by Sam J Fires
Jed winced as he felt a sharp sting on his forearm. He swatted at it, figuring it to be a bug bite. Except when he checked his arm, he could make out the tiniest incision, as though a needle had pierced his skin. Jed would later feel the sting of a thousand needles, red-hot and relentless.
His body still hasn’t been found.
*
Donna rolled the little pill around between her fingers, as though trying to glean some hidden meaning from it. I seriously hope I’m not going to have to spend the rest of my life dependent on these things, Donna contemplated as she popped the pill into her mouth and downed it with a swig of gin and tonic.
“You really want to be taking that with booze?” Josie had just finished serving a customer and moved down the bar to Donna, disapproval etched on her face.
“Can’t you just be glad I’m taking them, Mom?” Donna retorted, eyes rolling upwardly.
She and Josie had been friends since high school, and even though they had gone their separate ways career-wise, Donna always found time to catch up over a drink at the bar Josie owned - which seemed to be happening more and more frequently. “Don’t you have somewhere you need to be? Like work?”
“Not anymore,” said Donna. “I had a bit of a meltdown in the office today trying to find the stationery.”
“It can’t have been that bad,” offered Josie half-heartedly.
Donna had suffered from mood swings since she was a teenager. The bouts of depression were the worst, making it impossible for her to deal with even the minor irritations in life, which often seemed to escalate into major traumas. For the past two months, Donna had been working for The Los Angeles Daily Herald as a trainee copywriter, her poor timekeeping had already been raised as an issue.
“I may have elbowed one of the editors in the face by accident.”
“Oh no, Donna! How did you manage that? So, what did they say?”
“Something along the lines of ‘I think you’d better go home, Donna’.” She tried to keep her voice nonchalant, but Josie would see through that. “I wouldn’t be surprised if I didn’t have a job tomorrow.”
“I really think you need to speak to someone,” offered Josie. Donna felt like she’d heard this before a million times over. “And say what? Doctor, can you stop me from turning into a basket case?”
“Donna, it’s bipolar. It’s manageable.”
“Well, it doesn’t feel like it!” Donna shouted so loud some of the customers at the bar turned in her direction. “This is how I’m going to be for the rest of my life. I’m not going to feel better. I just need to get used to that.”
Suddenly, Donna needed to be somewhere different; anywhere people weren’t passing silent judgment on her.
“Donna!” Josie called after her.
But she was already out the door.
*
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are now venturing down one of the more neglected parts of Los Angeles; an overgrown desert that may have once held the foundation of some bygone civilization, a hamlet, maybe even a mass grave…”
“Okay, cut!”
Eric Lander stopped talking, waiting to hear whatever demoralizing putdown his cameraman Leo had to offer. I bet Hitchcock never had to deal with people trying to clip his wings. Eric was feeling irritable at yet another interruption.
Leo set the camera on the ground and ran his fingers through his hair, his exasperation coming to the surface. “I’ve got to say, Eric, I can’t understand why we’re going to all this trouble. Folks don’t want to see Planet Earth: LA style.”
“It’s for my showreel,” explained Eric. “People want to see a naturalistic side to my work.”
“If you were David Attenborough, maybe. But this? This won’t sell. Producers, they’re like wolves. They can smell amateur on you. I still think we should show them the music video we shot—”
“No.” Eric’s voice echoed through the deserted wasteland, the volume surprising both of them. “The only way I would show that footage to anyone is if I wanted to plan my death by embarrassment.”
“I’m quite proud of that footage,” said Leo. When Eric didn’t offer anything further, Leo walked over to his lifelong friend, his face serious, “Look, buddy. I’ve enjoyed doing this with you. We’ve held onto this dream, for what, six years now? We’ve got the talent to offer. And I’ve been holding out for a big break just like you, but if it was going to happen…don’t you think it would have by now?”
Eric didn’t even want to consider that possibility. “What are you saying, Leo?”
“I’m saying perhaps we should consider knocking it on the head. It was a nice dream while it lasted. Passed the time, but maybe now we need to join the real world. Find something with more of a future. Find something that pays a wage.”
Life as a filmmaker was the only future Eric had envisioned. Without it, he had no idea how to define himself.
*
Never thought chasing down a perp would feel so mundane, Jane mentally complained.
All of Jane’s actions - pinning him to the ground, straining herself to prevent an escape, slapping on the handcuffs, and then marching the suspect to the car - all her movements were precise and robotic, as though she had completely given herself over to muscle memory.
She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Sometimes, thankful she had fallen into a pattern of behavior that yielded no surprises. On the other hand, Jane felt maybe she wasn’t fulfilling her full potential. She’d had so much hope when she became a cop, the chance to make a real difference in the world. It felt like that chance was always being kicked into the long grass. She’d given up any hope of making detective years ago. There had to be something she could strive for, but that would require something to change. She would have to change.
And what were the odds of that ever happening?
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