The out-of-work actress finds a mastodon in her bathtub. Her thirty-five-year-old hands are beginning to show blue veins and instead of staring at them all night long, she has someone to talk to.
She’s thinking, what an unlikely visitor, and how did it make it through the drainpipe?
It’s hard to feel like a stranger in a new world, this is something she knows well, so she starts up a conversation.
What continent did you originate in? North America.
Do mastodons have dreams? What do you think?
Is my bathtub comfortable? I’m fine.
Are you real? Don’t be silly.
The actress feels a buzz that she hasn’t felt since before she lost the role in the soap opera. New meds the doctor prescribed make her feel calm. Calm enough to talk to a mastodon in her bathtub. The mastodon doesn’t look nearly as dangerous as a recent casting director who inspected her teeth and gums as if she were a horse.
Do you want to see the moon rising over the Hollywood sign? Who wouldn’t?
Would you like me to lead you out of here? Yes.
The actress who hasn’t left her apartment in weeks feels good when she’s sitting quietly next to the mastodon in her bathtub, contemplating leaving a life she’s been living. There is so much the two of them share. Both of them are going to be awake all night. Both of them barely fit in this crazy paradise.
