Stop Motion Verbosity » 2008

Crazy Little Thing – Chapter Six

APK | February 25, 2008 | 9:41 am

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Six

The examination room was chilly, but it was all right, I had my slippers on. They asked me to not wear sneakers or anything, since this was a medical thing. Clock number two had gone off that morning, but instead of breakfast it told me to go see Doctors Vandrell and Lensher for my appointment. Vandrell smiled at me when I arrived on time, pleased I suppose that I remembered and was punctual. That made me smile. Thinking that he was pleased made everything a bit easier. They were just looking out for me, and like they said, they wanted to recharge my clock. That sounded good to me.

“Hi John,” Lensher said, gesturing me towards an exam table, “do you want me to explain what we’re going to do?” I nodded, sitting on the table and giving Doctor Vandrell a small hello wave.

“That would be great, I like to know what’s going on. It makes everything so much easier, don’t you think?” Vandrell nodded and Lensher just smiled at me, reaching out to pat my shoulder.

“Yes, yes exactly. Why don’t you lie down here,” he asked, his hand still on my shoulder, friendly and calm, “and Doctor Vandrell will start preparing you while I explain.” I lay back on the table, my arms at my sides and shrugged a bit. I always felt a bit funny lying like that, but most times doctors don’t like it when you lay on the exam table with your arms dangling. I guess it gives everything the feeling of play, and lots of doctors take themselves very seriously.

“John, can you take off your shirt for me?” I nodded at Vandrell and half sat up again to take my shirt off, handing it to him. I was happy to see that he took it and folded it for me, placing it on a chair behind him. That was really nice of him. Some doctors, before I came to McGee’s, would just toss your clothes on the chair. I always felt it told me a lot about how they would treat me. The doctors here, though, were really good about that sort of thing. They liked to, like Doctor West always told me, put you at ease.

“Now, Doctor Vandrell is going to put something on your chest to monitor your heart rate. We don’t want you getting hurt during this, do we?” I shook my head and watched the little contact sticky get pressed down. “To make sure you aren’t scared either, we don’t want you scared or hurt, we’re also going to give you an I.V., just something to make you sleep. You can sleep this whole thing away.”

As Lensher talked, Vandrell acted out his words. It made me want to laugh and distracted me so that I didn’t even feel the I.V. go in my arm. Then Vandrell asked me to count backwards from twenty. I grinned at him and started to count.

“Twenty. Nineteen. Eighteen. Seventeen. Sixteen.” As I counted I started to feel like I was drifting away. Like a rocking boat on the water, maybe. It reminded me of a time I went fishing with my dad when I was a kid, and the sun was bright and happy and we didn’t catch anything but the boat swayed constantly and made me all sleepy, made me feel like I could coast forever. It felt just like that time. My eyelids grew heavy and I stopped really hearing or noticing either doctor.

*****

A flash of light. A sharp sudden crack, deep in my brain. Something came loose and ran away from me. I was being chased. The sky was floating away. The ground drifted by, except there was no ground. I was giving chase.
Teeth. Eyes. Fear. Panic. Pain.

Even as I felt and thought and struggled, the memory of it slid away like a snake. The well was deep, the water warm. I sank.

Down.

Up.

*****

I woke up and felt like I had been beaten. My jaw ached and my temples felt hot. My arms and legs and back all burned, the muscles sore, and I winced. The crinkling of my face made me notice the plastic mask over my mouth and nose. I opened my eyes, confused and frightened and saw Doctor Vandrell standing near me, moving to help me sit up slowly even as I came awake.

“What… did I make the appointment?” I couldn’t remember it clearly. I had gone out for my smoke and then gone back to my room. My second clock had buzzed at me to remind me to go to the examination room and then things went blurry, like static on a television set. Vandrell nodded at me and gave me a soft smile. He didn’t look concerned for me, he looked relaxed and fine, helping me to feel a little better.

“You did fine, John. That was what we call electroconvulsive therapy, and sometimes it can hurt your memory for a little while. I’m sorry for that, but it should help your clock recharge. Hopefully you’ll be able to think clearer now, hmm?” It seemed like the kind of question that wanted an answer.

“I… maybe? Ow, I dunno, I feel… really bad right now. Are you sure this helps?”

“It will, John. Here,” he handed me a cup of orange juice from a table by his elbow, “drink this and relax. You’ll be fine. When you feel up to it, I’ll walk you back to your room.” Electroconvulsive therapy contained two things I knew, electro and convulsive, and I didn’t like either. If Vandrell was really sure that it would help though, I decided to trust him.

“I think I can stand now,” I said quietly and swung my legs slowly over the side of the exam table. Doctor Vandrell helped me, keeping a hand on my shoulder. “Where’s Doctor Lensher?” I asked, looking around the room. The movement of my head made me a bit dizzy but I didn’t realize that until after my head moved.

“Doctor Lensher wasn’t in today, but he asked me to go ahead without him.” That was wrong, I was sure of it. I remembered… well it was fuzzy, but I thought I remembered Lensher there too, talking. A bewildered look crossed my face and Doctor Vandrell studied me carefully. “Are you ok, John? Do you need to sit back down?”

“No,” I shook my head, again suddenly remembering that moving my head made me dizzy, “I just thought I remembered him here.” He helped me put my shirt back on, and we walked slowly out into the hall together.

“Well like I told you, ECT can hurt your memory a little sometimes. I wouldn’t worry about it.” I nodded and we wandered back to my room, his arm on my shoulder still and the cup of orange juice still in my hand.

We passed the front desk and Sally got a small hello wave from me, but instead of smiling she glanced away from me and ignored it. She must’ve been having a bad day. I let it go. We all have bad days and you can’t hold them against a person. I’d make sure to come back later and say hello to her for longer, maybe ask if everything was all right.

Doctor Vandrell opened the door to my room for me and nodded at me, letting go of my shoulder. I set the cup of orange juice down and looked around slowly, not turning my head.

“You rest, John. I’ll have someone check in on you in a while, ok?”

“Sure, thanks, Doctor Vandrell. Hey if you see Benny maybe you could send him by? That’d make me feel better.” Vandrell looked away and shook his head, gradually coming to rest looking at me again.

“Benny Rico?”

“Yeah, Benny, you know him?”

“Benny died a day or so ago. John, you were there. Maybe we should do a few tests…”

“No, that’s… he died? How?” I sat down heavily on my bed, leaning forward to rest my elbows on my knees. I had seen Benny not too long ago, and I knew I would’ve remembered if he had died.

“He slipped and fell on a chair, it broke and a piece of it stabbed… We shouldn’t discuss this, John. I really think I should set up some tests.” Benny slipped, when I was there? Sure, I remembered that but he just fell on his ass; he didn’t hit a chair or get stabbed or die. I was sure of it. Sure. Mostly.

“No, I remember now,” I lied to Doctor Vandrell, not really sure why I was lying other than something in me was telling me it was a good idea, “I must still just be a bit confused. I think I’ll take a nap.” Vandrell nodded at me, telling me again that he would make sure someone checked in on me in a while and left, shutting the door gently. Benny was dead? That didn’t make any sense at all, not really. I checked my clocks and curled up in bed, laying on my side and pulling my knees up to my chest, tugging the blanket up under my chin. Why would I remember it differently? I fell asleep, turning the question over in my mind.

<--Chapter Five | Chapter Seven–>

———–
Crazy Little Thing is copyright Adam P. Knave.

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Ho!

APK | February 22, 2008 | 12:41 pm

And then I made this…

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Beast wars.

APK | February 22, 2008 | 11:08 am

Last night I went down to the corner bar with Hammerpants and his GF, who I threaten to call Hammerskirt. I don’t know we’ll find a name for her later, not the point of this story.

So I get there first and notice a woman in the corner. She’s in her 50s and is obviously drunk off her ass. Next to her is some guy, as drunk as she is. This woman keeps trying to… well… dance along to the music.

All right, they were playing some metal. She was holding up her hands, fists closed but for index finger, each one pointing out, and moving her hands up and down. To the beat. I wanted to cry or laugh or something. I didn’t.

So Hammerpants and GF show and the woman and her friend get up and start to walk around the bar.

They’re stopping at every single person and saying hello. Each person. Hello, how are you, etc. Shaking hands and telling everyone that they were, in fact, going around the bar to everyone.

Well, they got to us eventually.

And the woman smiled at Hammerpants and said “Who are you?” and he replied and she shook his hand. And then she looked at his GF and said “Who are you?” and she replied and got a hand shook. And then the woman looked at me.

“What are you?” she asked.

I blinked. She blinked. “Who are you?” she asked, but her smile had drooped a bit. Yeah. So there you go. I am so wonderfully hideous I am now mistaken for “Other” on the Human chart.

And to think I bothered to shave.

For the rest of the night Hammerpants would randomly turn to me and grin. “What are YOU?” he would ask and laugh.

“I don’t rightly know,” I would tell him each time.

Yeah.

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Crazy Little Thing – Chapter Five

APK | February 22, 2008 | 9:31 am

<--Chapter Four | Chapter Six–>

———–

Five

There was no use in putting it off any longer. I opened my eyes with a shake of my head and forced myself to stare at the door to the dining room. The doors were almost never closed, and they looked unnatural to me that way. Sure, they were pock marked with long scrapes and one of the glass windows set about head high in the door was busted, leaving bloody shards like teeth, but even without all of that it would have looked odd to me. Now it just confirmed my feelings about this place. Except it hadn’t been like this. I knew it hadn’t. I was pretty sure it hadn’t.

There was nothing to be gained from staring at the doors, nothing worth gaining at least, so I carefully opened one. The door swung cleanly on its hinge, revealing in full what I could only see a hint of through the tiny square of broken glass: the room was worse than the halls. It was, thankfully, mostly empty; but what people were in there though weren’t a pretty sight. What was left of them. I didn’t let myself recognize anyone in the room, I just refused. That might’ve been Sally’s head, that half a skull there, but I wouldn’t let it be. I couldn’t let it be.

I rejected it. It wasn’t real, none of this was real. I had problems, I did. Turning, I started to leave the room but stopped cold. I had to know if she was in there, which meant I had to recognize the bodies, as best I could. I wanted to cry. My stomach churned at the thought but I turned back into the room.

Checking the bodies, and body parts, to see who they were did me in. I added vomit and bile to the mess of blood and rubble on the floor at least twice. Dry heaves crippled me, leaving me leaning heavily on a table, slick with grease and rotten spilled milk. It was while I hunched there, bent over the table with my stomach trying to claw its way out of my body that I noticed the bullet holes in the floor and chairs.

Those puzzles they used to sell at malls, the fields of dots that you would stare at endlessly until a picture formed out of them, swirled into focus from hidden view, it hit me like one of those. I looked around the room again, the missing piece in place, and saw it all over again for the first time. There had been a gun fight in here, fight was the wrong word; there had been a slaughter in here using lead slugs as a medium for its dark art. Carnage. Massacre. Terms swarmed to my forebrain in a useless attempt to make sense of it, to label it and lock it in a nice box. Each severed limb, splotch of bone and strange shaped bit of meat and gristle had been part of a person. I couldn’t secure it away all safe and warm. It had to be dealt with.

She didn’t seem to be there. Dealing with it became easier suddenly, like a breath of slightly less rancid air. Maybe I would taste fresh air again sometime, but until then I’d take what I could get. I fumbled in my pants and found nothing, cursing slightly. On one of the tables near the door was a pack of cigarettes, only a small splash of blood on it. I stole a smoke from the dead and lit my ill gotten gain, drawing hot smoke deeply into my lungs. A bark of laughter escaped me, turning into a cough and then another series of dry heaves as I noticed the no smoking sign by the door. I left the room and kept searching.

<--Chapter Four | Chapter Six–>

———–
Crazy Little Thing is copyright Adam P. Knave.

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Remember when cartoons were cartoons?

APK | February 21, 2008 | 11:28 am

According to Yahoo news there will be a live action Akira film made:

“The anime classic “Akira” is getting the live-action big screen treatment courtesy of Leonardo DiCaprio and a first-time feature filmmaker.”

and

“The new story, which DiCaprio will produce for Warner Bros., ideally would be a two-part epic, with the first movie coming out next summer. The action will move to “New Manhattan,” a city rebuilt by Japanese money.

It will mark the feature directorial debut of commercials veteran Ruairi Robinson, who sold the studio on his vision. The Irish native, who was nominated for a best animated short Oscar in 2001 for the sci-fi comedy “Fifty Percent Grey,” also wrote and directed a sci-fi short titled “The Silent City.”"
————————–
The live action Dragonball-Z movie is already shooting, the live action G.I. Joe movie is in casting, there will be a sequel to the live action Transformers movie.

Meanwhile Warner Bros. optioned a live action Thundercats script a while back. I am fairly sure, though, that it won’t be as good as this old fan-made live action Transformers job:

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Which is also not as good as these real Thundercats outtakes (NSFW lang):

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Crazy Litle Thing – Chapter Four

APK | February 21, 2008 | 9:27 am

<--Chapter Three | Chapter Five–>

———–

Four

I squinted, my eyes trying to adjust to the difference in brightness levels between inside and outside, as the door swung shut slowly behind me. I waved at Sally, a happy hello wave, and padded my way down to the rec room. It was early yet, a lot of people didn’t like to be around and awake yet, but my clock insisted so I took its advice. I knew, like every morning, that I had time before breakfast. Even without being close to my clocks I could still hear them, just in my head. They really helped keep track of things.

The rec room was empty, at first sight. I wandered to the ping pong table and twirled a paddle on my hands, just letting the aloneness settle over me. It was funny, I knew I wasn’t really alone, I was never alone here. Not really, not for real. There was always someone, usually within shouting distance, wandering by. That was part of why I liked it here. It was safe, even if you didn’t want it to be safe, it was. That safety wrapped around us like a blanket. They gave us decent blankets for our rooms here, too.

The emptiness of the room felt both big and small to me as I stood there, putting the paddle back down.

“Schmuck.” The word rang out, large in the suddenly small room. It echoed, more in my head than in the space, and caused me to startle. Dropping the paddle, I spun around and around, and finally spotted the shape of a person on one of the chairs by the TV. I walked closer and I admit I was kinda nervous. That safe feeling had vanished with surprise and I thought of what time it should be, looking for the clock on the wall. Not much time had passed, thankfully. “Come on over here already. I won’t hurt you.” The voice cooed at me with an undertone of dislike. I recognized it then. I moved closer and saw that I was right, it was her. Abigail, or just Gail, but really Abigail.

“Abigail?” I tried, intending to settle it for myself.

“Schmuck,” she repeated, using it as my name. I sighed and sat down near her, gazing lovingly at her: her soft skin, large green eyes, long hair slightly straggly and unkempt, her legs crossed with one foot jangling quickly to a tempo I couldn’t hear.

“John, my name is John. We met, I mean I saw you, you know when you came in?”

“I remember. Want to help me get out of here?”

“You mean you want to go for a smoke? I have a few more, we could go for…”

“I mean out of here, fucker. Vamoose, leave, get of out Dodge.”

“What, why?” I asked.

She sighed at me, shaking her head slowly, a look of utter disappointment creasing her face. “I shouldn’t be in this madhouse. Jesus, fuck. Come on, man.”

I wanted to reassure her that the place wasn’t so bad. They took good care of us here. I wanted to settle her down and strike up a friendship, but I knew it would take just the right words to do it. Something simple but calming. I could tell her about Doctor Vandrell, or how nice Sally could be. The brownies were really good too, when we had any. She needed to see things from the right perspective, like Doctor West told me. It could, she said a lot, make everything come into the right focus. The right focus was very important to Doctor West. I tried to remember the things Doctor West had told me, thinking I could pass them on to Abigail and help her adjust.

“I love you,” came out of my mouth and I blinked as I heard the sound of my own voice. It wasn’t really what I had in mind at all.

“That’s rich. You’re crazy. You? You stay here. I’ll get out. Sounds right.”

I looked at my feet, my hands twisting together. Crazy was a word we weren’t allowed to use. She could get in trouble for it. It was also mean, really. I wasn’t crazy. They told me that. I just needed some help sometimes. I tried to look back up at her but found I couldn’t. She was so perfect but she just didn’t see things right, yet.

“We aren’t allowed to use that word,” I whispered. A whisper wasn’t the tone of voice I had reached for but it was all I had in the face of the word. She laughed, her head going back to expose a perfect throat. I loved that throat then.

“What word? Crazy? Can’t call a spade a digging tool around here? Fine… John, right? John,” she remembered my name and used it, a sign that she was seeing things the way they should be, “listen close, ok? You are crazy. That’s why you’re here. It’s fine, lots of nutters around, and you’re one of them. I, on the other hand, was put here by my evil step sisters. Totally different thing, got it?” Or, then again, maybe not. She got up, shaking her head at me and heading past me, out of the room. I sat there, shocked and confused as she walked away from me. “They’re just jealous, but I’ll get out and get revenge. I just need to find the mice,” she muttered to herself as she left.

I didn’t exist to her, and when I did it wasn’t in a good way. I really wanted to stop her, to explain things to her, but I wasn’t any good at that. I waited until she left and got up myself, looking for Doctor West, hoping she was in already.

<--Chapter Three | Chapter Five–>

———–
Crazy Little Thing is copyright Adam P. Knave.

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It’s like Britney vs. Lohan, somehow.

APK | February 20, 2008 | 1:23 pm

So some guy created some moves for a game called Fighter Maker for the PS2. What moves? Punches to the crotch. All of them. Women punching women in the cunt. That’s it. And then he made a clip reel of it. 1 minute and 23 seconds of video game women punching and kicking each other right in the crotch. Over and over again.

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More Pan Kun! More chimp! More bulldog!

APK | February 20, 2008 | 12:19 pm

Pan Kun trains with the fire department. Yes, he does.

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Crazy Little Thing – Chapter Three

APK | February 20, 2008 | 9:23 am

<--Chapter Two | Chapter Four –>

———–
Three

After questioning Benny during dinner, I found out my love’s name was Abigail. She was still too new to join us, being sedated and all, but Benny had seen a guy who knew a guard who had helped find her a room, which is how we knew her name was Abigail, or just Gail. It might have been just Gail, but Abigail was a prettier name so I decided to stick with it until I knew better.

After dinner, Benny and I hung out in the rec room, watching other people play ping pong. There was a line, so we couldn’t play for a while. I got us some cups of juice, orange, and wandered around waiting for some chairs to open up. Two did and we wandered near them, except Benny spilled his juice, and while looking for the spill managed to slip in it and fall on his ass, missing the chair by a few inches. I tried not to laugh and gave him a hand. He muttered angrily and wiped at his pants while I got him more juice and some napkins. After that we sat and talked about what Benny had learned today.

“John, you gotta know, they’re gonna come any day now.” Benny nodded as he spoke, constantly. A big white bobble head doll, Benny was.

“From the radio still?” I thought Benny was a bit crazy, but I didn’t want to tell him that. He was my friend. If Benny thought that the radio sent sentient waves out disguised as sound, then I had to accept that as part of who Benny was.

“Of course from the radio! John, don’t you listen to anything I say? They’re biding their time…”

“Like Lincoln,” I said, trying to be helpful and show Benny that I really did understand.

“Lincoln is dead, man. Dead. He isn’t going to kill you, because he’s dead.” I sighed and shook my head, stopping to sip my juice. I knew Benny was my friend; he just had trouble being as accepting and open-minded as I was.

“Benny. Benny. Lincoln is as real as the radio thing. I mean, maybe the radio waves are just radio waves? That’s what Doctor Pinser said isn’t it? But if you really think it’s true, then I’m willing to extend you that friendship, right?”

“Of course you are, because the radio waves are out to get us…”

“No see, but then I need you… I mean Lincoln scares me Benny, he scares me bad.” Benny was about to say something to me when Doctors Lensher and Vandrell stopped their rounds to look at me. They talked to each other in hushed tones, the tones that we all knew meant they didn’t want us to hear them at all, and came over, all smiles.

“John,” Doctor Lensher began, consulting a chart in his hand, “do you have time to meet with us?” His voice was polite and eased, and Doctor Vandrell winked at me. I shrugged and stood up, giving Benny a neutral, goodbye wave.

They took me to one of the big white labs and asked me to sit down. I sat and Doctor Vandrell handed me a fresh cup of juice, apple this time. I thanked him and he smiled and nodded at me, taking a step back as Doctor Lensher took a step forward.

“How have you been feeling, John,” asked Doctor Lensher. I considered the question while I took a big sip of my juice and rested the cup on my knee.

“All right. I mean, sometimes I still can’t find words, or I need to know the time. I just talked to Doctor West this morning. You can ask her, she takes good notes I think. I always see her writing, and she has a really nice pen, too.”

“Yes, Doctor West does take good notes,” Doctor Vandrell agreed with a smile, “and we read them over before we met up with you. I think Doctor Lensher was asking if there was anything,” his eyes flicked over to Doctor Lensher for agreement, which Lensher gave with him with a small smile, “you didn’t think to mention to Doctor West. Have you been depressed recently?” I shook my head and thought about the question at the same time, something that Doctor West always asked me to not do. Then I shrugged and smiled at them. “Ok, well, John, we wanted to try a new treatment on you, so it’s important that we know.” I nodded again at Vandrell.

“Not that I know of. I was sad today, but it wasn’t depression, I was just sad. That new woman who came in. She didn’t seem happy, and that made me sad. The day was so clear and bright before that, but she didn’t enjoy it at all.” The doctors exchanged a look and both started to talk at once. Vandrell stopped and gave Lensher a small turn of his hand.

“Well, our new friend just moved here. You remember how you felt when you first got here, don’t you?” I did, and they were right. I hadn’t put it in the right context, like Doctor West encouraged me to do more often.

“Yeah, so what’s the new procedure?” From past, not always unpleasant, experience I knew that if they were asking me they had already asked my sister and she had already agreed. I didn’t mind, it worked that way here at McGee’s, and more often than not it worked out pretty okay for me too.

“We want to recharge your clock,” Lensher said with a quick look at Vandrell. I liked clocks. They really helped me keep track of things, time for example. More than time, though, clocks helped me know where I was supposed to be and when and what time it was. Clocks were good, and helping my clock would be good, I decided. I smiled and nodded, giving Lensher a thumbs up.

They both worked to find a good time and gave me a slip of paper to remember it by. I knew they would come get me if I did forget, but I wouldn’t. I didn’t like to let them down if I could help it. There was no reason to.

I left, giving both doctors a happy goodbye wave and wandered the hallways for a while, just seeing who was around. I went out for a smoke, and sat by myself on one of the benches. There was still a small breeze but it had cooled down, and I smoked quicker than I would have liked, staring at the sky and thinking. I ground my cigarette carefully into the ground and tried to watch the breeze carry it away, but it was too dark and the remains too small to see really well. I watched anyway, as best I could, and went back inside, straight to my room and to bed.

<--Chapter Two | Chapter Four –>

———–
Crazy Little Thing is copyright Adam P. Knave.