As Many Worlds as There
Are Artists
Text ©2008 The Angst Guy (theangstguy@yahoo.com)
Daria and associated characters
are ©2008 MTV Networks
Feedback (good, bad, indifferent, just want to bother me, whatever)
is appreciated. Please write to: theangstguy@yahoo.com
Synopsis: Daria and Jane consider their future after high school,
while Trent and his friends discuss Mystik Spiral’s next masterpiece—but what
if things had come out differently, artistically speaking?
Author’s Notes: This story is based on two Iron Chef contests
from PPMB. One, by WacoKid from late May 2003, asked for alternate-history
stories in which Trent, Max, Jessie, and Nick were brought together by a common
interest in something other than music. The other, from Angelinhel from the
same time, asked for ideas on how
This story
makes use of a special font for the titles, a true-type font with a paintbrush
look perfect for a story about artists. The font is called Cezanne (one of
several different ones with that name) and is available as a free download
from: UrbanFonts.com
or Fontica.com. An
excellent pick if you’re into cool fonts.
Acknowledgements: Thanks to WacoKid for the contest. Thanks also to Nemo
Blank, for his inspiring idea about
*
Thanks to art, instead of seeing a
single world, our own,
we see it multiply until we have before
us
as many worlds as there are original
artists.
The Maxims of Marcel Proust (trans. Justin O’Brien)
Daria
Morgendorffer lay on her back with her head hanging off the foot of
“Somehow,”
said Daria, “I expected things would be different.”
Jane glanced
at her friend’s upside-down face and smirked, then leaned closer to the
painting before her and squinted. “From where you’re at, the floor is the
ceiling and the ceiling’s the floor. This isn’t different enough? What were you
expecting, the Spanish Inquisition?”
“Stop.”
“Okay—really
then, what were you expecting now that school’s out?”
“Oh . . . freedom. Fame. Knowledge. Power. Immortality. Something more than a diploma
and hanging out at a party afterward—and a trophy with a golden gorilla on it.”
“You expected
maybe . . . college, midterms, finals, getting drunk and puking on your date at
a frat party, that kind of thing?”
Daria rolled
over on the bed and supported her head on her hands, elbows resting on the edge
of the bed. “I dunno. Just
something different.”
“Different,”
said Jane. The guitar music stopped. She put the pick in her mouth as she
reached out and turned a few pages in the art book. She shifted her position on
her stool and took the pick from her lips again. “Maxfield Parrish,” she said.
“Maybe the mountain vistas will inspire me.”
“I liked what
you were playing just a moment ago.”
“That was from
one of Cézanne’s water lilies.”
“Play that
again. It made a good impression.”
Jane
obediently flipped back to the book’s section on Cézanne,
looked at the picture there, and after a moment began to pick out a tune. The
notes drifted across Jane’s bedroom like ripples in a garden pond—reflective
and peaceful, though with a touch of melancholy.
“What do you
call that?” Daria asked after a minute, when Jane stopped.
“I dunno. ‘Water Lilies,’ I guess. It’s not very original, but
sometimes it’s better that way. I never was good with
titles.”
“At least you
didn’t call it, ‘My Night with Kevin Thompson.’ What were you thinking about
when you were playing it? Don’t say Kevin.”
Jane didn’t
answer. She began playing again, the same quiet tune as before but with a more
complicated melody. After a couple minutes, she stopped, put the pick in her
mouth again, and pulled a pad of paper—complete with pre-drawn musical
bars—from behind the art book on the music stand. She took a pencil from behind
her right ear and began making notes on the already heavily marked page.
“I liked what
you did,” Daria said. “That last part, that sounded
great.”
“Yeah.” Jane completed her notes, then tucked the pencil
back behind her ear and put the paper pad behind the art book again. “Need to
think of some lyrics, maybe something about getting drunk and puking on your
date at a frat party. It needs that romantic touch.”
“You didn’t
answer my question,” said Daria.
“Mmm.” Random notes drifted from Jane’s guitar.
Daria sighed.
“Okay, just give me your answer in the form of a song.”
Jane stopped
playing, then changed her fingering and started a new and quicker tune.
“Oh,” said
Daria, looking at Jane. “The Harpies. ‘Kill Your
Boyfriend.’”
Jane smiled
and stopped playing. “Call me sentimental,” she said.
“Yeah. A girl’s gotta have dreams.”
“He’s long
gone anyway.” Jane paused, then went back to playing
“Water Lilies.” After a few bars, she said, without looking at Daria, “You kinda liked him, didn’t you?”
“Tom? He
wasn’t bad, for a creep.”
“He had nice
eyes.” Jane hit a wrong chord but kept playing, her brow furrowing as she
concentrated. “You and Tom were kind of on the same intellectual level, more
than he and I—”
Daria drew in
a deep breath and interrupted. “He and I were on the same level in that we were
both carbon-cased life forms. Any other similarity was only rumored. He was a
jerk. C’mon, Jane.”
“Well, you
could have gone out with him eventually, after—”
Daria gave
Jane a warning look. “We’re not going through this again, are we? He made a
pass at me. He even admitted it. If I’d wanted that, I could’ve gone out with
Kevin and stuck it in
Jane looked
away, but she was smiling. “Knowing
“So would
Kevin, but we’re not talking about the same thing anymore, are we?”
Jane
snickered. Her playing improved. She began to improvise on “Water Lilies.”
“I was
wondering,” said Daria, rolling on her back again and letting her head droop
off the bed, “what the world would have been like if things had come out a
little differently.”
“If you’d
asked Kevin to stick it in your face, you mean?”
“Bite my butt.
No, I meant . . . if I hadn’t been so interested in writing stories. What if
I’d wanted to do something different, like be a mathematician, go into science,
something like that.”
“Cheerleader,
Fashion Club member, nude exotic dancer . . .”
“Or serial
killer,” said Daria with a glare.
“Doesn’t count. You have to pick a career path that came out
differently.”
Daria snorted.
“A serial killer would be better than being a cheerleader, I guess. How about you?”
“I disagree.
You would’ve made a great cheerleader. I can hear it now.” Jane assumed
a deadpan expression, freezing in place with her guitar in her lap. “One, two,
three, four,” she said with a monotone, “watching football is a bore. Five,
six, seven, eight, I got Kevin for my date. Nine, ten, ‘leven,
twelve—”
“—one more
word, you’re off to hell. I meant, how else could you have come out, in
another world?”
“Out of the closet? When did I do that?”
“No, out of the blender, after I stuck all your body parts in
there. Forget it.”
Jane put the
pick in her mouth again, made more notes on the paper pad with her pencil, then got off the stool. “Ready to hit the
Zon, amiga?”
“Why now? You
don’t come on stage until eight-thirty, right?”
“Monique asked
if I’d jam with her and the Harpies for a while. The Zon’s paying extra for a
live session, unrehearsed. People love watching a girl band, I guess.”
“No accounting
for taste.”
“Good thing
you don’t have any.” Jane put her guitar into its case. “Doesn’t
bother me if no one at the Zon has taste, either. With all my gigs this
year so far, I’ve just about got my first year at BFAC’s music school paid for.
Let’s do it.”
Daria made no
move to get off the bed. “What would you have been if you hadn’t been a
musician?”
“Don’t know.”
Jane bent backward at the waist, stretching her lower back. “Didn’t
really have a choice.”
“What?”
“Someone had
to be a musician in this family.” Jane smiled and waved at a corner of the
room. “Isn’t that right, Trent?”
* * *
In the
basement of the Lane home, under a lone light bulb,
“Cute, real
cute,” said bald-headed Max, sitting on a folding chair behind
“Nah, leave it
in.”
“This is a
serious movie! We can’t be doing this self-referential stuff! Mystik Spiral
Productions is all about hanging it over the bleeding edge! Cinema criminale!”
“It’s a movie
about Janey,” said
Max threw his
hands up. “Man, we need to burn holes in audience retinas! Why else did you
make me the DP, right? Okay, okay, later, whatever. Listen, when we shoot at
the Zon, see if the Harpies’ll wear some low-cut tops, jiggle a little, you
know?”
“Dude,” said
Nick, making adjustments on a soundboard with his earphones around his neck, “a
little is all they can jiggle.”
A cell phone
went off.
Max turned to
Jesse, who was playing with the buttons on the digital camera they had rented.
“Look, what do you think? Leave that bit from Jane in, like the ghouls in
Jesse grunted,
peering into the camera lens. “Janey’s cool,” he said.
“I’m not
asking if Janey’s cool, man! I’m saying—”
“He did?” said
“Max,” said
Nick, “
“Screw it,
then!” yelled Max, standing up. His head almost bumped the light bulb overhead.
“I’m walking! Mystik Spiral Productions is no more! I can’t hack this
we-ain’t-got-no-money, let’s-make-a-movie-about-the-director’s-kid-sister
existence! I’m going to find a real crew and be the next big name on the big
screen! I’m . . . what?”
The cell phone
pressed to his ear,
“What?” said Max. “Did they repossess the Tank? They can’t do that to me,
man! We don’t got no more money!”
“No,” said
Everyone fell
silent for a second. “Lew?” said Nick. “Like, Lew in
The silence
became so deep, the world fell into it.
“He said Dregs
got into Sundance.”
The silence
held for two seconds more.
“What?” gasped
Max. His voice rose to a shout. “We
what?”
“What’s
Sundance?” asked Nick, leaning closer.
“Spiral made
it,”
“Is that
good?” asked Nick, frowning.
Max sat down,
then burst into tears and buried his face in his hands. His shoulders shook in
the faint yellow light as he sobbed.
“We did?”
asked Jesse, holding the digital camera.
Jesse thought
about this, then nodded. “Cool,” he said, and he went
back to playing with the digital camera.
Original:
7/28/03, modified 06/17/06, 09/22/06, 10/02/06, 10/31/08
FINIS