The Stranger: Chapter 1

The following story is true.

Only the names, places, dates, times, events, motivations, personalities, genders and species have been changed.

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Thought Experiments #4:

The Stranger

A “fanfic”
By McPoodle

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Dedicated to all of the groups of would-be friends out there that fell apart for lack of a Twilight Sparkle.

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Chapter 1

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Well we all have a face
That we hide away forever,
And we take them out and show ourselves
When everyone has gone.
Some are satin, some are steel,
Some are silk and some are leather.
They're the faces of the Stranger
But we love to try them on.

— “The Stranger”, Billy Joel

The door to the apartment burst open with a thud. A young woman fell through the opening and landed face-first on the tile flooring, scattering the armful of mail she had brought with her in all directions. Behind her could be heard the roaring of two rival engines of destruction.

The woman flipped over, her face pale and her eyes nearly dilated with terror.

An unidentified male, his voice distorted, scream-sang about how he was going to “ream” every member of the population of individuals who slept with their mothers. The voice was so loud it was causing all the windows in the apartment complex to rattle in unison.

The woman’s eyes were fixed on the face of a giant that loomed over the entire complex, his own eyes hooded as he judged the worthiness of those caught in his gaze. Gradually, she realized that it was only a billboard that she was looking at, so large that it blocked out the sky. “Watch Armando Maldonado on Channel 8 at 6 and 11,” the sign instructed her, “for All the News You Need to Know.”

With the kick of a foot, she managed to get the door shut, which partially shut out the sounds of the angry man outside. The woman started breathing again, gradually regaining control of her runaway heartbeat. Scooting backwards, she raised herself up into a sitting position.

The woman was in her late twenties. She was wearing a blue denim skirt and an embroidered white t-shirt, with a pair of open-toed wedge sandals on her feet. Her long black hair was loose, and she was wearing a pair of red oval-rimmed clear glasses. Her eyes were brown, and her skin was on the darker end of the Caucasian spectrum.

At the moment, the center of her attention appeared to be her hands, which she examined in apparent amazement. “Why do these things look so familiar?” she muttered under her breath.

To her left, a door was suddenly opened and then closed, and a young man walked down a short hallway towards her. “Are you alright, Sis?” the man asked in a near monotone. The man was wearing white sneakers, blue jeans, and another white shirt with an embroidered design: a cartoon of a young boy in a trench coat with hair like a scythe, in the middle of a tantrum. “What’s wrong with you people?!” read the words written under him.

Sara opened and closed her mouth a few times, making a strange squeaking sound. Then she closed her eyes and concentrated. “I’m...fine,” she said, her voice changing octaves between words. She reached her hand up towards the young man, for him to lift her to her feet.

The man backed away from the hand in a panic, his eyes wide. “I’ll...I’ll get dressed for tonight, OK?” he asked. He returned to the door he had come from. As he reached for the doorknob, a blue bolt of static electricity leapt from his hand to the bare metal. “Ow!” the man exclaimed, before using the knob to return to his room.

“Sister,” the woman said to herself. She looked down at the mail scattered around her, and set about collecting them together, although she proved remarkably clumsy in the use of her hands. There was a catalog of Halloween-related memorabilia addressed to “Sara Scribner”, bank statements for both Sara and Jeff Scribner, and NetFlix and Amazon packages addressed to Jeff Scribner. She pointed at herself, saying “Sara” to herself. Then she pointed at the closed door, saying softly, “Jeff. Jeff, Jeff, Jeff, Jeff.” She slowly raised her eyes to the level of where Jeff’s head had once been, and groaned.

She used her hands to lift herself up enough to get her legs under her, and then slowly tried to stand. She slipped, failed to use the wall to stop her descent, and ended up on the floor again. A second attempt saw her wobble and bounce off of both walls before she kicked off her footwear, leaving her standing. Smiling, she took a step, and once again began stumbling, catching herself on the back of a couch.

This put her in the living room. The couch faced a wide-screen TV, and next to that was an...

“Embroidery machine,” Sara said confidently, before she frowned. “Wait, how did I know that?” She shook her head. “Later. Need to get dressed.” She pointed forward. “Living room.” She turned her head, and identified the adjoining room to her right: “Kitchen.” She awkwardly turned around, using the couch to support her, and pointed towards the direction she was now facing. “Jeff’s room.” The hallway that Jeff’s room connected to turned a corner and continued out of Sara’s sight. “My room?” she finished, continuing to point forward. “Well, here goes nothing.” She took a step forward, and was surprised by a strand of something that brushed past her face. As she tried to move away from it, she was contacted by another strand, and another. She looked up, to see that the thin blue strands were all attached to a bulbous body that lowered itself towards her...

Sara fell backwards in fright against the back of the sofa, out of range of whatever it was that tried to attack her. She could now see that it was in fact a stuffed animal, a jellyfish, that had been mounted to the ceiling with elastic thread.

She stared at it flabbergasted, for a few seconds, before shaking her head incredulously. “‘What’s wrong with you people,’ indeed!” she exclaimed. With a smile, she reached up with a closed hand and lightly batted at the toy before stopping herself. “Nope,” she addressed her fist as she opened it up into a hand. “That’s better.” She tapped the jellyfish once with the tips of her fingers, and then set off down the hallway.

Sara’s gait was really closer to a serious of controlled falls than anything that could strictly be called “walking”. Turning the corner, she spotted two doors: an open door into a dark room facing Jeff’s door, and a closed door at the end of the short hallway.

She walked into the dark room, and fumbled around for a switch. She found the fan switch first, but eventually got the lights on, revealing a small bathroom. On her right was a sink and a toilet, before her was a shower curtain with a map of the world painted on it, and on her left was a towel rack and a framed poster. From the relative lack of toiletries on the counter, this was obviously a guy’s bathroom.

The poster depicted a white anthropomorphized duck in a yellow trench coat and burgundy-colored wide-brimmed hat. He was holding a chainsaw in both hands, with a look of utter insanity swirling in his eyes. “A cute little fluffy bunny rabbit?” the mad duck asked. “Where?!?!” The poster was signed by Sara Scribner.

Sara turned around, and got a good look at herself in the wall mirror located behind the sink. She smiled to herself, and then quickly closed her mouth in shock at something she saw. She then reached up and flicked an ear a couple of times with her hand. “I think they’re broken,” she said to herself. Looking carefully at her reflection, she roughly snatched off her glasses with one hand, closed one eye, and experimentally reached up with the thumb of her free hand to completely cover that eye. After putting the glasses back on again, she then held her rather small thumb at arm’s length to examine it. “That’s just not right!” she mumbled to herself with a grimace.

She then took in the embroidered design her reflection was wearing. It was a cartoon girl, in a style similar to that of the cartoon boy on Jeff’s shirt. The girl’s eyes were squinted, and she looked to be in a state of perpetual grievance against the world and those who ran it. It took a bit of puzzling, and looking down at her shirt several times, but eventually she worked out that the quote beneath the cartoon girl read “Why do you have to have a head?”

“Well!” Sara said to herself. “Some...body’s not a very happy camper.”

She was about to walk out of the room, when she noticed that something was taped to the back of the bathroom door. Stepping back, she closed it to get a good look.

What she saw was a reproduction of the painting The Scream, by Edvard Munch. She gave the image a puzzled look, before turning her head to look at the shower curtain: Jeff Scribner had set things up so that the first thing he saw every time he emerged from the shower was the best-known look of terror of all time.

She opened the door, to see Jeff himself standing outside his open door. He was wearing a dress suit and tie, but his hair was somewhat mussed. Behind him, Sara caught a glimpse of the corner of a bed, a small TV on a stand with assorted electronics, and a computer monitor on a desk. Next to the monitor was a small stuffed animal, turned so that it’s back was all anybody sitting in the computer chair would see.

Jeff swiftly closed the bedroom door behind him. “Aren’t you getting dressed?” he asked.

“Sure!” Sara exclaimed, scooting past him to reach the door of her bedroom. “Just going there now.” She noticed how Jeff edged nervously away from her when they were in danger of touching. With a sudden thought, she turned. “Um, Jeff!” she cried out.

“Yes?” he asked.

“What do you think about the weather today?” she asked. She attached an enormous amount of importance to such an innocuous-sounding question.

“The weather,” he said dully. “I didn’t even really notice the weather today. I guess it was OK.”

“OK,” she said, looking a bit disappointed at his answer. She pointed at the door. “Dressed,” she said.

“Yes,” he said with a slight smile. “You do that.”

Sara looked at the doorknob for a second, then reached out and grabbed it with an anticipatory wince, but nothing harmful appeared to happen to her, so she turned the knob and went inside.

# # #

Sara’s bedroom also had a bed, television and electronics. There was a desk, but no computer. The desk in fact was a draughtsman’s desk instead of an office desk, although with all of the books stacked atop it, there didn’t appear to be any way to actually draw anything on it. Sara was drawn to the two most visible of the stacked books: Collected Slave Testimony, resting on top of The Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle Treasury. Turning her head, Sara saw an attached bathroom fitted out with dozens of different health and beauty care products, and a walk-in shower. There was plenty of art on the walls, professional posters from a wide variety of animated films and series, but absolutely nothing with her name on it.

The woman made a beeline for the cart with the electronics, wheeling it around to get to the back, and quickly following where the wires went with her eyes.

“Amp...pre-amp...video...processing...thingee...” she muttered under her breath. “I think I can work with that,” she concluded. “Assuming I retain any of it.”

After putting the cart back the way she found it, Sara sought out a nearby rack with both DVDs and CDs on it. Her attention was drawn to the latter, and she spent several minutes scanning the titles, but apparently failed to find what she was looking for.

As she was lost in contemplation of her CD collection, the sound of a cash register suddenly rang from inside the pocket of her skirt. Cautiously, Sara reached inside, and removed an iPhone with a bright orange case. A notice on the screen informed her that she had made a sale to “ShooBeeDoo-Crafts” for one “Celest. Kit”.

Following an instruction on the screen, she slid her finger across the screen to unlock it, and gazed down in wonder at the large number of icons and file folders. She started tapping idly at some of the folders, but then stopped and put the phone back in her pocket, saying, “I’ll have time for that later. Hopefully.”

Continuing her survey, Sara found a walk-in closet with what looked like hundreds of separate articles of clothing. The woman looked back and forth between the various pieces with a growing sense of uncertainty, then stumbled back into the main part of the bedroom.

Casting her eyes about her, she found a picture frame on a nearby table showing her and Jeff side by side. Jeff was wearing the exact same suit that she had seen him in a few minutes earlier. Holding the picture in her hand, she returned to the closet and picked out the exact same outfit, all the way down to the hairpins.

After a few minutes of work in the bathroom, she got everything in place, from shoes to fragrance. Along the way, she had exchanged her clear glasses for a pair with rose-colored lenses. Sara picked up the picture once again in triumph, then froze when she realized that the two figures in the picture were posed on either side of a tombstone for someone named “Marie”. She put the picture down again as if it were covered with a contact poison.

Next to it was a second picture, depicting Jeff and Sara as small children. They were both a pair of walking endorsements, with Jeff’s green jacket shilling for Andes mints, and Sara’s orange jacket advertising Reese’s peanut butter products. The two children were standing next to each other, but not touching. Behind them was an old white house with an enclosed porch. Somebody seemed to be glaring out of the window at the camera, but only her eyes could be made out clearly.

Sara sighed deeply, picked up her iPhone, and then started the laborious process of walking out of her room and towards the living room.

# # #

Jeff was seated at the kitchen table, waiting for her. He had unwrapped his two packages, and was looking over their contents. The NetFlix package contained a DVD, and the Amazon package contained several CDs.

“Oh!” he said, getting up quickly as he saw Sara watching him and gathering up the items. “These are just the last of the things I lost on that camping trip two years ago. The one you were out of town for? I’ll just put these away, and then we can go.”

Putting down the iPhone, Sara waited until her brother was out of sight, and then reached down into the purple recycling bin that was nearby and fished out the packing receipt for the CDs. “Summon the Heroes,” she read aloud. “Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of the War of the Worlds.” Her words started to come out faster, and the grin on her face grew wider, and she continued to read. “The Beatles 1, Chicago IX: Greatest Hits, Ballet Music from Khachaturian’s Masquerade, Now That’s What I Call Classic Rock Hits, Greatest Hits of Billy Joel, The Essential Barbra Streisand—they’re here! They’re all here!”

As she heard Jeff approaching, she swiftly crumpled up the invoice and tossed it back into the bin, the big goofy grin still plastered across her face. Jeff stepped around the corner from the living room and suddenly froze on seeing it.

“So!” said Sara. “This camping trip.”

“Yes?” Jeff asked, clearly nervous.

“Was it exactly one year, eleven months and three days ago?”

“Yeesss?” Jeff asked, beads of sweat appearing on his brow.

Sara grinned diabolically. “Oh, I’m going to have fun on this one!”

She walked past him with a confident stride, reaching down to pick up her purse and drop her phone inside it, then suddenly coming up short. “What the...?” she asked herself, turning the object around in her hands. “How am I supposed to...?” she asked, looking down at her hips. Then she smacked herself with the heel of her hand. “Of course!” she exclaimed. She draped the strap of the purse around one shoulder and started walking towards the door.

The purse immediately fell off.

She picked it up and examined it once again. Experimentally, she draped it back over one shoulder, and noted how low it hung. She picked it up, put the strap around her neck, and briefly held it in front of her midsection like an enormous camera. “Naw, it can’t possibly...oh, I know!” She then swung the purse around so that it was hanging off of the opposite shoulder, and patted it with one hand. “Come on!” she said over her shoulder at Jeff, who seemed to still be still frozen in the position when he had first glimpsed that grin on her face.

“Jeff!”

“Coming!” he finally replied.

# # #

Sara put her hand on the door leading out of the apartment. Outside, she could still hear the roar of engines and the screaming of angry men. Nerving herself, she opened the door in one fluid motion.

With an ear-piercing squeal, a large Harley Davison motorcycle, the large engine that was attached to it, and the even larger man who was sitting astride it, peeled out of the driveway and out of the apartment complex.

This left the second engine, which belonged to a cherry red ’59 Ford Thunderbird. The engine did not originally come with the car. In fact, the engine was so enormous that a counterweight was necessary at the back of the car to keep the whole thing from tipping forward. Lying underneath the car was a man emitting a steady stream of three substances: sweat, profanity, and his own pungent body odor. The car stereo was contributing by pumping out its own stream of profanity, of the sung variety. This particular song was about how the singer’s girlfriend, and all females for that matter, were functionally identical to a common courtesan. The chorus of the song was the phrase “in da ass!” repeated over, and over, and over again.

Sara was standing there, in the doorway, shaking. She was doing this not as much for the song, as for the fact that everybody in that court treated the song and its subject matter as completely unobjectionable, as permissible behavior by the male of the species.

Jeff stood behind her, nervously shuffling his hands. He reached out towards her for a second, then fearfully withdrew the hand, like he was afraid she was a cactus. “Are you sure you want to go out tonight?” he asked.

Sara took a deep breath. “We’re going,” she told him.

“And I suppose we’re taking your car, as usual?” he asked. He pointed at a green SUV parked a couple of spaces down from the Thunderbird.

The Thunderbird’s engine roared to life, with its exuberant driver revving the engine faster and faster. “Yeah! Yeah!” he screamed near-orgasmically. “Yeah, you mothers!”

“Do I have to?” Sara whimpered.

“We’ll take my car,” Jeff told her.

She moved aside to let him pass her, then proceeded to follow him after he locked the door. They walked by a couple of teenage kids with their hands behind their backs and metaphorical halos over their heads. Sara took a whiff of the smoke that pervaded the area in their vicinity and shook her head, a small grin on her face.

Jeff’s car was a compact, painted an indefinable shade somewhere between purple and gray. Jeff opened the door for Sara first, and then walked around the car to let himself in. Sara watched Jeff carefully, and put on her seatbelt after she had seen him put on his.

Jeff produced an iPhone identical to Sara’s—but with a bright green case—and plugged a wire leading from the car’s stereo into its headphone jack. “My car, my music,” he warned her.

“Hey, I’ve got no objections,” Sara said, raising her hands up. She watched intently as Jeff navigated to the piece he wanted.

A solo cello played a plaintive tune out of the car’s speakers, answered by four more cellos and the double bass.

Sara held her breath, mesmerized. She didn’t even notice when the car began to move.

And so began the William Tell Overture.