Fan Fiction |
by Hibiscus
“I think you just take the main road until you reach some sort of cross roads and turn right. And then continue straight until you reach the house.”
Mary and Ariel had decided to drive to the shooting location by themselves, not realizing it was so far from the city. Ariel’s eyes widened as she pulled up the cars already parked in the parking lot of the mansion.
“This is the school that Tuesday goes to.” Ariel explained to Mary. “They needed something with character and this place has plenty of that, don’t you think?”
It did indeed. With long corridors and big airy rooms, it could easily have been a school. Built of white stone, it had ivy climbing on the posts, and the gardens were tended well, cultured properly to let have the place have a sort of wilderness effect on it. The house had a stillness to it, a somnambulant quality to its atmosphere as though it were in hibernation waiting to be filled up with people and lives again.
Ariel breathed in appreciatively.
“The air tastes so nice here.” She said to Mary and Mary gave her an indulgent look.
“Ariel, you are here! Get to Wardrobe; she’s waiting for you and then Makeup. After you are in costume, I’ll talk you through the first scene.” Angela called out from where she was supervising the crew setting up the set.
“All right.” And Ariel moved off to get dressed. She looked around for Mike but didn’t see him anywhere.
After getting into costume, she walked over to the set where she heard Angela speaking to Mike. “Oh so he’s here.” Ariel thought to herself.
“Hey,” Ariel greeted him as she came and sat down beside Mike and they both looked at Angela expectantly.
“Tuesday is different from all the characters you have acted so far,” Angela said. “Your past characters were fiery, intense and bubbled over with emotion. Tuesday is just like a reservoir. She soaks up emotions of others, her eyes wide and her forehead smooth. Even when her heart is breaking, she’ll stay calm. Say, say for example, if Xiao Feng were the sun, Tuesday is the moon. And like the moon, she glows from the light of the sun, ethereal.”
Ariel nodded, listening closely.
“And Tuesday never cries. Even though her family life is crazy, with a mother who dances with the fairies, a sister who has brought shame to the family. Her grandmother is the one who holds the family together but she has no softness left in her. Nothing affects Tuesday, not the taunts of her classmates, nor the words of the people, nor the screams of her grandmother. All she wants is her mother to smile at her once, see her dance onstage. Recognize her. Then she meets Daniel.”
Angela turned to Mike.
“Daniel is the opposite of Tuesday. He shows all his emotions; if he’s hurt, angry, happy or in love. He doesn’t see the necessity of hiding how he feels. He’s from a big family with three brothers and one sister. They are all much older than him and his parents are more often than not out of the country but they have such a close bond with each other that proximity isn’t necessary to reaffirm it. He has a big group of friends and he thinks that if he surrounds himself with people he won’t feel as alone as he does when there is no one around. Except when he meets Tuesday and even when he’s with her, it’s like he is by himself. And this frustrates him to no end. Everyone else he meets wants to be his friend except Tuesday who smiles at him carefully but doesn’t really see him.”
Angela paused.
“Daniel is an artist, he dances well but his passion is photography. And at first his main interest in Tuesday is as a subject for his photographs.”
Ariel leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes and in her mind, the curtains rose.
Tuesday: Scene One
Tuesday was walking carefully in the corridor, making certain to step on only the cracks in the tiles. She was passing the auditorium when a voice made her stop.
She peeked inside and saw that the entire place was drenched in darkness. Thinking that she had been hearing things, Tuesday turned to go. Then she heard the voice again.
She opened the door to the auditorium again and slipped in.
“If Life was a stage and I was a mimic, would you be my silence?” The voice repeated. “And if I asked to breathe you deep into me, would you be the life that coursed down my throat?”
Tuesday leaned forward, fascinated by the intensity of the words.
“When the spotlight shone pools of brilliance, would you mind the words I swallowed up whole? And when the applause refused to come, would you be my smile and desert me completely?”
“What if you were time and I grasped you desperately, would you pry my fingers off and tell me goodbye?”
“And at the end of it all, if you were the curtains would you not rise again for a bloodier encore?”
The lights came on at the end of his last word and Tuesday saw a lone boy standing in the center of a stage and she saw that the first two rows were full of people. They all clapped wildly and the boy bowed smiling.
Tuesday realized she might have intruded on a private concert and in an effort to slip away unnoticed, she walked to the door.
“You!” The voice suddenly called out and Tuesday froze at the door. She looked back and he was running towards her. Giving in to instinct, Tuesday broke into a run, fleeing as though for her life. The Voice followed her, sure footed and nimble. She almost got away but he caught her, hooking his fingers around her wrist and effectively stopping her.
“Why did you run?” The Voice said breathing fast.
Tuesday looked at his brown fingers curled around her wrist curiously and then followed his arm to his shoulder, up his neck, past his full lips to his brown eyes which were fiercely trained on her.
“Because you chased me.” Tuesday replied.
“You were spying on me.” The Voice said accusingly.
“You were speaking so I listened.” Tuesday replied.
“And what did you think of my words?” The Voice asked.
“You hurt here, don’t you?” And Tuesday brought up her free hand to tap his chest.
The Voice reeled back, still holding on to her hand as if knowing that once he let go, she’d be gone.
“How would you know?” He said.
“The spaces between your words told me.” Tuesday told him solemnly.
“Are you new here?” The Voice asked abruptly changing the subject.
“Yes.”
“I’m Daniel Zheng.” The Voice, no, Daniel said.
“Hi.” Tuesday smiled at him.
“Won’t you tell me your name?” Daniel asked.
“No.” Tuesday replied.
“CUT!”
Mike immediately let go of Ariel’s hand and smiled at her politely.
“Good work,” He said and walked away to his trailer.
Ariel stood still for a moment, feeling herself slip back into her own body. She stared after Mike, taken aback at how quickly he had walked away. And then she remembered the words he had said in the garden at the party, “I will never think about you as more than the character, no, you won’t be able to say that Jun Xiang doesn’t learn from his mistakes.”
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Author's Note: Finally! I know some of you may have been wondering at why I called the story Tuesday; lemme explain. I have a full and sincere intention to tell Tuesday's story within Ariel's and while it won't be a continuous play by play of the scenes, I will include the important ones so you can get the gist of it. And that is why I called the story Tuesday. Ah-hem. Okay I'll shut up now.