The Procession of Dreams(Theatre Only)

[Sinister]

Not much occurred to the city of Noversat. It was a burg in the old sense. Full of shops and streets, tears and transience. How to peel back the steel and asphalt and find humanity, well…only a few knew how. Only a few…

Procession of Dreams

Copperband Subway Station had seen better days. Maybe in the nineteen fifties the red bricks were brighter, maybe the bronze chrome gleamed. Maybe the Copperband Car had actually ran at some point. And any other day the place would smell of dust and atomized spider webs. Now it smelt like scorched garlic, olive oil and marinara. Smoke filled the domed-bricked roof of the station. So that it looked like a smoky mystic dusty palace and smelled like a pizzeria hit by an arsonist.

Inside the Copperband car number 35, there was a black-robed figure with hooding black hair and pale features. His attention was absorbed, with some frustration, on a smoldering skillet that was over a fire pit in the center of the car. The sauce therein was black, when it should’ve been red.

It was possible that Jack Christie’s stomach had conquered his faculties and the anticipation of a homemade pizza overpowered his cooking skills. It was also possible that all of the above made him blind to the cloaked figure approaching him from behind. The one cloaked in scarlet with a red executioner’s hood. The one drawing a Kukri machete. It made a metallic ring as it drew from the scabbard. The same ring that Jack’s spatula made across the skillet.

The machete lifted. It angled and aimed. It pulled back, ready to fall forward.

Jack looked down at the sauce. There was despair as he knew, deep in his heart, it would never make the sauce of a proper pizza. He cussed in sotto voice. Grabbed the skillet and turned to throw it out.

His heart shriveled in cold. His mind burst into speed. He couldn’t retreat. His mask was at the other side of the car. His eyes swelled as the machete fell.

It reflected off the bottom of the skillet, which spilled it’s scalding contents on the floor and Jack‘s leg.

“Shit.”

He said, ducking, cradling his leg and barely missing another blow. The next
blow fell and imbedded into what had been a saddle for a car seat. The figure, now struggled to dislodge it. Having dislodged it, the hooded figure turned to find Jack Christie standing in the middle of the car staring coldly.
The machete rose murderously.

Jack’s eyes tightened and the figure froze. Stepping closer, Jack disarmed the figure and un-hooded it. A blond milky-eyed youth laid underneath, expressionless. Jack looked at the machete fancifully. “Can’t draw one of these without spilling blood, you know.” Jack grinned evilly, cutting his eyes up at the empty-faced person.

“You’re a…”

“Assassin.” The hollow voice finished.

Jack nodded. “Sent by…” There was no answer.

Jack’s brow furrowed. “Sent by…”

Nothing.

Jack swung the kukri knife at the figure and it, and it's habiliments, evaporated as if it had all been built from steam. He looked off in disinterest. “What a shame, I live in an abandoned subway, plenty of space to stow dead bodies.” He mused aloud.

“Whoever they are, if they came after me…”

Jack stalked down to the end of the car and tossed scraps of clothes until he uncovered a gray and white porcelain object. Closer inspection revealed it to be a mask; half the face was twisted in pleasure portrayed in white porcelain and the other, conversely, in an abysmal expression of gray porcelain.

Sparing it a thoughtful look, he cupped it in his hands and lifted it to cover his face.

The car was empty. It no longer held a vicious assassin. It no longer held a black-robed figure named Jack. All it held was a discarded Kukri machete and a puddle of black smelly pizza sauce collected upon the floor...