The Random Thread (My 5985)

"So, what's the matter with you?" She shrugged noncommitedly.
"I've got this problem."
"Shock horror. If it's a day ending in `y`, you generally rock up here with a `problem`." He had this very British way of speaking in quotation marks that oft times infuriated her. She sighed again, more in annoyance with herself than her friend.
"I'm in love." He looked at her over the top of his glasses, an action she found especially condescending, and she knew that he knew she hated it. Which is why he still did it.
"This is considered a problem on your planet? You really need to get out more, love."

 

"That's how it all started. We had these clients in from Japan, and they....they wanted to go to a strip club."
(HE LOOKS AT HER, AMUSED)
"You took them to a stripclub."
"Yeah. Listen-"
"Wait. They didn't perhaps have an amateur, open-mike-style, night, did they?"
"In your dreams."
"Mostly." (FLEXES RIGHT HAND WITH A GRIN)
"You're sick."
"I'm British. You're just not educated enough to understand the humour of my people. But it's not directly your fault; you're American, and therefore genetically inclined towards idiocy."
"I knew it be either my fault or some Yank crank."
"Funny, that's what they say about you."
"Who? What?"
"I'll never tell. Back to the plot."

 

"Anyway-"
"Oh, hold on; delayed reaction visual remnant.....okay, done. Pray continue."
"Anyway, a couple of them thought it would be amusing as hell to get me a lapdance."
"And being the team player sorta gal you are, you suffered through this awful indignity."
"Right."
"And the love part would be?"
(SILENCE. SHE LOOKS EMBARRASSED. AN UNHOLY GRIN STARTS TO SPREAD ACROSS HIS FACE AND HE STARTS TO NOD)
"So, you fell in love with one of these young Japanese turks. Well, that's nothing to be ashamed of. So, they're a bit on the short side, but......" (HER FACE HAS BEEN GETTING MORE AND MORE UNCOMFORTABLE AS HE SPEAKS. HE SITS BACK IN HIS CHAIR)

 

"You're in love with the stripper."
"I'm not a lesbian."
"Heavens, no. You're just...curious. Seriously, my love, this isn't love. It's lust. Trust me; i speak from experience."
"I've been back since."
"How many times?"
"A few."
(UNCOMFORTABLE SILENCE)
"How long's it been since you took your voyeuristcally inclined neo-samurai to said gentlemens establishment?"
"Three weeks."
"And you've been back every day since, haven't you?"
"Uh-huh."
"What's so special about her?"

 

"It's silly..."
"Undoubtedly."
"She....she kissed me."
"Doesn't she do that a lot, professionally? You know, for the Benjamins? And you know how much i loathe slang."
"Yeah, but-"
"Sparkage? Fireworks? 42 piece brass band?"
"She kissed me on the forehead."
"Oh." (UNDERWHELMED)
"I've watched her dance for other people, always guys. She's...she's different than when she was with me. But she's nice. Lives in a-"
"Lives? You followed her home?"
"Maybe."
"Okay. Lust to obsession to stalking. I'm almost certain there are laws against things like that in this great state of California."
"It was just the once. Hardly stalking."
"Perish the thought." (FAUX DISMISSIVE TWITCH OF HIS FINGERS)

 

"What am i supposed to do?"
"The young, bad-ass corporate lawyer and the golden hearted stripper, just trying to make ends meet in the big city in between her microbiology classes.....i think i've seen that movie. Or was that a porno?"
"You pervert."
"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but mortar shrapnel will fuck up your spine beyond recognition."
"Look, if you're not going to help me-"
"Oh, down, girlie. Lay off the guilt. You're as bad as my mother."
"Your mother loves me."
"I know. This is one of the many things that worry and occupy my mind. Look, just cool your jets a tad, please. For you, i will go and do my Cyrano bit and test out the waters. Before you announce your intentions to Gaydom and the world. Notably, your dad."
"Why do you think this is such a problem?"
"Always nice to see a WASP sticking to the cliche for a change."

 

"Don't fret your pretty little head, i'll talk to her." (WHEELS AWAY, THEN STOPS AND HALF TURNS)(FAUX ACCENT) "She's not a Negro, is she?" (SHE THROWS RANDOM TOOL AT HIM)
"Her name is Cassandra and she's got red hair. You can't miss her. She's about your hei-" (SHE LOOKS EMBARRASSED)
"Would that be my height before the chrome job?"
"Sweetie-"
"Forget it, kitten. Oil be bark."

 

(WHEELS INTO STRIPCLUB)

"What can i get you, honey?"
"That serviceman discount? Does it apply to foreign, yet Allied, servicemen? (LOOKS AT HIS LEGS) I wasn't always this perpendicular to the ground."
"Where'd you get it?"
"Near a little place called Camp Bastion?"
"Afghanistan? You a Para? Lot's of Para's there."
"Anglian, actually. Retired, obviously. You're the first American i've met who knew about Bastion."
"I'm well read." (UNASHAMEDLY GLANCES AT HER BREASTS WITH A BIG GRIN)
"I have no doubt."

 

(GETS CASSANDRA INTO A BOOTH)

"It's okay, you don't have to take your clothes off." (SHE GLANCES AT HIS CHAIR) "Oh, no, fully functional. I'm a friend of Maria's, about yay high" (RAISES HIMSELF OUT OF HIS CHAIR), "Latino....well, half-WASP actually, corporate type."
"Yeah...erm, i've noticed her. She's been in a lot recently."
"My dear friend has become a little...how should i say this....infatuated with you these past few weeks. To the point of following you home."
"What?"
"Just the once. Anyway, she's managed to convince herself that she's in love with you and, well, for her sake i was just...." (TRAILS OFF AS HE NOTICES CASSANDRA'S LOOK) "Oh, no. You're in love with her too."
"Erm....ha, yeah. I think. I've been trying to make her jealous with all the guys i've danced with in front of her."
"You kissed her on the forehead."
"The woman who taught me how to strip taught me that. You can kiss on the cheeks and lips all you like, better tips. But a forehead is way more....personal. Intimate."

 

"I'd love to say i was doing this to get through college, but....this is a safe, clean club, no funny business, high class, the money's excellent and i love to show my body off."
"Well, i....actually, i respect your honesty."

If she wasn't my best friend...well, one of my only friends these days. (TAPS CHAIR) Best not to go down that road. There be monsters.

 

(SETS UP A LUNCH DATE)

Cassandra - "Actually, it's Wendy. My mom loved Peter Pan. Before she fell in love with a Russian."
"What's his name?"
"Smirnoff."
"Ah."

"Maria's actually Marian, two a's. My paternal grandmother is called Marion, with an `o`, and my Dad wanted me to be named after her. But my mom kinda figured where things were eventually heading with my dear old Dad, and so it was Marian with an a. So, Maria."
"Marian."
"Wendy."

(TOO LONG PAUSE)

(LOUDLY) "Okay. You love her, she loves you." (TO MARIA) "Call me with the details later. Do not sleep with her." (DOES THE TWO FINGERS IN THE EYES, `I'M WATCHING YOU`, ACTION TO WENDY)

(WHEELING OUT)

"Look out, cripple coming through."

(STOPS BY A PRETTY GIRL WITH NICE LEGS)

"Great legs, and i have plenty of observational experience in that regard."
"Does that line work?"
"You'd be surprised. Plus, the accent always scores pretty high."

 

Life is a river; it flows only in one direction. Yet we spend our lives like the legendary salmon, trying to leap backwards along it, fighting against Nature herself to go back and alter that which has gone by. However, if we changed even one breath, one blink of the eye, one gesture, then we wouldn’t be the person we are today, and we may not want to change anything at all. Which in itself is a fallacy; because we all have something we wish we could change, or do-over. We re-hash the events that have gone, and wonder how we would have done them differently, what we would have said, what we would have done. Would you have kissed her instead of letting her walk away? Should you have hit the smirking, and drunk, fool first, or allowed yourself restraint and walked away in the first place? Would you have told them the truth then, even if it meant they didn’t laugh, or cry, or like you as much as you think, and hope, they will?

 

Would your life be any better for these changes? For, in essence, that is what a lot of modern society is about; missed opportunities, or decrying the missing of said opportunities. `What ifs` that stretch back to the very creation of the Universe itself. Heady stuff indeed. Think on it-if whatever it was hadn’t decided to detonate some twelve billion years previously, then we would not be breathing, right now. If the Big Bang had been delayed for even a second, would the world be changed irrevocably, or just the same? Does it matter where and when your born, because we either don’t mean anything in the grand scheme, or were we always destined to be this way? Predestination, whether you believe or not?

 

That’s why I’m an atheist. It bothers me that my entire existence has already been pre-determined by the teachings of someone who died two thousand years ago, at the point of a Roman spear, no less. And me, growing up in an old Roman city, whose skyline is dominated by a thousand (or so) year old cathedral. The Church has been adaptable over the years, changing its spots to move with the times. When Darwinism became the accepted truth, the religious scholars started to say that God Himself must have created the Big Bang, therefore creating the Universe in His image. The Bible’s version is a convenient explanation for the primitive peoples it was first written for, and as enlightened and educated souls, we understand that God moves in mysterious ways. The Church speaks of free will, and yet how free can we be, when the Bible, and other holy books, all say that Armageddon awaits. Live your life along your own rules, but you’re all going to burn anyway, regardless. The souls of the good, righteous and most pious will be saved; but the human form will die. You can see why the religious ones tend to shy away from that pertinent fact. Most people don’t like being told that they have to leave this mortal coil eventually, which is why kids always seem to think they’re invincible and won’t ever grow old. But when told they, or their descendants, are going to burn in the fires of Armageddon, no matter what you, they or anyone else does about it, there piety can be sorely stretched. Mine was, and, predictably, it snapped.

 

Just how educated and enlightened are we anyway? So we have computers, CD’s, roll-on deodorant, glasses, alarm clocks, electric fans, digital watches et cetera. But how does that show we’re enlightened? Our pitifully small planet dies around us, and we continue to watch Jerry Springer. Now, I’m no eco-freak, but I understand the need to conserve what little we have left, if not for us then for the ones that follow us. We are the only creatures on Earth who would cheat each other for money. We are the only ones that blush, who commit adultery, who murder for profit; who murder period. We have only one species, yet hundreds upon hundreds of different languages. Does a dog in North America bark differently than one in South East Asia?

 

For the better part of three generations, the dual threats of war and atomic fire dominated the existences of much of the Northern Hemisphere and the Western world. Then, with a fizzle instead of a bang, humanity had a generation off from this Damascene shadow. Sure, they busied themselves with the good old fashioned activities of brutality and genocide against ones brothers and neighbours, but the threat of global destruction at the hands of Homo sapiens receded into the background.
One American, being very American, suggested it was the end of history.
Perhaps that skipped generation should have paid more attention. Perhaps they shouldn’t have allowed such complacency to creep into all our existences. And I say the sweet irony of suggesting this, seeing as I was a member of this particular feckless generation.

With the generation that followed, the horrifying spectre of nuclear terrorism arose, the spectre of biological warfare seemed to be carbon bonded to fiction and the hysterically trumpeted spectre of global warming provided them with a surfeit of `created` methods for self-destruction.

 

`Course, at the time, I was just trying to survive till sunrise.

 

It wasn’t supposed to turn out like this. Which isn’t much of an excuse, I know, but it’s all I have at hand.
You see, I had this plan.
Yeah, I know, I know, I can see you shaking your heads already, and I have to admit; I agree with you completely. A simple plan, encompassing a thirty-five year service as a police officer, no less than two kids, no more than four, car, house, mortgage (paid off after the service of course).
Oh, and a wife.
Maybe a cat. I don’t know if I’m a cat person or a dog person. Supposedly you’re supposed to be one or the other, like Coke or Pepsi. But then I like both of those too, so that might explain it.
Or it could be a Gemini thing. I blame a lot of stuff on the Gemini thing. You know, twins, two sides of the brain, schizophrenic, stuff like that. Not that I really believe the alignment of the stars during a particular year has an effect on my higher neurological functions; it’s just a handy excuse. And as a Gemini I don’t put much stock in astrology, according to the astrologers. And it’s great to use in conversation with girls, sarcastic like. You’d be surprised how much a little fey mysticism can get a girl intrigued. Along with alcohol: that’s always a good, err, lever? God, that just sounds bad which ever way you put it.
Anyway, as the saying goes, the best laid plans of mice and men…all get fucked up at some point.

 

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Right. I never did understand that, probably because I never actually read the book it came from. Thinking about it now, I still don't remember where it comes from; Dickens or Shakespeare, I'd guess. Woeful gap of my education, I know, but I can scramble an egg, make a half-decent cup of tea and if you slam the heel of your hand against the base of someone's nose with the right amount of force, you can drive their septum into their brain.

 

Are we so savage that if our civilised veneer is scraped away by as little as a millimetre, we would turn upon one another in bloodthirsty hunger?