Pistol Whipped

"Look Max, I am the one with the gun here," Nell said. "You're in a sorry-ass state, Max. I got orders to pull this trigger and blow your fucking head clean off.

"Well," Max rasped through a swollen jaw, "I guess a date is out of the question."

Nell brought up the butt of the gun to strike at him again but Ally got in the way when she brought her face close to Max.

"You're screwed," Ally told Max. 

"Hah!" Max replied, startling the both of them. A spittle of blood flew from his mouth and touched Ally and Nell.

Nell brought up the butt of the gun and struck Max on the side of the skull, near the temple, sending his head back like JFK after the fatal shot from the grassy knoll.

"You killed him you bitch!" Ally screamed at Nell. "He's worth more to us alive."

Nell grabbed Max's head and showed Ally that, even though he was battered and bruised, he was still breathing, if only barely.

"You call me bitch one more time and I will fucking shoot you!" Nell warned her.

"Bitch," came a reply from the doorway. Nell turned to see a slender form with flowing red hair.

> Simon in Plureality

In talking about it, and writing about it 

he placed his burdens 

on display, the fashion of anguish. 

Making the effort to extend and externalize, 

begging to be objectified, handled,  

caressed, placed on her night-table,  

the last thing seen before sleep, 

a dream totem. Small and easily held, 

her hands all about him.  

  

He was counting on the gravity of his suffering, 

the exquisite curvature of his past and future, 

drawing her deep into the well of his now, 

like a pit, like euclidian trajectories bent 

into the circles of inferno. He felt warped, 

and warping, and needed someone to act  

as the planet, the source of his distortion, 

its cause become the effect,  

a want into need like matter into energy. 

  

In his behaviour he offered up his troubles 

in a performance to imaginary gods 

in the covert hope she'd arrive to reveal 

that they were in fact alone and therefore only together 

and therefore his troubles hers and hers his only, 

and he pretended his performance of faith  

only for the day when she  

might come to break it, another faith hidden 

and nesting within the hollow husk. 

  

He imagined it might be like the spreading of 

an infection, his burdens passed onto her 

and they becoming alike in swelling and fever.

The Beginning of the Beginning

TEASER

FADE IN: 
A shot of a store-front window, the name painted on the front large picture window stating Eddie's Tea House with Coffee.

CUT TO:
Sidewalk POV up at the window as the glass shatters, camera follows body flying out the window over the camera.

MAX tumbles on the sidewalk, rolls up on his feet, bringing up his guns and firing through the busted store-front window. He makes a mad dash down the street firing behind him.

CUT TO:
FAT EDDIE stands at the broken window glancing out. His henchman MAN LING stands beside him hands clasp behind his back.

FAT EDDIE:
Max Cube will pay for this!

MAN LING:
Oh that he will, master.

FAT EDDIE:
You know what to do

MAN LING:
Call in She-Devil!