the one

“Thank you Yip Yip! We’ll be speaking later on these matters!”

“You’re welcome!” gruffed the large, blue creature while shuffling his way out of the same colored coffee shop.

“So… that leaves just you and me, Sandy. ” Eraserhead Man counts the characters off on his yellow hand. “Jer Horne, Benny Horne, Gwin, Doris Drane, Blue Yip Yip… oh, the *rabbits* (!). He shakes his eraser topped head, breathes out heavily. “Oh well, I’ll talk to them individually later. Frank Bowers and Jenny have some large issues going down, Sandy. And Commander Yip Yip — Cookie — is right smack in the middle of it all.”

Suavely dressed Sandy Beech just stared at his director, letting him unwind his ideas as he’s wont to do. He’s *trying* to be patient. It *is* an important role in his career, perhaps a defining one. He decides to simply nod instead of speak at EM’s implied prompt for a response. Auteurs needs affirmation. Over and over. He’ll give him this right now and nothing more. After nodding, he settles back in his golden seat.

EM leans forward at the same time, reaches over and pats Sandy’s nearest foot to further get his attention. “But *you*. I wanted to keep this just to ourselves, Sandy, so that’s why we’re here. Inside. “I consider *your* role in this production the most important. Sure, sure, Chloe’s has elevated as well, and she’s certainly the principle female protagonist what with this new payoff I’m giving her. Which means she’s the love interest you’ve been wondering about, Sandy. Chloe’s the one.”

Sandy sits back up, interested now. “You mean All Blue?”

“No Sandy, I want to stop you right there. That’s a mythological term borrowed from your source character. Hmm…” EM repeatedly snaps his stubby yellow fingers, trying to get the name. “Sanji,” he comes up with. “Yeah. But your character is different. Just like Frank *borrows* from both Frank of ‘Donnie Darko’ — love that film, by the way — and also Frank Bowers of the ‘Life is Strange’ production. Another great work, especially using certain edits. That series gave me the idea for multiple plot lines diverging off from each other.” EM here raises his hands in front of him and spreads his fingers out.

“What, then?” Sandy Beech was both excited and irritated at once.

“Get this, Sandy. Not All Blue. All *Orange*. It’s something you saw as a child. Now pay attention here. It wasn’t your mother — that would be too inappropriate — not your aunt, *maybe* a cousin or maybe just someone who lives on your street. But you saw a person, a *woman*, turn into a doll while a kid. And then you saw the container where they put her after the transmutation — like we had Sally transmuted from an ordinary woman in the shoot several days back.

“I remember,” offered Sandy, trying to resist the impulse to tap his fingers impatiently against the arm of his golden chair. He stared as graciously as possible once more.

“But the container,” continued EM, “had only one opening, a round one. And through that opening you saw a navel, a belly button, framed as perfectly as possible within it. Like an orange with a navel. And that started your life long search for All Orange, the whole shebang. And along with that, the obsession with cooking with oranges — souffles, cakes, pies, you name it. And, of course, the, er, doll peddling.” He paused — another response was needed, Sandy sensed.

“And this — doll — is Chloe. Doris Drane I mean.”

“Right you are. And I’m $50,000 lindens poorer because of it. We just have to think of the setting, the lighting and so on. But that’s the pivotal vision I had. A navel in a round opening. An orange.”

I wonder what Chloe thinks about all this, Sandy then ponders. I’ll have to ask her the first chance I get. Maybe an, ahem, accidental rendezvous is needed tonight, hehe.