“Look, Louise, it’s…it’s not you…it’s me,” he stammered.

“Well, of course it’s not me, I’m fucking amazing!” she replied, angrily. “Why would it be me? You’re the one who wants to end it, so it’s obviously you,” she took a long drag on her cigarette.

“You know, you might have more luck if you lit that.”

“God, Charles, it’s a metaphor,” came her exasperated reply.

“A metaphor for what?” he enquired.

“It doesn’t have to be a metaphor for anything,” she shook her head at him. “It just is. A metaphor, that is.”

“That…that doesn’t make any sense,” he squinted as he tried to follow her thought patterns and failed.

“Look, if you can’t parse the post-post-modern semiotic symbolism of the mise en scène in this situation then don’t think I’m going to explain it to you,” she huffed.

“How about we just get a Chinese and rent a movie…”

“Rent a movie?” she cut him off. “How out of touch with the zeitgeist are you? Rent a movie…”

“Have you considered,” he replied in a slow, firm voice,” that this might not be set in the present day? That, perhaps, this is the early two thousands?”

“Well,” she mused, “everything has sort of become an all-encompassing present day since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the, quote unquote, end of history.”

“And that’s what’s got you in a huff?” he ventured.

“I am not in a huff,” she huffed. “I am merely tired of the stagnation of Western culture as we refuse to continue on a path of linear development and instead are merely content to endlessly regurgitate the cultural advances of the latter half of the twentieth century in an endless loop fuelled by nostalgia and infantilization.”

“I get that,” he said, “but the real question is do you want to eat sweet and sour chicken balls and chips and watch Ace Ventura Pet Detective tonight or not?”

“Are you getting prawn crackers?”

“They’re usually included.”

“Ok then, but stop off at the shop on the way back and get a bottle of Coke.”

“Share size?”

“I don’t know, I honestly can’t remember if share size Coke bottles were introduced before the functional death of the video rental industry or not.”

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Ian Sharman

Ian is a freelance writer and artist. He founded Orang Utan Comics Studio with Peter Rogers in 2006, writes for their Eagle Award Nominated anthology Eleventh Hour and regularly inks for Panini’s Marvel Heroes comic.

Latest posts by Ian Sharman (see all)

• How the War Began - 30/12/15
• Prince Of Peace - 22/12/15
• Cogito Ergo Sum - 25/08/15
• Hayfever’s End - 17/08/15
• Regrets? I’ve Had A Few - 14/08/15