Characters:
Woman: Shivers frequently, has a large dress full of balloons or pillows.
Fireplace: Eats bits of wood throughout the entire skit. Is dressed in bright flaming colors, and maybe surrounded by a brick wall or chimney hat.
Spirit (good and bad- noitatcepxe): Always acts deviously, is cloaked in a sheet or a veil.
Mysterious Light (communicated with via cell phone): Large Flashlight and overly bundled clothes.
Before we begin this story I’d like to introduce some important concepts that will allow you to understand what is going on, both in the fiction I will be narrating as well as the world in large.
You may not know this, but there are a dozen or more spirits about you at any given time. This is beyond Roundalay and her ghosts, those are a different sort of spirit. And honestly “spirit” is perhaps not the most accurate term, just the easiest for people to grasp. Every location in this world: the city with demons and other such spirits named Anxiety and Agression and Ambition, the mountains with Homesickness and Wonder and that nameless Lonesome guide that will materialize when a solo trekker begins suffering from high altitude sickness, fatigue, and other taunting spirits like Lonesomeness. All too well we know Fear and Jealousy and of course Love and Desire and Humiliation. Indigenous tribes to the Americas have known about these spirits, and will routinely cleanse themselves of the bad ones and invite in the good ones.
Our story begins with a forgetful woman who has forgotten her coat,
Under siege by the cold winter that has just set itself firmly into Connecticut,
a fireplace that keeps her warm but is eating the little wood she has left inside her home,
an empty pantry,
a mysterious orb,
and a rather complicated spirit whose name remains unclear.
The woman sits by the fire,
a frail thing trying to stay warm, starving in this house.
Although she is frail and starving,
She is also bloated.
Two days ago she was struck by the Spirit of Boredom,
And ate every last crumb in her pantry.
But now, a new spirit is by the window gazing into the darkness,
As the woman stares at the last of her wood pile.
The fire’s appetite rages, as he eyes the woman’s furniture and books,
He sends out sparks to hypnotize the woman into feeding him these
scrumptious snacks.
But the fire’s tricks go unnoticed, as a miraculous light appears in the distance and distracts the woman.
Oh! This sends a reel of excitement through the spirit.
He scurries back to the woman and infects her with the sense of having senses.
The woman is nervous and does not want to gaze out into the distance.
When she retreats to the warmth of the fire she is reminded of the dwindling fuel.
She finally works up the nerve, aided by the jabbing and prodding of our nameless specter, shivering without her coat to near the glass doors and gaze out.
At first there is nothing, only the reflections of the candles in her home and the light from her glutonous fire.
She peers out deeper, with a magnetic gaze. What was that spark?! She needs to get a second look.
The spirit holds onto her shoulders so that she might look longer and with a much fiercer stare. He clamps her head so that she cannot not look away.
Then, out of the comforting empty. The deep nothing of the endless darkness: Flash!
The light comes on, then off again.
Flash! Once more the light comes on and weaves about a moment like a lightning bug. Then off again.
A lightning bug out in this dreadfully cold winter?
This strikes the woman.
No the spirit strikes her, to the belly, overcoming her with this awful gut feeling.
She retreats to the bloated and disgusting fireplace, to find some sanity.
But again Flash! From the fields beyond, she cannot help but see, even from the corner of her eye,
Or again Flash! Through the lids of her closed eyes.
Again Flash!
This time the light remains on and is very close to her home.
And with every moment that the mysterious light moves closer she is wretched with Indian burns from the spirit, noogies to the head, wet willies, gentle foot rubs, karate chop to the liver, tug of the hair, elbow drop from the top turn buckle.
An unfriendly alien?A ghostly passenger from the plane wreck on the lake? What could emit such a wicked light in total darkness? The woman begins to shake.
But now the light is upon the house, coming up the porch stairs,
The spirit has her now, with a firmly placed headlock, and she seems to be passing out.
Yes, she is dead in his headlock.
No? Her arm lifts up? It does! Such a recovery! She lifts her arm, and it shakes,
And the spirit cannot believe it!
But some uncanny strength comes over her, She breaks his hold,
She grabs the fireplace by his feet and drags him to the glass doors,
Fireplace starts eating all the things she drags him along, the carpet, the curtains,
She opens the doors fearlessly, expecting a fierce battle
FLASH!
The spirit pulls the woman back, as if to protect her.
The mysterious light enters her home and faces the spirit and the wobbling woman.
He stands. The woman looks towards him in disbelief. It is only ___actor’s name___________.