asking them what they had coming up. I needed a part. Any part. The answer was always the same. They didn’t have a thing for me. And when I walked away the whispers sounded like surf on a rocky shoreline.
I got lost in the PD to make the sound of the ocean go away.
When I woke in the morning, Wendy was gone. This time she’d left two things on my chest, and yes, while I was passed out in that same lounge chair. The first was a note, in her delicate hand, apologizing to me for leaving. She didn’t ask for a divorce. She didn’t ask for support. She simply took the girls and hopped a zeppelin to her mother’s up north. She said she was sorry she wasn’t strong enough for me. I spent weeks trying to figure that one out.
Underneath the note was that morning’s newspaper. The headline read:
KING ELOPES WITH STELLA DAVINCOURT
At least I knew why they didn’t come to the party.
O O O
I spent a year trying to find work.
Without Wendy the house seemed to grow larger every day, like living in a history museum, but PD made the echoes go away. I kept throwing my parties, kept asking the movie moguls if there was something out there for me.
I would have taken anything: villains, lackeys, henchmen, bit parts, cameos. I even got on my knees once, with the Director of Hoffer . All I got were those same fake smiles, anorexic excuses.
Money stopped flowing in, but it sure as hell didn’t stop flowing out. The house cost a fortune to maintain, so did the servants. And PD bought in kilos adds up fast.
It got so bad that I started selling off steam carriages, rental properties, furniture, artwork … you name it. All I cared about was the house, the parties and the PD. They were my only ticket back to stardom. I burned through it all until there was almost nothing left but the house.
That was about when the King got sick.
I remember thinking how odd it was. The announcement about his first wife’s illness got the whole kingdom crying. For him, though, the response was quiet reserve, almost silence. As if people were afraid of something.
I was too high to give it much thought, and at the parties nobody seemed interested in talking about it. I was so wrapped up with my own troubles that I couldn’t possibly have pieced it all together, not if my life depended on it.
It took a month for the King to die.
I didn’t find out about his death until a few days the funeral, when a package of PD came wrapped in newspaper. That little package represented the last of my money. I was broke, and the thought of never seeing another terrified me. As I unwrapped my bundle of godhood, I saw the headline:
KING PASSES AWAY
I didn’t think about how sad it was. I didn’t reminisce about all the good times with the King. The only thing that occurred to me was that I had an opportunity … with the Queen. An idea formed in my head, and if she went for it, I could get back on top of the movie biz. I had the proposal scrawled and off in a copturier in a flash. She still used the same number, after all those years, and the little gizmo sailed off into the air, clattering and sputtering, headed straight for the palace.
I cancelled the party I’d scheduled for that night, took a few snorts and then cleaned up the place as best as I could. I’d let the staff go weeks before, so it was all on me to get ready for the Queen.
All I could do was wait and hope.
O O O
The Queen arrived two days later with an entourage three blocks long. Dark elves with silver trumpets announced her arrival. There were trolls in dark armor, holding pikes. Dark men in dark tabards rode black stallions, and in the middle of the procession was a black carriage pulled by black unicorns. Through the haze of PD I dredged up fuzzy memories … of the royal guard being made up of dwarves … of them wearing forest green. A layer of the fuzz peeled away, and it suddenly occurred to me that the Queen had probably made a lot of changes once the King was gone.
A tall,
I got lost in the PD to make the sound of the ocean go away.
When I woke in the morning, Wendy was gone. This time she’d left two things on my chest, and yes, while I was passed out in that same lounge chair. The first was a note, in her delicate hand, apologizing to me for leaving. She didn’t ask for a divorce. She didn’t ask for support. She simply took the girls and hopped a zeppelin to her mother’s up north. She said she was sorry she wasn’t strong enough for me. I spent weeks trying to figure that one out.
Underneath the note was that morning’s newspaper. The headline read:
KING ELOPES WITH STELLA DAVINCOURT
At least I knew why they didn’t come to the party.
O O O
I spent a year trying to find work.
Without Wendy the house seemed to grow larger every day, like living in a history museum, but PD made the echoes go away. I kept throwing my parties, kept asking the movie moguls if there was something out there for me.
I would have taken anything: villains, lackeys, henchmen, bit parts, cameos. I even got on my knees once, with the Director of Hoffer . All I got were those same fake smiles, anorexic excuses.
Money stopped flowing in, but it sure as hell didn’t stop flowing out. The house cost a fortune to maintain, so did the servants. And PD bought in kilos adds up fast.
It got so bad that I started selling off steam carriages, rental properties, furniture, artwork … you name it. All I cared about was the house, the parties and the PD. They were my only ticket back to stardom. I burned through it all until there was almost nothing left but the house.
That was about when the King got sick.
I remember thinking how odd it was. The announcement about his first wife’s illness got the whole kingdom crying. For him, though, the response was quiet reserve, almost silence. As if people were afraid of something.
I was too high to give it much thought, and at the parties nobody seemed interested in talking about it. I was so wrapped up with my own troubles that I couldn’t possibly have pieced it all together, not if my life depended on it.
It took a month for the King to die.
I didn’t find out about his death until a few days the funeral, when a package of PD came wrapped in newspaper. That little package represented the last of my money. I was broke, and the thought of never seeing another terrified me. As I unwrapped my bundle of godhood, I saw the headline:
KING PASSES AWAY
I didn’t think about how sad it was. I didn’t reminisce about all the good times with the King. The only thing that occurred to me was that I had an opportunity … with the Queen. An idea formed in my head, and if she went for it, I could get back on top of the movie biz. I had the proposal scrawled and off in a copturier in a flash. She still used the same number, after all those years, and the little gizmo sailed off into the air, clattering and sputtering, headed straight for the palace.
I cancelled the party I’d scheduled for that night, took a few snorts and then cleaned up the place as best as I could. I’d let the staff go weeks before, so it was all on me to get ready for the Queen.
All I could do was wait and hope.
O O O
The Queen arrived two days later with an entourage three blocks long. Dark elves with silver trumpets announced her arrival. There were trolls in dark armor, holding pikes. Dark men in dark tabards rode black stallions, and in the middle of the procession was a black carriage pulled by black unicorns. Through the haze of PD I dredged up fuzzy memories … of the royal guard being made up of dwarves … of them wearing forest green. A layer of the fuzz peeled away, and it suddenly occurred to me that the Queen had probably made a lot of changes once the King was gone.
A tall,
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