(no subject)

[flagg]

Friends. Countrymen.

[ A smiling man, a man lowering the hood of his jacket. A man with a U.S. army coat over that, old jeans, worn cowboy boots, and a beat up Boy Scouts backpack. He's almost like anyone but for a touch of something antiquated about his clothes and the way he talks.

That and the smile. ]

Will you tell me a story? A joke or two to while away the time? I am a man for wanderin', but this seems like a fine place to pull up a chair and take a breather. A fine, safe place, where a story or two could do no harm at all.

And if you like, why, I'll tell you one right back. That's only fair.

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[flagg]

[ The way his eyes alight, the quickness, the liveliness of it, is somewhere between animal and mental patient, and not any better for retaining a self-aware focus quite unlike either of those. ]

Thank you kindly, sister. I'm ready, yes.

[ Flagg leans upon the podium like a teacher intent on a misbehaving student, the smile lingering as he watches her perform. The stare could come out of a zoo cage or at the footlights of a strip club's stage. Behind it too is the Eye, but this place inhibits him; all that insistent, obnoxious sense of sanctuary is beyond his ability to undo. He can only be himself, which is in some ways more than enough.

He is an involved audience as well. The story invokes in certain places a minor call and response reaction, a word she says echoed in mutter here, an odd syllable of acknowledgment to punctuate her story there. Never too loud. Never fully intrusive, or at least, no more intrusive than his stare, which she as an actress must be accustomed to. At the end he inhales slowly, then whistles in cartoonish amazement, giving the podium a light thwack with his fist. ]

Now that was a story. It had everything. And it was true, very true in the way stories can be. Truer than life, which is after all full of lies. Did you come up with this story, sister? Or did you hear it on your travels?