Nothing Beside Remains

3.19.2005

Bowser's Angels (but they're totally butch, I assure you)

Okay, so it's a shit title. I like how the drawing came out though.

Another KoL commission for Bowser, this time with his friends Adamjirra and Virgo. It's hard to draw three figures in one picture and have them all come out looking right.

Graphite on newsprint, adjusted in Photoshop 'cause graphite is fucking reflective. 2005.

3.02.2005

Karl's Death

***This is an imitation of the story "Gina's Death" by Charles Baxter, done as an assignment for my Short Story class. Also, it's still in progress.***

An elderly man bent down to pet his little dog. A woman polished her sunglasses on the hem of her shirt. The man, looking out the bus window at the people streaking by, allowed his gaze to linger on a pair of French tourists poring over a large map of the city. He thought about being in a strange land, not speaking the language, having to rely on a precious few phrases.

He imagined himself to be a foreigner, though he had lived in the city all his life. nuqDaq 'oH puchpa' 'e'?, he whispered to himself, letting the consonants roll around his tongue. where is the bathroom? Arguably the most important phrase in any language. Like a tourist, he translated awkwardly. 'arlogh Qoylu 'pu'? What time is it?

None of the people he saw outside the window looked like they didn't belong. Even the tourists were part of the landscape. Somehow, they all looked more real than real, like something you would see on TV.

His name was Karl, he was thirty-four years old, and he was a warrior of the Klingon empire. It was Saturday. Convention day. He shifted his gaze back inside the bus. None of the people across from him would meet his eye. He didn't mind, not anymore.

He clenched his hands in his lap, trying hard not to scratch at the prosthetic forehead he wore over his own, real forehead. It made his head look ridged and alien. The latex always make his head feel funny, but he didn't scratch at it. That would have ruined the illusion.

Convention day. One of the few days he could be himself. He wore the full uniform and makeup, and set off to meet his fellow extra-terrestrials.

******************

He remembered hearing, among the usual gossip that took place among the fans, a story about a man who had committed suicide because he had written William Shatner a hundred letters and he'd never answered a single one. Karl had always dismissed it as legend.

Henry Moreau! That had been his name. Dead. Somehow Karl knew that this had actually happened, in real life
.
The man had been a Klingon like himself, but Karl couldn't remember ever having met him. Legend had it that he was insane, even by Trekkie standards. He had never talked to anyone, ever. He just stared out into space with wide, protruding eyes. He didn't have a job, took pills, was the kind of person that gave the rest of the fans a bad name. Nobody knew why he had done it, though everyone had a theory. In order of popularity, he was believed to have been a deranged asylum escapee, a jilted lover (some stories had him as the lover of Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, or both) and an ex-con from Venezuela. He had driven out to Shatner's house and stabbed himself through the heart on the front porch.

Shatner had never written him a single letter, even after he had found out why Henry Moreau had done what he did.

Karl didn't know why he had remembered this just now. He wanted to get to know Henry. He felt like maybe he had just been misunderstood. Even if nobody understood him, Henry was almost as famous as Captain Kirk himself now. Karl wondered if he was in Sto-Vo-Kor now.

He sort of understood why he had done it, though. He had looked death in the face, like an honorable man.
And what was a warrior without his honor?

******************

He met his "friends" outside the hotel. They always did this for the conventions. The motley crew – Karl; Bernard, a fellow Klingon warrior; Dora, a Vulcan; and George the Andorian, who left blue smudges on everything he touched – were united only by their aloneness. Every time a con was in town, they'd go together to the posh hotel and shop and swap stories about their favorite Trek episodes and the guy who had suicided on Shatner's porch. They pretended they couldn't see the giggles and stares and raised eyebrows of the normals who were suddenly wishing they'd chosen a different hotel. Today, they were at the Mariott, the one by the airport.

******************

In the lobby, he studied the check-in girl's face. He had hesitated at the row of hostile faces at the front desk, but her warm, open face beckoned him from the far end. She smiled at him as he walked toward her, exposing two rows of round white teeth, and he almost forgot himself and smiled back. Behind him, Dora was expressionless as always, and Bernard remained hidden behind those stupid non-canon Ray-Bans he always wore. Her nametag read Corrinne, and she said she was happy he had chosen the Hilton today. He was happy too.

For a fleeting moment, he felt compelled to tell her about Henry Moreau, but that was absurd.

Karl thought Corrinne was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Je didn't have much to compare her to, though. The only women he knew were Dora and his mother. Karl hadn't seen his mother since he was eighteen and Dora – well, she was a Vulcan. No emotion. But Corrinne had welcomed him.

She was beautiful, though. Her hair was blonde and curly, and bounced around her shoulders when she moved. Her eyes were round and hazel, like the eyes of a cartoon owl. They make her look innocent but wise at the same time, like someone who would sit with her friends and help them with all their personal problems. Her nose was tiny and perfect. It was the same as it had been when she was a little girl. She looked like she was perfect for her job. She looked like she should be doing something more important.

Karl imagined he was looking at her through the window of a bus. He wondered if he had ever seen her before, but decided he would have remembered.

He wished he could talk to her about Henry Moreau.

******************

Inside the convention hall, his crew went their separate ways. Bernard looked over the tops of his sunglasses at the list of featured speakers. George had already started a trail of blue fingerprints on merchandise. Dora had disappeared as soon as they had stepped through the door. Karl wandered over to the largest booth, where William Shatner was signing autographs.

The booth itself was made of white plastic: a plastic folding table at tis center, and banners of white plastic sheeting. A smaller table off to the side held books and DVDs and photographs of Shatner, which you could buy for only 25% more than the normal price, for convenience. William Shatner was at the center of it all, seated at the table, looking ancient and bored and a little bit resentful. He was signing his name on anything people handed to him and smiling a big fake smile. When Karl reached the front of the line, Shatner looked from his head down to his toes and raised an eyebrow, as if to ask, why? Just like everyone else did.

The man behind the booth reached out mechanically for something to sign. Karl wanted to ask him about Henry Moreau, to raise his eyebrow and ask, why? He produced a coffee shop receipt and got it autographed, never saying a word.

Walking around the convention hall and holding his autograph, he thought again about Henry Moreau and when he did, he felt lost and dizzy, and kept wondering, why? He kept walking, running his fingertips across the signed coffee receipt. All the other people here were like he was, walking around, lost.

He kept walking, circling the hall. He felt embarrassed to be a part of all this.

The hall gave him a funny feeling, all these people milling around, just like him. Dora had once said that they were strangers in a strange land. If he believed that, then they would always be strangers and then...well, no wonder Henry Moreau had put a knife through his own heart, and no wonder his false forehead was always itching. Karl saw his whole life displayed in front of him, like a Star Trek episode. Forty-four minutes, and all the problems solved before the last commercial break. Close by, near the door to the men's room, he saw another Klingon. His headpiece was coming unglued, and he carried a bat'leth made of duct-taped cardboard. Today would be a good day to die, he thought, and translated, Heghlu' meh QaQ jajvam.

Everyone here had to come to a room full of strangers to be themselves.

Karl carried the autograph up to one of the booths.

He saw himself reflected in the knives being sold, distorted, all pinched in the middle. He looked at the him in the blade of a ma'veq, a knife used in ceremonial killings. He felt like this reflection was the real him, and the flesh-and-blood version was just a reflection, a poor copy, like a bad transmission of a TV show. he wished he was more real, just real enough not to have to be fake.

He held the newly purchased ma'veq in one hand and the autograph in the other, and walked back over to the signing booth.

He turned the knife inward to point at his heart, and, thinking about Henry Moreau, he pressed it into his skin a little, just to see what it was like, to try to understand. It hurt, and he felt his hand pulling the knife back, but then he imagined Henry Moreau, with a smiling Corrinne standing by his side, floating in front of him and telling him that this wasn't real, so he got control of his hand again and pressed the blade in a little bit deeper. He felt his heart pulsing: pain, then nothing, then pain. Then it was done, and he didn't need to be at the convention anymore, and he was real and knew why. The ma'veq was deep in his heart, and he had no regrets.

He fell.

Corrinne and William Shatner had both reacted at the same time. They both lurched toward him, and Corrinne got there first. She pulled the knife away from his flesh, and put both of her small hands over his heart. His eyes blinked open one last time, and he whispered "Henry?", but nobody heard or would have understood if they did hear. He lay back, and he welcomed death, because with it came honor, and then he smiled a little, because he had seen Corrinne's face floating above, creased with worry.

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