A Stab at Narration

A Story by Vasyl

Herein lies an essay of a life-changing event. Some people laughed their heads off as they were reading this. Now I'm under investigation for a long chain of homicides. I've been involuntarily decapitating the jury ever since, you see.

I looked at the mirror. Then I looked at my partner. Looked back at the mirror, closed my eyes, and reminded my big-nosed partner of his lines.

It wasn’t big, it was gigantic. Enormous even. Probably its development starved his brain cells of the needed axon connections, just so that his nasal cavity could increase tenfold. He also had the temperament of a Neanderthal. Big nose. Neanderthal. Oh, you silly goose. My fascination with this particular detail ensured as the level of noise in the makeup room of other groups feverishly practicing had just hopped the Mexican border (or the lack of thereof), and the acting teacher wailed over the intercom for us to be quiet. The problem was, when she used twenty-first century technology to send a signal over a soundboard made in 1984, her message relayed as a high-pitched intro followed by heart-pounding cracks, ending in a blasting sequence equivalent of a microphone rolling against sandpaper. “Hey, let’s yell balls into the intercom to signify that we heard her loud and clear!” Maybe it would translate into beautiful Vogon poetry, eh? Stop staring at me!

Group three went out.

“Let’s practice solo for now, kay?” I felt a rhinoceros staring into the back of my head, dumbstricken.

“Hey, could you move my group down two places? Thanks. Oh hey Cayree, you need me to sub in for one place in your group? Sure thing! Wait, when is your group going? Oh, that’s right after mine. No, it’s not going to be a problem, don’t worry about it; I’ll change characters hastily. Oh, we’re going into the piano room? Sweet, no distractions.”

Group three finished. What? You don’t finish! You never finish! Inside...

Some of my second group’s members were called in for an improv game, so I rejoined Tony Montana, who refused to gather input about how he has to act in a range of emotions, had himself no exclamatory output, but luckily he knew the choreography.

Group four.

The returning members of the improv and I agreed to merge my two groups in the piano room. This gave me simultaneous practice.

“Ok, that was good,” I encouraged my helpless partner, “now could you please add more tension while you react to the middle part, and emphasize on the G-word, please?”

I was a messenger form God, and my partner took the role of a simple, ordinary man, who just couldn’t believe my claim. It was nothing more than a Fed Ex delivery anyway, why write a play about it?

“Group six, get ready!”

My partner shrieked as his soul stubbed its most precious toe.

I saw a man in red. Satan, it’s time. Somewhere, a Perdue chicken flapped its wings.

“Gear up, Pinocchio,” his lifeless body made an effortless stride

We went to the hidden from-view side of the stage to wait our turn. As the fifth group was finishing, the teacher's own pet interpreter with headphones made me stay and hear out the directions:

“Vasyl, she show is running out of time, so just start your play without an introduction and…”

Hey, aren’t you wasting my introduction time by telling me to stay and hear out the directions about skipping the introduction? Where’s the logic man, where is it?

Our stage props included two chairs and a table, upon which I tactically planted our scripts disguised as papers. Sit down and take a peek if you’re not sure, I signaled mentally. He followed my lead, but stood on the wrong side. Pity…

The duette began, and immediately the audience was confused at my pronunciation which sounded like gibberish.

“You spoke to God,” my partner forgot to emphasize a question mark in the middle of the play.

“He blessed me,” I said in a matter-of-factly way, implying sudden certainty.

“God blessed you?”

“I sneezed and God blessed me, what do you want from me?”

For f**k's sake, will you please act overwhelmed at the very least?

“I don’t believe you!”

The audience members, having finished laughing about my folly remark, were once again becoming disinterested in our acting. Perhaps I should now flap like a Perdue chicken – oh, right.

“What, I should have flapped here like a Perdue chicken,” while impersonating one, “then you’d believe me?

The audience laughed again. Hey, this feels good.

The disgruntled teacher cut us off a minute later. Being funny in a force-fed religious play is a no-no in theatre apparently. Or maybe it was that we were running out of time.

“Vasyl, you’re in the improv.”

Whaa…?

“OK!” Three shows in a row, I hope I can handle it.

I handled it. Then I asked it out to a picnic by a lake in midnight, drove it to its house afterwards, gave it a kiss, and just as I was about to turn around, it sprang into my arms, and we passionately fell in love. Then I got up in the morning to finish writing my story.

Now, the way Superheroes improv game is played is that the audience gets to pick the first superhero’s name as well as the problem they’re trying to solve. Then the superhero calls on a second (named by them) superhero to help, and so forth, until the last one, who actually solves the problem.

Stinky Underwear Man called Crab Man who called Lasso Girl. I was next.

Offstage, I was brainstorming all the possibilities that my classmates may come up with. Barbarian Man? Me dumb barbarian. Me have big magical axe. Chain Man? Yay, I can make chains! Overburdened Man? Somebody appreciates my AP class load. Wait, what’s going on? Oh, right, I’m trying to… My Partner’s Name Man? Me dumb baseball player. Me have big magical nose.

“Frog Man, I call you!”

What would Frog Man…

“Ribbit.”

Everybody laughed, the audience hitting a second wave when they recognized me.

This feels exuberating, people laughing at my joke!

Crab Man, in the meantime had to collapse in order to support his breathing. I gave my introduction speech another try when matters settled.

“Ribbit”

The people in the offstage, attempting to recover their breath spent on the sheer randomness of my speech, were beginning to choke.

“Why, what seems to be the problem now, Stinky Underwear Man?” Remind myself to insert a joke about France and me being a frog later.

Staying in character and being distracted by a fly vectoring over Lasso Girl, I shot my arms out at chest level.

“Oops, sorry, bad aim.”

Actually, that didn’t happen. All kinds of provocative or obscene imagery under the threat of a referral. Some of my second team's members were later barked on incomprehensibly by the teacher for saying s**t, which was in the script she assigned them to do.

Realizing that I have spaced out, again, and that the volume of the interaction of the superheroes had over time dramatically decreased, I took the deus ex machina role and did my best.

“Ribbit.”

Some audience members fell over in their chairs.

I have never felt this good. This sudden euphoria which I received from others enjoying me so much had revitalized and replaced any negative feelings which I have felt before, and over nine thousand impulses of love, affection, enjoyment, and pleasure filled my brain, desiccating anger, overriding inhibition, bypassing all common sense. I had found the perfect drug, and that drug was entertainment. To this day, I am still addicted.

“This work requires the expertise of my girlfriend, the Super Shark Girl!”

Due to my incomprehensible pronunciation, Super Short Girl came out, mopping the floor.

The next scene started out in two minutes. The only worthwhile things to mention were the audience’s surprise at my third appearance, how half the guys were showing off their muscles, and the statistics given by my character:

“The NY Times estimates the casualty rate of the first-day invasion to be seventy-one percent. If the US were to invade Germany, seventy-one percent of us would be killed, shot, or wounded on the first day.”

“Out of six of us here, how much is that?”

“Out of six of us, it’s four point three.”

“Hey smartass, what part of your body is point three?”

“Hey Wachovsky, I know what part of your body is point-three!”

I silently thought of my partner. Hey, I know what part of your body is point three.