Ellipses...

by Gabriel Archer



  ELLIPSES...

  by

  Gabriel Archer & Jack Canaan

  Copyright©2012 MetaFic, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Talk dirty to us, o Muse...

  On her knees, she gags. There are tears in her eyes. Had she worn mascara, it would have surely run, but she hasn't put it on in weeks. Leaning with his back against the file cabinet is her john, John. He's a marketing executive, which means a sharp looking shirt, sleazy suspenders, and a recreational coke addiction. He doesn't pay any attention to what she's doing. He's feverishly writing something on a yellow pad. A few lines are already crossed out:

  UltraVision: The picture of perfection!

  UltraVision: Your eyes in HD!

  UltraVision: A see of sights!

  John's face gets skewed, as if he's having a stroke. What he's really having is a stroke of genius.

  "Ahhhhh!"

  He cums:

  UltraVision: A Sight to Behold!!!!

  This little doozy gets e-mailed around the office at fiber-optic speeds. UltraVision, LLC is going to love it. While John runs to the bathroom for... sniff... some celebration, she is left alone, on the floor. Next to her is the crumpled sheet with the crossed off marketing slogans. She uses it to wipe her lips. Payment has been exchanged without anyone even noticing.

  She stumbles out of the office. Eyes unfocused, fingernails scratching at her ribs that poke through her sallow, drooping skin. She trembles.

  One would think she should be satisfied for a while, but in fifteen minutes her limp hair and drained tits swing inharmoniously to the computerized music of a greeting card. Its Jingle Bells... obviously. All that's missing is the line of cleverness that will make consumers smile all through the holiday season. She doesn't even know who's fucking her, she just knows she needs it and he's giving it.

  In the corner of the room is a garbage pale with a toy basketball hoop attached to the rim. So far it looks like the Knicks having a usual game. Balled up ideas are everywhere except the basket. Carl doesn't give up. His pencil keeps scratching at the lined paper, like a live man scratching at the lid of the closed coffin, and just as successfully.

  For her, time is unperceivable. She doesn't care how long it takes, as long as she gets it in the end. But today Carl surprises everyone. He prematures one. Under the picture of the Christmas tree, where a polar bear is holding out a wrapped present in its paws, Carl wrote:

  I come BEARing gifts!

  He gives her a slightly apologetic look. He knows it's not his best work. She doesn't care. She got her fix and fumbles out the door. Besides, she's had worse trips.

  A tossed salad gets her a somewhat creative obituary. She almost wishes it was her own. Scratching at an insatiable itch, she finds herself sandwiched by two comic book writers. Wham! Bam! Then she's gang-banged by the writing staff of the network's hot, new high school drama.

  Christmas. The long snowy road from Virginia to New York. A blitzkrieg of Christmas jingles on all stations at all times. Once in a while, a blessed burst of white noise, and then "White Christmas." Jack is on autopilot. The heat is up. A cigarette slowly smolders. A cool gust of wind from the window keeps the smoke out of his eyes and his eyes open. The cheap cup of coffee he purchased at the last gas station is not cold yet.

  As soon as the latest cover of "All I want for X-Mas is You," is over, a sexy voice, backgrounded by a quiet orchestra, relates how wonderful it is to see your children frolic – Frolic? Who says frolic nowdays? – how beautiful sunsets are, how only UltraVision lenses can make all of this... A Sight to Behold!

  The commercials, the snowy waves along the road, the patches of light that his headlights liberate from the darkness, all fade to the back of his mind. The same intrusive idea begins its habitual circles in his head.

  This thought is about a novel. Actually, he's not sure. Maybe it's just a long short-story, maybe it's something else entirely. But what does he even know of these things? He never wrote anything other than what his pocketknife could carve into a tree. But at least everyone now knew that "Jenny is a Whore" and that "Jack + Lisa = ♥"

  But still, he can almost see the outline for the story. He already has some witty lines and a few clever gimmicks. How hard could it be?

  Jack blinks a few times and realizes that he is standing on a red light in some small Virginia town. A new cigarette inhales the dying breath of the last one. Someone knocks on his window. He jerks back, dropping the cigarette. It takes him a few moments and a few winces to snatch it up before it rolls its way to the crotch area.

  He peers through the passenger side window. The woman that stands there does not inspire confidence. Her dress, as much as he can see, is ripped. A ragged, old biker's jacket is around her shoulders. Her nose is dripping snot and she has a wicked bruise under one of her eyes.

  The light turns green. He slowly presses the gas peddle and his car starts to roll forward. Then he shakes his head. It's Christmas. It's freezing. He stops the car and rolls down the window. He sees her awkwardly walking to him through snow. When she gets there, he is leaning across the passenger seat with a crumpled ten dollar bill in his hand.

  "Get yourself some soup, it's freezing," Jack offers.

  "I need a ride." She says, taking the money.

  "I'm going to New York."

  "Good enough," she replies, trying the car handle.

  "I don't think so. Not a great idea," Jack says.

  "Come on. Please?" she asks, giving him an 'I'll blow you for it' look. Then she says, "I'll blow you for it." She pulls some snot in noisily.

  Jingle bells are going off in Jack's head. Besides the fact that the hitchhiker looks unsanitary, Jack + Lisa = ♥.

  Still, it's Christmas and the whore is turning the blue of a Christmas tree decoration.

  "Get in and forget about the... you know... the BJ."

  She slides in. The aroma of the streets fills the car. Now that Jack has a better view of her, he sees that her nails are broken and islands of red nail polish in their middle are slowly being flooded. Her lips are cracked and at least one tooth is missing.

  Jack cracks the window open a little more, waits for the light to turn green again, and they're off, riding through the snow.

  "Can I bum a smoke?" she asks, giving him the aforementioned look and stretching her hands to the heating vents. Jack, regretting his choices, hands her the pack. She takes one cigarette and pockets the rest.

  As she lights up, he sees a cigarette burn on her neck. Not the usual company he keeps.

  "Thanks. I really need this," she says. "What's your name, honey?"

  "Jack."

  "I'm Calli," she says after a few moments of silence.

  "Like the Hindu goddess of death?" Jack asks.

  "With a C," Calli replies.

  "Oh."

  "What's on your mind, Jack?"

  He glances at her. She's inhaling the cigarette smoke with enviable relish, like she hasn't smoked in years. Though Jack is partial to plumper girls, her practically naked thighs make him want to touch them.

  "Nothing. Just enjoying the music." He nods to the radio.

  "Nobody enjoys this music, Jack. Not by the time Christmas comes around. But there is something on your mind and it's not the holidays, not mortgage, not Lisa," she says.

  "Lisa? Why did you say that name?"

  "It's on your car keys," she says and points with the cigarette to the ignition, almost burning him in the process. "Is she pretty?"

  "Beautiful, actually."

  "Good for you, Jack. Now, what's on your mind?" she asks. The way she asks is not like people making small-talk ask, but like she really wants... needs to hear the answer. Her thighs slightly
spread.

  "Um... it's stupid. Just a... really, nothing important."

  "You know, Kafka to his dying day believed that he had never produced anything worth of value. He actually ordered all his manuscripts burned after his death."

  Jack stares at Calli with considerable surprise. Not something one usually learns in the University of Street Corners.

  "It's just a story idea."

  "So write it." Her eyes slightly widen, her thighs slightly part.

  "I think I may," Jack says. "I've never done this before, you know? I'll get home, think things through..."

  "No, no, no," she interrupts, taking out his pack from her pocket and offering him a white stalk of a cigarette. "Uh, uh. Write it now."

  "Now? I'm driving."

  "Pull over."

  "No."

  "Listen, Jack, I met a few writers in my day. Very few of them brilliant, the rest are a waste of ink and sperm. But what's common to both is that an idea left on a shelf remains there. If you have something right now that's choking you, you better get it out."

  Jack accepts his own cigarette and goes quiet. Five minutes pass, filled with the squeaks of wind-shield wipers, bumps of the tires, and the hiss of cigarettes. The car begins to slow down. The snowflakes drop slower and become better outlined. Then there's silence again. The parking lights are glowing red on the shoulder. They and the stars are the only lights in the universe.

  "Fuck it," Jack says. "Why not?" It's not her and her words, it's the idea that keeps circling and circling like a vulture. It burns.

  A few minutes of shuffling between her legs in the glove compartment produces an old car manual with the last few pages blank for "Notes." An old pencil is spooning with the tire-pressure thingy.

  "So the story is about..." he starts.

  "You write, I'll sneak glances over your shoulder," she says, moving closer. He writes. She smells of cigarettes and cum and cheap perfume. He feels her breath on his shoulder. Jack gets hard.

  Sing to me, o Muse...

  Impotence would make this look like a statue's erection. He sat with...

  "No," Calli says. "You have to put the title in first. A title that will order the story. A title is what a reader sees first, that's what entices him, intrigues him." Now that Jack noticed, she's not as skinny or desperate looking as before. Now she seems almost an erotic enigma.

  Jack nods and jots in the title at the top.