Never stop
Post #400: And thus it comes to pass the time for coming up with the script for the season finale arrives: The screenwriters from Hell have all prepped up their typewriters and polished up their hooves. They take a puff from their cigars and blow the smoke over the rotting blank sheet of paper in front of them. SCENE 1, they type. Then a smile, oh so pitch-black and devilishly. SCENE 2, they type. Then 3 and 4 and so on.
They all do have a plot in mind, mind you. It´s all the screwing up creeping up and piling up like a gestalt of bad ideas all rolled into one: It´s the ingrown toenail-gone-half-hemorrhage, it´s the patellae getting blown to bits all over again, it´s my almost getting fired on 9/11 for bypassing SAP roles restrictions for my team then again my almost getting fired on 10/11 for pulling up stunts to bring up everyone´s attention to risks in data security. It´s also, and I guess mainly, the heartbreaks and the passing ups, it´s all the hang ups and the passing-throughs, the long weekend nights wasted staring at the wall or behind empty glasses in crowded nightclubs. It´s F. calling me up like months ago to say she misses me like hell and me, well, I just shrugged and pretended not to care, cool enough to freeze white-hot Napalm burning in the jungles of Vietnam, then speeding up with everything, moving so fast the ensuing months passed like early morning sunlight refracted through a drop of water.
Yet the screenwriting guild under Satan´s employ type on: SCENE 5, 6. SCENE 20, 21.
Maybe life´s telling me to slow down, to think or plan a little before acting, to stop moving so goddamn fast as if I´m fleeing from this entire twenty-century ahead. Maybe.
The screenwriters from hell take a little break: They go for a drink of water, free internet p*rn, whatever really. When they come back into the room and face the script lying on the typewriter—alas!—the surprise.
Someone, someone has sneaked in and continued the script from where they stopped, right there as the plot climaxes. They find written down the following words:
THERE IS NO LAND BEYOND THE LAW WHERE TYRANTS RULE WITH UNSPEAKABLE POWER. IT´S A DREAM... FROM WHICH THE EVIL WAKE UP TO FIND THEIR FATE... THEIR TERRIFYING HOUR...
--THE SANDMAN.
They look up, outraged, exchange suspecting glances amidst one another: Who could´ve dared... Then their attention is caught up by someone standing over the window sill, a silhouette against the full moon outside.
“Ta.. da.. da-daaaaaaa-daaaaa!,” I chant that mid-1990s Batman cartoon leitmotif with my arms spread over my head, holding up the bottom of my jacket like a makeshift cape. “Okay, fine”, I tell them. “Maybe you did get me with my pants down, something like that. And maybe I do have to slow down a bit, cool off a notch, think up some. I´ll grant you that. But I´ll never stop.”
“Going away on vacations for a week won´t save you, you know,” says one of them.
“You´ll be back within a week after you´ve gone,” says another.
“Perform as many miracles as you like,” says a third one. “But once you´re back it´s still November and that will give us plenty of time to catch up.”
“Yeah well about that.” I think for a moment as I sit down over the ledge with my legs hanging inside the room. Then in the back of my head, from out of the blue, Fleetwood Mac starts playing Go your own way. I think of the streets of Manhattan a couple of weeks from now. I smile at the screenwriters from Hell: Regular people get Norns or Furies knitting up their fates in a strand of wool, something like that. I get short baldy cigar-smoking screenwriters in Hell. Saying they want to catch up with me, no less. God. Okay, fine, I tell them: “You guys wanna catch up with me, you´d damn well better get yourselves a Maserati.”
They all do have a plot in mind, mind you. It´s all the screwing up creeping up and piling up like a gestalt of bad ideas all rolled into one: It´s the ingrown toenail-gone-half-hemorrhage, it´s the patellae getting blown to bits all over again, it´s my almost getting fired on 9/11 for bypassing SAP roles restrictions for my team then again my almost getting fired on 10/11 for pulling up stunts to bring up everyone´s attention to risks in data security. It´s also, and I guess mainly, the heartbreaks and the passing ups, it´s all the hang ups and the passing-throughs, the long weekend nights wasted staring at the wall or behind empty glasses in crowded nightclubs. It´s F. calling me up like months ago to say she misses me like hell and me, well, I just shrugged and pretended not to care, cool enough to freeze white-hot Napalm burning in the jungles of Vietnam, then speeding up with everything, moving so fast the ensuing months passed like early morning sunlight refracted through a drop of water.
Yet the screenwriting guild under Satan´s employ type on: SCENE 5, 6. SCENE 20, 21.
Maybe life´s telling me to slow down, to think or plan a little before acting, to stop moving so goddamn fast as if I´m fleeing from this entire twenty-century ahead. Maybe.
The screenwriters from hell take a little break: They go for a drink of water, free internet p*rn, whatever really. When they come back into the room and face the script lying on the typewriter—alas!—the surprise.
Someone, someone has sneaked in and continued the script from where they stopped, right there as the plot climaxes. They find written down the following words:
THERE IS NO LAND BEYOND THE LAW WHERE TYRANTS RULE WITH UNSPEAKABLE POWER. IT´S A DREAM... FROM WHICH THE EVIL WAKE UP TO FIND THEIR FATE... THEIR TERRIFYING HOUR...
--THE SANDMAN.
They look up, outraged, exchange suspecting glances amidst one another: Who could´ve dared... Then their attention is caught up by someone standing over the window sill, a silhouette against the full moon outside.
“Ta.. da.. da-daaaaaaa-daaaaa!,” I chant that mid-1990s Batman cartoon leitmotif with my arms spread over my head, holding up the bottom of my jacket like a makeshift cape. “Okay, fine”, I tell them. “Maybe you did get me with my pants down, something like that. And maybe I do have to slow down a bit, cool off a notch, think up some. I´ll grant you that. But I´ll never stop.”
“Going away on vacations for a week won´t save you, you know,” says one of them.
“You´ll be back within a week after you´ve gone,” says another.
“Perform as many miracles as you like,” says a third one. “But once you´re back it´s still November and that will give us plenty of time to catch up.”
“Yeah well about that.” I think for a moment as I sit down over the ledge with my legs hanging inside the room. Then in the back of my head, from out of the blue, Fleetwood Mac starts playing Go your own way. I think of the streets of Manhattan a couple of weeks from now. I smile at the screenwriters from Hell: Regular people get Norns or Furies knitting up their fates in a strand of wool, something like that. I get short baldy cigar-smoking screenwriters in Hell. Saying they want to catch up with me, no less. God. Okay, fine, I tell them: “You guys wanna catch up with me, you´d damn well better get yourselves a Maserati.”
posted by 186282mps at 11:39 PM
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