A Modern Romance (beginning/ending) – Jai Knight

September 6, 2020

“I don’t think she’s gonna come around.”
The greying hair of the professor staining with a growing spot of dark red.
The prof used to stalk her academic tundra like a mighty lioness of knowledge. Her catchphrase a call to arms, ”Let’s go!”
Never dreaming about a life outside of the one she lived. For her there was no escaping her. 
Named and shamed plain she was tranquillised by facts of scientific research.

The laboratory.

Previously.
Truth Serum.
“Can I take my shoes off?”

Every night the Development Centre was illuminated by its own bright security light.
The beam shone on the sign that announced where it was. On the awards, flowcharts and blueprints on my wall.
The tips of the light touched a nearby small portacabin.
Inside, the new ‘temp’ night security guard was struggling with a TV aerial. He had been trying for over an hour to get a signal without any static.
This was when he decided to leave his post and take a wander around the grounds.

In Mr. Mahale leaving his post he exposed the Development Centre to a number of serious security vulnerabilities and also placed his own reputation of employment at risk through mismanagement/breach of his contract.

Vickram was idly pacing about outside when he was drawn to the sound of a high-pitched tone emitting from my lower block window.
He proceeded to creep up to the window and peer inside.
“And that’s when I first saw Vickram Mahale, with his curious little face pressed up and flattened against the glass.”

INSERT LAUGH TRACK

“Hi, I’m Professor Belinda Gmeiner and my window led into my lab, which led into the Genetic Sciences Section of the Development Centre.
As it happens I am right now sitting at the same desk that I was that night. Our first ‘date’.
I’m still not sure how much classified information Vick observed, as between us we have never felt the need to discuss it.
Yep, I’m sitting at the same desk but in a very different location from my lab indeed. For I am recording this from inside the body of Mr. V Mahale.”

AUDIENCE GASPS

“Now when I say ‘inside’ I don’t mean inside in any spiritual sense, or even for the more liberal-minded reader, any sexual sense through anal or oral insertion.
True, my invasion was oral but not by any means sexual. Rather tbh; love. That ol’ affection. Also for genetic advancements, obviously.
It isn’t just one woman and her desk though. 
The desk table top is now incorporated into the helm of a thoroughly modern Bod-Pod, shrunk to the size of a human cell. My brainchild.”
 

Vickram had been told that working in security was one of the worst jobs you can get. Badly paid, long irregular hours and worst of all the boredom factor.
He’d bought a cheap TV.

Vickram Mahale’s dialogue: It’s fun hanging out with the prof. Doin’ experiments.

OVERHEAD SPOT LIGHT

Narrator’s dialogue: Vickram and Professor Gmeiner are hiding behind a clump of bushes in the park, observing local down-and-out ‘bums’.

REVEAL SWEEP LIGHT

Bum’s dialogue: We noticed them turning up regularly. Spying and listening in on us, so we started talking in medieval, about the X Plan and the Y Plan. Just faking it y’know.

Audience: Explosive eruptions of mirth.

  FADE

From Professor Gmeiner’s notes- Vickram showing signs of agitation. Nerve Blocking?

The professor cautiously explains all about the Bod-Pod. How it is ingested and then ejected through a bowel movement.
Belinda starts her journey through Vickram’s body in the Pod.
She has left a series of instructions in the form of predated letters that arrive through timed mail deliveries.

As part of a culture test, a ticket has been booked in Vickram’s name for an opera. Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde.
He heads out to see his first opera whilst Belinda steers towards his left eardrum.

The show starts and the amplification is overwhelming and magnificent to the professor.
“What a sensation..” she whelmed.

But before the first act is over Vickram drifts off. Snoring loudly, he drowns out the opera.

The professor is at first outraged and vocally furious. However, soon the deep reverberating sounds in Vick’s inner ear echo chamber lull her into a peaceful sleep. 
She feels real cute and curls up snuggly, breathing in time with his snoring.

 

Vickram deposits the Bod-Pod onto a spread of laminated paper towels.
Belinda eats with Vickram as she is starving.
“Like Marvin?” she jokes.
“Eh?”
“Like Marvin Vick, like Marvin… excel food. You’ve learnt to cook well.”

For their next dinner date experiment it is Belinda’s turn to prepare a meal at her uptown apartment.
Vick is presented with a salad. It consists of lettuce, spring onions, tomatoes, radishes and carrots. Decorated to look like a face.

Belinda: “Surprise! guess who it is.”
Vickram: “I don’t know.”
“Guess.”
“I don’t know who is it?”
“Go on. You can do better than that.”
“I don’t know who it is.”
“It’s you. You silly Billy.”
“Billy, who’s Billy?”
“You!”
“I am Billy?”
“No, it’s you. The face is you.”
“This is me…oh.” 
Vickram sighs disappointedly.
“Yes, it’s a nice touch but where’s the meat?”
“We’re veggies now Vick, eat up. Let’s go!”