Produce, Me? | Episode Four
…Yo me enfrio o lo soplo?…
Welcome to Episode Four, the series finale!
Missed something? Read the previous episodes in the series:
Episode One | Episode Two | Episode Three
Behind the gaggle, on the TV: Movie producer found dead
WFT AL!?
The Mayor and the press gaggle exit. I can’t find the morphine drip fast enough. Oh, wait. Found it. CLICK - CLick - cli-ck. In a haze I wonder if the villagers outside would storm in with torches and pitchforksss…
I hear a dog yapping in the distance. Maybe. The lights are humming loudly, too. My hazy dream world becomes bright, sharp. Ouch. Everything still hurts.
A perfect picket fence of veneers – smiling people, beautiful people. Dewey, fresh faces and sparkling eyes.
Makeup, lightly applied. Hair, coiffed but not too much. They’re accentuating my cracked lips. I’m a movie-of-the-week hero.
A tracksuit jacket is cut up the back and draped over me. A mocksuit? Am I being prepped for…a funeral? Damn right this is a funeral. I’m sunk. I saw the picture, it said fraud. As in: me. I’m the fraud. I hire Al, he began producing my life, I didn’t save anybody. Fraud.
I’m helped to a wheelchair. My legs function like al dente noodles: firm, but could fold at any moment. We’re down the hospital hallway. I see the other patients look at me, rising from their beds zombie-like, waking to the smell of fresh brains.
A woman walks next to me. She’s tall. The break in my collar won’t let me see her face but she’s wearing a business suit. It’s made from a fabric that looks woven with angel’s hair. I stare at the pattern, my eyes still brokering the transaction between morphine-time and now. Are there daytime vampires, I wonder? Am I one?
She shoos away the pit crew doing last touch-ups. Just me and her. My eyes focus on her high-cheekbones as she leans to me. It’s the…croissant supermodel!? She looks me in the eyes and holds her finger in front of her pouty, million dollars lips – shhhh.
Then, she shows me a business card: She’s my…spokesperson?
I grunt. She winks. It’s that same wink:”watch my things?”
I look through the glass doors to a makeshift press room. It’s not the steps of the hospital, maybe that was Mayoral wordplay? Inside there’s probably a hospital crest on the wall, neatly arranged chairs, and big TVs to show my busted face to the people in the back. Reporters mill about, tv lights and cameras everywhere. I can smell lions at the zoo waiting for a lamb, me, to be thrown over the wall and into the pit.
The super– my spokesmodel – holds up two file folders, one blue, one red. Inside must be a written statement she’ll read.
I either admit everything or deny it all…my choice.
Her eyes are patient as I look between the two folders.
Right. This is the fork in the road, folks. How would Al have planned this?
Which one would you choose?
Maybe there’s a third option…Run Like Hell!
***
Music to read by: Should I Stay or Should I Go - The Clash
legs like al dente noodles, firm but could fold...
nice.