production, The Scoundrel had been performed 2,337,678 times worldwide so that even the rankest amateur knew at least some of the lyrics.

The issue with this production, as with any of similar scope and ambition, was that there was too much set with too many performers and not enough stage to hold them all.  The hydraulic system and electronics worked perfectly, but the question on every audience member’s mind was this: were there  really motorized cars and automatic doors in 19^th-century Florence?  The program indicated that this was not an updated version either, which would have been sneered at but then ironically forgiven.  The audience overlooked these anachronisms, but they felt taken out of the moment each time the machines whirred.

Then, there were the puppets, which were so realistic as to be almost creepy.  Everyone thought some children had wandered onto the stage, until realizing that these figures constantly were surrounded by three people wearing black, one of whom would whip the character’s head around on cue.  The alternative would have been to pay children to consistently obey stage directions and say nothing, and good luck with that.

And, in the grand tradition of the art form, many of the performers did not quite fit the ethnicity they were portraying – best to ignore it.

As the plot went into full swing, each featured singer got an aria or two, and a number of opera glasses were shattered as a result.  Audience members were able to follow along with the foreign lyrics by having translations appear on computer screens installed on the seat in front of them – another advantage over the past – and shot dirty looks to those who muttered “That’s not what he said!”  An appreciative, barely audible sigh would ripple throughout the theater as familiar tunes popped up throughout the score: one was recognizable now as a jingle for ice cream.

The three intermissions were an hour long each for the prime donne and primi uomini to rest their throats and for the stage crew to disassemble one set and build the next from scratch.  The conductor entered at the beginning of the show and after each break to take his bows, while the orchestra remembered his many abuses and refused to call him “Maestro”.

The grand finale was a resounding success, with every character on stage dead, dying, or vowing revenge as their portrayers visualized their after-performance naps.  The audience section resounded with sobs; the singers revived themselves to take their restrained bows; and flowers rained upon them from all directions.  The audience left the opera house that day with a new appreciation for art, theater, and culture, along with gratitude for not having to live in the time period they just witnessed wipe out 9/10ths of the dramatis personae.

The Scoundrel: three performances down, three to go.

THE CURTAIN OPENS….