{"id":2060,"date":"2016-01-23T17:38:21","date_gmt":"2016-01-23T22:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/?page_id=2060"},"modified":"2016-01-30T14:05:51","modified_gmt":"2016-01-30T19:05:51","slug":"scene-14","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/?page_id=2060","title":{"rendered":"Scene 14"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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\"14death02\"<\/p>\n

A blood-spattered Amanda stands before Jake, holding his .44 revolver at her side.<\/em><\/p>\n

Jake<\/h4>\n

Shot her six times? I\u2019m impressed.<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/h4>\n

Not so impressive, only hit her twice, once right between the eyes. She got off four, but never able to focus, her last two, she was already dead. Like a snake.<\/p>\n

Jake<\/h4>\n

(cheerfully)<\/em> Well, between the eyes has always worked pretty good for me.<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/h4>\n

(screaming and throwing the gun hard into the wall next to Jake\u2019s head)<\/em> You fucking bastard! You smirking sonofabitch! I didn\u2019t want this!<\/p>\n

Jake<\/h4>\n

(shouting)<\/em> Welcome to my parlor, Amanda! You wanted to be part of it? Welcome to my parlor!<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/h4>\n

Goddamn you! If you hadn\u2019t come back \u2026<\/p>\n

Jake<\/h4>\n

But I had to come back. You know that. I could have taken her, you know, kept that blood off your lovely hands. By the way, how come you didn\u2019t just fry her with a lightning bolt? Only two hits out of six, you were taking a pretty big risk out there.<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/h4>\n

You were listening? \u00a0Oh my god \u2026<\/p>\n

Jake<\/h4>\n

I don\u2019t play amateur hour, kiddo.<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/h4>\n

You were listening in all along?<\/p>\n

Jake<\/h4>\n

Of course I listened. You think I don\u2019t have this whole place wired? I\u2019m something of a raving paranoid myself \u2014 delusions of people being out to kill me, that sort of thing \u2014 and being paranoid, I figured you weren\u2019t quite so simple either.<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/h4>\n

You must think I\u2019m \u2026<\/p>\n

Jake<\/h4>\n

Some kind of killer queen?<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/h4>\n

Some kind of killer freak!<\/p>\n

Jake<\/h4>\n

Maybe that\u2019s one of your endearing charms, cherie. Look who you\u2019re talking to. So why didn\u2019t you use your lightning?<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/h4>\n

Not reliable. I\u2019ve been on a streak today, but lightning isn\u2019t like using a scalpel or reading people\u2019s heads, and frankly I\u2019ve been bluffing my ass off. And as you said, too much is riding on your tower.<\/p>\n

Jake<\/h4>\n

You believe?<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/h4>\n

Maybe.<\/p>\n

Jake<\/h4>\n

Hmmm. That was far too easy. Way too fast.<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/h4>\n

With all my moorings ripped loose, what\u2019s to slow me down? Like converting on my road to Damascus. Anyway, thank god it\u2019s over.<\/p>\n

Jake<\/h4>\n

Afraid not. There\u2019s a bit more killing to get done. (snatches his gun back)<\/em> O\u2019Leary making this move is exactly what I\u2019ve been waiting for. Now I\u2019ve got license to kill, and I won\u2019t miss \u2026<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/h4>\n

Jake?<\/p>\n

Jake<\/h4>\n

Oh no you don\u2019t! You\u2019ve played your part. His ass is mine, and he\u2019s near, very, very near. He\u2019ll assume the sound of shots means I\u2019m dead, and he\u2019s just waiting for the call. Do a \u2026 you know, your psychic thing, can you count how many folks are in this building? Can you do that?<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/h4>\n

Maybe. (pause)<\/em> Three. Whoa. You, me, Bloody Lane is off the screen, so who\u2019s number 3? How did you \u2026?<\/p>\n

Jake<\/h4>\n

O\u2019Leary is inside. Thinks he\u2019s cleverly infiltrated the place. Doesn\u2019t know I deliberately fed him what he thinks is my secret entrance. He\u2019s set it up to be the one to discover my body and tearfully announce my tragic demise. And take over my operation. As a temporary emergency measure, of course. Right now, he\u2019s waiting for the call from Lane. And this time it\u2019s personal. Frankly, my dear, I do give a damn. I\u2019m going to enjoy this! (reloads his gun)<\/em><\/p>\n

Amanda<\/h4>\n

Jake? Hang on a minute. I don\u2019t think O\u2019Leary is going anywhere. About your tower, you poor, poor man. I didn\u2019t finish that, uh, biblical part. The rest of it goes: And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. But the killer angel Michael spoke: oh Lord, accursed they be to challenge thy glory, yet some among them are wickedly clever, and may strive to make reason of their confounded languages, and raise their tower even yet.<\/p>\n

Jake<\/h4>\n

I don\u2019t think I\u2019m going to like this version \u2026<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/h4>\n

You shouldn\u2019t. So the Lord said, you speak truth, my most trusted servant, so to damn their attempt, not only shall I rend their language into many, but I will cast upon their minds that the many languages they speak are all as one, and thus will they be condemned to chaos, thinking they understand when they understand not. The blessed will only be those who know they understand not. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.<\/p>\n

Your tower will never happen.<\/p>\n

Jake<\/h4>\n

But you said it yourself, that I was reaching unto heaven.<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/h4>\n

And such is your crime! In the eyes of the destroyers. Your vision is false! Jake, I didn\u2019t want to tell you, but when I touched you and saw your tower, I saw something terrible. Yes, I saw a plain of shining white stretching across dead Africa as far as the eye could see, but it was a white plain of crushed skulls, the skulls of those destroyed like the dead slaves of the pharaoh, the skulls of those burned and withered while building it.<\/p>\n

Jake<\/h4>\n

No!<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/h4>\n

I see the sun shining, but it\u2019s the fierce blinding glow at the instant of explosion. Up this close, the shining silvery walls are cracked and brittle, crumbling under my very gaze. \u00a0I look up in terror, my eyes going up and up as the terror grows until finally I have to walk away lest I begin screaming and never stop. I finally turn away. Still it\u2019s huge, but the once towering spires are now broken and twisted and scorched. Nothing moves except the shimmer of radiation rising from the scorched, crushed bones. There is no life inside. The workers are all dead. The massive ramps leading up the sides are littered with their bones. The machinery inside no longer moves, all rusting and melted and rotting away, as the lower floors fill with powdered bone and shifting sand. The sand holds no footprints, no living soul has been there for years. Nothing will ever live there. \u00a0Nothing can be built there. It\u2019s all, it\u2019s all \u2026 (Jake hides his face in his hands)<\/em> Welcome to my<\/em> parlor, Jake. Welcome to mine. Right now, I wish you did doubt my visions. I wish I was blind like sometimes you wish you were dead. But we\u2019re neither, and that\u2019s our hell.<\/p>\n

Jake<\/h4>\n

But not yet, right? Tell me, nobody else sees this, sees what you saw, do they?<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/h4>\n

I don\u2019t think so. Not yet.<\/p>\n

Jake<\/h4>\n

How long until, until it\u2019s over? Hell taking over the earth.<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/h4>\n

No idea, no idea at all. If at all. Time\u2019s too slippery, past, present, future strewn all over.<\/p>\n

Jake<\/h4>\n

(laughing, slightly hysterically)<\/em> Then there\u2019s still hope, isn\u2019t there!<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/h4>\n

Not for your tower.<\/p>\n

Jake<\/h4>\n

I wasn\u2019t talking about that goddamned tower.<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/h4>\n

For you?<\/p>\n

Jake<\/h4>\n

For any of us. And what\u2019s your hope?<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/h4>\n

I don\u2019t know. But maybe it\u2019s like how they say a shark dies if it doesn\u2019t keep moving. Well, I was dying. \u00a0Then I saw you, saw you completely wrong, as it turned out, but it got me up and I started walking. Towards some murderous carny barker, the great deceiver. Nothing about you is real \u2026<\/p>\n

Jake<\/h4>\n

Two mirrors a\u2019gawking at each other. I move. I rule. I build. I kill. \u00a0And I gleefully admit I understand not. In the end, I don\u2019t give a rat\u2019s ass about that tower. Maybe it being fake makes it better still. As long as the other destroyers see the tower growing, or think they see it growing, their hands are stayed, they\u2019ll keep out of my way, at the least they\u2019ll fear me.\u00a0 As well they might.\u00a0 For one thing, you weren\u2019t in the mix. We\u2019ve gone off-script, and destiny is damned. Hope is still in play. That\u2019s all I seek. And amusement.<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/h4>\n

Power?<\/p>\n

Jake<\/h4>\n

Power is fun too. But right now (hefts his pistol)<\/em> there’s a matter of bloody vengeance. Amanda, when I come back, I hope you\u2019ll still be here. I want you to stay.<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/h4>\n

Why, Jake?<\/p>\n

Jake<\/h4>\n

(shouting)<\/em> Because you amuse me, dammit! Because you amuse me. I haven\u2019t had so much fun since we tipped over the outhouse. Just be around, I don\u2019t care what you do. Just be around. You\u2019ll be my lucky piece.<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/h4>\n

Good luck or bad?<\/p>\n

Jake<\/h4>\n

Don\u2019t care. Maybe like the song goes, if it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all..<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/h4>\n

Jake, I\u2019m dangerous. I have this habit of \u2026 uh \u2026 freaking people out. People die around me and \u2026 and I really am quite mad.<\/p>\n

Jake<\/h4>\n

You and me both. Come to think of it, that\u2019s an even better foundation for a relationship than mutually assured destruction.<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/h4>\n

At least you\u2019re one smooth-talking devil. And if the darkness overtakes us all?<\/p>\n

Jake<\/h4>\n

Then I roast in hell forever.<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/h4>\n

Jake?<\/p>\n

Jake<\/h4>\n

What?<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/h4>\n

Wait till the phone rings before you take him. That\u2019s the moment to come up behind. That\u2019s your best play.<\/p>\n

Jake<\/h4>\n

(pauses, raises his eyebrows)<\/em> Okay. (picks up the phone)<\/em> Security? \u2026 Restore full coverage for all incoming. We\u2019re back in business \u2026 No hindrance for anyone leaving, at least for one, no, make that two hours. \u2026 Got it? (hangs up, turns to Amanda)<\/em> Please stay?<\/p>\n

(their hands reach out and touch, he exits)<\/em><\/p>\n

Amanda<\/h4>\n

(pauses)<\/em> Go to, my beautiful dreamer. Go to. (pauses, then reaches for the phone)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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previous scene next scene A blood-spattered Amanda stands before Jake, holding his .44 revolver at her side. Jake Shot her six times? I\u2019m impressed. Amanda Not so impressive, only hit her twice, once right between the eyes. She got off … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2060","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P77v4L-xe","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2060"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2360,"href":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2060\/revisions\/2360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}