Mister Twiggy

Mister Universe

Mister High Tea

FILM SET

#

‘There is no justice. There is only pain,’ shouted the actress and then fell to the floor, her hands grabbing at it. Then she lifted herself to a kneeling position, her face raised to the ceiling. The gaffer turned on the rain machine. Big drops fell on the actress’s face and her mascara ran down her cheeks. She repeated, ‘There is no justice. There…is no…jus…tice.’

‘Cut!’ shouted the director and the actress stood up. ‘I’m bleeding,’ she said, ‘really bleeding. But I want that.’

‘Where is your wound?’ said the director, ‘Show it to me. I want to get it all down, all the pain, all the agony, in an eternal indexical sign.’

‘Baby,’ she replied, ‘You’re so relentless. I’ve been showing you my wound for the last ten minutes. Couldn’t you see? But enough. Right now, I want a frozen strawberry with just a single droplet of sirop de menthe. However, it must be an Etruscan strawberry. And it must be no bigger than the width of my nose.’

The director clapped his hands. ‘Catering!’

A group of locals had entered the bar where they were filming. They were farmers and they were making a lot of noise, talking about one of them who had made a deal with some giant company to use their genetically engineered seeds, which could resist almost anything, whereas the others, with just their normal crops, lost a quarter of their harvest. Pierre le Pire was the farmer’s name.

Filming resumed and the actors tried to concentrate amid all the commotion. They kept saying their lines while the farmers complained and burbled and farted freely.

One of the farmers was young, tall, muscular and extremely handsome. The actress noticed him as he was ordering a gin fizz at the bar and sidled up to him lasciviously. ‘I always say a gin fizz is a real man’s drink,’ she remarked, twirling a lock of her hair with one hand while pointing subliminally with the other at her mouth.

The young farmer said he didn’t really know what she expected of him. ‘I’m just a simple man, call me naïve and a primitive, but I call you a pervert like all people from the city. Leave me alone with the genuine people of my community. Ah, yes, I know what you want. You’re disgusting, you film people.’

The actress replied: ‘Yes, disgusting, that’s what we are. But we face up to it, unlike you pious hypocrites of the countryside, constantly impugning the decadence of others so as to deny your own. We, the fodder of the gossip mags, are the repository for all your disavowed corruption, your obesity, drunkenness, drug addiction, infidelity, perversion, greed, vanity and ultimate physical dissolution. We are the modern sacrifices, the scapegoats without which you would be unable to maintain your spurious sense of purity. We show you the selves you cannot face. And you, the audience, love it.’

And with that, she farted, loudly and satisfyingly.

Like crying real tears, it was something she had learned to do at will at acting school.

#

written by John and Inge in summer 2017

HARRY THE BIRD

#

‘I am not really a mammal, I am a bird,’ said Harry to his new neighbour, ‘I mean, not that it makes that much difference. But I just love to spread my wings and get higher and higher and higher, up in the sky, but not so high that my wings melt. Ha ha ha.’

The new neighbour closed the door. ‘Who was that, Robin?’ said his wife, Darshna, from the sofa.

‘Harry, the neighbour from the top. He says he’s a bird.’

‘Hm,’ she said.

‘Never open the door to anyone when I’m not here,’ said Robin. She nodded absently, her mind on the book she was reading about the sex rituals of Georges Bataille. Shortly afterwards Robin went out and a bit later there was a knock at the door.

‘Hang on,’ called Darshna, ‘I’m just doing my visualising what you want meditation.’

‘Wait, you are into visualising what you want meditations?’ said Harry through the door, ‘Me too! We can do it together. It makes it much more powerful.’

‘Oh wonderful,’ said Darshna, ‘Robin never wants to do it with me. He says it’s all just superstitious nonsense. I think that’s what’s stopping it working.’ She came to the door and opened it.

‘No!’ said Harry, ‘this is incredible. You are what I always see when I do my visualising what I want meditation!’

‘Yes,’ she replied, full of wonder, ‘It’s the same for me in reverse. Perhaps the meditation was working after all. What did you say your name was? Harry? Oh Harry, my soulmate. It’s nice to meet you! Tell me, are you interested in the sex rituals of Georges Bataille?’

Later when Robin got home, he found his key no longer worked in the lock. He knocked at the door and a note was passed under it, with a key taped to it. It said, ‘Dear Robin. You live upstairs now. Your marriage is over. But do come over for tea, coffee or a bite to eat sometime. Love, Harry and Darshna’.

Robin took the key and went upstairs. Harry’s flat was almost empty except for an enormous picture of a man-bird god with a huge erection, covering one wall. Robin sat down on the only chair and looked at the picture. Perhaps he had something to learn from it.

#

written by John and Inge in summer 2017