The Story
Jean Hound saw them laughing. The Prada suits, the lazy hats, the velvet ties strangling their necks.
The loud chuckles, the dancing mugs on one hand and cigarettes in the other. The ones who had the right to call anyone – even Jean.
Dining politics in every word, trying to control every bit of the Lights, Camera, Action. A systematic screwjob for the herd that wanted to be called 'artists' just to deny it sophisticatedly with a cliche dialogue.
Something even a half-decent writer wouldn’t give a boring ten-second character — it’d be too cruel.
Jean looked and he knew what he was doing....maybe.
He could see another version of himself laughing from afar — a Jean with more spark than the one here, forced to act polite. "Might suck a dick already" Jean muttered under his breath.
He spat in his glass of cheap champagne and greeted the manager smilingly.
Jean had a thought, right in the corner with what ifs and what nots in his head was an idea. A sketch he made. A concept that could be made into a proper full-fledged film.
Based on a legend in the lengths of fiction, more kid-friendly, popular and probably profitable. He looked at them, the ten circled like gatekeeping a royal castle but lazy, aimless, possibly drunk — and definitely not running on coffee.
'Pretentious fucks!'
Two of them; an obese man and a pale, skinny woman who’d just fucked in the makeup room ten minutes ago — moaning like dinosaurs, if they moaned, trying hard to keep it quiet. Now being decent, professional employers.
A moment earlier she sneered at Jean like she maybe does every morning, watching a mirror on a routine and maybe convincing she was fine. That her horrifying, skeleton thin physique was not troubling.
The man didn't bother.
He returned to the party after ten or maybe twelve seconds. Bored, exhausted or maybe hungry for another round of chicken wings. He never seemed promising anyway. The woman though, humoured the idea.
"George of the Jungle..??" The woman asked. Still killing the cigarette and busy trying not to look back at the obese man, who, in a crowd of 'professional executives' managed a shameless grin on his face.
Followed what seemingly were signs of whatever the hell they were doing back there – the best use of his hands and arms. his hold somehow was steady on the cup, the coffee wasn't.
The woman looked amused – Why?.....Jean never asked, to her or himself.
"Is it based on...Tarzan right?"
"Yes ma'am." Jean replied like his child does every Sunday, surged with hope, talking about buying new toys from Sanjay's.
"Won't that be a problem since Disney has the copyright__"
"It'll be a parody ma'am."
For a second or two, her gaze flickered over Jean, cold and bored.
The cigarette died, the lover vanished–maybe into a broom closet this time.
She stood, like a posing mannequin trained for cameras.
Scratching her chin with the tip of her thumbnail.
She left without an answer. Jean, confused, stayed where he was again ordered by the manager. Every time it was the same — unanswered rejections on loop.
Them–the ones with the job behind every decision. Their egos were walls — tall, fragile, and blocking everything.
Who to fuck...who would film...who would write....what would be made....nothing without a blessing.
Jean was one of those who came with the herd.
Jean made it in – That's what Jean did...
So far....
