Scene four
By Don Marlin
The cobalt blue glow over the 25-watt yellow light was still there. Mary grabbed my right arm, and I almost came unglued again from the bike wreck pain but wanted her to hold me at the same time.
The slow approach to George II felt to me like M. Night Shyamalan was filming us from behind. The stage was set, the audience was on their front seat edge, and then BAM, the girl gets grabbed from behind with a studded glove and knifed clean through from spine to belly button like a redfish. Then you always try to talk to the movie at that point and tell everyone in the theater that real people aren’t that dumb.
Not making a sound, we could see and hear Sally softly snoring as Richard was now face down in the pillow and rotating toward Sally. Mary heard it too, the vice grip on my arm tightening harder, but the shock overcoming the pain. “Richard,” I said. “Hey, can you hear me?” No response. Mary’s fingers became the claws of a red hawk. “Richard!” I yelled. “Hey Sally!” No response. Mary’s claws were now a wood saw.
“Well, they can’t hear us and that is certain,” I mumbled. “Wow. They are right there. They can’t hear us, but their faces … we are at their window. I think we could be staring through their other George II.”
Mary spewed out, “My God, Vince. Do you think … ”
I responded, “Could be. I think they put George in their bedroom as Sally loved the oak and leaf clasps and wanted it there.”
“My God. What are we looking at?” Mary said in an exasperated voice again.
“A pretty damn amazing thing,” I mused and now was feeling more curious than spellbound and shocked. I leaned forward to touch the mirror and Mary’s grip of death made me yelp.
“Don’t touch it! What if it is real?” she gasped.
“It’s real to the eyes. We both know that. I’ve got to prove to myself this is just our George. I can’t prove if it is the other.”
We both stared as Sally turned her face away from us and now we were both staring at the back of their heads. I never considered that Richard was balding as I always talk to him face to face, but now I see with bed rustling that there was a hint of a scalp circle evolving around his cowlick.
I walked over to Mary’s nightstand, but still felt the grip of the claws as she walked lockstep with me in the bedroom. I picked up one of the two pink ear plugs that Mary sometimes uses when I drink too much zinfandel and start to trumpet at night. We spin around like we are at a ballroom dance class and face the mirror again. We never really did dance well together. Mary always tried to lead, and we ended up being the only couple on the floor with two agendas but still wrapped in each other’s arms as the rest of the class fox-trotted to the beat.
“What are you doing?” Mary looked at me with a look that reminded me of our favorite dalmatian that knew we were going to throw the ball and was going to go after it, but still cocked his head each time like this was a new trick.
“I can’t touch it, and I don’t want to break it, but I do want to see if this might irritate the picture enough to turn it off or fuzz out the image.” We gave our best four-foot forward movement over to George II with a rhumba-like swagger that would have even impressed our teacher that failed us five years ago.
We stood claw in arm, and I took the pink mushy earplug between my forefinger and thumb like I was going to send a piece of paper trash across the room into the wastebasket. With the flair of Michael Jordan, I gave it a nice release with a simultaneous slight break in my wrist. The earplug arched across the bedroom toward George II.
The earplug hit Richard and he woke up.