This isn’t all that short, much less “Damn Short,” but seeing as I’ve been neglecting this site for just over a year now, it’s high time I went ahead and put something up. This story was inspired by a scenario last year, when I was fortunate enough to be interviewed for a possible student position at the prestigious UCLA school of film. I didn’t get in, unfortunately, but the experience of the interview–which, by the way, was pretty much nothing like anyone who explained the process to me said it would be like–inspired this story. I’d originally planned to submit it along with an all new application for the 2012 school year, but owing to various circumstances including a change of requirements for admission, that clearly wasn’t going to happen. So instead I’m regrouping, planning to apply again for the 2013 school year, and working toward some further study that I hope will help improve my writing. Practice, practice, practice, as they say.
Insight or Something Less
Robert’s head swam through the murky haze of half-consciousness, eyes bleary and watering as a harsh light burned someplace just out of comprehension’s reach. His heart struck his rib cage with the thundering rhythm of some tribal drummer, wailing furiously against some veiled threat, some outside force he couldn’t see clearly. He squinted and tried to focus, straining against the rubber-like bounce of his neck, starting briefly as an image, a silhouette began to form just out of reach: three heads behind what seemed to be a table.
“What’s the rest of the story?” a voice asked, followed by another. “Tell us what happens next, Alex. What happens next?” Robert’s senses flared to life, aware but afraid; the bright lights and hydra-like triple man warbled in his eyesight and finally began to focus. “Where was I?” he asked, his voice trembling as he struggled to remember, to think of the details he should have known but which were lost in a moment of intellectual paralysis. So close to where I want to be, he thought, how do I get there?
A voice spoke again, this time from the left, clear in its authority, sparking memory or imagination; Alex—no, Robert—couldn’t be sure which. “You were in the park, with a woman. You were about to begin an affair with her, behind your wife’s back. There were men there, bad men, moving toward you, toward her. Something happened. What?” Robert’s heart raged and his mind, stiff like cold wax, began to soften. He cried out as a sharp, electrical pain stabbed into his mind and—
The park was clean and the sky a beautiful hue of blue and purple, the setting sun glinting off the gilded leaves of acres of ancient oak trees. “Are you okay, lover? Did you step on something?” A sweet voice rose from his right, intermingled with the sweet scent of a fragrance that seemed at once familiar and foreign to him, a perfume that echoed the tender elements of vanilla and lilac. Robert turned and looked into the crisp, green eyes of a beautiful young woman, followed the line of her face down her neck and along the length of her arm, which wrapped warmly around his own, her fingers intertwined with his. “Of course, everything’s perfect, my love. I just thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye, but it’s nothing, my sweet Kelley.”
Kelley smiled warmly back at him, her eyes a warm embrace in the cool summer air, and she leaned inward to kiss him softly on the lips. Robert closed his eyes a moment and just breathed in the beauty of this perfect moment. When he opened his eyes again, she greeted him with a look that said “welcome back,” then giggled as she shyly spoke: “I can’t believe how lucky I am that working on this project with you has brought us to this point. Do you realize how lucky I am?” Robert chuckled as he leaned back a little, grinning with the intoxicated look of a man who’s won a prize he knows deep down he doesn’t really deserve. “I don’t know, some might say I’m the lucky one. After all, without your tireless work I’m not sure I’d have ever gotten GOS to work at all.”
“Oh, I’m sure you’d have managed, smart-guy. And besides, with all the background research you’d already done, building the Genetic Oscillator System was really just a technical exercise!” Robert chuckled at her humility. “Well, I’m glad to see you have the confidence I lack. It’s the engineering end of the work that scares me, at the end of the day. Research and theorizing come easy by comparison.” Kelley’s fingers suddenly squeezed tight around Robert’s hand; she whispered as her eyes grew wide, “Are those men coming our way?”
Robert turned and looked across the park. Three men, bald with various trims of goatees and sideburns seemed to be making a slow move toward the couple. “Well,” Robert said, “Maybe we’re jumping the gun because they look so much like your stereotypical 21st century thug,” he chuckled. “Come on, let’s head another direction, it’ll be fine, you’ll—Aaagh!” An icepick seemed to penetrate Robert’s temple and he crumpled to—
The chair again, head swimming, his eyes watering as his heart raced. “Yes, yes, that’s all very cute, Alex, but where’s the meat? What really happened out there?” The voice seemed almost to thunder now, growing impatient. “It’s coming,” Robert, no, Alex, stammered, “but this is important.” The voice replied, “Seems like fluff to me, is this turning into a romantic comedy?” Alkaline burned in his mouth as he struggled to pull the rest of the memory, imagination or whatever it was, back into the light, and he said with more force, “No, this is something diff—“
Robert and Kelley walked briskly across the park, trying not to look backward at their improbable pursuers. “See, nothing’s happening” Robert assured her, but she only pressed forward in silence. A bead of sweat trickled down Robert’s brow and his throat caught, a little dry, as he breathed in through his mouth. Chest beginning to pound harder, curiosity demanding he divert his attention backward, he could take it no longer, and turned. His heart sank and his skin went pale—the men were almost upon them.
“Dr. Rob Harris! We need to speak with you!” Robert halted in his tracks, released Kelley’s hand and turned abruptly on his heel, situating himself between her and the men. He whispered to Kelley, “If I say run, you run and I’ll hold them off.” “No!” she protested, but Robert spoke commandingly now, barking “Don’t argue, just do as I say!” He turned back to the approaching men. “Gentlemen,” he spoke with a shrinking kind of authority, his lips quivering, “what can I do for you?” The men approached, stopping no more than a foot from Robert’s face.
“Gentlemen?” the leader-apparent scoffed, “Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to, pencil-neck?” Robert trembled as fear leapt from his heart and crawled like a poisonous insect along his extremities. “I don’t want any trouble. I have money, I can pay you—you can walk away, OK? No consequences, just cash and nobody finds out, OK? Just don’t hurt us.” The two men flanking the leader laughed, and Robert’s face flushed with embarrassment as they mocked him openly in front of Kelley. “Chickenshit,” one said; “Pussy boy” snickered the other. The leader put a hand on Robert’s shoulder, but whether he feigned friendship or mere civility, he couldn’t tell.
“Doc,” the leader began, smiling, “We already got paid. We got a job to do, and you’re it. So if you don’t want your little lady friend here to find out the hard way what it’s like to take on three very manly men at once, you better open your inside coat pocket and hand me the GOS.” Robert’s face went red as he realized someone in his lab had betrayed his secret, his life’s work, and now he and Kelley were about to pay. No, he thought, not Kelley. I’ll face them alone.
In a single breath Robert pulled back his right arm, screamed “RUN!” at the top of his lungs, and clocked the leader square in the nose. Blood spewed and the other men leapt toward him; Robert swung wild but poorly as their fists connected with his face, abdomen and chest over and again. He flailed wildly, trying to see if Kelley had gotten away, but he couldn’t get his eyes on her. She made it, he thought, at least she made it. And as a final blow struck Robert’s head, he fell to the ground in a crumpled heap, vomited and collapsed onto his back. His eyes rolled in their sockets as he struggled to focus once more, and a single, great sob escaped his lips as he focused clearly on the smiling face of Kelley, standing over him as the three thugs pinned him to the ground.
“Hello, lover,” she said in her most loving voice, the sickly-sweet scent of vanilla and lilac now overwhelming Robert’s senses. He didn’t speak or dare to ask the questions he knew he should; he knew that somewhere inside, he didn’t really want to know the answers. Kelley leaned down, flipped open the flap of his blazer and reached into his inner pocket. She withdrew a simple looking device about the size and shape of a normal writing implement, emblazoned only with three simple, black letters: G.O.S. She clicked the device like any pen, but instead of a single tip, three small points emerged from the body, each the size of a single hypodermic needle. She twisted the device casing around the middle, counted off thirteen clicks, smiled at Robert, and then drove the points into her own neck.
“No!” Robert cried as Kelley fell unevenly to her knees, shaking. Her eyes rolled backward as she gurgled a muffled cry of agony. The three men leapt backward, shocked at what she’d done. The leader, still holding his bloody nose, stammered, “What the fuck? What’s this thing do? Why’d she do that?!” Robert didn’t answer; he knew already. Kelley convulsed on the ground; her body writhed like some surreal serpent who’s just been decapitated, while Robert and the three thugs looked on. Minutes had passed, she grew still, and every human heart remaining thumped hard, awaiting what happened next.
Kelley drew a deep breath and stood—no, leapt—to her feet. She picked up the GOS where it had fallen and tucked it into a pocket, took two steps toward the thug on the right and snapped his neck in a single motion. The leader cried out, “Frank!” reached for a pistol behind his back and emptied the gun into Kelley’s abdomen and chest. She looked down at her blouse, now covered in hot, dark gunpowder, and frowned. With a single punch she dropped the leader to the ground, the sound of numerous bones cracking and breaking echoed at the moment of impact. The third and final thug turned to run, but Kelley rushed him, wrapped her arms around him and rocketed into the sky as Robert watched in horror at what she’d turned his genetic discoveries into.
Kelley landed hard on the ground next to Robert mere seconds later, and raised all five fingers on her right hand before folding each one downward as she mouthed a countdown: 5…4…3…2…1: the final thug slammed hard into the ground about twenty yards away, dead on impact. Robert shook as fear overwhelmed him, and tears rose in his eyes. He whispered, his voice wavering and afraid, “Why are you doing this? Are you going to kill me?” Kelley leaned close and kissed him softly on the lips. “No, my love. I really do love you, but you just don’t see the world for what it really is. You’re not going to die today, my love; but soon you’ll be known everywhere as the man who changed the world—well, with the help of his beloved second wife, of course. I’ll come back for you when I’ve broken down the walls and released all the secrets. First things first, though; I have to destroy your lab, and then I’ll have a peek inside Area 51 before I go have a nice, long chat with the President. I’ll see you soon, love.” In a blink, she was gone, and pain stabbed like an icepick through Robert’s brain.
The light behind the three figures seemed less bright now as Rob—Alex’s eyes finally came into focus again, seeing through his apprehension for the first time that those frightful silhouettes were in fact just men. “Not bad,” said one of them, “but I’ve seen elements of it before. You’ll have to try for a little more originality if you want to make it as a film writer. Luckily, we can teach you that here.” “Well,” Alex replied, “I have to admit it’s not my best work, but you’ve kinda put me on the spot here, and I was nervous to begin with.” The three men laughed, and one said simply, “Well, we’ve heard worse. Thanks for coming in today, we’ll let you know what we decide in a few weeks.”
Relief washed over Alex as he stood to leave, shook each of his interviewers’ hands in turn and smiled politely on his way out the door. “Not my best,” he said to himself, “but as I always say: the best is yet to come.”