The Trouble With Angel..

“Please excuse the way I talk Doc. I’m working on a script set in the second quarter twentieth century, producers and editors demand accuracy of idiom so I was in the middle of an induction session when all this blew up.
Well as I was saying the trouble with Angel is, you need a whole packet of salt to take with her statements. Salt? Well to be honest I’m not sure. It’s a saying left over from the old days when people prepared their own food. Not that she tells lies you understand Doc, she just gets carried away. You know how it is, a tarantula (as if one could be out here) turns out to be a chunk of hair from one of her wigs. That darling dinky little hat, so inexpensive, is really an enormous concoction costing an arm and a leg. Well a hundred and fifty New Stirling to be exact.
You may well look puzzled Doc. Are you sure you won’t have a drink or a smoke? Did you know a century ago these were harmful and illegal? Now of course good citizens regularly enjoy their mind and body enhancement. No, well each man to his own affairs, but I would watch out that the vice squad don’t pick you up for unnatural abstentions.
I was pretty sore about that hat, we pen pushers don’t have New Stirling to throw around. Pen pushers Doc? Trade slang from way, way back before voicewriters were used. As I say there I was working like mad, feeling that the last person in the system I wanted to see was Angel, when she gongs me. Before I have time to push the busy button there she is having hysterics all over my screen.
Angel, by the way that really is her name. Mind as far as looks go her doting parents were not far wrong. The bluest eyes you ever saw and poets don’t begin to do credit to that hair, with features arranged with an out of this system beauty and a figure to match. Heck I’m getting off the subject, easy enough where Angel is concerned.
Well she was saying this character had appeared in her dressing room. She guessed he was not a normal fan, he didn’t offer her a sweat tube or flower hologram. A few years back a fan had given her a real live rose. No, the guy offered her a contract. Of course Angel tells him to go see her agent. “Miss Harp”, he’d replied, “Inter Galactic Shows only do business direct with the performers.” Harp by the way is pure showbiz, it’s Guthenburgher really.
So Angel tells him nonsense, everybody does business through their agent as required by the universal work law and she’d never heard of his outfit any how. So calm as you please (according to Angel) this guy ups and says, “Naturally Miss Harp, this backward system has yet to come in to contact with the rest of civilisation throughout the Galaxy. Strictly speaking we should not be here and we must maintain utmost secrecy. The desire of our board of directors prompts us to take grave risks. They desire an earth being in the show and you are chosen.”
Angel can be quick at times, so she asks the guy if he reckons to be from somewhere outside the solar system how come he looks so human? Still cool as ever he says “Simple, I am projecting an image in the same manner as I am talking to you, mind power. I have transport waiting outside. When you have met the company and talked terms you will be eager to join us. Miss Harp, the Galaxy will be yours.”
Well Angel said O.K., if he’d just wait outside while she finished changing, there was no harm in just looking at the company. The guy actually left after warning her not to get in touch with any one. It was at that point that Angel gonged me and the point in the story where she got really hysterical. She swore that as he went through the door, that so called Galactic citizen turned in to a nine foot lizard, tail and all.
Naturally I told her to calm down. Some chaps who had done a long stint on Venus looked a bit odd. The guy was obviously a rep from the newly planned, ‘Solar System Show’. Likely her agent had told him she was fully booked and the guy was trying to get her to bug out on her contract. She looked at me real cold and said, “You don’t believe me”. Thinking about that hat I didn’t beat about the bush, just told her plain no.
Then she got real mad, screamed I didn’t love her. And there we had been planning to extend our two year mutual dwelling contract! Well she ranted on, saying she would go with him, then I’d be sorry. So I told her, go ahead and while you are at it, ask him if the show could use a good writer.
Doc, you wouldn’t believe such language could come from a girl so pretty as Angel. Finally she started to tear that hat into shreds. Well what would you do Doc? The same as me, I bet. Just break the contact.
Knowing Angel I was not at all surprised when she failed to come back to our dwelling pod. If you know the right people there is still accommodation to be found and of course Angel knows the right people. I had deadlines to meet and didn’t even check the News. Yes I know it’s a responsible citizens duty to check but I had deadlines. When I did check I find there’s a great hoo ha going on over Angel’s disappearance. I contacted friends, both hers and ours. They not only knew nothing but were angry with me for blocking all contact.
Now I was worried. No one could stay mad at Angel for long and after all we did still have our contract. Remembering our last conversation I decided (betting no one else had thought of it) to try all the local funny farms, beg pardon, Emotional Adjustment Facilities. It’s really good of you to give me an appointment so soon. Though to be honest I didn’t think you did pod visits.
Say, Doc, do you know that your tail is showing? You are from the Facility, aren’t you? No I guess not. Angel’s description wasn’t bad. I’d say just over seven feet rather than nine though. Hey! There’s no need to point that thing at me, what ever it is. Now take it easy, you will need some one to take care of Angel and write her parts. I really am a first class writer…..”


(rewritten version 2012)

dedication

For several years I have enjoyed meeting with fellow poets and poetry lovers every other Monday at the Bear in Wantage. There we discuss both our own work and that of other poets both well known and obscure. Many of the poems in the category Wantage Poetry Club were first presented at the Club. That category dedicated to friends in the Club contains the poems which I have not as yet published in a collection.

Copyright

Copyright © 2013 by Pamela Boal. The moral right of the author has been asserted. All right reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval systems, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

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© 2013 Pamela Boal