All Too Surreal

by Tim Waggoner

“After I got to L.A., I auditioned my butt off, but all I managed to get were parts in a few commercials. But I was pretty, if not gorgeous, and more importantly, my boobs were big enough to draw the attention of a man who made what he said were ‘alternative films.’”

  “Oh.”

  “Uh-huh. Before I knew it, I had changed my name to Cherry Wylde and I was making an alternative film every two weeks. It wasn’t so bad at first. I was paid well enough, and while I wasn’t so young and stupid that I thought I was a real actress, I kept auditioning for parts in legitimate movies whenever I could. But eventually, the lifestyle caught up with me. Drugs were everywhere, and I avoided them as long as I could, which turned out to not be all that long. Age took its toll as well, especially since my breasts were real and not store-bought. Eventually, I began to lose the war with gravity. If I wanted to keep working, I had to make movies of a more … extreme nature. Stuff younger, firmer-bodied actresses refused to do. That still I sent you was from my last picture, Jane of the Jungle. And it was one of the tamer shots. Once filming was completed…” She trailed off, fingered the bloodless wounds on her left arm. “You know what my last thought was as the darkness reached out for me?” She turned to him, her eyes filled with smoldering fury. “You.”

  Morgan felt a cold fluttering in his bowels.

  “There’s a moment when you’re perfectly balanced between life and death. And during that moment, you can see things. Know things. I knew the exact instant when my life began to head straight for the toilet. Do I have to give you three guesses?”

  “My review of your Ophelia.”

  “Bingo.”

  Morgan felt a wave of guilt mixed with burgeoning terror. “I admit I went too far, but I was just a kid still trying to learn how to write. And I had to be honest — it’s the critic’s job to serve his readers, as well as the field he writes about. Honest criticism helps actors and directors realize how their work impacts an audience, it helps them —”

  “Strive for excellence,” Claire said, but not in her voice; his mother’s. “After all that’s what makes us different from the animals, right?”

  Frost formed on his spine, cold needles jabbed into his gut and stirred around in his organs. He wanted to get up, wanted to run like hell, but his body refused to obey.

  “I told you I knew things.” Claire’s voice was once again her own.

  “What … what do you want from me?”

  Claire blinked, surprised. “I don’t want anything from you, Morgan. I’ve come to give you something.”

  Cat-quick, she grabbed the back of his head, held him in an iron grip. He glanced left, right, into her gill-slit wounds, saw the darkness therein, saw that it was moving. He knew then that the black insects he’d seen weren’t just behind her teeth; they filled her completely. Claire leaned forward, opened her mouth, and he saw beetles scuttling on her tongue, scampering over one another, excited.

  He tried to stop himself, knew what would happen if he couldn’t, but no matter how much he tried not to, he opened his mouth to scream.

  She fastened her water-bloated lips to his, and a flood of dark insects rushed forth.

  “You really should get your hair cut.”

  Morgan opened his eyes, saw a twenty-something boy with a lip ring looking down at him, framed by blue sky and clouds.

  “Excuse me?” Not particularly witty, but it was all Morgan could think to say.

  “Your hair — it’s too long.” The boy lips formed a half sneer, making his ring twitch.

  “I think he should dye it.” This from a black-haired girl in a cut-off white t-shirt that exposed her pale, taut belly. “Too much gray, don’t you think? If he had more, it might look distinguished, but there really isn’t enough. It just looks —”

  “Dingy,” finished the boy. “I agree completely. And what about that shirt?”

  Morgan sat up, looked around. He was still on the quad, a few feet from the fountain. But now, far from being deserted, the quad was full of students and faculty. No one was walking or talking, though. They all stood still, heads turned toward him, all of them with (was he imagining it?) disapproving expressions on their faces.

  He felt feverish, dizzy. The memory of Claire — and of her kiss — hit him like a sledgehammer, and he thought he might faint again. But he managed to maintain his hold on consciousness, if only just.

  “I’m … sick. Could you help me up?” He extended his hand toward Lip Ring.

  The youth eyed his hand suspiciously. “There’s no way I’m touching that sweaty, flabby thing. I’d sooner touch an octopus slathered with toxic waste.”

  Morgan looked to Bare Midriff who wrinkled her nose in disgust. “It would be like shaking hands with my grandfather, and he died ten years ago.”

  “Fine.” Morgan struggled to his feet, swayed, took a stagger-step forward but didn’t fall.

  “Nice,” called out someone in the crowd. “Where’d you learn to walk, detox?”

  His stomach clenched and roiled, and he fancied he felt dozens, no hundreds, thousands of insects swimming in a sea of gastric juice. He started forward, pushing his way through the crowd, ignoring their taunts. He wanted to get to his car, told himself that everything would be fine if he could just get behind the wheel, hit the gas, and get the hell out of here.

  Several minutes later, he reached the visitor’s lot, saw a uniformed woman standing next to his Lexus, notepad in hand. Behind her, a compact blue and white vehicle with a rectangular cab was parked perpendicular to his car. When Morgan had been a kid, the woman would’ve been called a meter maid. Now, in this more enlightened time, she was a … what? Parking patrol officer? Something like that.

  As he approached, he attempted to compose himself, checked to make sure his shirt was tucked in properly, wiped the sweat from his brow. Not that the latter action helped much; he was dripping as if he’d just stepped out of a shower.

  “Is there a problem, officer?” His voice sounded too high, strained, but at least he’d gotten the words out.

  The woman looked up at him, eyes narrowed, lips pursed. “I’ll say. This is one of the worst parking jobs I’ve ever seen. Your driver’s side tires are on the yellow line; they’re supposed to be inside it.” She pointed at his tires with her pen for emphasis. “And your rear end is sticking out too far by at least six inches. That creates a hazard; someone else could drive by and accidentally clip your car.” She tcched and shook her head. “There’s really no excuse for parking like this. If you’d just taken the time—”

  “Thank you for the feedback,” Morgan interrupted. A spasm of pain wracked his gut, and he nearly doubled over. He finished through gritted teeth. “If you’ll just give me my ticket, I’ll be on my way.”

  The woman scowled, but she ripped a piece of paper from her pad and jammed it into his hand. “Have a nice day,” she said, obviously wishing him anything but, and she got into her cart and drove off.

  Morgan looked down at what he expected to be a citation. Instead, it was a ticket of a far different sort.

  FOR ONE DAY ONLY, A SPECIAL COMMAND PERFORMANCE! MORGAN MCCLAIN, THEATRE CRITIC AND ALL-AROUND MISERABLE HUMAN BEING, STARS IN PAYBACKS ARE HELL! ADMIT ONE.

  The ticket said nothing about where and when the performance was scheduled, but it didn’t need to. Morgan knew. It was here, at the campus theatre where he had watched Claire Ashton play Ophelia so many years ago. And the time was now.

  Screw that! Morgan tore the ticket in half once, twice, again and again, until he’d reduced it to confetti. Then he hurled the pieces skyward, where they were caught by the wind and borne away, tumbling and dancing through the air.

  “I’m not going to play your game, Claire!” he shouted. “Do you hear me? So tie on a toe-tag, shuffle back to the morgue, and leave me the hell alone!”

  He felt something sharp prick the space between his shoulder blades. He yelped and spun around. Standing there, dressed in a white tunic, golden breastplate, sandals and holding a wooden spea
r tipped with sharp black metal head, was the leather-masked snake handler Morgan had seen in the picture Claire had sent him via e-mail. Her co-star from Jane of the Jungle.

  “Let me guess,” Morgan said as he felt a trickle of blood run down his spine. “You’re a spear carrier, right?”

  The man didn’t say anything, but now that Morgan looked closely at the mask’s eye slits, he saw the man had a reptile’s eyes. He blinked, and a clear, moist membrane slid across his eyes then receded. The man gestured with the spear, and Morgan got the message. He started walking, the masked man following behind, the spear’s metal tip pressed against Morgan’s back.

  Morgan stood on a bare stage, dead center, sweating in the harsh glare of a spotlight. Though he couldn’t see them well, he knew he had an audience. The house was packed; there wasn’t an empty seat to be had. Sitting in the front row, middle seat, was Claire. No longer decked out like Ophelia and no longer wet, she wore the simple green dress she’d had on when he’d first encountered her at the Purple Pagoda. He wondered if it were the same dress she’d been wearing when she killed herself. He decided it was. On her right, still clutching his spear, sat Snake Eyes. The Morgan McClain he had been only a couple days ago might’ve made a joke about the porn actor being so attached to his “weapon,” but not now. There was nothing funny about this, nothing at all.

  “How does it feel, Morgan?” Claire called out. “Being on a stage, I mean. It’s your first time, right?”

  It was. Morgan had never so much set foot upon a stage, let alone been in a play, not even in grade school. He felt very much exposed, and very much alone. But as frightened as he was — and frightened didn’t nearly do justice to what he was feeling; he wasn’t sure there was a word in any human language that could encapsulate the depth of his terror — he was determined not to show it. He would fight back with the only weapon he had, the only one he’d ever had: words.

  He put a hand up to shield his eyes from the spotlight. “It would be an understatement to say you have me at a disadvantage, Claire. You all can see me, but I can’t see you.”

  “Fair enough.” Claire raised her voice. “House lights, please!”

  The spot switched off and the theatre lights came on. Morgan blinked for a moment as his eyes adjusted. He looked upon the audience that had gathered to witness his “command performance,” and as he did, he decided he had been better off when he couldn’t see them. They were shadowy creatures, vaguely humanlike in shape, but they were indistinct, edges blurry, with no discernible features. Darkness given form.

  Morgan felt a stab of pain in his gut, ignored it. Even though the spotlight was off, he was still sweating, still felt feverish. He looked at Claire and gestured at the audience. “Friends of yours from the great beyond?”

  “Not exactly. These aren’t spirits of people, though they are ghosts of a sort. They’re echoes of possibilities.”

  “I don’t understand.” The shades seemed to stir and roil as if they were made out of smoke, and he thought he could hear a soft undercurrent of sound, like the hush of waves breaking on a not-too-distant shore. Were the shades talking to one another — or were they trying to say something to him?

  Claire stood and walked to the edge of the stage. “Each one of them represents a wrong choice, a missed opportunity, a ‘road not taken.’ All because of your words.” She turned and pointed to the shade that had been sitting on her left. “That’s the newest addition. Remember your review of Godot? One of the leads read your article today, and after seeing how you savaged his performance, decided not to continue pursuing his master’s degree in theatre. He was supposed to go on to get his doctorate, and eventually he would’ve become dean of fine and performing arts at a large university. He would’ve, directly and indirectly, helped hundreds of students go on to realize their dreams of having a life in the arts. But now he’s going to end up just another IT worker, clicking away on a mouse while he rots away in a cube farm.”

  She turned back to face Morgan. “I could tell you a similar story for every one of them. Careers derailed, families that were never started, substance abuse problems where before there were none. On and on. Every single incidence attributable to one cause: your criticism.”

  Morgan looked out upon the dark things sitting in the theatre, watching him, though they had no visible eyes, speaking in shadowy whispers, though they had no mouths. He didn’t want to believe it, but he felt the truth of Claire’s words deep in the core of his being.

  Another lance of agony pierced his stomach. He gritted his teeth, rode the pain out until it passed. “Maybe it’s true, but you can’t lay the blame solely at my feet. We all make choices, and our actions all have effects, most of which we’re never aware of. All we can do is the best we can. I wrote my reviews in good faith. I saw plays, and then I spoke my mind about them on the printed page. I did it for my readers, and ultimately, for theatre itself. I can’t be faulted for that.”

  “True — if indeed your motives were as pure as you say. But remember how I said that in the moment between life and death, I saw things? One of the things I saw and understood was that existence is a delicate karmic balance, a cosmic game of jackstraws. And if during your life you draw the wrong straws, tilt the balance too much one way or another, you must restore that balance after you die.” She seemed to look past him, at something very far away. “And if you think paybacks are bad here, they’re nothing compared to over there.” She focused her gaze on him once more and smiled. “Believe it or not, Morgan, I’ve come to do you a favor. I’m giving you a chance to pay here and now, when it won’t cost you so much.” She grinned. “Kind of a spiritual super-saver bargain.”

  “So you’re playing Marley’s ghost in this little production, eh?” He took a deep breath, felt his gut twist into another knot. “All right, what do I have to do? And please don’t tell me I’m going to be visited by three spirits this night.”

  “Nothing so elaborate.” She stepped back, turned, and took her seat in the audience of shadows once more. She settled back and crossed her legs. “You have only to answer one question, but you must answer it truthfully: Did you write your reviews to fulfill your readers’ needs — or your own? Were you truly trying to perform a public service, or were you merely passing your self-loathing on to others?”

  “That’s two questions,” Morgan said. Claire didn’t respond; she just sat, watching and waiting. The shades were quiet now, too, and though they had no expressions to read, Morgan knew they were watching him with rapt attention.

  Sweat rolled off him, his stomach clenched and unclenched. He heard his mother’s voice whisper in his mind. Excellence, in all things. He had tried to live his life according to that standard, had told himself never to settle for anything less. But now here, faced by the revenant of a woman who’d committed suicide and a theatre full of aborted possibilities, he wasn’t so certain of his motives. He thought of all the actors and directors who had confronted him over the years, thought of the way his colleagues at the paper always seemed distant — when they would talk to him at all, that is. Thought of his ex-wife, who’d left because, in the end, she couldn’t take his endless criticism. It was so hard to think; he was so hot, and his stomach felt as if it might explode any moment…

  No, he decided. Excellence was excellence. People were just lazy; if they worked harder, tried harder, they wouldn’t have to settle for mediocrity. It was the greatest life lesson his mother had ever taught him, and he refused to gainsay it now.

  “Every word I wrote was for my readers, for theatre. None were for myself.”

  Claire smiled sadly. “I knew you were going to say that. But I had to give you a chance.”

  Morgan stood, waiting. Seconds ticked by, but nothing happened.

  “So is that it? Is it over? I—” It felt as if a giant hand grabbed him around the middle and squeezed as hard as it could. He grunted and doubled over in agony. Something small and skittery came rushing up his throat, over his tongue, shoved ag
ainst his gritted teeth. Morgan spat, and a small, hard object fell to the stage floor with a tiny clack.

  It was a beetle, one of the flood that Claire had passed to him with her kiss on the quad. But it was no longer black; it was white. And on its back were two words, spelled out in Times New Roman letters.

  Irredeemable Dreck. The last two words of his Godot review. Words, he was forced to admit, he had written solely and completely for his own selfish pleasure.

  “You know the expression, ‘forced to eat his words’?” Claire said.

  Fire blossomed in Morgan’s stomach, agony beyond anything he had ever known.

  “In your case, it’s backwards.”

  Morgan screamed as the beetles began their work and the audience applauded with dark, shadowy hands.

  When it was finished, his white, polished bones lay on the stage floor. Claire stepped up to the skeleton, regarded it for a moment before reaching down and taking the skull in her hands, and with a single, savage jerk, tore it free from the spinal column. She held the skull to her face, looked into its smooth, empty sockets.

  “Almost paid in full, Morgan. Just one more bit to go.”

  “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.”

  Morgan sat nestled in the actor’s palm, gazing at him with eyeless sockets. He sensed the audience out there beyond the stage, listening in the dark, hanging on every word. And why not? They were among the best words — the purest words — ever written in the English language.

  “He hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rims at it.”

  The actor was young and spoke the lines a bit too self-consciously, but overall, he wasn’t bad. Not bad at all. Morgan hoped the reviews would be good, especially considering that this was his first role. It wasn’t much, but as they say in the theatre, there are no small parts, only small actors.

  Keeping it Together

  Michael Dillon first noticed the crack in his wife’s forehead during dinner.