AN INDIFFERENT WORLD

by Marianne Carlson

“This ain’t no way to treat a lady.” 

“She knows, she just KNOWS that we can’t make a move without her. Why would she LEAVE us like this? It is humiliating.” 

Gracie, near tears, spoke from a prone position underneath the stage. Head thrown back, her mouth appeared massive, way too big for the rest of her face. Partially open, no teeth, there was nothing cute about her. The studio was a mess. A large backdrop, a photograph of an ultra modern kitchen,  leaned against one wall, the heavy pots and pans hung from hooks on the ceiling.  

“My arm hurts. I think it needs stitches, and my glasses fell off. How am I supposed to read without my glasses?” From behind a stool, Deedee, was almost in tears.

“Reading is the least of our worries, Deedee. What if she has skipped town? 

“Skipped town?  You mean just up and left? Deedee sounded horrified. She would never do that without putting us back in the trunk. And she wouldn’t leave all these props scattered every which way. She is very meticulous. She likes things in their proper place, she’s obsessive compulsive, she’s got an attention deficit disorder,  she’s got a borderline personality disorder, she’s deteriorating as we speak.

“She is a manic depressive, approaching a complete psychotic break.” Gracie continued their litany of psycho babble from under the table as if they actually knew what they were talking about.

“I liked her a lot better when she was in her manic phase. We may have  worked a lot, but at least she was fun to be around.”

“Yeah, remember the show about the parking wars? That was funny.”

“And the fortune teller?”  

“Well, she is depressed now.” 

“And for good reason. Cooking with Gracie, got exactly 12 hits. In the  entire internet youtube world, 12 hits.” 

“Well this cooking crap has got to go,” said Gracie. Who wants to watch puppets cooking?”

“Nobody. I have an idea. Puppet porn,” said Deedee.

“Puppet porn?” Gracie thought for a bit. “ I like it, I love it. Puppet porn.

“No, I’m serious, Gracie, we need to step up our act.”

“I think I heard her come in. Shhh, she’s talking to someone.”

That someone was David, Brenda’s friend with benefits. Brenda, a small blond with stiff kinky hair like a mop was sitting in the living room, a room not suited for living, but the living room nonetheless. Everything about the room was dark, including (at the moment) Brenda. The drapes, upholstery, carpets, were all more suited for an older, more mature person. Brenda inherited the house and everything in it from her uncle, an attorney who had a propensity towards the dark side of life. Into this house blew Brenda, like a small tornado. She converted the dining alcove into a puppet studio; this studio became the heart and soul of the house.  

Today both the heart and the soul were in need of a boost.  When she made a puppet, Brenda became so obsessed with her project that she shut out everything else. The rest of the world simply did not exist; she and her growing puppet were enveloped in an invisible protective shield. Day blended into night, sleep and meals became superfluous. Her love for her creations was something fierce to see, it gave her a persona that sometimes resembled a vicious mother, a mother blinded by love and an inability to understand why the rest of the world did not appreciate her efforts.

“I suck, David.  It’s an indifferent world out there. I am a complete failure, a pant load. No one cares what I do.

“You’re not a pant load, Brenda. You are the most talented person I know.” 

When Brenda fell into one of these moods, David assumed his mentor/therapist/priest mode. He was tall, thin and serious, a PhD student in biomedical research with rimless glasses behind brown eyes as calm as cows and soft blondish hair falling almost to his shoulders. He was far more interested in parasites than puppets.    Although he loved Brenda dearly, her moods were becoming burdensome to him. Not knowing what was coming next, he tried to reason with her as if he was talking to an exotic caged parrot with a large vocabulary.  Gracie and Deedee adored him.

“I am too a pant load. I am going to build a fire and throw every one of my puppets into it.” With an ominous glint in her eye, Brenda methodically stacked wood in the fireplace, placed scrunched up newspaper under the logs and lit a match exactly as her uncle had taught her years ago. Soon a blazing fire lit up the dark room.

“What happened? Where are we?” Deedee woke up. She was sitting on a large desk, leaning against a stack of books, her glasses on the bridge of her nose, right where they were supposed to be.”  The room, far from dark, was brilliantly lit by large, florescent lights overhead. Unforgiving in their intensity, they glared on both Gracie and Deedee, offering them no place to hide.  David stood over his microscope, his white lab coat unbuttoned, his attention fixed on the slide under the glass. Gracie, although shaken, was sitting next to Deedee. Both girls had managed to regain their dignity, as they whispered to each other. 

Neither David, Gracie or Deedee had any idea what an impact the presence of the girls had on the other students in the lab. David carried on with his research, digging deeper and deeper into his thesis. Language in the lab cleaned up considerably. Experiments went smoothly. Long-standing disagreements cleared up almost overnight. All went well until the day that Brenda came looking for David.

“You bastard, I want my puppets. You stole them.”

“No, I saved them, you tried to kill them, Brenda. You are an unfit mother.”

“They are mine and I want them back.”

While the bickering continued Gracie and Deedee slipped quietly behind a bookshelf. There they remained until peace returned and Brenda left empty handed.

It's All Temporary