Check the Coloring

“You park on a driveway and drive on a parkway. Discuss."

That's what she told us, at least, as she grabbed Jack and pulled him into the closet. Her nostrils flared and her eyes darted suspiciously to every one of us, daring us to question her maniacal decree. We were not to disturb them for the next 3 hours.

"What are we supposed to do?"

"Go run a burnout check and check the coloring for tomorrow night. I don't care."

"But everything’s ready!" we whined, "We have nothing to do!"

And that's how we got to be discussing the various intricacies of automotive travel, in regards to the semantics of language in that particular regard. We had nothing else to do, as she and Jack disappeared into that closet. The last we saw of him was a confused, surprised look and a squeak of utter terror as she pulled him into the closet. We took bets on how long we would walk with a limp after that afternoon. Anyway, I'm digressing from the main point.

"Well, an alarm clock 'goes off' when it turns on, so I guess it's something like that," pointed out Cindy.

"How long are they going to be in there? Are we still going to get paid for today?" asked Persephone.

"It's really not a huge concern, when you think about it. It's purely semantic, really," I observed.

"What I'm concerned about is the logistics of it. It must take some stamina on Jack's part," said Terry, stroking his goatee thoughtfully.

"It must be messy, at any rate. Who's going to clean out that closet when they're done?"

A flurry of "not it”‘s followed.

"Isn't Jack gay, anyways?" interrogated Persephone.

We all fell silent at that. We all knew he was, indeed, homosexual, but we decided that his conscription into lustful service was just too sudden for him to respond to. We all decided to testify when he took her to court for rape.

Poor Jack. Someone thought that perhaps we should intervene. We all knew it was impossible, though. Once she had him, no one had the courage to dare interrupt her.

I decided to go check the coloring.

---

Dancing

Cindy was dancing again.

I had been calling to her over the radio for about twenty minutes as I hung from the right vertical lighting tree. I begged her to turn on light 29, because I needed to make a few adjustments before I went home for the night.

I climbed up the tree to the catwalk and walked towards the technical booth that controlled all the lights in the theater. I entered, and Cindy was dancing. Her radio was off, and her CD player was blasting "I Saw the Sign" by Ace of Base. Cindy was shaking her hips and rolling her hands in time to the "Uh oh oh”‘s.

Her blonde hair shifted in time to the music so it reflected the overhead lamps into a glittering spectrum across the booth. Her eyes were closed and a look of serene complacency was spread across her face.

Presently, she began to slide from side to side, the white sole's of her black/white CT's glissing across the floor. She hugged herself, her manicured, pink-polished fingernails pressed against her light blue baby-doll t-shirt.

She was gone. Perhaps her body was still there, but her spirit was someplace else. Somewhere peaceful and serene. A beauty that was only contained between a pair of blue jeans, that didn't worry about test grades, or the vacant look on the dead girls face, or girlfriends, or The War, or the global warming, or money, or class warfare or a thousand other things I was worrying about.

Just.

Her.

In a world that I was not a part of.

I sighed, and turned to leave.

---

Blood Toxicity

Terry was drunk.

Upon being dumped by his girlfriend earlier that day, he proceeded to walk to the theater, across the catwalk to the control booth, and raid The Boss’s liquor stash. By the time we found him, His blood toxicity was well above average.

Persephone sat on the edge of the stage, her feet swinging back and forth, rhythmically as she manicured her nails with diligent focus. I asked her what she thought we should do about Terry, but she merely shrugged.

“Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll fall off the damn catwalk.”

Cindy was wringing her hands distractedly as she stood beside Persephone on the edge of the stage.

“Maybe one of us should go get The Boss?”

“She’s out of town,” muttered Persephone.

“But she said we should call her if it’s an emergency!”

“I hardly think this qualifies. If we called up The Boss every time someone gets shitfaced we’ll all be screwed for letting him raid her stash.”

“Hey, maybe you should go up there?” suggested Cindy anxiously, turning towards me.

“Me?” I replied dumbly.

“Yeah, go talk him down or something. You know…”

I sighed, slumping my shoulders.

“Right.”