Lindsay was having a fucking nightmare. A. Fucking. Nightmare.
“Okay, Gareth? Gareth? Could you – Could you sit back slightly for me, dear? That’s lovely, thank you.”
The giant close-up of Gareth’s nostrils fell back, the rest of his large and hairy face came into view. Not a tremendous improvement, but an improvement nonetheless.
“Great improvements from you, by the way!” She pressed her hands together in a gesture of sincerity. “I LOVED the changes to your samurai scene!”
Gareth smiled and nodded approvingly, opening his mouth to begin a spiel about how the new changes better foreshadowed the Samurai’s hidden gentlemanly nature. Lindsay put him on mute while he did so. A fucking nightmare.
She didn’t even usually run the class on Wednesdays, but Dominic – fucking Dominic – was back with his parents after a break-up and couldn’t get any consistent wi-fi. Naturally, because of the aforementioned wifi, he hadn’t messaged her about it until 10am this morning.
“It was all very sudden.” He’d told her. “There really weren’t time to make alternative arrangements.”
Of course, Lindsay knew -along with everyone else in Los Angeles – that Dominic and Bethany’s break-up had been inevitable for quite some time, a situation that only Dominic had failed to assess.
Fucking. Nightmare.
“Thanks again, Gareth!” Unmute. “And that actually ties in to what I want to talk about today…foreshadowing.”
Right on cue, the cries of a toddler came in through Lindsay’s headphones – and she watched as Abi from Wisconsin stood up and abandoned her screen to see to its source, failing – as she always did – to mute herself in the process.
Nightmare.
“I’m sure everyone knows what foreshadowing is, you’ve all watched and re-watched murder mysteries – you know how important it is to leave a trail of breadcrumbs for the audience to pick up on, sometimes stretching back to the very beginning…”
She paused to assess her audience. A few people were feigning polite attention. Gareth was breathing unsteadily into his microphone. The Southern comedy guy was scrolling through his phone.
“I don’t want to patronise anyone, but just in case…”
The smile she’d been wearing since the start of the zoom call was hurting her cheekbones. She was killing time and she knew it, too precious to waste the good shit on Dominic’s class. She shouldn’t even be here. She had yoga.
“Just in case…” She repeated. “Does everybody know Anton Chekhov?”
Everyone who was paying attention nodded.
“Great – “
“I don’t.” The English guy. Said he was a playwright. Looked cute, but gay.
“Oh, I thought you were our resident theatre expert, Christopher!” Lindsay smile grew wider, more pained. “Surely you know about Chekhov’s Gun?”
--------------------
Unearthed Pt II
A Tale by Christoph –
BANG!
Vladimir hears the gunshot, but he does not stir. Vladimir hears Redemption pick up the shovel and bury his Master. He hears him walk away. He does not stir. The greatest of the disciples, Vladimir knows his duty. Obeys the Prophet without question.
“Is he dead?” Marshall, at his right, breathes eventually.
Vladimir’s gaze doesn’t waver. He keeps his eyes focussed on the tombstone.
“He can’t die.” Vlad whispers back, matter-of-factly. “No one else will have him.”
They crack open the Earth. The soil, already freshly dug up and thrown down again, soaked with rain – it does not complain.
Where tools fail them, hands do not. Marshall claws hungrily at the earth, knees sinking into the mud as he tears viciously into it, pulling out the organs of the mud and tossing them aside.
Vladimir, too, plunges his hands into the filth beneath him – but he is more careful, more probing. Eventually, he feels something.
Fingers.
They pull him out. Two rain-soaked midwives, performing their duty as instructed. Sabiru’s head emerges from the dirt and he takes a weak, rasping breath.
“How did it feel finally getting to visit Hell?” Marshall laughs as he drags his Master out of the Earth. Blood mixes with the rain and soil around them. Sabiru spits out the earth.
“I’ve been there before.” He says, losing consciousness before he can elaborate further.
Three years later, by your time.
My father always told me: Kit, measure your cloth seven times before you cut…Just in case.
It stuck with me ever since.
No matter the cost of ink and parchment, draft and redraft your work until it is done. Rehearse your performance until you hate everything about it – then more still til your hatred subsides. Even now, as Carnage Tag Team Champion – there can be no complacency.
It is not enough to merely believe I have the measure of my next opponent – I must have it absolutely.
What little I see of Justin Case is beyond my understanding. He seems childish, brash, arrogant even – not necessarily malign traits, but ones that I myself do not possess. Fortunately for my research, I know someone who does.
“So you’re just going to follow me around? Just to document my life?” Zed seems hostile to the idea. “What are you, writing a play about me?”
“I’m just curious.”
“Well, Just Curious, there’s a party at some bar I got invited to – it’s in New York. Feel free to tag along.”
So I do. I’ve never seen New York – and I fall in love with it instantly, but Zed isn’t much interested in sight-seeing. We head straight to a little known hamlet, a strangely liminal place where clocks don’t have jurisdiction, it always seems to be night time. Found Wanting, New York.
Inside the bar, Zed’s reflective silver neck brace goes crazy. Under its glow – and the nauseating lights – he looks twice his age. With his neck, he can’t be sleeping well; it’s only now I see how exhausted he looks.
“Hey, Grey!” Zed cries out. A very tall, slender, angular man peels himself away from the Icelandic luchador he was talking with in order to answer the summons. As he saunters over, Zed leans in to me.
“Don’t we know those two?” Zed points at the Icelander, left loitering at the bar with his English colleague and a bottle of sparkling water between them.
“Oh, it’s just the Time Cops who wanted to send us back to our own times until they got distracted by the forthcoming apocalypse.” I reply. I’m not surprised to see them here. Their lives have a habit of running tertiary to ours.
“Hey, Zed. Thanks for coming.” They shake hands. He turns to me. “Kit, right? I’m Grey. Grey Is The Ghost. It’s –“
“Puritan, right?” I ask, nodding. He looks surprised, so I laugh. “I’ve met plenty.”
We get to talking, it’s that sort of bar. Zed slinks off. Grey isn’t surprised to hear that we’re time travellers.
“We get all kinds.” He informs me. “Hell, the guy who runs this bar is from Jupiter.”
I normally hate Zed’s parties. Standing in a dark corner while a sordid array of miscreants linger until late morning. Who are these people? I’ll ask. Where did you meet them? But I never seem to get a straight answer.
But I like this one. Grey shows me round, introduces me to a few people. I get to talking with the Jovian bartender about his life in space. He asks me about Anthony Munday, one of my favourites. The people of Found Wanting, New York are more my speed than the heathens of Baltimore, and I’m saddened when Zed tells me it’s time to leave.
“Well?” He asks. “What did you think?”
I haven’t seen him all night. “I really liked it. Everyone was so nice. We should bring Catalina next time!”
He offers me a piece of paper. “You like Grey? He liked you.” There’s a phone number on it. I look at it.
“You gonna call him?” Zed asks. I can't quite read his tone.