LOLLIPOP HEAD
A child with gum in her hair presses a sticky button on a big black box. She licks her lollipop and gawks at the bright fuzz. A room blurs into view, an old woman in a slick blue suit rises out her squeaky chair. She introduces her tired talk show proceeded by her next guest: “Mrs Armni Fernarm!” tinny claps, fake whistles. Armni’s face is plastered with a vain smile as she walks to her seat. The host waits for her to sit, itching to be the last stood.
They talk for a while, about her past time activities, her husbands prosperous company, what she ate last Tuesday, everything except her workers forming a union. A book titled “Awakening Your Higher Thoughts” lays on the table. The same smile that sits on her face is scraped on the front cover. Pulled back wrinkles bleed from the eyes. They laugh together, cameras cutting back and forth between them. The heaving audience is shown. How long have they kept up those grins?
The girl catches a glimpse of movement in the screens reflection.
The presenter asks the question, the one they’ve be leading too. “Will you channel your higher mind for us? We’re dying to see.” The synced laughing continues. Mrs Fernam sinks her eyes and starts breathing heavily. It becomes laboured as her eyes flutter. Everyone’s grin grows wider, most of all the hosts. Book Face sucks in air. She begins to frown through closed eyes. The place is heaving with people. She grasps her head. Claws in hair. Nail on skin. Her eyes scrunch up and pull out old wrinkles. Her gums go white as she gnarls.
The cameras don’t cut away. In fact there’s a slow crawl forward. Her throbbing head at it’s centre. She’s huffing pain. Rocking backwards and forwards. The resting arm of the host slowly disappears as the camera gets closer. She’s shivering agony. Yelping at it. Her hands pressed so hard on her skull she’ll crack through bone.
The TV’s whining became ever more clearer with the quietness of the room. It hurt the girls ears, she starts looking for the remote, putting the lollipop on a pillow near by. Checking under the sofa there’s just cobwebs and old forgottens. Nothing under the pillows. Nothing under the rug.
The author’s nerves are freezing up, blood’s gone cold and retracts inwards. Rocking violently, screaming violently.
She can’t find the remote.
The banshee’s bones creak with a low guttural roar. Past the pain is a great knowing, an old, old thought letting itself out. She stopped being Mrs Fernarm a while a go. The beast now stood in wrinkled skin bleached by cheap set lights. Their shadow began to cast over the lens that grew closer, they almost touch. Veins bulging out its shoes. The throat locked in an open flush. Knuckles tightening under the skin.
It cuts to a smiling presenter, nodding at the shadow in the middle of the room, just off the screen. She turns to the audience, “And that’s all we have time for folks! Thanks for joining us.” People clap quickly. Credits roll. Black screen.
Reaching for her lollipop she finds the remote instead.