#but then comes to hurt with holly in despair and locking herself in her tower room
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Ngl would have honestly preferred if Holly's and Poppy's debuts in the Ever After High episodes had been similar to their doll diaries versus what we ended up getting.
#like i dunno its just more interesting to me#and sure the episodes had a short format#but you could just split it into parts really#as the doll diaries had holly fighting to get her sister into the school#legacy day having proven the no story rule for poppy wrong#let alone holly with unknowingly giles aid finding a book to use against milton#and poppy does briefly quit cause duchess is a bitch#but then comes to hurt with holly in despair and locking herself in her tower room#and it gets to the point holly's hair overgrows and everything and people become worried about rapunzels story#and when she finds out poppy instantly returns to school with zero hesitaiton and armed with her scissors#cuts through the walls of hair until she reaches holly finally and comforts her obviously#but when poppy tries to point out she has no story#holly reveals she wrote poppy one#aka one about poppy saving her sister#and this and hollys words convince poppy to stay#also yes holly is a writer#the episodes never mention this#its only in the diaries and books for some reason#a crime really an episode with holly writing would have been good
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Three Friends And A Parrot
Squawk! Squawk! Squawk!
“What’s with all these birds?”
In cages. On the counter. On the floor beside the counter. On the stool that is set to the side, in the corner, on the floor, which is beside the counter.
And by the corner, some hanging ones. There is wood and there is metal.
Many birds—all kinds of different colors, beaks, talons, squawks. All kinds of different songs. All different kinds of feathers and wings and bleeding eyes.
With three friends, also beside the counter, examining the birds or being distracted by screen signals.
“Hmm?”
A small television is blaring. There are figures displayed on it, stuck in some scene, acting out some scenario—making sense of an imaginary world.
“Oh, I don’t know. Some guy with a weird face dropped them off. Brought them all in while I was in the back. He was gone before I came out. Left a note. It said: ‘Thanks for the birds!’. Makes about as much sense as you think it does. Why would he be thanking me for the birds? Who knows.”
One of the actors is performing a kiss on another actress. She is deep in his arms, slouching. He towers over her, aping her lips with his maw.
He’s wondering if she actually feels anything. He knows they’re just acting, but they’ve been spending a lot of time together—and she’s quite beautiful. Almost too beautiful. Like how a good actress should be.
“Wait, if you were in the back, then how did you see his face?”
She’s trying to push him off but he persists. One wonders if it is part of the performance or if she’s really just tired of his mouth. Who knows.
“Hmm?”
The actress is wondering if it’s all worth it.
She came to the town to be an actress, especially a famous one—they all want to be famous. But so far she’s been met with nothing but cruelty, malice, insolence—and most everyone thinks all an actress is good for is kissing, dancing, and playing the part.
“You said he had a weird face. How do you know he had a weird face?”
All the birds keep singing. He’s pouring himself a glass of whiskey now. She’s smoking a cigarette. Are they still on script?
“Uh, the security camera. Had a messy face. Split in two almost. Patches of hair. Strings sticking out of his cheeks. I can’t explain it—you’ll have to see for yourself. I can show you if you want—after this is over. ”
They are arguing now. About something—nobody can discern what exactly. She seems sad to be here—she seems sad to be anywhere—moping around the room, dragging her dress like a ball and chain.
Why isn’t she the focus of the story? At least, that’s what she wants. He just wants to get the job done. And maybe sleep with her. She is quite gorgeous. Her legs are worthy of the role.
She takes a seat on a nearby chair. He’s outside on the balcony, probably brooding, but in actuality, he’s being peppered by assistants with perfume and cream. He’s got to look pretty for the camera.
She could care less. He’s a sweaty, hulking beast—a gorilla of a man.
“He just left all these damn birds? That’s strange as shit.”
She is supposed to be appearing as despairing, but she is such a talent that she can appear as anything while still pondering the nature of her real life—maybe she should just go back home?
It wasn’t worth it to come all the way out here. They treat her like a doll playing dress-up out here.
Squawk! Squawk! Squawk!
Danny taps the bars of one of the abandoned avian. But it proves itself to be a feathery fiend instead, jabbing its beak at his loose fingers.
“Ouch!” Danny yelps, kicking the cage, rattling its contents.
All the birds are swollen now. Their puffs are screeching thunderbolts, breaking around the aisles, the ceiling, the floor—finally collapsing back in the corner, beside the counter.
Nobody here is particularly fond of them. But they are curious.
“Strangest thing I’ve ever seen.”
The actress is grateful. It is intermission.
Beyond the constructs of this artifice, the actors gather in clusters. Assistants scurry to appeal to every whim these sappers have, bringing them treats, delicacies, comforts. The gorilla actor approaches the legs-in-dress actress, cornering her by a confection table.
The actress attempts an escape, but is thwarted. He is a sturdy man of reasonable size, and he isn’t going to go away. He grabs her arm with all his might. There is an ache in his eyes.
He insists, leaning into her. Her back strikes the table. His breath smells like vodka and cheese.
The actor is playing his part well, but the actress is unresponsive. It seems she is falling apart. Or perhaps exhausted of playing everyone except herself.
She didn’t know what to do about him. He’d been hinting and scheming at her for a while. Just a taste, he says.
Squawk! Squawk! Squawk!
Dennis increases the volume on the television. Danny takes a seat at the counter. He’s been thinking about some things lately. Donnie thinks he’s been a too sour. So he starts chiding the birds, pelting them with seeds, annoyed. At least the man left food for them.
The actor shoves his chest into the actress’s chin, seizing her arms back with his, chomping at her neck. She’s shaking, kneeing his ribs, but he pushes so close that their bodies become key and lock.
I know this is what you want, he whispers. I’ve seen it in your eyes.
She almost laughs, but doesn’t—not for fear of reproach, but because he didn’t deserve to know how ridiculous he sounded. Let the little man have his fever dream. She thought of him as such a small man.
His claws pickle up her hip, hooks digging into the side of her rear cheek. Of all the things in the world, she wished she could have belched at that moment. In his face—make him breathe it. She wouldn’t seem like such a lady then.
“Dennis, did your boss say if you were hiring? I’ve got a lot of time on my hands now, I’m wondering about—”
“—I know what you’re wondering about. Donnie told me. Holly broke up with you. Kicked you out and everything. Found you were cheating—hey, no judgments here. If you play the game there’s always a chance you’ll lose.
Squawk! Squawk! Squawk!
Donnie snickers. “She was bound to get hurt.”
Forlorn, Danny gawks at the distance—though being an adult video store, the horizon was blotched by kitschy wallpaper. Silhouettes of presumably nude females crouching in various poses. One wonders if the model pose is itself a cage—or perhaps, it is human nature for all to posture in some way through their lives?
At least some are paid for it.
“I miss Holly a lot. She was—I don’t know. Donnie said you were really good at advice, Dennis. Do you have any advice for me?”
Donnie pokes through these miniature prisons, humming himself, with the same poise and determination of a lucid zookeeper. The birds gradually lower their shrieking to an intermittent silence, as Donnie pores his egg-shaped dome closer and closer to their dimension.
They are stone now. Victims of a medusa gaze.
But then the birds, all doll eyes deep into a daze, following Donnie’s every careful movement—they begin humming along, higher and higher, until finally they’re spewing saccharine hymns for the ears of the room to proselytize.
Now their songs are beautiful. Not a single squawk. Bird tamed by the beast.
The actress is fuming now. The actor’s breath is a torrid squelch. He clamps like a suckerfish on her, sucking and leeching spots of skin.
I want you. I desire you. I require you... he moans, while she gulps.
‘Should I swallow my pride?’, she asks herself. Conversations like this were the only way she kept sane. Nobody else could hear her speak.
You have no desire, she slaps him. You have only lust.
The gorilla growls, baring its primal fangs. But saved by the monotonous chronology of routine existence, they are called back to the stage—it is time for the next scene.
This one is her favorite. She murders him.
The actor takes his place, lounging on an armchair, an empty bourbon bottle on his lap. She creeps toward him, the delicate steps of a ballerina tiptoeing across the brows of a sleeping God—a cosmic dance to seal fate for once and for all.
A knife tucked between her fingers. Cold and damning. Like holding the fang of the snake that bit your baby in its crib.
The director demands tremors, shivers, doubts. The actress delivers immolating loathing for both self and life. She stands behind the actor, combing his hair tenderly. The scalp feels greasy, flaky. Despicable that he couldn’t have washed it before shooting.
The actress clenches her fingers around his skull like a crane sweeping its prey from the surface of the waves. She gazes outward. Into the infinite stars—that edgeless deep.
‘Should I swallow my pride?’, she probes her annals of reason one last time.
My lament is done, she murmurs, voice failing. Death is a welcome guest...
Stab. Stab. Stab.
Cut.
That’s it. We’re finished. Perfect.
“That’s what Holly said to me—I tried to apologize. She just doesn’t understand.”
Suddenly the birds are quiet. Donnie lights a cigarette. Takes a long puff then releases only half of it. The rest he keeps for himself. There’s an afterglow to him.
Dennis sighs. “Look, what do you expect to happen? That there’ll be this gigantic, cathartic moment where after shattering her heart in to a trillion different pieces, you say you’re sorry and suddenly everything is alright again?”
Danny shakes his head. Gestures to Donnie for a drag—a good drag, dragging through your throat like a hardened larvae on a pile of mud. Little buffeting claws scurrying down a hole.
“I told her I’d love her forever—funny how things can fade so quickly.”
Danny passes it back. Despite all his flaws, he’s not selfish.
Dennis smirks, turns off the television. “I think you deserve it. But I’m your friend so I’ll help you out.”
They both go in the backroom, probably to find some paperwork, some phone numbers, some kind of personhood stifled from itself in the needless pursuit of needy work.
Donnie stares at the screen. He’s already forgotten what they were watching. Not that he was watching it or anything. But he does wonder how it ends.
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