A short excerpt from the cutting room floor of my latest, desperate grab at straws to produce a proper story. Bear with me.
As far back as I can remember, my best friend has always been- intense, shall we say? She has the tenacity of the pit bull, , the unconditional love of the Jack Russell terrier and personifies unwavering loyalty like a border collie. Yes, she is a bitch and I don’t care who knows it.
“How was I to know I wasn’t allowed to drink that?”
“You knew!” Cypher yells back, adding a totally overdone sniffle whilst cradling the half-full (well, less than half-full now) bottle of soda that had once touched the sanctified lips of Rex Wong. Ew, ick. Have to rinse out my mouth now.
She trails petulantly behind me into the bathroom, glaring daggers at my back all the while as I rinse my mouth out exaggeratedly. “What?!” I snapped, “Is this mouthwash his too? Or did you filter this stuff out of his sink’s U-bend-“ I freeze suddenly, the thought making me nauseated. God, there’s not enough mouthwash in the world to deal with that. I made a face at her and try not to think of all the backwash I’d consumed earlier.
“You knew I was going to keep it as a, a… well-“ she struggled for the term.
I didn’t know what to call it either, so I settled for giving her a look that clearly communicated how insane I thought her to be. “Woman, these things go into the glass display where you put you other Rex Wong-“ I struggled for a polite term, before finishing weakly while waving my hand in the general direction of the shelf “-stuff. That bottle of soda was in the fridge- where the other things you can drink live.”
Long silence. I glance at her and realize that I was being given the silent treatment. This is even worse than the time I’d recorded over her Oprah Winfrey interview of John Travolta. VHS sucks. Shrugging, I regarded her display shelf with as dispassionate an expression as I could muster. Movie ticket stubs, glossy photos, magazine cut-outs, and a sock which I pray had just ended up there by mistake.
We call having someone’s pictures and posters keeping memorabilia, having lit candles make it a shrine and keeping the guy’s underwear makes it just creepy. Cypher stops shy of lighting candles. If it were not so socially unacceptable and off-putting, she would already be lighting candles to little homemade stuffed plushies in the likeness of her heroes.
She’s actually surprisingly well adjusted despite her obsessive-compulsiveness and anal retention. But then again, in the immortal words of my other best friend, ‘I’m not into that sort of thing’. Cue eyeroll.
Sanguine stretched lazily in her chair, waiting for the post to upload. She drummed her fingers impatiently, inwardly cursing the slow transfer rate. Maybe the next post would be an investigative report on her housemates' Internet download activity and the dangers of pornography, she thought.
“What’s th’ what, ladies?” Nick saunters into the room, full of unwelcome pep and vigor.
“You downloading porn, Nicholas?”
He dodges a rolled-up sock thrown at him by Sanguine. “No.” Nick musters up a properly affronted air. Darting his eyes from one girl to another, he surreptitiously fiddles with his download manager.
“Oo- comments already,” Sang pronounces happily, clicking at her blog. Cypher’s computer makes a rude sound on cue. She ignores the raspberry and reads out loud, “Lessee- hm. You. Suck. Very mature, Cyph.” A clatter of keys and a suitable response about Cypher’s dubious parentage was sent.
A louder rude raspberry and Cypher turns to Nick, “You know about that bottle of soda you got for me at the party last night, right? Rex’s?”
“Um, yeah?”
“See? Everyone knows about it!”
“Uh- what?”
“Sanguine drank from my bottle of Rex Wong soda.”
“For the last time, woman! It was in the frakking fridge!”
Nick’s face takes on a rather alarmed look for a split second, “Hmm…” He nods with a carefully schooled expression of neutrality.
The other balled-up sock hurtles at his forehead with unerring aim and bounces off lightly. He turns to narrow his eyes at Sanguine, who merely raised her eyebrow at him. Cypher glares from one person to another. “Oh my god, you *both* suck!” She storms out of her bedroom in a huff.
Sanguine grins after her and called out- “No, we both *swallow*!” Nick graces her with a disgusted look. “What d’you look so squicked about, babyman? We both consumed soda pop with essence of Rex Wong.”
“Oh. Ick. Where’s the mouthwash?”
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Quotes from the as-of-yet-unnamed Story A of a play which will, sadly, never be published or performed.
Cypher : What the heck happened to you?
Nick : (mumbling around a coldpack) My face had a meaningful encounter with someone's fist. It was beautiful.
Nick : So I met this chick, right? At this party last night?
Sang : *You* get invited to parties?
Cyph : A *LAN* party.
Sang :
Cyph : Oo- did you get her e-mail?
Sang : Good Lord, you people are such losers.
Alex : This really is two candles short of a shrine.
And, because you are all really special for still being my friends despite my lack of update... a REAL quote, from real life : "OMG, you're like, really anal retentive, aren't you?" "Er- I'm not into that sort of thing-la." Yes, cue eyeroll and headslap... preferably his.
Goodnight, Kuala Lumpur! You've been a great crowd. I love you all! (note: please comment on the K-Hell mention *only* when PeeJay becomes a city, you ulu-sticks-in-mud)