A MERMAID DROWNS IN THE MIDNIGHT LOUNGE: Chapter Two
Another excerpt from my novel in progress...
Copyright 2010, Will Viharo, all rights reserved
A MERMAID DROWNS IN THE MIDNIGHT LOUNGE
by Will Viharo
Chapter Two
by Will Viharo
Chapter Two
Nick woke and wondered where the hell he was. He looked at the empty space beside him, expecting to find someone.
There was no one. Only the sound of the Theremin, as usual, faint and distinct. Or what sounded like a Theremin, the sound in his skull that had plagued him since he was a child, which reminded him of the 50s B science fiction flicks he grew up loving on TV reruns. His head felt heavy, his eyes swollen. He stumbled over to his computer and looked at what he had written: “A man without a future met a woman with a past.”
That’s all it said, but he thought he remembered more. That’s right: There had been more. Much more. But he didn’t write it down. He just thought about it. Then he fell asleep and dreamed the rest. Where the border was, he couldn’t determine. All he had to show for his imaginative labor was that single line.
He squinted at the clock. Noonish. In around twelve hours he was due at the Oasis Theater down the street to host his weekly midnight show. Tonight’s epic: the original Invaders From Mars. Unless the idiot distributor screwed up again and sent him the awful 80’s remake. He wondered if Dolores, the waitress at the Moonlight Lounge, would come by tonight. He always caught her “act.” Maybe finally she’d catch his. He sometimes thought of leaving a little invitation next to his empty glass. He won
dered what she was like, outside of his vivid imagination, his desperate yearning, his incessant horniness. Nick lived over a strip joint, and he had dated some of the strippers, but he never fell in love with any of them. They fell for him sometimes, since he was so strange and intense and mysterious to them, but he routinely rejected them when it got to the emotional level. The strip joint downstairs was called Zombieville. The strippers all wore ghastly makeup so they looked liked dancing, naked corpses. It was insanely popular. Nick liked to fuck them only when they had the makeup on, and nothing else. He wondered if he suffered from necrophilia. This is partly why he aspired for something purer, even if it was an unattainable vision, so he could vanquish his own demons. His obsession with Dolores the waitress was purely literary. In a way, he didn’t want to get to know her. The truth might be too disappointing. As a muse, she was much more inspiring as a character in his fiction than as a person in his life.
Nick made coffee, petted his beloved cat, a male tuxedo dubbed Buddy whom Nick had found a few years ago abandoned in the alley next to the theater, and sat back down at the computer. It was his day off from his day job, at least. If he could get this thing published, maybe he’d finally be able to quit. If not, there was always crime.
He put on an old LP, the soundtrack to the old 50s Lee Marvin TV show “M Squad,” and sat back down at his computer. After a while he couldn’t hear the Theremin, at least not enough to bother him. He went back to the beginning, and started over, transcribing the entire dream…
READ CHAPTER ONE
READ CHAPTER THREE
There was no one. Only the sound of the Theremin, as usual, faint and distinct. Or what sounded like a Theremin, the sound in his skull that had plagued him since he was a child, which reminded him of the 50s B science fiction flicks he grew up loving on TV reruns. His head felt heavy, his eyes swollen. He stumbled over to his computer and looked at what he had written: “A man without a future met a woman with a past.”
That’s all it said, but he thought he remembered more. That’s right: There had been more. Much more. But he didn’t write it down. He just thought about it. Then he fell asleep and dreamed the rest. Where the border was, he couldn’t determine. All he had to show for his imaginative labor was that single line.
He squinted at the clock. Noonish. In around twelve hours he was due at the Oasis Theater down the street to host his weekly midnight show. Tonight’s epic: the original Invaders From Mars. Unless the idiot distributor screwed up again and sent him the awful 80’s remake. He wondered if Dolores, the waitress at the Moonlight Lounge, would come by tonight. He always caught her “act.” Maybe finally she’d catch his. He sometimes thought of leaving a little invitation next to his empty glass. He won
dered what she was like, outside of his vivid imagination, his desperate yearning, his incessant horniness. Nick lived over a strip joint, and he had dated some of the strippers, but he never fell in love with any of them. They fell for him sometimes, since he was so strange and intense and mysterious to them, but he routinely rejected them when it got to the emotional level. The strip joint downstairs was called Zombieville. The strippers all wore ghastly makeup so they looked liked dancing, naked corpses. It was insanely popular. Nick liked to fuck them only when they had the makeup on, and nothing else. He wondered if he suffered from necrophilia. This is partly why he aspired for something purer, even if it was an unattainable vision, so he could vanquish his own demons. His obsession with Dolores the waitress was purely literary. In a way, he didn’t want to get to know her. The truth might be too disappointing. As a muse, she was much more inspiring as a character in his fiction than as a person in his life. Nick made coffee, petted his beloved cat, a male tuxedo dubbed Buddy whom Nick had found a few years ago abandoned in the alley next to the theater, and sat back down at the computer. It was his day off from his day job, at least. If he could get this thing published, maybe he’d finally be able to quit. If not, there was always crime.
He put on an old LP, the soundtrack to the old 50s Lee Marvin TV show “M Squad,” and sat back down at his computer. After a while he couldn’t hear the Theremin, at least not enough to bother him. He went back to the beginning, and started over, transcribing the entire dream…
READ CHAPTER ONE
READ CHAPTER THREE
Copyright 2010, Will Viharo, all rights reserved
