by Jack Worr
“And what kind of work do you do?”
“I’m a screenwriter— Look, I don’t know when I’ll be available, so why don’t you just call me in two weeks and we’ll go from there.”
Her mouth opened slightly. “Well, there’s no need to be snippy.” She inputted something briefly. “We will give you a call on Saturday the eighth then. Does that work for you?”
“That’s fine. Thank you.”
“Have a nice day,” she said, a downward inflection at the end, and immediately forgot he existed.
Mason stood and left the office.
An hour later, after stopping by the pharmacy at CVS, he was standing in his kitchen, examining the multiple treatments on his counter. He wondered if he had to use all of them.
Despite what the doctor had said, it seemed to Mason that combining them would, instead of reducing their effects, increase them. At least that’s how he’d play it in one of his stories. Maybe it was something about lower doses of many versus high doses of one—but what did he know? He was no doctor. He wrote television shows. And whenever he’d added something remotely scientific, he’d find it conspicuously absent from the next draft. He was never sure if this was because he’d gotten it wrong, or because the producers didn’t think the public could handle that much education in their entertainment.
He opened the metal container of the experimental drug. He frowned at the lid, which had a thin metal rod going into the container, and instead of pills, it went into a black, chalk-like powder. Sighing, disappointed that he couldn’t just take a pill or two (or three), he rummaged through the CVS bag till he found the prescription that he had crumpled and tossed in. He uncrumpled it, and read the instructions written there. He learned the drug was called Mea… Or was that an N? Nae…dayine? No, that was an X. Naedaxine? Was that an R? Naerdaxine? Well never mind, that didn’t matter. He continued scanning the doctor’s terrible writing.
He frowned. Apparently it didn’t last very long, and didn’t take effect right away, because he was supposed to take it every three hours, starting immediately—and here this word was underlined. Twice.
Kinda like magnesium, he thought, which had increased the amount of time he’d spent in the bathroom, but had done nothing for his time in the land of Nod.
The instructions mentioned a scooper, and he realized that was what that thing under the lid was for. He extracted it. On the end was a little scoop. That was good at least, that it wasn’t too big of a scoop.
He sniffed the powder. No smell. He grabbed the bottle of orange juice from the fridge—Simply Orange, Mango Flavor—dumped the powder into his mouth, then took a swig.
Some powder remained on his teeth, and he realized it tasted like nothing at all. It was like his teeth had chalky air on them. That was good, too. Maybe that was why it was so black, some kind of flavor neutralizer; charcoal or the like.
He wondered if he should have eaten something, and felt a strange sense of foreboding wash over him. He looked at the instructions again, TAKE WITH FOOD was printed neatly at the bottom in all caps.
“Observant,” he muttered as he went to his fridge. In his freezer, there was some frozen fruit (blackberries), some vegetables (peppers and onions, which he couldn’t now remember why he would have bought)—but nothing he wanted to eat.
Other than the bottle of tequila, but Mason wasn’t the kind of guy who considered drinking to be eating, or even be a reliable substitute.
The fridge wasn’t much better.
There was food there, but nothing that didn’t require cooking. As he scanned the contents, he spotted some turkey pepperoni in the door, next to a very old container of cola-flavored barbecue sauce. He shuddered at the memory of trying it.
Avoiding thinking of that experience too much, he quickly snatched the package of pepperoni, tore it open, and grabbed a handful, leaving enough to put on a pizza, in case he decided to get around to making one, from the raw ingredients he had naively bought in a bout of caffeine-induced mania.
This mass of spicy mystery protein shoved in his mouth, he went to get his mail, hoping no one would try to talk to him while he was busy chewing.
“Mason, dear!” Ms Williams shouted at Mason, waving a handkerchief in the air as if signaling the okay for an air strike.
Mason swallowed, then choked as the topping lodged in his throat. He bent over coughing. He felt a hard slap on his back, and he almost lost his balance.
“Get it up! That’s good, let it all out.” She cackled. Well, Mason imagined she did, she probably thought she was chuckling. “Too much to drink?”
Mason shook his head and stood up. “I, choked on—”
She waved her hand at him. “Terrible tragedy. Listen dear, would you be a dear and help me out?”
How can I not be a dear when you called me a dear? Mason thought bitterly. He smiled. “Sure.”
There was a lot of mail waiting for him, when he was finally able to make it to his mailbox. He tried to remember the last time he’d picked it up. Couldn’t.
As he pulled the mail from the overstuffed box his hands ached from helping Ms Williams. He shook his head and put it out of mind.
He went to the front desk to pick up any packages.
The manager said, “About time,” then said something in Russian. Mason thought it was Russian. Mason didn’t speak Russian though, so he could have been wrong about that.
The sound of the stack slapping against the counter as the manager dropped it theatrically seemed to speak for him, and he crossed his arms and nodded.
Those would be screenplays. Which meant lots of work. Which was good. Then why is my stomach knotting up? he thought. He said, “Thanks.”
Mason lugged it all back to his apartment, and tossed it onto the counter.
He sighed looking at the amount of it there was. Too much work for now. He didn’t have any deadlines until Sunday, so any of those wouldn’t be due till after that (probably). What day was it? He checked his phone, and was delighted to find a new episode of the Screenplay Publishing Podcast was available. He grabbed his headphones, snuggled them into his ears, plopped down on his couch, hit play, and settled in to be entertained—and possibly educated—as the intro music bored into his ears.
Welcome to the Screenplay Publishing Podcast, where if you want to get rich, you make shit up. And now, here are your hosts, the three most prolific screenwriters in the world, Jackie O. Abs, Sun Perennial, and Damien Wrong.
“Hey everyone, and welcome to…”
An hour and a half and many laughs later, Mason reluctantly got up from the couch and went to the kitchen to get a snack. He was motivated to get some writing done now. Which was, he told himself, the point of listening to the podcast rather than working.
In his fridge, he found nothing to eat. He looked at the package of pepperoni and grimaced. Instead, he finished off the orange juice and decided he’d go out for lunch—a late lunch. Might as well take another dose first, he thought, imagining sleeping for ten hours tonight, and falling asleep as soon as he hit the pillow—which had never in his life happened to him.
He glanced at the mail sitting on his kitchen table, the seven unopened packages, a mix of large envelopes and book-shaped boxes, that he knew would contain either more revisions, or scripts from hopefuls who figured Mason was low enough on the totem pole that they could get him to look at their scripts.
And how wrong were they? Well, if they thought he could do anything for them, pretty wrong. If they thought he was low on the totem pole however… They were probably right. Case in point, the fact they’d gotten his home address somehow.
Lily. He shook his head. She had probably given it out to dozens of people by now. He knew he should never have let her convince him to have a party at his place. Not only had he not met anyone who could “Further his career”, now Lily could use his name and address as a nefarious bargaining chip. “Oh,” she’d say, “you need someone to look at your work? I know just the guy. Oh yes, he’s very w
ell known. Just check the credits of so-and-so show, you’ll see his name right there, Writer: Mason Grey.”
He groaned. He should open at least one before he ate. Besides, maybe there’d be a check in there. That had happened once. Only twenty bucks, but still, that had been an awesome day.
Mason tore into the package that looked least like it came from some amateur writer who thought his script was a masterpiece of cinema (instead of the low budget porno it would certainly turn into were it ever shot).
Mason raised an eyebrow. There was a cover letter. Maybe he’d guessed wrong. He sighed and began reading.
Dear Mr Mason
Great, they’d already gotten his name wrong. He continued reading.
I am contacting you in hopes this finds you well, and awake. There are things you might be wondering about. Does Blunderbuss sound familiar? I would think so, by now.
That did sound familiar. Was it a singer? A crease formed between Mason’s eyebrows, and it deepened the more he read.
I believe we may be able to help each other. This was the only way I could think of contacting you without… Well, without putting you off, let’s say.
By the by, you really should tell your friend to not give out your home address so easily. There are a lot of creeps in this town.
I hope I have piqued your interest with this mysterious missive. If so, I have tea every day at All AI Coffee. Say around three.
I dream to see you soon.
Sincerely, Sera.
Below this she’d signed her name in ink, barely legible.
That personal touch, he supposed.
She called it All AI Coffee, which meant she probably knew at least a few screenwriters—or read about it on the internet. Mason didn’t frequent it—the coffee house, he was on the internet everyday—but he did go there from time to time, mainly to get free coffee from Emily. She didn’t work till night though, and this “Sera” was going to be there at three.
Mason shook his head, inadvertently checking the time. He’d got some weird cover letters in the past, but this was tops. And Sera? What was with people and using misspelled names?
It had caught his attention though—and he supposed that was the point. He dug his fingers into the box and pulled the heavy stack of pages out.
He frowned at the empty title page. This girl—or guy pretending to be a girl—was weird.
He turned the page.
And effective.
He flipped through, allowing himself to hope that he may have inadvertently stumbled on the next Pulp Fiction, his mind running through interviews with someone important, them asking him how he discovered it, had the foresight to spot what a gem it was, him laughing modestly as he began to explain. But this dream came to an abrupt halt when he realized the pages he was flipping through were still empty.
He grabbed the stack by the edge and speed-flipped through it like a cartoon book.
All blank.
He stared at the last page. He at first thought it too was blank, but then saw the handwritten sentence in the bottom left corner: PS, Sorry if I got your hopes up.
6
A Few Minutes Ago
Mason pulled into the parking lot of All American Independent Coffee. Technically, it was actually a Walmart parking lot, but that was splitting hairs. Three twenty-three, his car radio told him. He’d made good time.
And why was he worried about being late anyway?
He felt like he should’ve brought pepper spray or something. What was he doing? This was nuts.
But he’d googled her name, and while IMDb had nothing on her, he had found her, or at least pictures.
And they were great pictures.
She was a little bit older then he might have expected, but still. Maybe he could get something out of this, scouting the next Scarlett Venu—at least a new secretary for Patricia, his ex-military-and-you’re-going-to-know-it boss, who had a thing for beautiful women in that age gap between young and old.
This didn’t make sense to Mason, since Patricia was married, but little that went on in Hollywood made sense, so he didn’t let it bother him.
He slammed his car door, and just stood there for a moment, staring into the coffee shop through its huge windows, trying to figure out which, if any, of the customers were the person he was looking for.
The idea that he’d be meeting a man, either the woman’s agent, or the man who was pretending to be the woman, evaporated when he saw that everyone in the shop was female. The customers at least. There was a guy he sorta almost recognized behind the counter, staring at an oven.
He rubbed at the contact in his right eye, which always seemed to bother him.
Maybe she wasn’t here, he thought. And maybe assumptions make an ass out of U and ME his mind taunted him. He needed to start meditating. Emily said it would help him with things like random thoughts, and also help him sleep.
But taking pills was so much easier. Or crumbly, tasteless, untested powder, as the case was. Not untested. New to you.
He was blasted by lukewarm air as he opened the glass door and entered. No Starbucks, this. Barely audible Burning of Rome played from speakers mounted above the “kitchen”.
“So damn lazy / I can’t do anything at all / The cat is gone crazy / and she’s scratching up the walls / [inaudible] is all I have / Too late, too bad / I shouldn’t have let you go.”
There was a sad looking air conditioner, far too small, set high in one window. The thing tried mightily as it cranked and clattered against the overwhelming force of the thousand square foot coffee shop, hot milk machines, constantly brewing coffee, the single oven in which rather tasty pastries were cooked and which looked even worse than the AC—not to mention the space heaters at each table, that some persistent optimists referred to as people. Each person is a hundred watt space heater, another unbidden thought informed him. Mason wondered if hot coffee and caffeine increased that.
He felt like a fool as he glanced around the shop. Not because he was embarrassed to be standing there like an idiot as the customers and baristas looked at him oddly, but because he realized someone was probably going to scam or kill him. He certainly didn’t see the woman from the photo anywhere.
But before he could further berate himself or his mind further distract him with visions of gruesome outcomes, there was a tap on his shoulder. He turned.
“Mason Grey, I assume?”
All Mason could think to respond with was, “Yes?”
“Hello. Serafina.” She held out her hand.
Mason looked at it. That explained the weird spelling. Still— “Look, lady. If this is some kind of trick to get me to look at your script—”
“It worked?”
Mason opened his mouth, but failed to think of a response in time to avoid looking like a fish.
The woman smiled. “This is so much more than that. It’s about your dreams. It’s about Eila.”
Mason’s heart sped, someone had just injected him with adrenaline—or blew cocaine in his face.
Be calm, he thought, before responding. He tried to ignore the sweat he felt forming on his forehead. “Are you—were you a friend of hers?”
The woman put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, that’s right. No, Mason, I don’t mean your Isla.” She cocked her head. “Not exactly anyway.”
Mason scowled. “What does that mean?”
She put a hand on his shoulder, jerked her head toward a table. “Come, sit. Have some tea. I’ll explain everything.”
And so, for reasons he later would never be able to explain, even to himself, he followed the odd woman back to her table, where she was drinking tea from china that this coffee shop had never once used. Not in this world.
7
Now
Serafina caught the man before his head hit the table, looked around to make sure no one was paying attention, and hoped no one would find him too soon.
Then she quickly, but without seeming to rush, exited the coffee shop, got in her car¸ put the
roof up, and drove away.
8
When he woke, it was not in All American Independent Coffee. His first thought, perhaps oddly, was, where was his car? His second was, where was he?
He sat up, and only then realized he had been lying down. He was on a couch, which he was sunk deeply into. The room was a blur of reds and golds, some old world rug shop, except there weren’t enough rugs for that. A lot, but not quite so many as that.
There were a lot though, he realized as he took in the room. You already thought that, a voice taunted.
He’d always been here, since time before time. But in the same way he knew this, he knew that he’d arrived here via stairs, and that this was important somehow. That on those stairs, the newel post capper was of a man holding a globe—Atlas.
Mason knew it was Atlas, but for some reason wanted to call it Stephano instead. When he thought the word Atlas, he heard Stephano.
It wasn’t a bedroom exactly, and the decor there did nothing to differentiate what kind of room it might be.
He went to the large wooden door, a deep oak stain with brass handles, twisted the knob knowing it would be locked.
It wasn’t.
Except, it was, but his twisting of it, his expectation, had opened it, unlocked it.
Into a void he stared. He squinted into the dark, trying to see. After a moment, he was blasted by a gentle breeze of humid air. It felt more like steam than air. It smelled like Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland.
“I wouldn’t do that.”
Mason whirled, the door somehow slamming shut.