Stages Ground Beef Through Sour Cream
The moment Aria Blaze swung open the sliding side door of the van, her ears hurt. The interior of the home-on-wheels was being serenaded with what could best be described as dying cats singing to big band music in torturous slow-mo. The sirenette's nose scrunched up—which would normally have been adorable, except for the fact that Aria Blaze had an acute case of permanent-resting-scrunch-face.
With a sigh, Aria climbed inside the dormant vehicle. Despite it being midday, a sleeping mat had been rolled out across the floor of the van. There, Sonata Dusk slept—more like kerplunk'd, her upper body plowed at a sad forty-five degree angle to sea level while her limp hind quarters were propped up on the van's rear seat. She looked like a very very very melancholic wheelbarrow, and just a few inches from where her numb face smooshed against the floor, a warped record was rotating wobbily across an antique player.
That was the source of the confounded crackling muzak, and the moment Aria Blaze found a seat up front, she reached out across the van's interior to shut the record player off.
“Don't,” Sonata Dusk whimpered without moving an inch.
“But it sucks ass,” Aria Blaze grunted.
“It speaks to my soullllll,” Sonata Dusk pathetically exhaled.
Aria's brow furrowed. “It sounds like a funeral dirge at a leprosy convention.”
“My soul is a leprosy conventionnnn...”
Aria sighed. She reached into her pocket, pulled out a packet of cigarettes, and casually slapped it several times against her wrist. “You don't say.”
“Life is a futile experiment of cursed sentience,” Sonata mewled. Her glazed eyes scoured the bright blue atmosphere lingering an eternity away beyond the side door of the van. “Our frontal lobes are nothing but neural tumors that make the sad mistake of granting us lucidity.”
“Please, oh please,” Aria droned, sliding a cigarette out from the pack and plucking it between her pert lips. “Tell me more.”
“We are planted on this earth to exist and expire.” Sonata Dusk hugged herself. “The problem is... we are aware of the limits we have to do this. Such a brief... pathetic... abominable blink within the enormity of time.”
“Uh huh.” Aria Blaze pulled out a lighter and flicked it. Dormant sparks flew, but no flame.
For the first time since having company, Sonata's weak eyes darted towards Aria. “Wouldn't it be great if there was only one death?”
“I mean... like...” Aria flicked the lighter again... and again and again and again. “Isn't there?” She squinted in frustration as more and more dormant sparks flew. “I don't remember buying no warranty with this thin-ass shell.”
“No... oh no no no nooooooo...” Sonata pawed sadly at the van's floor as she gazed a million miles into the abysmal black exoskeleton of the spinning record. “Truth is, we die multiple... multiple times in a single existence.”
“That's new to me.”
“Every time we go to sleep...” Sonata Dusk gulped. “...we end up waking up a different person... burdened with the same cursed memories of the husk that collapsed the night before.” She siiiiiiiiighed. “Haven't you ever thought of that? That we're all just dying over and over and over?”
“I've certainly thought of murdering over and over and over.” Aria gnashed her teeth as the lighter spat nothing but flimsy sparks. With a defeated grunt, she tossed the metal thing to the far reaches of the fan and reached for a round knob along the vehicle's front dashboard. “Especially every four weeks or so.”
“And then when we get old... and we contract dementia... or worse... Alzheimer's...” Sonata closed her misty eyes and shuddered. “I'm telling you... there are multiple deaths before the great maw of annihilation finally consumes us all...”
Aria pulled and tugged at the van's cigarette lighter. “Grfff!” At last, the knob plucked free, falling apart in a mess of metal rings and shrapnel bits. She stared at the useless plastic cap in her fingers and sighed. “Yeah, well...” She dropped the thing and reclined in the passenger seat, twirling the unlit cigarette between nimble fingers. “At least dementia doesn't mess my underwear my entire life.”
“And just what do we have to show for so many deaths and so much surrendering to oblivion?”
“Hrmffffff...” Aria clenched her eyes shut. With a free hand, she massaged the bridge of her nose. “Who's we, Sonata...?”
“Humanity, of course.”
“Last I checked, we were mostly fish horses in sheeple's skin.”
“We're polluting this planet,” Sonata Dusk continued, monotone. “We're enslaving impoverished majorities in undeveloped pockets of the world. Wars, misery, and sexual misconduct are at an all-time high, and all of the political elite are too busy fighting banal battles of superfluous rhetoric to ever truly help the global populace.”
“I mean... I dunno...” Aria Blaze sucked, staring lethargically out the dashboard at a mostly-vacant highway. “We did get a few bitchin' Tenacious D covers out of it all.”
“I think it's awful how we're just letting our future go to waste.”
“I think you were a lot more fun when you just wore miniskirts and smiled like a vegetable on Zoloft.”
“Maybe we're just the living perpetual nightmare of unborn souls, too scared to experience the purgatorial reality that we have wrought for ourselves in this mortal coil.” Sonata Dusk gulped. “Or maybe we're some faraway planet's Hell?”
“Well, they definitely aren't jihadists on that world.” Aria Blaze took a dry huff of the dead cigarette. “Cuz there sure as Hell ain't no virgins in this van. Lemme tell ya.” There was a space of silence... … … and Aria noticed it. With a jerk, she reached wildly for the record player—
—but Sonata Dusk had beat her to it, swiveling the needle back to the start. The distorted ballroom music resumed, sad and cacophonous and miserable. Like her continuing words: “Maybe this life is just a punishment that we deserve...”
“Fuck!” Aria Blaze punched the roof of the van as she leaned back from the re-activated record player. “Goddamn ass-shitting Christ cunts...!” She shook in placed, closed her eyes, then took a long calming breath. “... … … … … … and just how do we get out of this punishment, hmmm?”
“I don't know,” Sonata spoke between wailing orchestrations of the crackling record. “Maybe this is all we will ever be. The life and the lingering are one in the same.” She gulped. “I considered throwing myself into open traffic.”
Aria Blaze raised her eyebrows with meager enthusiasm. “And...?”
“...then I figured it would be a waste of a perfectly good outfit.”
Aria twirled the cigarette some more. “...I could borrow your clothes for you.”
“That seems like such a burden.”
“Naw. Go ahead and strip, girl.” Aria Blaze saluted. “Nothing I haven't seen before.” A shrug followed. "Could make a pleasant surprise for some random truck driver. Just sayin'."
“Such an expensive blouse...”
“Bitch, you bought it at a thrift store.”
“I know.” Sonata Dusk sniffled. “So... many... homeless people. It was like they formed a wall of unbathed skin and hoodies around that place.”
“I guess they took a right turn at the intersection...”
“At what point does a person lose his or her soul? What turns them invisible and worthless to society? Is it when they become poor?” Sonata Dusk gazed listlessly at the van's ceiling. “Of all the cruel and most heartless vices in this world.” She tilted her face in Aria's direction. “Have I ever told you how downright evil capitalism is?”
“Oh here we go.” Aria facepalmed, shuddering. “God in Heaven, fuck me with Timothy McVeigh's codpiece...”
“Dear Aria, when did capitalism begin?” Sonata eulogized. “Did it begin with a question? Or an exclamation? Or perhaps it was a song—”
Just then, the Queen of delicious flat chests arrived, hauling plastic bags into the van.
“S'up, peasants?” Adagio Dazzle sing-song'd.
“Praise Zalgo,” Aria Blaze chirped, sitting up in the passenger seat. “Please say you brought a magnum and at least two bullets.”
“Not today.” Adagio made a frowny face, glaring at the record player. “What in Neptune's beard is she playing?”
“I dunno.” Aria scratched the back of her neck. “We should run it in the background of our next set so we'll sound better by comparison.”
“Not a bad idea.” Adagio nudged Sonata's boobs with her stiletto boot. “You doing okay down there, champ?”
“We are born alone and we die alone,” Sonata Dusk belched.
“Another Tuesday, huh? Anywho...” After a bit of rummaging, Adagio unloaded one of the bags before the slumped siren. “...I swung by Taco Bell on the way here. I figured you could use some—”
“Oh. My. GOODNESS GOSSSSH!!!” Sonata Dusk shot up like a rocket, grinning bright enough to blind a colony of mole rats for thirty square miles. She beamed and she beamed as she grabbed the packets of Mexican fast food and snuggled them dearly to her chest. “Mmmmmm!!! Munchable Crunchable Digestible South Of The Border GREATNESS!!!” She stood up tall and vibrant and did a jig in the middle of the van, causing the vehicle to wobble back and forth on its wheels. “Heeeeeeeeee!!! Life is good~ Life is a gift! Every day is a romp through flower fields with kittens and K-Pop bands! Ohhhhhhh I could just giggle and blow bubbles for hours!!!” She reached an arm out and brought Adagio inward, nuzzling her cheek to cheek like an excited sisterly puppy. “I love it! I love you! I love life! And I love living!”
“Yeah. Uh huh.” Adagio winced slightly, prying herself carefully from the embrace. “Just... go outside and eat them in private. You know how much I loathe seeing the crumbs spill out of your mouth.”
“Teeheehee! Crumbs!” Sonata Dusk skipped gaily out of the vehicle. “That rhymes with Tums! Like all the tablets I'm going to need to pass this meal afterwards! Hahahaha! Ohhhhh how I adorrrre going on wild adventures with my tummy tubes! La la la la laaaa!”
The other sirens watched the euphoric individual trounce away. Eventually, Adagio turned towards Aria.
“So... what was that all about?”
“Oh... you know...” Aria reached out and finally shut the record player off with a victorious scratch. “Life without Internet.”
“I can't believe you actually miss that.”
“What's to miss?” Aria shrugged. “Y'know, I read somewhere—words of a wise wizard, I'm sure...” She pointed in the direction of Sonata's exit. “'Hunger can really warp your perspective on reality.'”
“Really?”
“... … ...did I say 'hunger?' I meant 'depression.”
“Ah.” Adagio nodded. “I can understand the confusion.”
“Anyways...” Aria yawned, waving her dry cigarette. “Did you get a lighter while you were out?”
“Something even better.” Adagio reached into another bag and pulled out a plastic-wrapped rectangular solid of bright pastel. “I believe you had run out in the last town.”
Aria's eyes widened like saucers. “Holy fuck YES!!!” She grabbed the item from Adagio and raised the package in victory. “Disney Princess Panties! Fuck everything—!” She tossed her cigarette out a window and ran out of the van entirely. “I'm going to go huff these right now!”
“Uhhmm...” Adagio pointed after the sprinting young woman. “They're brand new and unopened!”
“Nothing's perfect!!!” Aria could be heard shouting back before leaping behind the cover of a nearby throng of opaque bushes.
With a melodic sigh, Adagio shut the sliding door of the vehicle. She had the van all to herself. In short order, she crawled into the driver's seat, reclined with a contented sigh, and reached into her last bag.
“Now then...”
Adagio Dazzle pulled out a cheap used magazine full of early 2000s photos of Johnny Depp.
“...finally we have some alone time together~”
Author's Note
