A Friday Night in an Otherwise Quiet Mansion

JOHN TEMPLETON lives in what could be described as a mansion. Chandeliers hang liberally along the high walls of the house. Deep, expensive carpets and heavy curtains line the high walls and the expansive floors. We start in the dining room, where JOHN TEMPLETON has invited his guest for the evening - KAREN SYKES - to dinner. JOHN has just sat KAREN down in a gentlemanly way, holding out her chair for her while she takes a seat.

JOHN is wearing a tuxedo, tailored as proper as you’d expect from an upper-class man with a lot of money on his hands. KAREN is wearing a form-fitting red dress that accentuates every curve of her voluptuous figure, slightly unzipped show off her back. KAREN doesn’t see JOHN checking her bottom out as she sits.

JOHN winks at her, walking around to the other side of the table. JOHN shows off a grin to her - the grin of a shark circling a blind and bleeding prey.

JOHN: I thought we might start the evening off with some champagne. How does Don Perignon sound?

KAREN (smiling): That sounds lovely.

JOHN starts preparing the drinks. As he does, he begins some idle chit-chat with his date.

JOHN: You know, I don’t know if I ever told you how beautiful you look tonight.

KAREN (blushing): Why, you have, John. Several times.

JOHN: And you look that stunning, Karen.

They share a laugh as JOHN quickly drops a capsule in one of the empty wine glasses and covers it up with the vintage Don Perignon he’s holding with the other hand, filling the glass to the brim.

He looks at KAREN out of the corner of his eye, flashing that award-winning smile of his, as he pours the other glass for himself.

KAREN: I can barely believe this is happening.

JOHN: Hm?

KAREN: You and I, I mean.

JOHN: Of course.

KAREN smiles as she accepts the champagne glass with her free hand. Her other stays folded on her lap, beneath her pocketbook.

JOHN (toasting): To you, Karen.

KAREN (grinning intently at him): And to you, murderer.

KAREN quickly drops the wine glass, grabs at JOHN’s arm and shoves the bulk of a syringe deep inside his forearm veins. JOHN’s glass falls to the floor, its shattering muffled by the thick carpet. He backs away from his date, realizing suddenly why she’d had her hands folded neatly beneath her pocketbook as he looks at the red swelling at the site of the stabbing.

JOHN: What…what the fuck did you just…?

KAREN sets the empty syringe on the table. She then bends over to her shattered wine glass, picking up the tablet that fell out of it.

KAREN (holding the tablet out in front of him): And I suppose this is what you used to drug all your victims.

JOHN (stumbling and swaying): ….fucking bitch….why…what the fuck’d you just…

KAREN: A muscle relaxant. Industrial-strength, but I tripled the dose just for you. I like to call it “liquid karma”, John.

JOHN walks toward KAREN, attempting to subdue her, and falls flat, his face crashing atop the broken wine glasses.

JOHN: Fuck!

KAREN (picking up a steak knife): Yes, you are quite “fucked” indeed. But, while I’ve got you here, I’d like to tell you a story, John. You like stories, don’t you?

JOHN (twisting and squirming before the paralysis claims him completely): Getthehell’wayfromme,youbitch,getthehellaway…

KAREN uses the steak knife and makes a small incision above his eyebrow. JOHN clenches his teeth as the blood starts to flow into his eye.

KAREN (smiling seductively): Of course you like stories. But before I oblige, let me set up a chair for you. You look uncomfortable, lying there like that.

KAREN walks over and grabs an expensive towel from the kitchen. She unfolds the towel and drapes it onto the floor beside JOHN, placing a chair on her makeshift placemat.

Another three minutes in the kitchen and she finds the drawer with the duct tape. She takes another ten to find a slew of towels from the bathroom and plops the whole lot down near JOHN’s feet.

She then proceeds to, still in her dress, drag the paralyzed figure of JOHN into the chair. It takes a good ten minutes, but she manages to get him to rest atop the chair in a slouch. She ties him down using liberal amounts of duct tape. Along his chest, his arms, his thighs, his ankles. He’s somehow still able to talk, but only the most colorful language escapes his lips.

When she’s got him sitting in the chair, propped up by all the tape, she grabs the knife again.

KAREN: There we go. Now you’re resting comfortably. And I won’t have to reposition you again with you all taped up like that.

JOHN: I’ll…I’ll get out of this you crazy bitch…fucking…cut you…

KAREN: I doubt it.

KAREN cleans the knife idly with a napkin lying at the edge of the table. She walks back over to him.

KAREN: Now, John, tell me if you’ve heard this one before. Girl meets amazing guy at a night club, devilishly-handsome. Too good to be true. Girl goes home with guy for an expensive dinner.

KAREN: Only, this guy places Rohypnol in her drink, ties her up, rapes her unconscious body, then proceeds to torture her for days with a butcher’s knife until she dies. And then, he dumps her in a swamp somewhere on the outskirts of town.

JOHN’s eyes go wide, and he calms down suddenly as he realizes KAREN knows.

JOHN: How…how do you know…that…?

KAREN (staring at JOHN with rage glinting off her eyes): Does the name Amanda mean anything to you?

JOHN: Amanda…what the fuck are you babbling about…?

KAREN: Come on, Johnny-boy. Think. Amanda Sykes. Blonde hair, blue eyes. My height. Cute dimples in her cheeks. About my age. With a smile that could knock your socks off. That doesn’t ring any bells?

JOHN: Amanda…Amanda…oh. (smiling to himself) Ohhh, yeah.

KAREN: Yeah. You remember her now? That’s good. Because she was my sister.

JOHN raises his eyebrow as an unsettling realization sets in. KAREN clamps some duct tape over his mouth and wraps it around his head three times.

KAREN: She gave me a call just before she went missing, and mentioned where she was going and with who. When they fished her out of the swamp, I knew what you'd done to her, you son of a bitch. The coroner’s reports confirmed it. But I couldn’t call the police with what I knew. No, I don’t think they’d let us spend much quality time together, would they?

KAREN: So I stalked the nightclubs, in my best dresses, just waiting for you to strike again. They call you the Jigsaw Killer, because you cut the faces of victims to ribbons before you finally kill them. Just so you know, I’m going to even the score, just a little bit. It won’t bring Amanda back, but it’ll make me feel like there’s some justice in this world.

JOHN: Mmmpht! Mmmphht!

KAREN (hand cupping her ear): What’s that? Oh, yes. You’re right. Silly me. Once that prescription cocktail I cooked up wears off, you might be able to slip out of your bonds.

KAREN stabs her steak knife into the top of his thigh, eliciting a muffled scream of agony from the bound murderer. She cuts a long, bloody swath in the other thigh as well. She stabs again at both his biceps. She cleans off the knife as he starts to drip onto the towel sitting neatly under the chair.

KAREN: Being a medical doctor has its benefits. I knew exactly what kind of prescription drug to use. It's a nice little cocktail that leaves your muscles paralyzed but your mind awake enough to feel all the pain I want you to feel. Just as I know exactly how to cut you - and in what places - in order to make your death as long and as painful as possible.

JOHN looks up at her, his eyes bulging out of their sockets.

KAREN: I’ve worked it out to about three or four days in my mind. But who knows, you might just surprise me yet.

JOHN starts to cry as KAREN happily toys the wet knife.

KAREN: But don’t worry, John. You’re going to be very ugly before you die.

KAREN holds JOHN’s head up, and positions the knife at his eyelid. She gets one of the bath towels ready for the mess, positioning it under his chin like a bib.

My alarm clock buzzes from its perch in the wall, waking me up.

I drag my sleepy self into my fully automated Wake-Up Chamber. It activates with a slight hiss as I pass through the sensors of the door. I stand there patiently as it undresses me, showers me, dries me off, brushes my teeth, shaves me, waters my bloodshot eyes with the gentlest of ease and trims my hair to the specifications it has chosen best suit one of my size and facial constitution.

The trimming and shaving extensions slither like snakes back into the folds of the machine, and I step outside, fully refreshed. Perhaps because the house has automatically released an immuno-stimulant into the air, masked by a sweet-smelling air spray.

I gulp in the “Fresh Spring Rain” air happily, wondering how the human race lived without its machines.

It’s been a long time since anyone’s had to do such procedures on their own. I think I read something about the Ancient Primitives doing the Wake-Up Procedure by hand once; in a history text. But we have machines to pick through our history now, so I stop thinking about it.

I step into the Dressing Chamber, and I note the red light scanning my body, up and down, taking my measurements. Out of the wall comes a set of mechanical arms carrying sets of perfectly pressed cloth. The arms unfold the clothing and carefully place it on my naked form in sets. The two halves of the precisely-tailored business suit are stitched together with a laser on a setting light enough to tickle the hairs on my chest. My shiny black dress shoes shorts are assembled, and the belt is tightened before it is stamped into place.

I bring my arms up, letting thicker mechanized digits pick me up by my armpits, lifting me off the ground as their machine brothers fluff my socks, and place them on my waiting appendages. The shoes are assembled atop my foot, and sealed. I laugh as the shoe exhales a ticklish non-stink compound onto my feet.

As it dresses me, I look at the computer screen in front of me, memorizing my speech for today as I have done every single morning of my life.

“Good morning, everyone! Hi Debbie.”

***Smile, and wave to the teenaged humans, before winking at the elder brown-haired human near the food dispenser. Wait for three prompts, then say the following.***

“A little on the groggy side, but otherwise just fine. Heh. heh.”

***Walk toward taller, brown-haired human and embrace in arms. Extend lips toward human’s cheek and wait for prompt. Say dialogue continued on next page.***

I scroll to the next page and continue absorbing my speech, hoping I don’t forget anything.

The machine puts me down, and I exit the Dressing Chamber by way of the blinking lights. I follow the blinking lights to the kitchen, where I meet my loving wife, Debra, fresh out of her own personalized Wake-Up Procedure and Dressing Chamber, as well as my two children and Spruffles, wagging his puffy dog tail happily.

“Good morning, everyone! Hi, Debbie.”

“Hi, Howard. How are you this morning?” My wife says in her charming Southern accent, not that there’s a “South” anymore.

“Hi, Daddy!” My beautiful Sue says beneath mechanically-tied pigtails and Sunday-school skirt even though today isn’t Sunday.

“What’s up, dad?” My son Greg says beneath a brunette crew cut, clothed in his yellow plaid shirt and grey pants. They both eat the same oatmeal the machines have prepared for them.

“A little on the groggy side, but otherwise just fine. Heh. heh.” We all enjoy a small chuckle as I take my awaiting wife in my arms and give her a peck on the cheek.

“How are you today, lover?”

“Peachy-keen.” I say back to her, nudging myself close to her warm body, like it told me to do in the script. “How about last night?”

“Oooh! Fresh!” She says with a wink, and pats my nose with her finger before breaking my embrace and turning toward the breakfast the machines cooked for her. With a smirk, I take my seat at the head of the table, and Debra hands me my own bowl of oatmeal. Debra takes her seat on the other side of the table and we carefully eat our breakfast while sending out our morning Instant Messages on our hands-free cyberspace headsets.

I text toward Jennifer, my secretary – the one with the stunning blue eyes – a copy of the day’s itinerary at the office. After I’m finished, I use my parental controls to spy on who my children are IMing. Little Suzie is texting toward a boy at school. I’ve scheduled an appointment with her later tonight to dissuade her against their date. Gregory is texting his schoolmates about a musical band he’s intending to start behind my back. I’ll “accidentally” assign him some chores to conflict with their meeting.

I summarize all my plans in an IM to my wife before standing up, and heading out to the office. On my way out the automatic door, I gulp down my one-a-day Vitamin-Nutrient supplement pills and wash them down with my 100% re-oxygenated California-Flavored Calcium Shake.

Yummy.

I drag myself through the front door, and the guiding lights come on, directing me toward the Dressing Chamber. My business suit is disassembled, and I glance at the next speech as the machine unfolds the perfectly-pressed T-shirt and carpenter shorts that make up my Dress-Down Attire.

I’m having a hard time memorizing the speech; however, as I’m fantasizing about those swaying hips, and those stunning blue eyes. I imagine the machine notices my distractions as it shines a bright white light into my eyes, on and off in random patterns for exactly nine seconds, completely obliterating my train of thought.

The machine inserts its hooks into my eyelids and forces them open as I read my speech again, interrupted by the occasional Visine drop to keep my eyes from drying out. Once enough time has passed for me to read it the mandatory fifteen times, the machine lets me go and spits me out the other side.

“How was your day, honey?” Debra asks me with that smile of hers.

“Oh, just fine. Another day, another dollar.” I reply from rote memory, yawning and stretching my limbs in just that way the script told me to. My mind flashes back to those blue eyes and that skirt, and I go short of breath for a moment. I pause in my recital, as I realize something very important. “Debbie…Debbie…I…”

I hear motor hums as the cameras lining the walls notice my departure from the script of the Perfectly Married Couple. Even through the opaque domes that hide the cameras, I can tell they’ve all centered on me. Debra stammers a bit, and I draw in a breath hoping for the courage to say it.

“Debra…I need to tell you something…” I almost whisper, lowering my voice away from the sound instruments of the machines – even though intellectually I know they could hear the sound of a hair blowing through the breeze as if it were a grand trumpet. I hear angry hums in the household machines and Debra stammers, caught off-guard.

“Um…uh…yes, I had a wonderful day…um, Howard…thank you.” Debra sputters out. It’s a response to the question I was supposed to ask: ‘Speaking of which, how was your day Debbie?’ I guess I can’t blame her for sticking to the script. After this, I’ll have to read each scripts at least thirty times every time I get dressed for at least a month. I sigh pathetically.

“Why, yes. Of course you did.” I mutter, the wind in my sails ceased. I tap my fingers on the tabletop, regaining my composure. The lines come back to me with ease. “Say, up for some TV? They’re debuting the new season of Seinfeld.”

“Is it an all new cast? I mean, all the actors died at least fifty years ago.” She asks.

“Nope. They’re going to CGI them in. Remember how we got Greg that Photoshop-Starter Kit when he was five and he created some wacky photos of all of us with it? That’s the same kind of technology they’re using – but better.”

“Well, guess it’s worth a shot, then.” Debra smiled at me. It felt like the machine was doing the smiling.

We lock arms, and travel to the TV in the living room.

The TV coats the entirety of the far wall of the living room - from the floor to the ceiling. Debra and I listen intently as Jerry stares distressed at “Man-Hands” during their date. For a moment, I forget what a “date” is. Debra and I were matched on twenty-nine dimensions of compatibility for the Marriage Tests they make you take at the end of high school, so we tied the knot. We never really needed to “date”. But it works for the show, so I try not to think about it too much.

Greg is vacuuming the carpet behind us in complete silence. Luckily, they’ve stripped vacuums of their ability to make any sound waves at all. However, the sound of his anger with me is practically deafening. He’s missing his meeting with his bandmates because I’m making him dust and vacuum the entire house.

He’ll explode at me just before he hits the bathroom upstairs, shouting and “spilling” the secret of his garage band’s meeting tonight. But that’ll only happen after I’ve finished talking to Suzie about the boy she wants to date and how much I disapprove. Needless to say, I’ll be very cross when I come back downstairs after those shouting matches. Still, I’ve got another three minutes and nineteen seconds before my appointment to talk with Sue, according to the script. I share a laugh with Debra when “Man-Hands” butters her bread.

All of the sudden, the TV - along with the lights - goes completely dark. I hear a sharp, unscripted inhalation from my wife’s lips as she starts trembling.

In the dark, I hear Greg gasping, terrified. There hasn’t been a blackout around here for twenty-five years. There’s no way he knows what’s happening.

“AAAAHHH!!!” Greg’s scream is louder than I could have imagined. Debra and I cling to each other, frozen with a heady doze of shock.

“Howard. Howard, don’t you have to…talk to Susan….talk to Susan…how…howard….?”

She’s panicking, spitting out dialogue prompts that don’t apply anymore. She’s too shaken up to realize that we’re all totally off-script now. Until the electricity turns back on, we’re on our own.

Upstairs, I hear Suzie crying hysterically in-between Greg’s shouts of terror.

I try to find my voice.

“Greg. Greg…try to settle down.” I get up from Debra’s shaking stranglehold, finding Greg in the tar pit surrounding us. “Sit next to…next to Debra. I mean, your mother. I‘m going…um. I‘m going upstairs to get your sister - yes, that‘s it - and bring her down here with us and then we can all...um... wait for the machines to come back on. Does that…sound good...Greg?”

“I, um…umm..” Greg whispers, and finds his seat next to Debra.

I feel my way up the stairs. I should have Suzie down with the rest of the family in a few minutes, depending on how hysterical she is. But I have no idea what we’ll all be doing after that.

And as terrifying as that is…something inside me finds it….exhilarating.

“I have no idea, Suzie.” I sigh, rubbing at the bridge of my nose. “The last one I was in only lasted for twenty minutes or so. So, I guess this one’s pretty…pretty bad.”

“Must be.” Debra sighs, disinterested.

I look over to Debra’s seat on the couch - she’s long since stopped gripping my arm- and imagine her with blue eyes, and a smile that takes my breath away. Those blue eyes, that seem to have something more than the machines instructions swimming beneath them. Those defiant blue eyes.

Jenny‘s defiant blue eyes…

“Debra, I have something to tell you.” I begin apprehensively. “I don’t love you anymore. I’m not even sure I ever really did.”

The room goes dead silent. It just now occurs to me that I should have sent the kids away…

My face grows hot, and I can just feel the lump that’s welling up in my wife’s throat. But this needs to happen, damn what the machines think. And if I don’t do it now, I never will. “There’s someone else, Deb.”

Debra whimpers somewhere in the dark. Through a choked sob, she asks me questions with the naivete of a five-year-old. “There can’t be anyone else. There’s just you, and me, and the kids.”

“And the machines, Deb.” I start. “There always the machines.”

“You mean the... food processor and the TV?” “I mean all of it. The Wake-Up Procedure and the Dressing Chamber, the scripts, all of it. All run by programs and algorithms that were designed before you or I or the kids were even born! Designed to help us, feed us, clothe us. Allow us to talk to people over vast distances. And somehow - SOMEHOW - we’ve allowed these, these….these THINGS to take over our lives. Hell, we only got MARRIED because we were ninety-eight percent compatible on our test scores. And after all these years, we can barely talk to one another unless our House makes scripts for us to perform. But it’s not really us, is it? It’s the machines. It’s always the goddamned machines!”

I put my fist through the television, and I hear the plastic display crack and sprinkle across my feet.

“Greg!” I yell at the darkness.

“…yeah….ummm..pop?” He asks back from the void. He’s never seen me like this; he must be mortified.

“You start your garage band, dammit. Play the goddamn drums! You always had a great ear for rhythm. Hell, be the lead singer. You’ve got the talent for either. Go for your dreams. Don’t let me or some machine stop you from being yourself.”

“…I…thanks, Pop.” He says, something like joy swelling within him.

“And Suze! Where are you?”

“I’m…here...still. Dad.” She says from the chair across the room, very quietly.

“Suzie, I want you to date that Jeremy kid you’ve been talking to on your IMs every morning. I trust your judgment and I know you won’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Just do one thing, Suze. One thing, all I ask.”

“How…how did you…?”

“I’m a parent. It’s my job to know.” I shrug away her question. “But what I want you to do, is date him long enough to make sure you like him. Maybe you might even fall in love him. Or hell, maybe you’ll want nothing to do with him, I don’t know. What I don’t want you to do, is wait for a stupid compatibility test to tell you who you want to spend the rest of your life with. Are we clear?”

“Uh, yeah. Okay, dad.” She says with a curiosity lining her voice.

“Now, I want you and Greg to know that your mother and I still love you. We love you both so, so much.” I go over and hug the both of them tight. “But we don’t love each other, and haven’t for a long time. This is the best thing right now. For everyone.”

“Yes, kids.” Debra whispers, still struggling with the idea that she and I are no longer the Perfectly Married Couple. We are no longer what the machines told us we are. “Your father and I…will be going through some changes right now, but…but we’ll never stop loving you both. Ever.”

I smile in my soon-to-be ex-wife’s general direction, and for the first time in a long time, I feel happy. And hopeful.

It takes a few more hours for the lights to come back on, and by then, the kids are asleep, and my wife’s all alone in the bedroom. The machine doesn’t realize it yet, but I’m going off-script for a long time. We all are. I’m done letting it control me, or my family.

I wonder what Jenny will be wearing tomorrow.

BRITNEY SPEARS, the singer who redefined “pop music” for an entire generation of teeny-boppers, caused a horrific scene at the Twin Pines Mall in Los Angeles on Monday when bystanders noticed her wearing a new shade of blue neon lipstick while on a shopping trip with her son Sean Preston. The revelation of Spears’ wardrobe malfunction was first noticed by paparazzi photographer Max Caruthers, who was originally on assignment to merely photograph the pop singer during a typical shopping trip when he caught her disastrous choice of make-up on camera.

“Honestly, blue neon lipstick does not go with a dark brown fur coat and knee high walnut boots. I mean, as if,” Caruthers said.

Caruthers, a photographer for the Los Angeles-based publication The Daily Lavabo, realized in short order that something needed to be done. In a selfless act of heroism, he began taking rapid-fire photographs of Britney’s lips, and gestured wildly at bystanders to take notice of Spears’ mismatching lip color.

Reports of Britney’s wardrobe malfunction spread throughout the crowd like wildfire. Waves of shock and outrage fell over those who had gone to the California mall merely to shop, but instead were greeted with a horrific display of wardrobe at its worst. As a result, mall traffic came to a standstill as Britney’s folly became the point of an overwhelmingly negative public response.

“She ought to be ashamed of herself.” Theresa Harding, a 56-year old resident of Los Angeles, reprimanded the pop singer during the commotion. “She’s setting a horrendous example for our young people, she is.”

“First appearing minorly overweight on-stage after having a baby, and now this,” Dr. Peter Thompson, a doctor of pediatrics, commented in reference to the singer’s recent performance at the Las Vegas Video Music Awards in 2007. Shaking his head in disgust, he added: “It’s just deplorable.”

“I mean, put on a light beige mock-up, or soft shade of berry-red. Or maybe light brown cherry-apple. Anything but neon blue!” 15-year old Jennifer Daly spoke up from the crowd. “It’s choices like this that have made me switch my fav singer of all time from Britney to the Spice Girls!”

Despite the negative reactions to the lipstick, there were a handful of supporters of Spears’ incendiary decision.

“I think the blue works.” Yelena Kim, a local artist and art critic, spoke in favor of Spears’ wardrobe malfunction. “It has that rebellious edge while the particular tone of the color conveys a sense of vulnerability. I don’t know what everyone’s problem is. I think it‘s a fantastic modern achievement.” However, despite Kim’s support for the blue lipstick, the crowd remained overwhelmingly against the pop singer’s decision.

Spears, facing criticism from all sides, had only this to say in her defense: “Who cares what kind of lipstick I wear? Why do you all feel the need to pry into the most insignificant parts of my private life like this? Doesn’t the Ninth Amendment protect people against things like this? I mean, what’s wrong with you people?”

Within minutes, the gathering grew to near-riot levels before local police could break up the derisive crowds and escort Spears and her son to an as-yet undisclosed location. But perhaps more disturbing than the use of the lipstick would be the tenacity Spears showed during her single outburst against the derisive crowd. Rumors have run rampant about the gradual deterioration of Spears’ mental health. “This short outburst, hidden under the veil of attempting to protect her own privacy, may just be her own struggling psyche screaming for help,” staff psychologists have speculated after reviewing records of the incident.

Reporters are still attempting to discern Spears’ current whereabouts. So far, all attempts to get any exclusive comments from the singer about this particularly explosive incident have been unsuccessful.

In any event, her publicist will be releasing a short statement about the incident.