In five minutes, this will have been a dream.
Alejandro
Patience, brother. You could get an infection.
Nikki
No, that’s only if I lay down with your fat wife.
Alejandro
She’s not fat, she has the build of her father.
Nikki
Even worse.
“Lucas,” a knock sounds on my trailer door and Nova comes walking in with a package in hand. “Sorry to interrupt, but this just came for you. The courier said it was urgent and I spent twenty minutes arguing with him because he insisted he give it to you directly.”
Nodding, I keep my eyes on the script, flipping the metal through my fingers.
“Need anything?”
I know she’s eyeing my lunch which I haven’t touched.
When I don’t answer, she shows her concern the only way she knows how…by bitching.
“You need to eat, Lucas.”
When I keep my head down, I hear her grumble and the door slams a few seconds later.
Getting back to the script, I spend a few more minutes with the words, letting the architect take over—sort, pull, compose, and draw before laying it all out flat like a blueprint in front of me. Glancing over at the package, I assume is a script, I dismiss it until my vision blurs. Curiosity wins and I finally rip it open. Inside is a script, but for a movie I’ve already made. An envelope falls out with a note scribbled on the front.
It’s all up to you.
G
Ripping it open, I tilt it, so the contents fall in my hand. Thumbing the flash drive, I flip it into my palm, turning it over, the weight of it making my stomach roll.
And then my laptop is open, and the screen rotates briefly when I pull up the media source and click play. And I’m there, in the room, familiar voices sounding. Resuming the flip of the coin I turn the volume up and quicken my fingers, sweat sliding down my back in rivulets. I watch on, second by second, speeding the workings of my knuckles, collecting all the air I can as I’m gutted from one end of me to the other. I can’t look away, I can’t erase what I’ve seen. My chest begins to cave, but only briefly before it expands to the point of exploding.
Thirst like I’ve never known dries my throat, traveling down my insides and chokes me like a suffocating blanket.
It’s when the screen goes black that I see red.
Flames of outrage lick me from all sides. And then I’m ablaze, engulfed in disbelief and fury. Glass shatters as my heart rattles in my chest begging for relief, my mind reeling as I try to rip all thoughts away. Wood splinters around my knuckles as I fuel the fire, dousing myself in kerosene to escape the searing inside.
But there’s no extinguishing this hatred.
There’s no extinguishing this truth.
Rage overtakes me.
And I let it, ripping the life around me apart to match the rubble left inside. I rage until I’m gratified with the wreckage and can’t see through the blur of destruction. I rage until I’m burning so white-hot that I can see nothing else. I rage and let it wreak its havoc because anything feels better than this reality. I rage until I go numb. I rage until I suffocate.
Mila
PRESENT