Post by barney on Apr 23, 2022 15:50:33 GMT
“Oh, Luna. Please explain to me what it is you have done.”
Chester Roosevelt stands at the threshold of their moderately priced hostel in the middle of the night watching Luna Baby over a body dressed as a doorman. She hunches over his face and hums as she messes with it until Chester clears his throat.
“I tried to wake them up but it isn’t working. So I figure, yeah, that natural law implores me to act a proper fool. See!”
She moves over to the side revealing the man’s serene face marked with a red sharpie in the art of a clown face. Royston Popplewell enters after Chester and puts a hand on his shoulder. When Chester looks up, Royston turns on the light drawing his attention to the living area full of bodies. Staff and thrifty tourists alike are slumped over chairs, lying on the floor, or sitting against walls. All of their faces have the markings on them of Luna’s creative rampage. She’s made clowns of them all and she looks up at them beaming with an innocent smile.
“Do you like it, Roy? All of them have got different silhouettes since I’ve only got the red. This one is a tramp, the maid over there has the bag lady since I saw this one eyeing her up earlier. The fat man that wore a shirt in the ocean got an auguste to bring some joy into his fat life. The manager got a grotesque pierrot since he yelled at me for being too loud last night. The creepy lady got a mime since he is a mouthbreather. No offense, Royston. Now over there we have the-"
Chester cuts her off.
“Why is this a collective, Luna?”
Luna turns her back to him and continues drawing on the doorman’s face and responds quietly.
“I didn’t think they would all have a drink. I thought it was the old hag’s pitcher.”
“A pitcher of what?”
Luna pops up defensively.
“If she didn’t want to fall asleep she didn’t have to be moaning so loudly about her bloody insomnia! It isn’t my fault I was born with a heart full of charity. I only wanted to help and you had those pills in your bag and the pills my mum gave me when I was a kid always made me drowsy so I figure that it would work here. How did I know that they would be sharing?”
“Was it the black bottle with no label?”
“Yeah.”
“And where was this lemonade?”
Luna points to a large dining hall.
“On the table over there.”
Chester looks up at Royston and motions to the room with a nod. Royston walks overstepping on any body in his way to take the pitcher of lemonade and rinse it out in the sink. Then he smashes it into the garbage. Chester goes over to sit on a couch in the middle of two of the bodies and stares at them for a moment, then back at Luna with a twinkle in his eye.
“That, little Baby, is a buffet.”
Luna laughs like an embarrassed thief and plants her palm on her forehead.
“Oh. That explains everything!”
Chester notices a purse next to him and starts rifling through it.
“So how much did you give them, then?”
“I crushed the whole bottle's worth up. The old hag claimed she hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in ages. Wouldn’t shut up about it so I did what I thought was right. That’s all that counts, yeah?”
Luna smiles at him and at Royston when he walks back in. He follows Chester’s lead and starts going through bags and pockets. Chester sighs and skims through a passport absentmindedly.
“Let this be a lesson for you. Go too far in the same blind direction for a time and it might be too late to realize you’ve been lost.”
“I tried waking them up! I shook them, spit on them, and slapped their bums, but nothing works.”
“They might be asleep forever. This brings us to the newfound success as a whole.”
Luna thinks for a moment.
“How so? We won the Double Homicide Titles. We’re on the top of the world. It’s a smaller world since we killed those girls, but it’s an alright spot to be in.”
Chester leans in putting his elbows on his knees.
“You only killed their careers… My meaning is that we did help make CU:LT the success that it is but something is off. I just can’t put my finger on it. It’s like we’re all in a great house, but nobody can look inside because there is a slimy film on all of the windows. Everyone is just so…”
Luna raises her hand and bounces up and down as he thinks.
“Just oh so serious! One would think that a production helmed by Casanova English would be a little hilarious by association, nobody is even taking the piss. Everyone’s got the sticks up to here. No here!”
Luna contemplates at what level her fellow coworkers have rods up their rectums and her hand goes from her chest to her neck until Chester broods out.
“Never can true reconcilement grow where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep…”
“What?”
“The sayings of a wise man in a poem. This Pandæmonium team didn’t live up to their promise. They showed up with all the pomp and vanguard of some conquered rings. An alliance named from hell itself to drag you two down with them into eternal damnation. The one with the self-styled crown looks like he’s on perpetual vacation while the other thinks he’s sullying his big frame and name by dipping his toes in our muck. I’m not going to allow you to take that. You guys are the champions and if these two hellhounds want to take those titles from you they’ll have to do a hell of a lot more than threaten to give you a beating. That did not work for Manson. They have to think outside of themselves and look within. They’re carrying shame on their name here in CU:LT. If they do not come properly they’ll be looking at your boots ready for a kiss.”
Luna waves him off.
“Those two? David Hunter and Holden Ross look like they know which color of crayons tastes best. They had so much potential. I like the tropical vibes but then Hunter opens his mouth and the illusion is broken. He’s turned into a magician who is cheered only when he disappears. Now he’s back and the crowd goes mild. A fight’s a fight. It doesn’t matter how many pointy things you can hold in your hand if you aren’t creative. You’ve seen what I can do with a carabiner.” Chester leans back in his seat with a shiver. “It’s art! These two love to smell their own farts so they can enjoy what they had for breakfast. It’s all about the distant past when they were somebody, or associated with somebody who was somebody. And do you know why that’s rubbish? We weren’t even there! I’d love to hop back in time when Pandæmonium was beating the hell out of their peers and each other. I would heckle! I would jeer! Might even boo.”
“Say it isn’t so.”
“Oh, I would. They seem too thick to have any sort of fun. They only care about the ends of the journey and not the method. I mean, a nice pointy thing seems like such a waste in their hands. One of them even tried to put their opponent to sleep at Values? To sleep! Whereas I was graceful I was majestic. And that man there!” She points at Royston who has arranged his pilfered loot into a neat little pyramid on top of a handkerchief. “He’s an artist with his hands. He doesn’t just destroy. He creates true pandemonium. And that’s an e there, mind you, not whatever the hells they’ve got going on with their squigglies. Anyway, his hands are his paintbrushes. He’s going to help me paint Ross and Hunter in all manners of reds and blacks and blues. Maybe even purple if they give us enough time. Go on, love. Show us your tools.”
Royston stops arranging coins into spiral towers and holds out his hands to Luna palms first while flexing his arms. He slowly curls his fingers in until he forms fists, but quickly splays them out again with a modest shrug. Luna swoons until she is hit with a sudden thought like a lightning bolt.
“Hey, I am curious. Why didn’t either of them take a little sip from their pints?”
Chester thinks for a moment.
“No imagination.”
Luna slams her hands on her thighs.
“Ugh. That’s the problem with their selfish mentality. There is no appreciation for the little things. All a big picture with no details. They start with A and skip right to Zed without enunciating the rest. No, I don’t like them one bit. They don’t even appreciate what’s on the inside. I’d like to show it to them. It’s special and shouldn’t be ignored. Isn’t that right, Royston? Remember when I stitched you up after our wedding night? It took some doing but I just had to get a closer look at those muscles.”
Chester perks up at this and looks to Royston.
“What does she mean by that?”
Royston holds a finger up and starts to undo his pants. Chester waves the question off.
“Forget it! I don’t want to know”
Luna giggles with a finger between her teeth. Chester gets up and places a few more things on Royston's handkerchief and wraps it up into a bundle.
“Listen, I wouldn’t dismiss it all away. Everyone’s got to have a dream and it all starts with a first step. Any dream worth having takes some struggle. That’s what experiences are. These men sound like they have some experience at this sort of thing. So don’t go writing them off completely because they lack some finesse. Some men just like to talk themselves up a bit too freely. That’s some showmanship right there, blunt as it may be. As much as you are not convinced by their upsell, do not be convinced that there is not some truth in their words and act accordingly. They haven’t forgotten their struggles to make it here and what happened when they tried to prove their worth once they did. If you want to keep your titles, do make sure your show is bigger than theirs no matter what the substance. They will be more intense this time out. Be ready for that.” Luna rolls her eyes. Chester snaps his fingers again and she gives him her attention. “Our torments also may in length of time become our elements.”
Luna stands up and pockets her marker.
“Well alright.”
Chester hands her the bundle of loot.
“Settled. Now go back to your room and get some rest. We’re not the insomniacs here… and neither are they. Royston, take care of these people. Do your thing.”
Royston nods and forms a very large circle in the air in front of him. He then makes to pick something up off the ground and illustrates how long it is by tracing the fingers of his free hand along the length of it. He grabs the object like a baseball bat with one fist over the other and winds up. Chester covers his ears and Royston hits his mimed gong with his mimed mallet. The people closest to him jerk up and in two more silent hits, the whole hostel is slowly humming with the waking sounds of confusion and surprise. Royston and Chester weave their way through the gasps and awkward realizations back to their rooms.
Chester Roosevelt stands at the threshold of their moderately priced hostel in the middle of the night watching Luna Baby over a body dressed as a doorman. She hunches over his face and hums as she messes with it until Chester clears his throat.
“I tried to wake them up but it isn’t working. So I figure, yeah, that natural law implores me to act a proper fool. See!”
She moves over to the side revealing the man’s serene face marked with a red sharpie in the art of a clown face. Royston Popplewell enters after Chester and puts a hand on his shoulder. When Chester looks up, Royston turns on the light drawing his attention to the living area full of bodies. Staff and thrifty tourists alike are slumped over chairs, lying on the floor, or sitting against walls. All of their faces have the markings on them of Luna’s creative rampage. She’s made clowns of them all and she looks up at them beaming with an innocent smile.
“Do you like it, Roy? All of them have got different silhouettes since I’ve only got the red. This one is a tramp, the maid over there has the bag lady since I saw this one eyeing her up earlier. The fat man that wore a shirt in the ocean got an auguste to bring some joy into his fat life. The manager got a grotesque pierrot since he yelled at me for being too loud last night. The creepy lady got a mime since he is a mouthbreather. No offense, Royston. Now over there we have the-"
Chester cuts her off.
“Why is this a collective, Luna?”
Luna turns her back to him and continues drawing on the doorman’s face and responds quietly.
“I didn’t think they would all have a drink. I thought it was the old hag’s pitcher.”
“A pitcher of what?”
Luna pops up defensively.
“If she didn’t want to fall asleep she didn’t have to be moaning so loudly about her bloody insomnia! It isn’t my fault I was born with a heart full of charity. I only wanted to help and you had those pills in your bag and the pills my mum gave me when I was a kid always made me drowsy so I figure that it would work here. How did I know that they would be sharing?”
“Was it the black bottle with no label?”
“Yeah.”
“And where was this lemonade?”
Luna points to a large dining hall.
“On the table over there.”
Chester looks up at Royston and motions to the room with a nod. Royston walks overstepping on any body in his way to take the pitcher of lemonade and rinse it out in the sink. Then he smashes it into the garbage. Chester goes over to sit on a couch in the middle of two of the bodies and stares at them for a moment, then back at Luna with a twinkle in his eye.
“That, little Baby, is a buffet.”
Luna laughs like an embarrassed thief and plants her palm on her forehead.
“Oh. That explains everything!”
Chester notices a purse next to him and starts rifling through it.
“So how much did you give them, then?”
“I crushed the whole bottle's worth up. The old hag claimed she hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in ages. Wouldn’t shut up about it so I did what I thought was right. That’s all that counts, yeah?”
Luna smiles at him and at Royston when he walks back in. He follows Chester’s lead and starts going through bags and pockets. Chester sighs and skims through a passport absentmindedly.
“Let this be a lesson for you. Go too far in the same blind direction for a time and it might be too late to realize you’ve been lost.”
“I tried waking them up! I shook them, spit on them, and slapped their bums, but nothing works.”
“They might be asleep forever. This brings us to the newfound success as a whole.”
Luna thinks for a moment.
“How so? We won the Double Homicide Titles. We’re on the top of the world. It’s a smaller world since we killed those girls, but it’s an alright spot to be in.”
Chester leans in putting his elbows on his knees.
“You only killed their careers… My meaning is that we did help make CU:LT the success that it is but something is off. I just can’t put my finger on it. It’s like we’re all in a great house, but nobody can look inside because there is a slimy film on all of the windows. Everyone is just so…”
Luna raises her hand and bounces up and down as he thinks.
“Just oh so serious! One would think that a production helmed by Casanova English would be a little hilarious by association, nobody is even taking the piss. Everyone’s got the sticks up to here. No here!”
Luna contemplates at what level her fellow coworkers have rods up their rectums and her hand goes from her chest to her neck until Chester broods out.
“Never can true reconcilement grow where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep…”
“What?”
“The sayings of a wise man in a poem. This Pandæmonium team didn’t live up to their promise. They showed up with all the pomp and vanguard of some conquered rings. An alliance named from hell itself to drag you two down with them into eternal damnation. The one with the self-styled crown looks like he’s on perpetual vacation while the other thinks he’s sullying his big frame and name by dipping his toes in our muck. I’m not going to allow you to take that. You guys are the champions and if these two hellhounds want to take those titles from you they’ll have to do a hell of a lot more than threaten to give you a beating. That did not work for Manson. They have to think outside of themselves and look within. They’re carrying shame on their name here in CU:LT. If they do not come properly they’ll be looking at your boots ready for a kiss.”
Luna waves him off.
“Those two? David Hunter and Holden Ross look like they know which color of crayons tastes best. They had so much potential. I like the tropical vibes but then Hunter opens his mouth and the illusion is broken. He’s turned into a magician who is cheered only when he disappears. Now he’s back and the crowd goes mild. A fight’s a fight. It doesn’t matter how many pointy things you can hold in your hand if you aren’t creative. You’ve seen what I can do with a carabiner.” Chester leans back in his seat with a shiver. “It’s art! These two love to smell their own farts so they can enjoy what they had for breakfast. It’s all about the distant past when they were somebody, or associated with somebody who was somebody. And do you know why that’s rubbish? We weren’t even there! I’d love to hop back in time when Pandæmonium was beating the hell out of their peers and each other. I would heckle! I would jeer! Might even boo.”
“Say it isn’t so.”
“Oh, I would. They seem too thick to have any sort of fun. They only care about the ends of the journey and not the method. I mean, a nice pointy thing seems like such a waste in their hands. One of them even tried to put their opponent to sleep at Values? To sleep! Whereas I was graceful I was majestic. And that man there!” She points at Royston who has arranged his pilfered loot into a neat little pyramid on top of a handkerchief. “He’s an artist with his hands. He doesn’t just destroy. He creates true pandemonium. And that’s an e there, mind you, not whatever the hells they’ve got going on with their squigglies. Anyway, his hands are his paintbrushes. He’s going to help me paint Ross and Hunter in all manners of reds and blacks and blues. Maybe even purple if they give us enough time. Go on, love. Show us your tools.”
Royston stops arranging coins into spiral towers and holds out his hands to Luna palms first while flexing his arms. He slowly curls his fingers in until he forms fists, but quickly splays them out again with a modest shrug. Luna swoons until she is hit with a sudden thought like a lightning bolt.
“Hey, I am curious. Why didn’t either of them take a little sip from their pints?”
Chester thinks for a moment.
“No imagination.”
Luna slams her hands on her thighs.
“Ugh. That’s the problem with their selfish mentality. There is no appreciation for the little things. All a big picture with no details. They start with A and skip right to Zed without enunciating the rest. No, I don’t like them one bit. They don’t even appreciate what’s on the inside. I’d like to show it to them. It’s special and shouldn’t be ignored. Isn’t that right, Royston? Remember when I stitched you up after our wedding night? It took some doing but I just had to get a closer look at those muscles.”
Chester perks up at this and looks to Royston.
“What does she mean by that?”
Royston holds a finger up and starts to undo his pants. Chester waves the question off.
“Forget it! I don’t want to know”
Luna giggles with a finger between her teeth. Chester gets up and places a few more things on Royston's handkerchief and wraps it up into a bundle.
“Listen, I wouldn’t dismiss it all away. Everyone’s got to have a dream and it all starts with a first step. Any dream worth having takes some struggle. That’s what experiences are. These men sound like they have some experience at this sort of thing. So don’t go writing them off completely because they lack some finesse. Some men just like to talk themselves up a bit too freely. That’s some showmanship right there, blunt as it may be. As much as you are not convinced by their upsell, do not be convinced that there is not some truth in their words and act accordingly. They haven’t forgotten their struggles to make it here and what happened when they tried to prove their worth once they did. If you want to keep your titles, do make sure your show is bigger than theirs no matter what the substance. They will be more intense this time out. Be ready for that.” Luna rolls her eyes. Chester snaps his fingers again and she gives him her attention. “Our torments also may in length of time become our elements.”
Luna stands up and pockets her marker.
“Well alright.”
Chester hands her the bundle of loot.
“Settled. Now go back to your room and get some rest. We’re not the insomniacs here… and neither are they. Royston, take care of these people. Do your thing.”
Royston nods and forms a very large circle in the air in front of him. He then makes to pick something up off the ground and illustrates how long it is by tracing the fingers of his free hand along the length of it. He grabs the object like a baseball bat with one fist over the other and winds up. Chester covers his ears and Royston hits his mimed gong with his mimed mallet. The people closest to him jerk up and in two more silent hits, the whole hostel is slowly humming with the waking sounds of confusion and surprise. Royston and Chester weave their way through the gasps and awkward realizations back to their rooms.