Friends and Friendlier

Kate was trying to finish her pre-cal homework, but was suffering from post-chick flick depression. Her life was decidedly lacking in awww moments, and the only pseudo prospect for creating them was Will Fletcher. Really it was more a celebrity crush than anything else since he was junior at NC State, and even at her most  romantic she still couldn't convince herself that a 21 year old man had any business liking a high school senior anyway. Not that Will Fletcher really knew Kate Roy much more than as an acquaintance. She was just a girl he saw at services at Rutherford United Methodist while he was home going to physical rehabilitation after a car accident banged up his leg. While Kate was deliberating whether she could ask Will to Homecoming, her computer blinked from Chris. Chris was having one of those days. Chris was like a bi-pedal Eeyore, and every morning seemed to serve the purpose of reminding him that all of his dreams were  being crushed all around him.

Kate, I can't write anything good.

Kate resisted the urge to agree realizing that he was only bemoaning a temporary writer's block, and not a permanent state of being. It wasn't that Chris couldn't write good lyrics. His music was legitimately catchy- but every song was like attending a party hosted by Edgar Allen Poe.

How long have you been stuck?
Since Saturday
Every time I think I've actually come up with something good, I realize that it's plagiarized from some song I heard earlier--
freaking Gears of War commercial
I thought I finally had something with  "my favorite daydreams are the ones in which I'm dying."

Kate had no serious response to that.
  Maybe you should write something like
"it's like looking for red skittles at the bottom of the bag when all that's left is green and yellow"

***

Julian was tired of the lonely  feeling she got backstage as she felt claustrophobically surrounded by strangers, and decided that she was going to be much friendlier. She started with the closest thing she had to an acquaintance, a girl she had seen at a party once.  "Hey... I think I played Apples to Apples with you at Taylor Tipton's party. I'm Julian"

"Yeah.. I'm Kelly." 

Julian asked her what part she played, and they talked for a few minutes but it soon got too awkward and they both pretended to need to do some errand in opposite directions. Julian sat down next to the stage manager's stand, because she could read by the small light that hung above all of the stage control, but she was soon distracted with eavesdropping. The stage manager was having a mock heated debate with one of the actors about whether the  randomest  part of the "Total Eclipse of the Heart" music video was the dancing ninjas or the flying choir boy. It soon took a ridiculous philosophical turn about how the flying choir boy obviously represented Bonnie Tyler's deep seated fear of mediocrity as represented by the choir of possessed boys, but , "Tyler is also afraid to break with social norms as symbolized that even when one of the possessed boys flies  away from the rest of the group, it is in a disconcerting and may I say terrifying manner- thus the twirling ninja is by far the most random section of Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart. Wouldn't you agree?" the stage manager finished, motioning to Julian. 

Since Julian had never seen the bizarre menagerie that is the Total Eclipse of the Heart video, she was at a loss as to why in the world ninjas would twirl or what that had to do with choirboys, but she was caught up in one of those mercurial winds of cleverness that providentially was blowing on her at precisely the right moment. "You have obviously failed to catch Tyler's allusion . The ninja's rebellion against the Samurai class is clearly shown as a macrocosm to her internal rebellion against the repression of society.  And that like the ninja she also wears a mask to protect her true identity... her id."


"Quite right Miss Fantine. Too true. How do you reconcile the ninjas with the prep school setting?"
"Well, you can't. That is precisely why they are there. You can make a convincing argument that the entire piece is a tribute to the surrealism of post-war America in the 1930's."


Julian was caught by how the stage manager's train of thought seemed to be mapped out on his animated face- his eyes flashing trying to size up the power of her wit and piece together his next comment . When he opened his mouth it was in one uninterrupted sentence delivered solely for her benefit since the actor had previously lost interest : " Ah yes, the excess of the private school world is shown as a nightmarish land that leads to despair much like the speak-easy luxury of the 1920's would eventually give way to the Great Depression.  Which-" he took a deep breath, "is why the dove which is often the symbol of peace instead is a harbinger of scenes of violence- to heighten the viewer's sense of  disorientation."


Julian was impressed. "Well Mr.--"


"Walter Carrick"


"Well, Mr. Carrick I have a confession." Julian was feeling bold, as usual. She put her hand in front of her mouth and whispered over his shoulder, "I've never seen the music video for Total Eclipse of the Heart."


He laughed silently and gave her a dashing smile. Julian was definitely not feeling lonely anymore.

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