The Silver Screen Wars

17 - Thoughts

The room was small, a double bed cramping one side of it and a desk nestled into the other. There was a single window on the left wall to let in the light with some see through drapes that Kodi didn't see the point of. The desk itself was good quality, clearly new and probably made of some expensive wood that she didn't recognize. But that, the made bed, and the elegant, lavish floor lamp sitting between the two were the only furnishings in this room.

Which was how Kodi preferred it, so that worked out well enough. Even in the house before the family had lost it, her bedroom had been the smallest since her four siblings had to share the remaining two. There was something that felt safe and familiar about these modest dimensions. The closet was even smaller than expected, yes, but she had brought few clothes anyway.

It was nice. She hadn't thought she would begrudgingly like her quarters.

But ruminating on her new temporary home could come later. For now, she would sit back and flip through the small stack of paper left on her desk, a dozen sheets stapled together. She had kicked off her shoes outside her door, so all she had to do was clamber into the bed on her hands and knees and slip under the downy covers with the pages in hand.

Being able to get comfortable no matter where she lay down her head had always been one of her greatest skills, even in a house full of five strangers she was sure she would end up disliking. Even Alexis had turned out to be a disappointment; her attraction to their director had been so obvious. And anyone who could blithely ignore the man's garbage dumpster personality purely based on his appearance couldn't amount to much.

With three pillows piled on top of each other to support her back, Kodi leaned against the headboard and pulled the covers up to her elbows before inspecting the first page with half-lidded eyes. A script? Looked like it...sort of. Actually, no - as she flipped through page after page, it was only too evident what was so unusual about it. There was no dialogue. None. Just stage actions and thoughts, expressions. Just as two characters began interacting, the scene would cut and then move on to the next.

What the hell was a script without dialogue? This was Bishop's grand idea for the festival? Please. Countless directors had already tried to be unorthodox and unconventional and quirky by utilizing the same idea, had tried time and time again to make their submissions unique and revolutionary by cutting off such a crucial element. And time and time again, it had only proven that films with no dialogue - verbal or signed or anything else - always fell flat. A plot simply couldn't be driven without it.

But then again, if Bishop's hand was in this, everyone would just listen to the forty minutes of pure silence and worship at his feet anyway for no other reason than the fact that he had made it.

Kodi's mouth twisted in annoyance as she continued to comb through the pages, growing more and more aggravated every time a scene cut off just as characters arrived at the brink of honest-to-God interacting. What kind of hollow, shallow, soulless writing was this? She could only hope that these weren't the roles that she and the other three members of the cast would be taking on. It couldn't be, right? There were only four mentioned on these sheets, after all, which left no role for Jason Monlavia.

Right, so did this mean the script wasn't the real thing? Maybe this was a...some kind of exercise in acting. Like a warm up, a brain teaser, a lesson to be taught about how important proper dialogue was. This wasn't a film class or a creative writing course, but it would be just like Bishop to be dramatic enough to pretend it was.

How privileged they all were to be learning from the great and wise Bishop Cassius, clearly the best and most gifted director in all of mankind's history and certainly not someone who got catapulted to fame by having more money than any one man should morally possess.

Kodi resisted the temptation to tear the papers in half.

Okay, she told herself. Unless the man was experiencing a premature mid-life crisis and presently experiencing fundamental brain problems, he couldn't possibly be stupid enough to try this stunt. This was clearly some kind of...gimmick meant to pique their interest. Maybe he had the dialogue portions with him, had separated it from the rest of the script and was going to make some kind of game out of it all. Was that why he wanted them all back out in the den twenty minutes from now after reading through everything?

Like a juvenile babysitter making up games to keep a group of bumbling children entertained and occupied, Bishop was dangling them at the end of his fishing rod.

She threw the pages down onto the floor by the bed and turned over on her side, pulling the covers over her head and breathing in the scent of the detergent that still lingered on the sheets. Smelled like a meadow at dawn, she thought wistfully. Nothing like this barren desert landscape that she could see out her window. Who had even built this house here, just outside the fringes of the city proper where no one in their right mind would ever want to live?

(And yet here she was.)

She swiftly set a timer for fifteen minutes and promptly proceeded to doze off for the remaining time. Like hell she was going to reread the hacked-apart script and waste any more of her time on it. If he wanted to play games, then she was content with coming in last place. All she was interested in was the final product.

Kodi hadn't come here to play. If Bishop wanted to mess around, she would wait patiently until he was done.

-----

"Bishop?"

The director was wearing actual clothes now. Or at least some. Still bare from the waist up, he had at least deigned to put on a pair of black athletic shorts, which happened to bear a logo that indicated he had overpaid by at least twenty times the true value. Kodi's eyes flickered over at him only for an instant before returning to Drake, who was just about bursting with what he wanted to say.

"What."

"Did you split the script by any chance?"

Bishop moved to the island counter and pulled out a stool so that he could sit on it, hooking his foot behind one of the lower bars for stability as he leaned back against the countertop.

"What makes you say that?"

Drake ran his fingers through his hair and twisted a few strands between them as he looked back down at the rumpled pages in his hand.

"It feels like it stops in the middle of scenes a lot," he said uncertainly. "Like almost every single one. I dunno. Did I miss something? Am I crazy?"

He looked around wildly at the others, including Kodi who studiously avoided his gaze. She was, in fact, discreetly checking her phone which was nestled between her thigh and the cushion of her seat. When was Jason going to get here -?

The sound of a key rattling in lock made her jump to her feet. She didn't even hesitate; she slapped her copy of the script down on the glass table and clambered over Taylor's knees to head for the front door, but it swung open before she could wrap her hand around the knob.

"Jason!"

There he stood in the doorway with a luggage bag secured by its straps over one shoulder, a familiar lopsided smile on his face and the corners of his gray eyes crinkling in a smile.

"Kodi, good to see you."

She reached for his bag in a wordless offer to take it from him, but he eased her hand away with a shake of his head.

"I'm good. Go, I'm just dropping off my things in my room."

And then in a quieter voice that only made it to Kodi's ears:

"Bishop doesn't look happy. Go ahead, I'll be out in a second."

She looked back over her shoulder at the man in question, not bothering to disguise the fact that Jason had just been talking about him. And indeed, there was a look of mixed exasperation and disgust on his face that made her want to bare her teeth at him. Go back to talking to the others, she wanted to tell him, but of course that wasn't going to work.

And so with great reluctance, she nodded at Jason and began moving back to her seat. She could hear the man's footsteps shuffling along behind her.

"Nice of you to join us, Jason. And nice of you to re-join us, Kodiak Clyde. Next time, let him open the door himself like an adult. Have a seat."

She was already halfway across the room again, what was the point in him saying that? Did he have to be an asshole at all times, twenty four hours a day? Was it some irrepressible urge in his DNA to be an overbearing d**k about even the smallest of things? Kodi bit down in the inside of her cheek to keep the insults from pouring out solely for Jason's sake. He wouldn't like it if she and Bishop broke out in another argument the second he arrived.

"There's a vacant room down either hallway," Bishop was telling Jason while Kodi settled back onto the couch. "Doesn't matter which side. Pick one."

She didn't even pause to think about it: she leaned forward on the couch so that she could catch Jason's eye, and then jabbed her thumb toward the left hallway.

"Think that side lets in more light," she said. "It's nice."

Had nothing to do with the fact that her bedroom was down that side as well, of course.

"Oh, that's good. Alright, I'll be back in a minute, Bishop."

Kodi grinned and waved at him as he took his leave, but the instant he passed them by, she noticed Bishop's narrowed eyes, and how they were unmistakably fixed on her. Aw, she thought. Was he upset? What did it matter to him anyway? And what, was he going to call her out on it? She was simply being neighborly.

And if it also happened to force Bishop to bunk on the opposite end of the house from her, then that was just an added bonus.

She gave him a sidelong glance and a smile that he would most certainly notice, and then leaned back in her seat with a small, self-satisfied sigh. It was only then that she saw her three coworkers also watching her - but with varying degrees of alarm and even dismay on their faces depending on who it was. Alexis was the one who seemed the least unsettled, but even she had her eyebrows raised as she stared at Kodi with a partly open mouth.

Several seconds passed, but no one spoke, and she began to wonder if she ought to stand up and just leave for her room. The hairs on the back of her neck rose as she waited for the silence to break, but slowly she began to realize that it wasn't going to happen organically.

This was a good start, wasn't it. Bishop's fault. He'd singled her out from the moment she had stepped foot in the place, and now this was the way it was going to go. She was always going to be on the outskirts of the group, the fringe member who they gossiped about and gave awkward smiles to whenever she entered the room. She knew it well. The second project she'd been on, she had been exposed to not only the clique mentality but also to the consequences of being disliked by the director.

What was the opposite of a teacher's pet, and not with a teacher but a director?

Because that was what she was right now. Everything she did was going to be a mistake. Everything she said, everything she didn't say was going to be a target for ridicule and staring. Bishop's fault. He'd turned her into a bullseye target with his own scorn and disdain, and now she was open season for everyone else.

Kodi leaned forward to snatch up her copy of the script from the table.

"Do we wanna talk about this thing?" she asked, an edge to her voice. "We don't have to. Just wondering."

Bishop shook his head and leaned back against the counter again.

"Then tell me what you think about it, Kodiak Clyde. Thoughts?"