By Jeffrey S. Callico
She has just been notified that she has lived a total of 14,416 days. She receives this information without emotion, without really feeling or thinking anything. It is a mere number that happens to apply to her longevity, not her personality. It only represents to the day the exact amount of time she has been alive on planet Earth. This is all it really is.
She is a film director. She directs small-budget films with themes of body, lust, and money lust. Her films are usually short, very much to the point, yet conversational and relaxed. She uses actors who know how to convey meaning in varied ways.
Her name is Miranda McKenzie.
She does not have a husband.
She has no one. She only has her films.
“It’s really all I need,” she says one day to a friend who wants to get to know her well enough to sleep with her. He is brazen. She sees him that way.
“No really,” she goes on, doing her best to convince him she doesn’t need to sleep with him or anyone for that matter but he isn’t budging. “This one I’m working on now is really taking a lot out of me. I wouldn’t have time to devote to you.”
The brazen man shakes his head and smiles. She can see he isn’t taking the bait.
“Okay, if I slept with you once, would you want to again? Of course you would. What man wouldn’t? I know you find me very sexually attractive. That’s obvious. (He smiles.) But you must know that my films are my entire fucking life and there’s no fucking way I will neglect them. I mean, they’re like my fucking children.”
He can sense she’s a little fiery now, by her extreme use of the language. He backs off a bit.
“So I hope you can see I’m really not interested at this point. But I thank you for considering, I really do, okay? Look, I gotta go, but maybe we can have a drink sometime. No sex, just booze and conversation. Hey, after a long day in the studio it’s good to get out and throw down a few, you know? I’m all game for tequila shots and titillating talk.”
But the line is drawn there, he clearly sees is implied. He nods and they part.
A few weeks later, she gets a phone call after wrapping her film.
“God, it’s late,” she says, but he persists. “Okay, see you in fifteen or so.”
She and the brazen man meet at her regular barstool and talk for a while. She is tired already so she has to cut it short--shorter than he had expected. But what did he expect?
She goes home, to bed, sleeps. It is a good long deep sleep. No dreams, just complete shutdown this time. Like a film cutting to black. Like suddenly being blindfolded and told you will be taken somewhere and left until someone comes to get you. But sometimes they never do. Sometimes they never come.
© 2003 Jeffrey S. Callico
Jeffrey S. Callico currently resides in Atlanta, and has been published in two online magazines, Dreamvirus and Insolent Rudder.