Forum Overview :: Cabaret Voltron :: This is probably about Semiology. Who knows.

[quote name="Colonel K"]I'm not entirely sure what this is. It gestated/congealed during a period of sleeplessness, and is, more than anything else, an attempt to transcribe thoughts that included getting high on toothpaste. I'm blaming <u>that</u> on <a href="http://www.leisuretown.com/library/ti/ " >Leisuretown</a>, and everything that follows on myself. <b>The Almost Red Man of Very Great Importance</b> ---------------------------------------------------------------- It’s mostly guesswork, but I’ve almost figured this out. You keep feeding in coins, and the claw behind the glass keeps fishing around. That’s all there is. But when the lopsided metal hand encircles your prize and stops, its middle finger swings loose just long enough for you to realise that you’ve been flipped off by a machine, upside-down. Shaking it, punching it and frustrated when the security guards show up and won’t believe you, leading the way to a room with no windows, but a couch. There’s a man sitting on it. They push me towards him, and I sit down. Nobody moves, but something blinks off and the guards have left us alone for a few minutes before the man asks me a question. He coughs. ‘Excuse me.’ I look at the ceiling, and then the other side of the room, like I just heard something. The couch coughs again. ‘Excuse me, but I asked you a question.’ He’s wearing a red suit, redder than anything I’ve ever seen except the couch we’re sitting on. Even his shoes are red, and I can’t tell whether his pants are just short and he has red legs, or if he’s wearing red socks. ‘-asked, you see.’ Red socks. I’m disappointed, actually. What if his entire body is the colour of his tie? That’s red, too. ‘-and that’s why I-’ He’s still talking about that question. I can’t even remember what it was, now. ‘What did you ask?’ I ask him. He stops talking, and stares. ‘I asked what you’re doing here, and then-’ ‘Are those red socks?’ ‘…thought you could – red? Of course they are. They certainly are red socks. What else might they be?’ The man on the couch has a point. I explain how I thought that maybe he wasn’t wearing any socks. He sniffs. ‘Ridiculous.’ ‘So what’s it for, then. Why the couch?’ ‘The couch?’ ‘And your suit.’ ‘My suit?’ ‘And the socks.’ ‘I explained that.’ This isn’t working, and he’s getting confused. I’m starting to laugh. ‘Stop that-’ ‘But you were here when I came in. Sitting there.’ ‘-sit here every day, because there’s a couch.’ And he starts to blush, or maybe he’s getting angry. I keep going. ‘It seems a little odd, that’s all.’ ‘-perfect coincidence. I just happened to sit down here, and you came in and I asked.’ I realise that he was embarrassed, before. ‘-you see. And that’s perfectly reasonable.’ He stops but I’m still laughing, and he’s still turning red. He is red now, and I’m staring at him but he doesn’t know why. I don’t, either. ‘Stop that.’ He flaps his hands – I can hardly breathe – and he stands up on his couch. ‘Stop it! Stop that! Stop!’ He stamps his foot and glares, glares down at me as I lean back and empty myself with laughter. Finally, I open my eyes but he’s still there, and I can hardly seem him for the couch. I try to speak, but he’s shouting again. ‘Your socks are blue, you son of a bitch! I asked you and you said they were-’ ‘-when you came in, and I wanted to know why-’ but I can only see his feet, now. A pair of navy coloured feet, hopping and hopping from one side to the other. And when they go limp and one sock, two socks, go sailing across the room, I wonder why he didn’t laugh back. [/quote]