Post by Jack of Blades on May 10, 2006 16:02:13 GMT -5
(Another night, another dollar, another story meeting for Wooden Epidermis. Although the show was mostly all Jack, there were a couple of writers on hand to try to keep the show within FCC regulations. Tonight was another of those droll writer's meetings mainly telling Jack what he could and couldn't say in television... except that in the massive meeting hall, there were no writers today. No scripts to shred, but a blade to shred them. Just an empty boardroom and a bloodstained chair nearest the door.)
Jack of Blades: Last time I suggest a montage then.
(Jack of Blades takes a cigar from his pocket and lights it. He draws it closer to his mouth as he surveys the damage. He looks at a perforated script while producing smoke rings in tune with him going 'Ooop Ooop.' And eerie silence, and the scent of death, where business is supposed to occur. A lone figure makes her way out of the darkness, barely noticible in the dim early morning light... except for the tool slung over her shoulder, a tool whose head glinted off the light and whose blade seemed always at the ready, should she need it.)
Ellis: They didn't want to stay around. Nobody seems to want to play with my Second Stage anymore. Do you think maybe he plays too rough?
Jack of Blades: No, he is as dull as a Creeping Death interview. And trust me, I know.
Jack of Blades: But I suppose I should thank you for getting read of those philosophy graduates and their insistence on featuring a 'Star Trek' reference. So as much as I enjoy your company. Why you here, love? Going to quote a lyric from 'Coheed and Cambria' as some sort of prophetic reference to my future? Or simply want to ask why I haven't answered your fan mail yet?
(The scion of death simply closes her dead grey eyes, emiting a soft sigh that could almost be interpreted as a death rattle, keeping her scythe close.)
Ellis: So quick to hurt, Jack. So quick to hurt, and so quick to judge. I came to apologize...
(Walking slowly, so as not to seem all to menacing... at least not now... she took the handle end of her scythe and gently traced the marking her blade had made the previous night.)
Ellis: ... for this. There was a mistake in the production truck, and I wasn't properly able to do what I wished... I was aiming...
(Again, the handle made it's way a half inch from Jack's body, but this time made a quick motion in front of his throat)
Ellis: ... for this. I hate it when I make mistakes.
(Jack of Blades looks at the positioning of the scythe and hears the slow, calm, satisfied breathing of Ellis. His response is to take another drag of his cigar and blow it straight in her pale facial features.)
Jack of Blades: Listen. I know you're getting your jollies from pretending to be the 'Ghost of Christmas Future' but I've been pulling down the whole 'blades' thing for a while now. If only I could have made it more obvious to you.
(His anger rising now.)
Jack of Blades: If only I'd have worn a name tag saying...Hello, My Name Is Jack of Fucking Blades. How can I help you in your plagiarism?
Ellis: I thought that you'd be honored that this unkindly cut would come your way, Jack. You know I'm doing this all for you. You remember the first night we met, don't you? You took more than my victory, my moment. You took something more... and you knew it. You enjoyed it. And you aimed for it with every bit of fractured speech, every joke that cut to the deepest part of me, the things that kind of helped show me what I'd been hiding from my whole life... or rather... what was left of it...
(As her eyes once again closed for the briefest of seconds, she held her blade close, turning it upright this time and showing Jack that the blood was encrusted on it's blade.)
Ellis: Hector's little toy was enough for your little 'friends' here, to send them running... but my Turbine is there especially for you. See... I haven't had the feint of hearts to take your taste away from it.
Jack of Blades: Well, that's fantastic. I would have appreciated the sentiment of you waving a scythe claiming to be the 'Angel of Death' if it was proof that you had drunk from the 'Electric Altar.' But when you cut me, you weren't doing it to invoke some kind of metamorphosis. Or at least not a transformation I appropriated. You're following the beck and call of that new manager of yours. Damn, she should have stayed with Lady Vengence. You should try eating some brain food, no offence. I mean you should you should be cutting away the seams of sanity and not your only connection to madness.
Ellis:What you see as a connection to madness Jack... I see as a connection to sanity. Try as I might, to ask her to stay out of my affairs, she still insists that there's something human... that there's something alive... inside me. But do you know why I keep her around, Jack? Why I'm willing to do this to the people who dare threaten her? Because I look at her, Jack... and I see what I could have been. I see what could have been, if my father hadn't been a fucking bastard and saw me as nothing more than a whipping post. I see innocence tempered with with the knowledge that this is a fucked up world... and somehow, she thinks she can change it. In her, I see the eyes of all the children battered by people, by circumstances... that they couldn't control.And for people like you, Jack. I see you, and I see every person who would dare harm the innocent. Oh, I'm sure you have your reasons, and I'm not interested in them. The bottom line is, that what was supposed to stay between the two of us, has spilled over. Sean Hughes is involved. Logan is involved. And her... she's been there for it all.
Jack of Blades: Whoa, when did you go join the Justice League? Anyway, you've irritated me. Now with all these references to innocence and abusive parents, you sound like a lost child in a playsuit. And trust me, that's not what you see when you look at me. I'm the innocent here. I'm the one who played nice and said thank you. But like any 'sane' person, I couldn't take it anymore. So I rebelled. I rebelled against the likes of her and her chirpy privilege of having a sense of self-preservation. You've confused innocence with ignorance, my dear.
Ellis: Well, Jack, maybe this world didn't work for you. I know it didn't for me. So we left in our own ways. You into this madness you seem to hold so dear... me into the valley of the shadow of death. But you can't tell me, in all honesty, that you could do something like you did and not arouse anger. Not awaken the beast that houses her frame. Unlike my Ambellina, I know I can't change the world. But if my dearest blade could swing forth and sever the hearts that bind the bodies of those who would do such harm... be they mad in their own way, or sane in the ways of everyone else... maybe a small difference could be made. A... mark... that would stay long after this corpse has begun to rot.
(Her blade glints dimly as she turns away, breaking her undead gaze on this man.)
Ellis: But I've stayed too long, and said too much. If I didn't think you were worth it... you wanted a quote from me, Jack? Maybe I should give it to you... man your battlestations...
(The lights flicker, then go out.)
Ellis: We'll have you dead pretty soon.
(The lights go on after a mere five second power failure, leaving no trace of the corpse girl... just a bloodied handprint on the boardroom wall.)
Jack of Blades: Yeah, well I can quote songs too...um..."My ding-a-ling, my ding-a-ling, I want you to play with my ding-a-ling."
(Jack of Blades laughs wildly as he moves over to the watercooler. As he withdraws a cup from the dispenser, he draws the camera closer to the large tank where the bespecticaled head of a co-writer is bloated and taning from great saturation. This only draws more laughter.)
Jack of Blades: Last time I suggest a montage then.
(Jack of Blades takes a cigar from his pocket and lights it. He draws it closer to his mouth as he surveys the damage. He looks at a perforated script while producing smoke rings in tune with him going 'Ooop Ooop.' And eerie silence, and the scent of death, where business is supposed to occur. A lone figure makes her way out of the darkness, barely noticible in the dim early morning light... except for the tool slung over her shoulder, a tool whose head glinted off the light and whose blade seemed always at the ready, should she need it.)
Ellis: They didn't want to stay around. Nobody seems to want to play with my Second Stage anymore. Do you think maybe he plays too rough?
Jack of Blades: No, he is as dull as a Creeping Death interview. And trust me, I know.
Jack of Blades: But I suppose I should thank you for getting read of those philosophy graduates and their insistence on featuring a 'Star Trek' reference. So as much as I enjoy your company. Why you here, love? Going to quote a lyric from 'Coheed and Cambria' as some sort of prophetic reference to my future? Or simply want to ask why I haven't answered your fan mail yet?
(The scion of death simply closes her dead grey eyes, emiting a soft sigh that could almost be interpreted as a death rattle, keeping her scythe close.)
Ellis: So quick to hurt, Jack. So quick to hurt, and so quick to judge. I came to apologize...
(Walking slowly, so as not to seem all to menacing... at least not now... she took the handle end of her scythe and gently traced the marking her blade had made the previous night.)
Ellis: ... for this. There was a mistake in the production truck, and I wasn't properly able to do what I wished... I was aiming...
(Again, the handle made it's way a half inch from Jack's body, but this time made a quick motion in front of his throat)
Ellis: ... for this. I hate it when I make mistakes.
(Jack of Blades looks at the positioning of the scythe and hears the slow, calm, satisfied breathing of Ellis. His response is to take another drag of his cigar and blow it straight in her pale facial features.)
Jack of Blades: Listen. I know you're getting your jollies from pretending to be the 'Ghost of Christmas Future' but I've been pulling down the whole 'blades' thing for a while now. If only I could have made it more obvious to you.
(His anger rising now.)
Jack of Blades: If only I'd have worn a name tag saying...Hello, My Name Is Jack of Fucking Blades. How can I help you in your plagiarism?
Ellis: I thought that you'd be honored that this unkindly cut would come your way, Jack. You know I'm doing this all for you. You remember the first night we met, don't you? You took more than my victory, my moment. You took something more... and you knew it. You enjoyed it. And you aimed for it with every bit of fractured speech, every joke that cut to the deepest part of me, the things that kind of helped show me what I'd been hiding from my whole life... or rather... what was left of it...
(As her eyes once again closed for the briefest of seconds, she held her blade close, turning it upright this time and showing Jack that the blood was encrusted on it's blade.)
Ellis: Hector's little toy was enough for your little 'friends' here, to send them running... but my Turbine is there especially for you. See... I haven't had the feint of hearts to take your taste away from it.
Jack of Blades: Well, that's fantastic. I would have appreciated the sentiment of you waving a scythe claiming to be the 'Angel of Death' if it was proof that you had drunk from the 'Electric Altar.' But when you cut me, you weren't doing it to invoke some kind of metamorphosis. Or at least not a transformation I appropriated. You're following the beck and call of that new manager of yours. Damn, she should have stayed with Lady Vengence. You should try eating some brain food, no offence. I mean you should you should be cutting away the seams of sanity and not your only connection to madness.
Ellis:What you see as a connection to madness Jack... I see as a connection to sanity. Try as I might, to ask her to stay out of my affairs, she still insists that there's something human... that there's something alive... inside me. But do you know why I keep her around, Jack? Why I'm willing to do this to the people who dare threaten her? Because I look at her, Jack... and I see what I could have been. I see what could have been, if my father hadn't been a fucking bastard and saw me as nothing more than a whipping post. I see innocence tempered with with the knowledge that this is a fucked up world... and somehow, she thinks she can change it. In her, I see the eyes of all the children battered by people, by circumstances... that they couldn't control.And for people like you, Jack. I see you, and I see every person who would dare harm the innocent. Oh, I'm sure you have your reasons, and I'm not interested in them. The bottom line is, that what was supposed to stay between the two of us, has spilled over. Sean Hughes is involved. Logan is involved. And her... she's been there for it all.
Jack of Blades: Whoa, when did you go join the Justice League? Anyway, you've irritated me. Now with all these references to innocence and abusive parents, you sound like a lost child in a playsuit. And trust me, that's not what you see when you look at me. I'm the innocent here. I'm the one who played nice and said thank you. But like any 'sane' person, I couldn't take it anymore. So I rebelled. I rebelled against the likes of her and her chirpy privilege of having a sense of self-preservation. You've confused innocence with ignorance, my dear.
Ellis: Well, Jack, maybe this world didn't work for you. I know it didn't for me. So we left in our own ways. You into this madness you seem to hold so dear... me into the valley of the shadow of death. But you can't tell me, in all honesty, that you could do something like you did and not arouse anger. Not awaken the beast that houses her frame. Unlike my Ambellina, I know I can't change the world. But if my dearest blade could swing forth and sever the hearts that bind the bodies of those who would do such harm... be they mad in their own way, or sane in the ways of everyone else... maybe a small difference could be made. A... mark... that would stay long after this corpse has begun to rot.
(Her blade glints dimly as she turns away, breaking her undead gaze on this man.)
Ellis: But I've stayed too long, and said too much. If I didn't think you were worth it... you wanted a quote from me, Jack? Maybe I should give it to you... man your battlestations...
(The lights flicker, then go out.)
Ellis: We'll have you dead pretty soon.
(The lights go on after a mere five second power failure, leaving no trace of the corpse girl... just a bloodied handprint on the boardroom wall.)
Jack of Blades: Yeah, well I can quote songs too...um..."My ding-a-ling, my ding-a-ling, I want you to play with my ding-a-ling."
(Jack of Blades laughs wildly as he moves over to the watercooler. As he withdraws a cup from the dispenser, he draws the camera closer to the large tank where the bespecticaled head of a co-writer is bloated and taning from great saturation. This only draws more laughter.)
