Cutting Failure

   "There," pronounced the sinister leader, putting down the knife.  

   Jack inspected the watermelon chunk and his heart sank.  The leader done a horrendous job, effectively butchering the small piece of fruit.  Two clumsy lateral cuts had been made, trisecting the chunk in slightly the wrong places.  The tiny, eye-like holes in the top section had effectively collapsed as a result of the man's carelessness, rendering them useless.  The white tray ran with a small amount of red juice, the pitiful aftermath of a botched surgery. 

   "I really wish you would have let me make the cut.  This is...this is, just..." Jack struggled to keep his emotions in check.  Around him in the cooler, the leader's lackeys stood, generally disengaged or going about their own affairs.  The man was obviously incompetent, but because of his position Jack was powerless to oppose him, and it had cost this watermelon chunk its life.

   At Jack's veiled accusation, the man narrowed his eyes briefly, as if to reassert his dominance.  Jack dropped his gaze and the man nodded, then left the cooler.

   Jack returned his attention to the watermelon chunk.  He separated the top section from the other two, revealing the inner face.  Juice trickled and gurgled from several tiny indentations in the fruit's flesh, like a small creature struggling to respirate.  Someone would have to put this small piece of watermelon out of its misery.  Jack's heart broke.

Couch Trio

   Small Saul and two other cellists sat on the couch surrounded by potted plants and soft lighting.  Jack sat on another couch across from the trio, watching.  From Jack's perspective, Small Saul sat on the left.

   "Geez, talk about someone intelligent, why dontcha," said Small Saul with a deeply Minnesotan accent.  His character for this film hailed from those northern lands, and Jack thought the Cohin brothers had made a good casting decision with Small Saul.  He was a very good actor.

   The other two cellists were of similar age, but the one on the far right was the youngest and, Jack felt, garnered less respect from the other two.  Both the middle and right guys were acting well, though not as well as Small Saul, with whom they even shared a resemblance.  Additionally, they were both obviously taking their stylistic cues from Small Saul, minus the superb accent.  Generally, though, Jack felt this scene was being generally better acted than several other scenes in the movie.

   After a short silence, the stoic middle man turned to his left to address the less-respected cellist.

   "What's with those glasses?" he asked.

   "What?" replied the guy on the right.

   "They're all..." replied the middle guy, shrugging.  Small Saul leaned forward slightly to inspect the frames in question.

   "They're new!" said the right guy defensively.  His glasses were roundish and silver.

   "Mm-hmmm..."

   "You don't like them," said the right guy.

   "Eh," replied the middle man noncommittally.

   "What about his?" said the right guy, getting flustered.  He pointed to Jack's face.

   "What?" asked the middle man.

   "They're all...ech, gold."

   The trio looked at Jack, who returned the gaze of the guy on the right and shrugged, raising his hands in a "so what" manner.  Small Saul laughed.  I don't have to look at them, Jack thought, but he stopped short of voicing this sentiment.

   "He and Montano, see, I think they both got the twenty-four variety," explained the guy on the right.
  
   "Uh, excuse me," said Jack, rolling his eyes sarcastically, "we got different brands."

Joy Movie

   Jack was involved with the movie.  It played on a small, disembodied screen.

   Cheering people filled a small room, surrounding a centrally-positioned old man and his equally elderly wife. 

   "Here you are," she said, handing him a drink.

   "Thank you," he replied.

   The woman leaned in for an embrace, and the old man pulled back playfully before submitting and reciprocating.  A rapid gust of air swept from right to left across the screen, blowing the man's hat off.  Jack let out a barking laugh.  The old wife on screen laughed also, her mouth wide with mirth.  Then the man opened his mouth and it was full of starfire, a radiant glow that spilled out from a set of grotesquely monstrous teeth.  The man stared, open-mouthed, into the camera as the cheering room quieted.  He kept the luminescent fangs bared for an uncomfortably long duration. 

   The scene cut to a drainage ditch littered with bags of garbage and lit with a warm orange light from the mottled sky above.  The concrete channel wound away across a barren landscape towards a windswept metropolis far off in the distance.  In the foreground, more cheering men stood in a roughly dispersed line.  Another cut and the men dropped to the ground and began rolling along their vertical axes, synchronized, down the ditch, before they all ran up against one of the variously shaped black garbage heaps.  They leaned up, raised their glasses, and drank the small amount of ale contained within, again emitting celebratory whoops.  As the men cheered, the camera panned down to the ground, revealing the mangled remains of an eggplant.

Scene Deletion

   "We need to cut Bernie's scenes," said Montano abruptly.  He and Jack sat in a darkened room looking at a bright screen.

   "What?" replied Jack, surprised.

   "We need to cut those scenes with Reginald Brax."

   "Oh..."  Jack had not expected this.

   "They just don't fit."  Montano smiled, almost nefariously.

   "Well...it sounds like you've already decided!" said Jack.  Montano nodded in silence, still smiling.

   "Well," continued Jack, "good for you, making hard directing calls!"

Foreign Occupation

   "I can go downstairs?" Jack asked.

   "Oh, yes, no," said the French man.

   "Oh, I just wanted to go downstairs."

   "Yes, nobody downstairs, no no."

   "I know, I just wanted to go down there, to see it."

   "Oh, no, no."

   "Ah...ok," said Jack resignedly.  Outside, the French man's family sat in lawn chairs while Jack's family toured their old house.  The tour had been reassuring but painfully nostalgic; the house was generally less cozy due to some odd furniture choices, and several downright stupid changes in the electric wiring made switches confusing or completely nonfunctional.  These observations had comforted Jack and his family, but it was still sad to be back in their old house.

   "How is your tour?" the man asked.

   "Fine, fine, thank you so much for letting us in."  Jack and one of the others with his group nodded at the French man.  "What's the French word for 'tour,' again?" Jack was only now realizing that they might be imposing on these people.

   "Lourges," replied the French man.

   "Oh yeah, lourges."

  "Is your car parked okay?" the French man. 
  
   "Oh, yes.  Don't worry, we'll be out of your hair in a minute or two," replied Jack quickly.

Dancing Employees

   Jack and his parents traversed the length of the mall.  Although the shops were open, they were mostly abandoned save for some dozing employees.  At the very end of the walk, they were confronted with an open storefront, blended seamlessly with the surrounding architecture.  They sat down on a bench.

  Inside the store, if it could be accurately described as having an inside, a large number of mostly female employees stood about expectantly.

   "Do you need your dress hemmed?" an officious-looking woman asked Jack.  He looked down and examined his blue apron.  Yes, it did look a bit like a dress.  But it wasn't.

   "No," he replied.

   At this, the woman gave a signal and the entire troupe of employees sprung into a complicated kind of ballroom dance.  It was a stately affair, and very well-coordinated, though the actual steps consisted mostly of slow walking.

   "Those steps look dangerous," remarked The Mother, pointing to the tiered floor.

   As the dance continued, Jack examined the faces of the employees.  There were some girls he found attractive, and some less so.  He figured that was a normal state of affairs.

   Of course, not all the dancers were female. Among the males, Jack noticed the face of Montano, as well as Montano II, a doppelganger with slightly longer hair and a craftier face.  Montano walked over and sat down behind Jack.

   "You work here?" asked Jack.

   "No," answered Montano.

   "Oh...then, how did you get to dance?"

   "I just took the workshop."

   The dancing continued for a time, and when it terminated the employees formed a large, three-sided perimeter.  The head woman called out signals, and the employees struck various poses and emitted flirty noises at the gathered audience.  During this section, one of the girls detached herself from the ring and sat down next to Jack.  She did not speak, but merely flashed him sidelong glances.

   Near the end of the show, Jack's parents got up to leave.  Montano stood up with them.

   "They are my ride," he explained. 

   Jack, too, walked away, but not before the girl stood up and began following him, breathlessly anxious.

   "You're coming too?" Jack queried.

   "Yeah.  I, uh, was thinking maybe, sometime, I could hem something for you?"

   "Oh, um..." Jack said awkwardly, "...sure, I guess.  Uh, when were you thinking?"

   "I was thinking maybe July."
  
   "Oh, ok."  Jack was relieved; July was still a ways off.  "I think that should work."

   "What's the best way to get in contact with you?"  

   The pair had entered a vestibule containing older people sitting in silence.  Through a window, Jack could see a church service in progress.  A gaudy officiant spoke some words and behind him a paper tree unfurled, displaying small outgrowths as it expanded.  A female dancer revolved around it, twirling and throwing out her arms in exultation.

   "E-mail, probably," said Jack, trying to keep his voice lower.  "Here, let me write it down for you."

   Jack tried to scrawl his address out onto the paper but the process proved difficult.  After several attempts, he handed her the paper, looking at his writing in disappointment; even he had trouble deciphering the letters, which read roughly "anmitated.arctoo@gmail.com."

   "Can you make that out?  It's not very clear.  Maybe you should re-write it in your own handwriting."

   "You're sure this is your e-mail?" she said skeptically.

   "Yes, one of them.  This one links into the other one."

Rage Episode

   Jack noticed the cool stillness of the night as he pulled up to the gas pump.  This particular station didn't have the normal flood of florescence spilling out into the darkness; instead, some gentle lamps hung from a small awning above.  A tiny, elderly woman stood filling her car on the opposite side of the pump.  She smiled at Jack.

   Jack finished his work and got back in the car, shortly after the old woman had done the same.  Jack watched her drive slowly around the pump and toward his front bumper.  Jack tried to get his car in reverse, but instead drove forward slightly to meet the oncoming vehicle.  Moving at a tiny fraction of their full speed, the two cars bumped lightly, whereupon Jack's began honking loudly and repeatedly.  The woman quickly reversed and pulled back to her spot on the other side of the pump.  Both got out of their cars.

   "Jack, please stop your car from beeping."

   "I can't, Mrs. Anivra, it won't stop."

   "I must insist, it's much too loud."

   "I said, I can't!  I tried! You try and stop it!"

   "Young man, if you don't stop it, I'm calling the police!"  Mrs. Anivra stomped angrily.

   Jack could feel the rage coming over him again, the same rage that had taken hold of him earlier and caused him enormous trouble.  It was a kind of momentous, uncontrollable anger he had never felt until recently, one that made his chest feel bubbly and his limbs buzz with the heat of pent-up inaction.  Earlier when it had taken hold, he had joined the suicidal assault on the office, calmly and efficiently destroyed the turret defenses, and once inside had started ripping apart the mostly-empty rooms as his friends, family and coworkers looked on in astonishment.  Jack remembered one remarking at the profound inevitably of Jack's actions, as if the rage radiating from the young man was so palpable it necessarily justified every behavior taken while in its grip.  Jack had eventually come out of it after mounting guilt about possibly destroying his friends possession.  Afterwards, he'd felt enormously better, but was in all sorts of legal trouble, including a possible indictment by The Man in Glasses.  Not to mention trying to explain things to his family.

   "It won't stop!  I told you!!" yelled Jack.

   "Stop it, NOW!"

   "NO, YOU STOP IT, MRS. ANIVRA!  YOU STOP IT!  GO AHEAD, TRY TO STOP IT, MRS. ANIVRA!" Jack spat.  Her name was like a curse word on his tongue.

   "No!"

   "YES, YES, BE MY GUEST, MRS. ANIVRA!  YOU STOP IT!  STOP THE BEEPING!  MRS. ANIVRA, STOP THE BEEPING!!  PLEASE, MRS. ANIVRA, TRY TO STOP MY CAR HORN!"

   The old lady just stared at Jack impudently.  He began waving his arms and stomping back and forth like a caged bull.

   "MRS. ANIVRA!  MRS. ANIVRA!  STOP THE BEEPING!  MRS. ANIVRA, TRY TO STOP THE BEEPING!  JUST TRY IT!  JUST TRY IT!  STOP THE BEEPING, MRS. ANIVRA!!!"

   Just then a squad car pulled up and an officer came over to Jack and put a calming arm on his shoulder.  Mrs. Anivra went back to her businesses.

   "Evening, Jack," said the officer.

   "Hello, sir.  My car won't stop beeping."

   The officer bent down and inspected the front bumper.

   "Don't worry about it, Jack.  Looks like it's broken."

Cleaning Crew

  Jack shook the sleep fog from his head and tried to get his bearings.  He was in a rural, residential neighborhood, several miles from his intended location.  The pale, harsh sunlight filtering in through the the thick foliage indicated that it was near midday.  Judging by the pitifully small watermelon in his hands, Jack surmised that he had dozed off on the bus and Emma, the red-headed girl he'd been sitting next to, had become incensed and somehow gotten him off the bus while he slept.  Now, he would have to walk the rest of the way, and he wouldn't get his other watermelons back.  Drat.  Maybe he could store the melon and the containers in some nearby bushes and come back for them?  He picked a direction and started to walk.

   Soon, he dropped into the upper floor of a nearby treehouse, a quaint affair of wood planks interwoven with the branches.  At the other end of the room, a group of Mexicans watched him.

   "Hola!" Jack said in a friendly manner.

   "Hola!" came a smatter of replies and waves.

   "¿Cómo estás?" asked Jack, walking over to them.

   "Muy, muy," they replied.  Jack would have to switch to his native tongue now and hope they knew English.

   "Uh, yes," he said, holding up some containers, "I have these containers, see, and I need to store them.  They're from, uh..."

   "Yes, from headquaters, right?"  asked one woman.

   "Yes, yes!  That's right," replied a relieved Jack.

   "You want us to store them, right?"

   "Yes, if you would be so kind.  I just don't want them to get lost."

   "That is no problem.  You know, you are very friendly to us."

   "Well, of course!" smiled Jack.

   "The last man, Sadom, he did not talk to us.  He was, ah, not friendly," the woman said, emotion creeping into her voice.  The other people let out a collective shudder, remembering their harsh taskmaster.

   "Oh, well, you know," Jack said, touched, "you guys are just doing a fantastic job.  You're all really hard workers."