Let’s say that you wake up in the morning and look in the mirror. You fall in love at first sight. But here’s the problem: you’re too shy to talk to this reflected image who is the object of your affection. So you write a classical sonnet to this woman in the mirror, declaring your love.
“Is this for me?” she asks, when you hand her the parchment on which the poem is written.
“Yes, that’s why I’m passing it thru the looking glass, dear Rosanna,” you reply. “Note also that the masterwork is titled ‘To the Beautiful Rosanna’.”
After reading your sonnet, the woman reflected in the mirror sez: “It’s admirably composed, but the declarations of affection that are contained in the piece are a bit contrived and artificial: Lo, if this hot passion of love that is the theme of the poem were true, then you, its author, would have simply leapt over and embraced me, its ostensive subject: you would have showered me with kisses while moaning inarticulately. For we live in the selfsame dimension.”
“Are you saying that every emotion, once translocated into speech, loses its truth?” you ask, slightly crestfallen. “Are you saying that there’s something untrustworthy about all art?”
The woman in the mirror poses thoughtfully, mimicking your appearance. Then she answers: “I guess I’m just impatient. I suppose that genuine passion is compatible with the delay that a work of art necessitates. But when someone like you, whose love I desire, feels mutually magnetized, I wish that we could avoid wasting time with formalities and instead consummate our reciprocal attraction by simply pouncing upon each other, the way that animals do.”
“However,” you say, as the image in the mirror seems on the verge of demonstrating her point, “if the love is NOT shared by both parties, then such a wild act of forwardness would be an affront.”
The mirror-Rosanna hesitates while blinking. Then she cries: “But we DO love each other.”
At this point, a cowbell rings.
“Pardon me,” you say to the mirror. “I must answer the door.”
You pass your robot butler Devlin in the hall, as he’s hastening to the entryway, and whisper in his plastic ear “I got this one, Dev.” Then you flip off his power switch.
“Officer Bryan Ray, hello!” you say, opening the slab. “Come in! Have you eaten breakfast yet? I just started coffee…”
Bryan Ray holds his arms wide and hugs you, and gives you a kiss on either cheek. “Officer Rosanna, my dear partner from the Police Force, I’m so glad to see you this morning. Yes, I just ate, thanks — on the way over, I stopped at our favorite diner and had hashbrowns and eggs, plus pancakes with all three syrups (maple, blueberry, and apricot), also a generously frosted cinnamon roll and a side of crispy bacon, with biscuits and gravy. But if you already made breakfast, I’ll gladly eat more. I’m very hungry all the time. And, yes, I’d love coffee.” Then Bryan turns around and picks up a large paper bag that was on the ground behind him, and he hands it to you with a smile.
You open the bag and see that it contains several enormous breakfasts similar to the one that he just described, and the food is all hot and smells wonderful, and it’s all in to-go containers.
“You brought multiple breakfasts for us?” you gasp.
“I sure did,” sez Officer Bryan Ray, taking the bag back from you and beginning to set out its contents upon your dining table. “I got up very early and ordered breakfast and ate it, exactly as I said, but immediately afterwards I began to feel hungry again, so I ordered many more items from the menu and asked the chef to put all the new food into transportable containers, so that it keeps warm while I drive my police cruiser over to your place, dear Rosanna. And here it is: Are you hungry? Let’s eat!”
So you pour a large black coffee for your crime-fighting partner Bryan Ray; and you take your seat at the far end of the long table, which is filled with various dishes.
“These are really good hashbrowns,” you say, as you begin to enjoy the feast.
“Well, all thanks goes to Boccaccio,” Bryan Ray smiles; “for he’s the chef!”
(Boccaccio is the name of the cook who works at the diner that you and Officer Bryan Ray speak of as your shared favorite, just to be clear.)
Having finished breakfasting together, you and your crime-fighting partner Bryan Ray dab your lips with the cloth napkins that the diner included in the takeout bag with the feast, and Bryan announces:
“Well, Officer Rosanna, shall we go out to the squad car and take our first distress-call of the day?”
You smile and answer “Yes, let’s.”
So you and Officer Bryan Ray now begin to cruise the crime-ridden city. I should mention that the place where you dwell — Philadelphia USA, circa 1977 — is filthy and despicable. But you and Bryan share the aim of cleaning it up.
“Alert, alert!” sez a crackly voice over the citizens-band radio.
“What is it!?” shouts Officer Bryan Ray, after pressing the button labeled RESPOND on the police vehicle’s dashboard.
“There is a horrible action occurring in Central Park,” the radio-voice declares. “It is midnight, and something is very wrong with the world.”
Officer Bryan Ray hits the RESPOND button and answers: “You can say that again. Over and out.”
Now you, Rosanna, turn to your partner Bryan and say “You should probably step on the accelerator pedal with your police boot until it reaches the floor, so that we can travel rapidly to the place where the crime is being committed.”
“Good idea, Officer Rosanna,” nods Officer Bryan Ray. “I will do so, forthwith.” And the police cruiser speeds up to more than 104 kilometers per hour.
You and your partner arrive at the scene, climb out of your patrol car’s windows, and draw your firearms. After a moment, you hear a rustling noise, and you both begin shooting in every direction, because a flock of pigeons decided to fly around in the darkness ambiguously when they realized that the Police Force had rolled up.
“What are you two doing?” sez the owner of a shop that sells guns.
“We got a call,” you explain to this man, “about some evil that was allegedly transpiring around this area. My name is Officer Rosanna. Would you like to sniff my badge?” And you hold out the shining police badge that is pinned to your lapel.
The man inhales deeply of the badge and makes a face that means “Wow, that smells good!” Then he sez: “Come inside my gun shop. I’ll give you each something for free.”
So you and Officer Bryan Ray (the “Cool Cop” — the only male on the Force with long hair) follow the old gun-shop owner into his establishment. He hands your partner an AK-47 (a gas-operated assault rifle), and he hands you a bazooka (a short-range tubular rocket launcher).
“Thanks so much!” sez Officer Bryan Ray, immediately beginning to pull the trigger of his AK-47 and expend copious ammo inside the shop.
“Stop shooting!” sez the gun-shop owner. “Only shoot outdoors!”
You, dear Officer Rosanna, now begin to shoot your bazooka inside the shop, just to see how it works. You like the sound that it makes, and you enjoy the damage that it causes.
“Hey!” the gun-shop owner shouts. “What did I just tell you!? Take it outside!!”
So you and your crime-fighting partner, Police Officer Bryan Ray, the famous author from the Americas, step back into the murky grayness of Philadelphia and begin to saunter over to your squad car.
“Let’s put these new weapons in the trunk,” sez Officer Bryan, while inserting a key from his keychain into the vehicle’s lock. (Officer Bryan Ray’s keychain seems to contain hundreds of thousands of jingling keys.)
“Good idea,” you reply.
When the trunk opens up, there are so many weapons in it that the two fresh additions can barely fit. But Officer Bryan Ray shoves them tight and finally manages to get the trunk closed.
Now the two of you police officers re-enter your automobile and drive out into the park to hunt for performers of suspicious activity.
“Look at that dude over there,” you point and say.
Officer Bryan Ray steers the police car into some lilac bushes and then stops. “You want me to help you arrest him?” he asks.
“No, let me try to use diplomacy in this instance,” you reply. Then you climb out the window and shout: “Freeze, punk! My name is Officer Rosanna, and I have the power of the law on my side.”
The man stands stock still.
“What are you doing here, at this hour of the afternoon?” you shout.
“I was eating my blueberry ice-cream cone,” sez the perpetrator.
“You’re a very large man,” you remark. “Are you sure that you should be eating ice cream in the park?”
“Listen,” the fellow slowly begins to pace forward, “I’m a billionaire. I OWN the police. What in God’s name do you think you’re doing, pointing a gun at me like that? Is it suddenly illegal to eat dessert in Philadelphia?”
Officer Bryan Ray, overhearing this argument, now decides to chime in: “It’s true, the pancakes that I ordered before I picked you up this morning, dear Officer Rosanna, came with three choices of syrup, one of which was blueberry flavor — so all three of us are sort of on the wrong side of justice.”
Upon hearing this, you turn stiffly and aim your firearm at your own partner, Officer Bryan Ray, and you pull the trigger — only playfully, just intending to graze his ear, so that he’ll listen more carefully to the next thing that you plan to say — and your bullet whizzes past his face and scares him, and it notches his left ear.
“Listen, Bry,” you shout to your policing partner of twelve long years, while the large billionaire with the blueberry ice-cream cone continues to draw closer and closer, “you and I have been fighting crime together for more than a decade now, and I can’t believe that every time your father shows up — yes, your billionaire father who’s always eating blueberry ice cream — you seem not to recognize him. Can’t you just let me handcuff the thug and toss his bulk into the paddy wagon?”
Officer Bryan Ray, after inspecting his ear to make sure that it’s not bleeding too badly, answers: “But in order to arrest him, we’d need to charge him with breaking the law; and, as far as I know, he’s never done anything that’s technically illegal, because he lobbies the legislators to make all the laws in his favor!”
Now you roll your eyes and say: “What do you mean? He personally is the reason that so many refugees around the globe are fleeing awful situations. And he’s the agent who keeps blocking the implementation of universal healthcare. Moreover he started the ‘Forever-Wars’ and got everyone addicted to opium. Plus he’s a fat ugly slob.”
At this moment, the man with the blueberry ice-cream cone at the park, who seems indeed to be Officer Bryan Ray’s father, finishes his treat and clutches his hands around your throat, dear reader, in an apparent attempt to choke you to death for becoming aware of his secret widespread corrupt practices.
“Dad! No!” yells your partner, Officer Bryan Ray, while aiming his firearm at his own father with the intention of merely grazing the man’s left ear. “Hands off Officer Rosanna!”
Then a shot rings out, and Officer Bryan’s father falls to the ground.
You catch your breath and check the villain’s vitals… “He’s dead,” you report to your crime-fighting partner. “It looks like you shot him right between the eyes,” and you point to the bleeding hole in the man’s fat head.
Officer Bryan Ray climbs out of the police cruiser’s window and kneels before the corpse. “Oh no!” he sez. “I truly did not mean to do that.”
“I believe you,” you say. “Now help me lug his guts into the back seat of our police cruiser so that we can get the man to a medical center and revive him.”
Thus the corpse of Officer Bryan Ray’s father is rushed to Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, where it is successfully resurrected and allowed to continue wreaking havoc upon the earth. None of the world’s problems get solved, and further tragedies ensue.
A title card appears on the big screen which reads “THE END”, after which video-advertisements auto-play endlessly.
§
“Officer Rosanna!” Officer Bryan Ray says when you open the door, at the beginning of next week’s episode, “Look: I brought you some fuzzy bunny slippers!”
And you try them on, and they fit perfectly.
No comments:
Post a Comment