#litcom

Tweet by Brandon @blgtylr:

It's called "Ouroboros" and it's about a pair of cut-off shorts. You should check it out at www.jerseydevilpress.com.

Virgil Inhibited will be taking a hiatus until further notice. This is NOT the end of Virgil Inhibited, and the hiatus is not expected to last more than a few weeks. The time will be used to recharge the creative batteries and catch up on some reading so as to come back strong with at least six more txtisodes to close out 2012 and Season One.

Stay tuned.

 [The man was in a hurry to get to the eighth floor by a certain time. It doesn’t matter what he is hurrying towards, just that he’s hurrying. The tension derives from this lack of knowledge exactly. We see a man hurrying, but we don’t know to what he’s hurrying and that stirs something up in us. A grave curiosity wells up. 

It was clear by his nervous bouncing in the back of the taxi that he was late for his scheduled rendezvous. He slapped the seat in front of him where the driver was sitting as if he were riding a horse and it was obvious he was losing his patience. A close-up shows that his eyes are frantic.

The man throws a wad of money at the driver as the taxi screeches to a halt outside of a nondescript skyscraper somewhere in Sunset City. The man, in full business suit, seems to be launched from the backseat and makes immediate haste for the revolving door thinking about how best to get to the eighth floor. He bounded towards the elevators through a remarkably empty lobby floor. 

The man pushed all the buttons like someone dragging their hands across piano keys then swiped a hand through his hair with a huff, and waited for one of the three elevator doors to slide open.

The middle one ding-ed first and he stepped as close to the doors as he could, nose-to-steel, waiting to get inside so he could get to the eighth floor. Then the door slid open and the man took a half-step backwards as if something large were coming down on him. A quick shot of his eyes, now with a glazed-over look of wonder in them.

All that while thousands of rubber ducks flow from inside the elevator like a yellow avalanche and bury him on the lobby floor.

This is Channel 642.]

[Black screen. Then:] 

[A brief shot of the outside of a dilapidated house (in the immediate foreground there’s a rusty mailbox with the number 642 scratched into it (to remind you what you’re watching (mentally speaking))), but enough to reveal that the grass needed cutting and it was a sunny day. At the base of the front porch, there were small groups of ducks quacking.

Inside, Virgil (in his brown suit) was sitting on the living room couch, his bulky typewriter on the coffee table in front of him; the table still cluttered with papers, half-staring at and half looking-through the blank page in his typewriter; his head cocked to the side in deep thought. Leo was sitting on the love seat adjacent to him, slouching in his cut-off shorts, stroking his beard and staring up at the ceiling without blinking. The ghost of Curtis Dorgan was hovering next to Virgil on the couch in a formless gray swirl. Virgil pecked the word ‘The’ with the tip of his forefinger and then stopped. 

“Is this how all the magic happens?” said the ghost of Curtis Dorgan, mockingly. If he had a body he would have been hunched over Virgil’s shoulder, breathing down his neck. Then he whispered, “You suck,” quietly into Virgil’s ear.

Virgil buried his face in his hands and rubbed his eyes (perhaps hoping that everything around him would disappear when he opened them again so that he could concentrate and type up his speech, but alas, he would have no such luck). A kitten (curiously larger in size than the previous txtisode, you might notice) jumped onto the couch between Virgil and the ghost of Curtis Dorgan and stared up at Virgil.

Leo, from the loveseat, snapped his fingers and sat up suddenly. His eyes were aglow and his thin lips formed a knowing smile in the middle of his thick beard. He said, “I’ve got it! Healing water!”

“Healing water?” said Virgil. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about getting back on my feet, Virgil. Standing up like a man; self-reliance. Being proactive. All of those things.”

“I still don’t—” started Virgil.

“Think of it,” said Leo, his imagination taking over. “Darwin’s Healing Water. I’ll sell it to the masses. Ya know, I was thinking, I don’t think a lot of people know what healing water is around here,[1] but when they do I’ll get rich, and then I can get my own place again. What do you think, Virgil?”

“I’m thinking I should have let you die in that duel, actually,” said Virgil, half-serious. “My whole life would be different. More productive. More industrious. Et cetera. Think of it, Leo. Think of the possibilities for me if you weren’t around. You must do it, Leo! Do it for both of us.”]

[Black screen for a moment, then:]

[A young couple with looks of concern on their faces. They are standing next to each other in the middle of their living room, looking down at their carpet.

Their carpet had been stained with something bright red and it seemed—just from looking at it—that it would be impossible to remove the stain. Even more tragic? It was white carpeting, so the stain would be obvious to guests and would also drive the both of them crazy from having to endure its presence in the middle of their living room carpet day-after-day. The young wife turned to her young husband; her face troubled and grief-stricken.

“I think we should call someone. A professional,” she said.

“But who?” muttered the young husband, never taking his eyes from the stain on the carpet. He bit his thumbnail nervously. “But who?” he said again, sounding more desperate than before.

As the two of them pondered their next move, in the background, a man in a tuxedo wearing white gloves and carrying a black magician’s cane, casually walked into the living room and said confidently, “I believe I can help with that stain.”

His appearance from nowhere and his gruff voice startled the young couple and they turned around with a jolt. “How did you get in here?” said the young husband.

“I used magic,” said the man. He lifted his cane and waved it in their faces, as if he were putting a spell on them.

“I want you out of my house,” said the young husband, stepping towards the man in the tuxedo. The man in the tuxedo didn’t flinch; he only smiled a toothy grin.

“Honey,” said the young wife, tugging on her young husband’s shirt-sleeve.

He didn’t immediately turn around. The man in the tuxedo held the same facial expression and posture; statuesque going on fifteen to twenty seconds now. A toothy grin and dead eyes that he didn’t blink.

“Honey,” said the young wife again, with more urgency. “Honey the stain is gone. Look.”

The young husband turned around and looked at the carpet. It was like the stain never happened. There was also a fire going in their fireplace that wasn’t there before. He turned back to the man in the tuxedo and said with a tinge of fear in his voice, “How did you do that? How did you get the stain out of the carpet?”

“I used magic,” said the man in the tuxedo, moving only his mouth; his eyes still wide and staring straight ahead, his posture stiff, his cane tight at his side. 

“Who are you?” said the young husband, bewildered.

“I’m the magic man,” he said, “doing what the magic man can.”

“Man can?” said the young wife, backing away nervously. “What is that? What’s he talking about?” she cried to her young husband, grabbing his arm, panic creeping into her throat.

Then the words “Magic Man Cleaning” faded onto the screen with a phone number beneath them. Then a voiceover said “Magic Man Cleaning. It’s weird how well we clean.”]

[Black screen, then:]

[A shot of Leo hunched over at the waist and breathing very heavily wearing his cut-off jean shorts and a tight-fitting t-shirt that says, “All of my other shirts are ironic too” across the chest. They were in the woods of the Sunset City Mountains and there were three other men with him; haggard-looking men in dirty clothes who were wearing large tan-colored backpacks and carrying reusable grocery bags filled with empty wine bottles, one bag in each hand. Leo stood up and pointed off-screen before saying, “This way. Just a little further. You boys will know it when you see it.”

{cut to} 

Virgil is sitting on the edge of his couch leaning over his typewriter with large headphones on. The swirling gray dust cloud that was the ghost of Curtis Dorgan hovered next to him. Crumpled pieces of paper were strewn about the room, but at the moment he was typing furiously. His speech at the local bookstore (which, between you and me, it should be known, he had arranged himself through a connection he had with a particular clerk at the store) was only a few hours away and he barely had a coherent draft. The ghost of Curtis Dorgan was haunting him; that much was clear. During a pause in his typing, he wondered silently if the healing water could be used against Dorgan somehow, but there was no time to think about that now and he got back to typing his speech.

{cut to}

The three men are filling the glass wine bottles with water from a small pond-like area that had gathered at the base of a steep mountain slope and Leo is standing over them saying, “Yes! Fill ‘em up boys! As much as you can get.” He rubbed his hands together like a fly and watched the men fill the bottles with a sinister look coming over his eyes. 

{cut to}

A brief shot of the outside of the Lost & Found Used Book Emporium in downtown Sunset City, but long enough to see that it was dark out now and that it was somewhere in the bustling part of the city; cars and taxis honked and crept by at a tremendously slow pace.

Inside, Virgil was standing behind a lectern in his brown suit, having chosen to wear a soft yellow dress shirt with a red bow-tie under his brown jacket this time. (He had been re-thinking the green shirt/clashing green-tie look of his earlier years lately and was trying out new combinations.) There was a very small crowd sitting in front of him in brown-metal folding-chairs. The ghost of Curtis Dorgan hovered next to him heckling Virgil as he slogged his way through the speech: 

“—And so,” continued Virgil, “it becomes apparent the further you get into the thing that there is so much more imbedded in the text than anyone could initially suspect—”

“—Imbedded! Ha!” shouted the ghost of Curtis Dorgan. “I was imbedded with your mom last night! What do you think of that?”

A woman in the crowd of three or four, delicately balancing a stack of paperbacks on her lap, raised a hand to ask a question and Virgil nodded at her. “What is that thing next to you?” she asked.

“Truthfully, it’s the ghost of Curtis Dorgan, the protagonist of my last novel. He’s haunting me as of last week.” 

The woman nodded thoughtfully and then carefully lifted her stack of paperbacks before quickly hurrying away, clutching the books to her chest.

“—That novel sucked!” shouted the ghost of Curtis Dorgan. 

“Anyway,” resumed Virgil, trying to finish his speech while there were still a few people left in what could only generously be called an audience, “as I was saying, I think if any of you are considering starting something of your own that considering the layers, in fact, layering itself, should be something to strive for, ideally. In my experience—”

“—In your experience?” interrupted the ghost. “Listen to yourself. You’re a hack, Island! A pretentious hack. Did you all know that he arranged this whole thing himself? He wasn’t invited here by the bookstore like a real writer would have been.”

“That is not true,” said Virgil.

“Charlatan!” said the ghost. 

“Okay everyone, well thank you for coming out tonight and keep reading, it’s good for you.”

“Mountebank!” shouted the ghost as the small gathering dissembled.

{cut to}

Leo and the three men walking through the woods in the dark, the filled bottles clanging together in the bags with every step and the moon shining-bright above them, guiding them out of the mountain forest.]

[Black screen, then:]

[The silhouette of a band on stage and an incredible light show going on behind them.

(in the background are samplings of the bands best choruses)

A long shot of the enormous crowd that has come to watch them.

Close-up of the lead guitarist as he plays, his hands like magic.

A gruff voiceover says, “Powerful…”

A brief clip of the two band members singing from the same microphone.

“Enchanting…”

A brief clip of the drummer playing enthusiastically, his face obscured by his long hair.

“Four Star Electric Light Show”

Clips of the band bowing at the end of a show, their arms over each other’s shoulder, sweaty and exhausted from playing.

“Live Saturday at the Sunset City Amphitheater in Downtown Sunset City. Get your tickets before they’re gone.”

Then the web address of the site selling the tickets appeared at the bottom of the screen and it was over.]

[Black screen, then:]

[A brief shot of the outside of Virgil’s dilapidated house, but enough to reveal that it was dark out and the lights were on inside.

Inside, Virgil was drinking whiskey and ginger-ales in an effort to move past what he perceived to be a terrible speech at the bookstore (and he was right). He brooded over it while he drank. It was the ghost’s fault; he could barely concentrate anymore with that thing around. If Curtis Dorgan had helped give him a modest career, his ghost was quickly taking it all right back. He resolved to get rid of the ghost of Curtis Dorgan.

Virgil lifted himself from the couch and slow-walked into the kitchen and began rummaging through his drawers for a trash bag. He was going to try to trap the ghost inside the trash bag. He pulled a bag from the plastic scroll inside the small box of additional trash bags and then shook it open.

He looked up and the ghost of Curtis Dorgan was hovering in the doorway that joins the kitchen and the living room. “I know what you’re thinking,” said the ghost.

“What are you—I’m just—” stuttered Virgil.

“You’re going to try and bag me up, aren’t you?”

“Is that the expression for it? Yeah, I was. I mean I am. I’m still going to. Come here!” said Virgil, holding the open ends of the bag and going after the gray swirl.

The ghost of Curtis Dorgan hovered away from him but Virgil continued after him, chasing the gray smoky swirl through the house, jumping over the couch, knocking things from tables, and it quickly became an impossible game of cat and mouse. The ghost of Curtis Dorgan hovered up into a high corner where Virgil couldn’t get to him. Virgil was heaving for breath and sweating. His hair was matted to his forehead and his face was red. 

“I’ll stand here until you come down from there. I’ll stand here all night you asshole. You’ll suffocate in this bag.”

The ghost scoffed and said, “I don’t breath air you idiot. I’m a ghost.”

Just then the front door opened and Leo came walking in with the three shaggy-looking men and the four of them dropped their bags of healing water to the floor and collapsed onto the carpet next to them exhausted. Leo immediately went and lay down on the couch, sucking in air like someone was standing on his chest, but through it all he was trying to speak to Virgil.

“We got—We got it, Virgil. We—We got the healing water.”

“Who are these guys?” said Virgil, gesturing at the three men lying on the floor.

“Those are my hired hands, Virgil.” He sat up and took a deep breath. “A business needs employees. They have strong backs and they don’t say much, which I also like.” With another deep breath he had seemed to catch his breath. “Drinking?” 

“This damn ghost is ruining my life!” said Virgil angrily. “I’m gonna bag him up and kill him, or keep him captive, or whatever. I can’t stand it anymore! Give me some of that healing water.”

“But we only have—” 

“Give it to me!”

One of the men lying on the floor tossed him a corked wine bottle of healing water.

“Virgil, you don’t know what it will do,” said Leo. “And that stuff isn’t easy to get either.”

Virgil pulled the cork from the bottle and started shaking the water up into the airspace where the ghost of Curtis Dorgan hovered saying, “Take this you bastard!”

“Virgil! Damnit!” said Leo. “You’re wasting—”

He was cut off by the heavy thud of a human body falling to the floor from a great height.

The scene ends with a long-shot of the five of them, Virgil with a confused look on his face, Leo behind him about to snatch the wine bottle from Virgil’s hand, and the three men on the floor, their mouths agape.]

[Black screen for a moment, then:]

[The still frame of a sleeping duck, its head twisted like a hairpin so that its bill is tucked into its feathers; the words Channel 642 scrolling across the bottom of the screen.]

[D.K.]

[The young professional in the kitchen twisted open a bottle of craft beer (a clear indication of the target audience). It was a Tan-Dan Pale Ale. Or maybe it was a Hard-Kennard Brown Lager. It was whichever one has the cartoon duck on it. (Both have a cartoon duck on their labels, naturally.)

Another young professional sitting on the couch in the living room heard the sharp hiss of air as the bottle opened, and said, shouting over his shoulder to his friend in the kitchen, “Dude, bring me one too. Let’s beer it up!”

Then the young professional in the kitchen shouted back, “Did you say ‘Beer it up’?”

Then the young professional in the living room shouted back louder, “Yeah, man. Let’s beer it up!”

They continued back and forth in the same manner until finally the image of the cartoon duck—wearing sunglasses and a bow tie, standing in half-profile—overtook everything.]

[Black screen for a moment. Then:]

[A perfectly average living room, brightly lit, meticulously cluttered, remarkably roomy for an apartment, like something you would see on television.

Virgil Island sat on the edge of his couch, poised over his typewriter (which is on the rectangular coffee table in front of his television set (which—as a viewer—you can only see the back of, naturally) and the table is cluttered with magazines and scraps of paper). He held his hands steady above the keys like a pianist waiting for the lights to dim, about to type the first letters of the first word of his new project, when there was a sudden and wholly unexpected noise from the kitchen. It sounded like someone was going through his silverware drawer.

“Is someone there?” said Virgil.

Everything was completely silent for a moment (except for the tittering studio audience) before the definite sound of a drawer being slid closed could be heard off-screen; the soft thump of wood against wood.

“Who’s there? I heard you! I know you’re there!” said Virgil, alarmed.

Then a ghostly figure appeared in the doorway connecting the living room to the kitchen, holding a fork, upon which the ghost said the first thing a ghost always says upon entering a scene.

“Boo!”

“The scariest thing about what you just said was how cliché it was,” said Virgil. Then he paused. “Wait. Are you a real ghost?”

“What do you mean? Of course I’m a real ghost. As real as anything else around here. As real as you. As real as your inflated notions of yourself, you hack. Besides, how do you think I got inside?”

(More tittering. (With one audience member who can barely contain himself and who is causing other audience members to start bursting ribbits of laughter too.))

“What do you mean calling me a hack?” says Virgil. “I’ve published a novel.”

“Typical self-absorbed response,” muttered the ghost. “Everything is always about you, isn’t it Virgil? Aren’t you curious at all who I am?” The ghost waved the fork around as it spoke, emphasizing everything it said like a composer doubling as a hallucination.

Virgil stood from the couch and squinted his eyes at the ghost in the doorway. He studied it. The ghost quivered like a smoky hologram of the outline of a person. Virgil tilted his head and pursed his lips, then moved a few steps closer, but it became clear soon enough, based on his expression alone, that he was unable to recognize the ghost in his doorway. And the fork—which seemed to hover in the grip of the ghost’s hand—was also an obvious visual distraction (if you could only see the way Virgil looked towards the ghost (unfortunately this is a different medium—this isn’t television, after all. It’s something else.) you would know what I’m talking about.).

Finally, Virgil says, “If you would only stop quivering and hold a shape I might be able to figure you out.”

“I’m Curtis Dorgan[1], you idiot!”

This revelation, followed by the mental image of Virgil Island (your mental image) (suave-looking, hair neatly parted on the side, a brown lock curling across his forehead, wearing his characteristic chocolate brown suit (that was what the tailor called the color) and his lime green shirt with his clashing green tie (which he was well aware clashed)); his eyes still squinted, but not in an attempt to study the quivering shape in his doorway, no; his eyes were squinted now out of sheer astonishment. It was Curtis Dorgan, back from the dead.]

[Black screen for a moment. Then:]

[The man was sitting on the couch naked, except for a lousy pair of underwear, stuffing his face with stale nacho chips (in an obvious, self-aware kind of way, like he knew he was being watched), when it appeared—to his great surprise—that someone in the hallway was using a chainsaw to cut a hole through the middle of his front door.

Just out of the clear blue.

He watched paralyzed as the tip of the chainsaw cut a perfect circle. Then he watched as the man from the hallway popped the freshly cut circle from the door with the bottom of his shiny black shoe. Then he stuck one of his tree-trunk legs through the hole in the door and sidestepped into his apartment, bringing the idling chainsaw through with him.

He wore a black suit with a skinny black tie over a white shirt, and the man on the couch had never seen him before. He was a hired man and a hulking one too, standing just inside the door now, and he held the idling chainsaw next to his knees like a briefcase.

As the two of them made eye contact across the room the words The Agency of Sunset City appeared on-screen, then a gravelly voiceover said, “The Agency; finishing your unfinished business since 2008. Call us today for a free quote” and the bottom of the screen showed a phone number. Then—the sound of a chainsaw. Revving up.]

[The man (actor really) was standing next to his bed folding a pile of clothes, arranging them into categorized stacks as he went and as we join him you can plainly see that he is nearly finished. After he folded the last white t-shirt and added it to the stack of other white shirts he put his hands on his hips and looked upon his neat piles of folded clothes with pride, and allowed himself a satisfied smile.

His reverie was soon startled away by the sound of his bedroom door creaking open suddenly, but before he could look to see what it was a single cat leapt onto his bed; tipping over the pile of white t-shirts. Then another cat leapt onto the bed, jostling over another pile. A third cat leapt onto the bed and the three of them hissed at each other and swiped at each other with their tiny paws and jumped around, using the fallen piles of clothing as cover from which to spring and attack one another. Then more cats jumped onto the bed and even more after that, a whole variety of cats flowing through his bedroom door like some cat levee had broken in another room of the house, until the whole bed was filled with cats snarling and hissing and swiping their tiny paws at one another, and over what? Meanwhile, the man could only watch.

Then a voiceover said, “Are pets messing with your life? The professionals at your local GeneriPet can help. Go to our website or come in for a consultation, and get your life in order again.”]

[Black screen for a moment. Then:]

[A brief shot of the outside of a dilapidated house (in the immediate foreground there’s a rusty mailbox with the number 642 scratched into it (to remind you what you’re watching (mentally speaking))), but enough to reveal that the house itself was a rust-red color and it was a sunny day. At the base of the front porch, there appeared to be small groups of ducks loitering. More significantly, there was a man standing at the front door, and he was holding a suitcase.

Inside, Virgil was having a Tan-Dan with the ghost and the ghost (because of his intangible nature) was essentially pouring his beer all over the place. They were sitting on the couch.

“I asked you if that would happen before I gave it to you,” said Virgil, visibly annoyed.

“Maybe I did it on purpose,” said the ghost of Curtis Dorgan. “Maybe I don’t give a shit about your couch. You ever think of that?”

“Take it easy, Dorgan, or I’ll write you out of this one too.”

There was a knock at the front door and Virgil rose to answer it, wiping his hands on his suit as he approached. He cleared his throat, adjusted his tie, and then pulled open the door.

“Hey, Virgil,” said the man in the doorway.

“Leo Darwin?” said Virgil. “I thought you would be dead and gone by now.”

“Oh yeah, sure, you recognize him right away,” moaned the ghost of Curtis Dorgan from the background.

He didn’t look the way Virgil remembered him. He looked way worse. His hairline had receded some and his face was red, like he had been running. He now had a beard and he wore cut-off shorts (fraying at the edges) that showed off his stocky legs. He had aged some too it seemed, even though it hadn’t been more than a few weeks since Virgil last saw him. He seemed to breathe without using his nose, sucking air in-and-out through his mouth in short breaths. He put the suitcase down next to his feet, bending stiffly.

“To tell you the truth, Virgil, I thought I would be too, once or twice.”

“Well you still look horrible. Come in, sit down,” said Virgil, stepping aside to let him in.

Leo walked inside with the posture of a defeated man. He waved stiffly towards the ghost of Curtis Dorgan and said, “What’s up, Curtis? I thought I heard your voice. What are you doing here? I thought you were dead.”

“I am dead,” said the ghost of Curtis Dorgan, pouring beer through himself and all over the couch.

(The studio audience laughs.)

“Well that makes two of us,” said Leo, collapsing onto the couch next to the ghost of Curtis Dorgan with a heavy sigh. “Where can I get a beer? Let’s beer it up, as the saying goes.” He looked around stiffly in the hopes someone might bring a beer to him.

Virgil closed the door and stood in front of the two of them. Leo was watching the ghost pour the last of his beer through himself, the entire cushion underneath him wet now.

“First, Curtis, you can’t have any more beer or anything to drink at all. I don’t believe, being dead, or whatever you are, that you actually need to eat or drink anything, (at this point, the ghost of Curtis Dorgan throws his now empty beer bottle into the wall, shattering it everywhere) and two—damnit, Dorgan! What the hell was that?

Virgil glared at the ghost of Curtis Dorgan. “Why are you both here? What the hell is going on?”]

[Black screen, then:]

[The man had been fishing all day on the lake, but he hadn’t caught anything yet.

He had left his line in the water and laid down on the floor of the small boat and fell into a light sleep. The sun was warm upon his face.

He was floating on a lake of glass; it looked like. Drifting. Sliding along.

Then it seemed as if his small boat was being pelted with rocks coming up from the bottom of the lake and he was startled awake.

He sat up and looked out, gripping the sides of the small boat.

Rubber ducks were everywhere around him, thousands of them, floating on the surface of the water.

You’re reading Channel 642.]

[Black screen, then:]

[Virgil was standing over them, waiting for their answer. Then the ghost of Curtis Dorgan said, “I’m here to insult you and berate you. That’s literally my only purpose in this. My motivation, of course, is revenge, and the best part is, there’s nothing you can do to stop me because I’m a ghost. I’m doomed to a life in between worlds for some reason and guess what, I’ve decided to spend them all with you until the day you die. After reading that shitty novel of yours I’m determined to make sure you never write anything again.”

“Shit, Dorgan, that’s intense man. You know, I was in that novel too and I didn’t think you were misrepresented.”

“Thanks, Leo,” said Virgil. “I appreciate that.”

“Anyway, I’m here because I need a place to stay for awhile,” started Leo.

“Here it comes,” said Virgil. “You butter me up with compliments and then try to shack up with me.”

“The whole living-in-the-Sunset-Mountains-thing didn’t work out,” said Leo. “I’ll only be here a couple days, max.”

“Yeah right,” said Virgil. “A couple weeks is more likely.”

“I didn’t want to ask outright, Virgil, but if you insist,” said Leo, standing from the couch and edging towards the front door.

“Wait, that’s not what I—”

“—Let me go get the rest of my stuff from the car. You’re a real pal, Virgil, a real pal. And I wasn’t buttering you up; I thought the novel was good. I really owe you one for this. Be right back,” he said, and then he was gone out the front door.

“I’m never going to get any writing done now. Not with you two idiots around.”

(The studio audience giggles as Virgil’s life changes right before their eyes.)

“Ever feel like your life is out of your hands, Virgil? Ha! How’s it feel now?”

For Virgil, it was impossible to know where to start, but before he could say anything Leo returned with a backpack, a plastic grocery bag of dirty clothes hanging on his arm, and a small animal crate in hand.

“Wait, what is that?” asked Virgil, eyeing the animal crate as Leo put it down on the floor, bending stiffly to open the tiny gate. “Don’t open that in here. What is that?”

Leo stood up as three small kittens emerged from the animal crate, wobbly on their feet and looking around curiously. Then one of them darted under a piece of furniture and was out of sight.

“They’re kittens,” said Leo cheerfully. “I found them in the mountains. They lived under a nearby tree. A tree near mine. Either way, I couldn’t just let them stay up there. Not with winter coming on.”

Virgil fell onto the couch and covered his face, overwhelmed. He looked at his typewriter on the coffee table longingly, lovingly, as if it would be leaving on a jet plane any minute.

Then the ghost of Curtis Dorgan said with genuine gratitude, “This has been the greatest day of my afterlife,” as a kitten leapt onto Virgil’s lap and stared up at him.

Then the scene freezes: Virgil with the kitten on his lap, sitting next to the ghost of Curtis Dorgan, and Leo in the background looking like hell as the theme song plays and the credits roll.]

[Black screen for a moment, then:]

[The still frame of a sleeping duck, its head twisted like a hairpin so that its bill is tucked into its feathers; the words Channel 642 scrolling across the bottom of the screen.]

[D.K.]