Friday, August 13
12:21 am

quest - the play (well, bits of it, at any rate)

PET:
oh great, the rangers are stopping again. bet they think we're some cult, what with the candles and the...tails.

[really bad dance music, part of the act that the "fox spirits" are supposed to perform, starts up]

[beat]

PET:
wait, they're driving off

TIM:
yeah, there's no cult in the world that's that uncool

--

ARTHUR:
so, the way our station goes is, first you get scared by erin, then nick dumps water on you, followed by linus with the dummy [ed: must...resist...urge...to make...cheap joke], and then i jump out.
so this freshie walks in, obviously afraid, and when erin jumps him [ed: must...resist...urge!], he leaps like a foot in the air and goes, "cheeeebye!"
and with each successive scare, he just gets more and more scared and goes "cheeeebye!" every time. i swear, his voice has even got this little quiver to it, like,
[voice warbles]
"cheeeeeebye!"
so finally, after cursing at the dummy, the guy picks up a stick and starts poking at the ground in front of him
[crouches low and mimes sweeping around]
and there i was, hiding behind the bushes, when i realise that nick the genius left a big gulp right in front of me. the freshie of course spots the big gulp, prods it with his stick, and nervously picks it up, thinking it's the clue. and after he puts the cup back right at my feet, i rush out at him and the guy screams out in the most quivery, terrified voice yet, "CHEEEEEBYE!"

--

[while relighting a path for the freshies, ARTHUR accidentally drops some cylume straws into his hiding place]

ARTHUR:
[rapid and stilted]
it is the bad colour! it attracts the things we do not speak of! we must bury it!
[proceeds, quite seriously, to bury the cylume straws]

--

PET:
well, the rangers have raided our stations, the freshies are laughing at our new ones, we're way off schedule... what else could go wro - i just jinxed us irrevocably, didn't i?

MEL:
JOHN's gone to the hospital!

PET:
what? why?

MEL:
he jabbed himself with a cylume syringe!

--

[PET and ARTHUR are badly hidden in the foliage. PET - who is inappropriately dressed in a white t-shirt, chowing down a hugeass bag of sour cream and onion lays, and sitting on ARTHUR's makeshift stool - is there only at ARTHUR's insistence that she help keep him awake.]

PET:
why are you doing this to me? they'll see me, i'm glowing.

ARTHUR:
look, do you want to hear the story or not?

PET:
alright, fi - wait, shh, here they come

[two girls, gripping each other to death, come in very slowly]

[PET and ARTHUR grin silently, though PET never stops eating her chips]

ARTHUR:
bet they're screamers

PET:
you're sick, you know that?
[beat]
oh. ohh. i get what you mean. yeah, ok, you're on.

GIRL NO. 1:
hello? please don't scare us! err...we're just looking for the clue

PET:
on second thought, no.

ARTHUR:
oh, come o -

PET:
shh!

[PET munches contentedly on her chips]

[ERIN rushes the girls, who cry out and jump back, but fail to scream]

ARTHUR:
odds just went up!

[the girls progress slowly, and soon spot PET and ARTHUR in ARTHUR's lousy new hiding place]

GIRL NO. 2:
err... do you have the clue? we're looking for the clue

[PET freezes, chip halfway to her mouth. she wasn't even supposed to be part of the act, let alone spotted, and hasn't the slightest idea what to do. ARTHUR, crouched head down beside her, is at a loss for words too]

GIRL NO. 1:
[hisses]
she's eating chips. lays chips.

GIRL NO. 2:
is that the clue?

GIRL NO. 1 & GIRL NO. 2:
[reverently, and in unison]
ohhh. laaaaaaays.

[both girls, despite being the product of millions of years of evolution working to hone the survival instinct, move their faces very close in to the bag of chips, and consequently are staring at PET's seated midriff]

[long, long beat]

[ARTHUR rushes out at them, roaring incoherently]

[the girls scream their heads off and scamper, with soft cries of "ohmygodohmygodohmygod"]

[ARTHUR and PET wait for a moment, then go into mild hysterics]

ARTHUR & PET:
[reverently, and in unison]
ohhh. laaaaaaays.

ARTHUR:
i win!

GIRL NO. 1:
[offstage]
i heard that!

GIRL NO. 2:
[offstage]
what?

GIRL NO. 1:
[offstage]
someone said, "i win!"

[ARTHUR and PET collapse into fits of laughter again]

--

fin.

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= 11 =

Wednesday, August 11
11:41 am

quest

as most of you who read this may already know, quest (my faculty's fright night, for the uninformed) was quite the bust. "bust" being the operative word here, like as in "busted by the bloody rangers". major reshuffling, with most of the stations being relocated at the eleventh hour to new and decidedly unimproved locations. i say eleventh, but what i really mean is thirty-first, because that was how late it was when we began to move. to misquote the funny new company law lady, "was that a 'pah' i heard? because if you said 'pah', then you're absolutely correct!"

understandably, attitudes at that hour were rather lacklustre (though i believe "half-assed" was the more popular term at the time). at one point, i realised to my horror that i'd neglected to apply repellant, only to realise a second later that the mosquitoes weren't biting with the same joie de vivre to which i was accustomed. i think i spotted one waving its freaky little feelers dismissively and going, "leave them, junior. they're all depressed, and you know how that dulls the blood."

upsetting, yes, but like the good aic that i am, i summoned up all remaining reserves of strength to help the troops. particularly, to save some people the trouble of pointing out in the comment box, the troops that were in the air-conditioned chalet. that aside, tim, i did run sweatily and swearily around quite a bit. lowlights include prowling round an ex-station, torchless and alone, looking for the elusive box of candles and remembering just why it is i'm unafraid of all that otherworldly crap - there are simply way too many worldly things to fear.

and just for the record, i am a leggist. hate for anything with more than four legs and less than two, excepting snakes and including lizards.

no, no, we don't question the hate, we just accept and learn to love it.

Thursday, August 5
2:13 pm

interlude, part deux

it occurs to me that putting aside crushing personal problems to carry on with previously assumed responsibilities and the matter of daily living would be that much easier if everyone knew about it.

i imagine it would go something like when charla and mirna got that lift in the cemetery, except instead of "pequeño bella", i'd be like, "señora triste," to friends and strangers alike, and instead of spanish i'd very possibly speak in english.

Wednesday, August 4
5:45 am

ode

For the past 20 years, I've had a mangy pillow and bolster on my bed. They're tiny and pink - well, they were pink. And they're always, always there.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not the rather disturbing sort of person that needs them with me through every nap on the couch or in, ye gads, every foreign bed. Most of the time, they're shunted to the corner of my bed or wind up on the floor, depending on the intensity of my inability to sleep.

People that find out about them are always amused, because apparently, they're not very "me". I usually blather back that my other spiky black rock pillow is in the wash, but I get what they mean. Really, though, I hardly notice they're there half the time.

I remember an ex that was particularly amused by them. Named them, too. I can't recall what the pillow was called, but (and this is pretty stark in my mind) the bolster suffered through the ignominy of "hi, Flaccid!" a lot. This may or may not be why the ex became an ex. Personally though, the pillow really is unnamed, while the bolster's quite sadly known as boh-lester.

No, really.

Once, when I was but a wee child, this classmate of mine very proudly pronounced the word that way. He was, of course, mocked endlessly with oh-so-witty chants varying along the general theme of "boh-lester ah, you molester!" Don't laugh, you thought of it too. I wonder if the poor boy still remembers this. Or maybe he'll stumble across this entry one day, causing scabbed-over, repressed memories to come rushing back. Soon, I'll receive a letter from his lawyer - possibly his therapist.

The point is, I never fully got "boh-lester ah, you molester" out of my head. For awhile, every time I looked at the bolster that phrase would come bubbling somewhat insanely out my mouth. It stuck after the first hundred times, I guess. Just the first part, you degenerate.

Actually, the real point is: will you ever forget that phrase?

Oh, did I mention that my bolster and pillow are pink? And to uncultured olfactory senses, probably pretty rank, too. The stuffing's showing through at the corners of the bolster, and as for the pillowcase? Let's just say that the only way the pillowcase could see better days would be through that whateverscope they're using to check out Sedna.

Yeah, they're getting old. It's sad, but thankfully I've sorta grown out of them.

Except for times when I haven't.

It's precedence that was set way back. The bolster's for happys and the pillow's for sads. So lately, the pillow's been getting an awful lot of mileage. Think big hanky. Yeah, I wouldn't touch it if I were you either. It's a sad, wet, unnamed pillow.

I vaguely remember a quote from a book I once read. The Other Party is speaking to the wife, telling her that her husband loves her. And she sadly goes, "he says you are the sky whose presence and meaning have become everyday. Surely love means less?" Times like these, I'm inclined to agree.

I'm fairly sure (what with the way things have been going and given my infinite capacity for attracting worms) that soon I'll come home and find something gross nesting inside them and I'll finally have to toss them away. And then, I think, I will have lost the very last constant I have left in the world.