Little Steve-O in Slumberland (guest-starring a William Petersen lookalike)
Author: Ink-Stained Wretch
Flipping through some old documents, I stumbled across the Best Dream Ever.
July 1st, 2003
So I'm on some desperate quest to find the Guy With All the Answers. But it turns out he's some bum who panhandles in the alley behind the NuArt Theater and Cinefile Videos. And when I reach his usual spot, he's gone like a cool breeze. All that's left is the styrofoam cup that he uses for panhandling. It's a bit grimy and kinda filthy... however, I reason, maybe I could use this remnant to track down this mysterious person. A passer-by suggests I talk to the guys at C.S.I. (Crime Scene Investigation.)
Smash cut to me walking into the pristine corridors of the "CSI" offices, as seen on TV, all glass and chrome, blue & green lights glinting off everything. Very Scientific....
(continued in the comments section so I don't eat up the whole front page)
Inside the Very Scientific Facility, I run into the CSI guy – a dead ringer for William "Manhunter" Petersen, the head guy on the TV show. But it's not REALLY William Petersen... it's some kind of doppelgangery lookalike. So I kind of do a doubletake. And he notices. And shrugs...
CSI GUY: Sorry, Billy couldn't do the gig.
(He notices as I deflate with disappointment.)
CSI GUY: And, uh, by the way, you can't refer to us as "CSI" for legal reasons.
(I react annoyed, and in disbelief.)
STEVE: Then what am I supposed to call you?
CSI GUY: The Forensics Investigation Team.
STEVE: F.I.T???
(with growing pique)
Are you kidding me? "Fit?"
CSI GUY (drily): Yeah, don't have one. So what have we got here?
(The CSI guy takes the styrofoam cup from me, holding it in a latex gloved hand in a peculiar manner to avoid smearing the prints.)
CSI GUY: Okay, we should be able to pull a print off this... (scolding) AFTER we eliminate your prints from all over it.
(Sheepishly, I take a seat and wait. I'm flipping through an old issue of New Scientist when The CSI Guy emerges, in lab coat, peeling off his latex gloves.)
CSI GUY: Okay, we got a nice clear print. We know who your guy is... And... we found him.
STEVE: Great! Where is he?
CSI GUY: Oh, we couldn't make it THAT easy.
(Off my reaction.)
CSI GUY: What fun would that be?
(The CSI guy gestures. I follow him through a set of double doors.)
CSI GUY: What we've done, is we've taken the fingerprint, we created a three dimensional model which we then scaled up about two hundred times.
(As he talks, we walk down a white hall way, the walls of which suddenly become curved and kind of lumpy.)
CSI GUY: And at the center of it, we've placed the target individual you're looking for. Happy hunting.
(With a tight, cheerless smile, the CSI Guy points down the hall, as if I'm supposed to keep walking. Hesitantly, I do so. Running my hand along the curving wall... as the CAMERA CRANES UP & BACK, slowly revealing the vast expanse of the fingerprint-maze as I grope blindly through its whorls and curves.)
SMASH CUT to Steve waking up.
STEVE: Wow. THAT was fucking weird.
P.S.: Hey, y'all: I'm not trying to take over the blog, I've just committed myself to posting an item a day for the month of November so the site doesn't go into the doldrummy doldrums like it did in October. So join the blog a day challenge... or not!
Good practice in posting...
I dug the dream- it dovetails very nicely with the fingerprint simulator- nice metaphor for you starting you quest for this elusive panhandler.
After reading your work, I am left inspired.
I was just telling Loui (our month long houseguest)
about the Inferno script and how much I was into it.
ha i like it.
what is this inferno script? i would certainly enjoy reading any of your writings ink-stained. hook me up!