Our scene opens upon a woman, just an ordinary looking woman unzipping
a dusty suitcase on the floor of the Sargent-Colburn living room.  She
kneels to open the lid, rummages around for an item or two, stands up,
and walks away and out of our scene.
 
(Tight shot of the open suitcase) There, right below the folded tie-dyed
t-shirts, something is moving.  Something is pushing up from below.
Push...push....thump!  The t-shirts are pushed aside to reveal two ferret
back feet.  Two BLUE ferret back feet.  The whole ferret rises from her
warm little hidey-hole in the suitcase.  It is Hurricane Lily, dyed
bright blue, and wearing a string of love beads.  She looks a little
bleary eyed as she jumps onto the floor, and a puff of dust rises from
her fur upon impact.  "Heeeeeeee", she says, softly.
 
Another ferret rises from the warm little hidey hole in the suitcase,
this one, Switch, is still her original gray, save for the two strings of
shiny purple and yellow Mardi Gras beads around her neck.and the pair of
black rubber aviator goggles on her face.  She, too, jumps onto the floor
beside her friend, raising another puff of fine dust.  She looks at her
friend and says "Well, we're home.  What do you have to say for
yourself?"
 
Lily shakes her head angrily and says "He-hee-hee!"
 
"Starting something?  I'll tell you when I'm starting something H. Lily
Weasel!" (Switch angrily thumps a pointed paw into Lily's chest.)  "You
said we should go on a little vacation after that disaster in China with
Todd Bond and the Oracle and the Wattles and the hovercraft.  A VACATION!
YOU SAID IT WAS AN ART FESTIVAL!  A week-long art festival in the Nevada
desert!" (Thumping her paw into Lily again) "But what was it, Lily?
That Burning Man 'art festival' was nothing more than than a party in a
dustbowl for 35,000 hippies!  Naked (Thump!) Stoned (Thump) Hippies!!
Was'nt it!!?"
 
Lily drops her head ashamedly and utters only a weak "Hee."
 
Switch begins to pace back and forth before her, really getting into
lecture mode, now.  "It isn't a VACATION when you have to bring your own
food and water, Lily.  It isn't a VACATION when there are daily dust
storms Lily, and you have to wear these!  (she yells, ripping her goggles
off and shaking them in Lily's face) It isn't a VACATION when your best
friend licks a tab of Ecstacy, dyes herself blue in the hoomin dye vats,
and war dances to techno music for the next three days!"
 
Lily draws herself up haughtily to her full height and says "He, hee-hee
heeee he-he!"
 
Switch pounds her fists on her thighs and paces back and forth muttering
dangerously "Interactive sculpture my *ss!  Yeah, there were lots of
interactive sculptures lying around the desert.  Fried out of their mind
hoomin hippies flat on their backs wearing tu-tu's and nipple rings and
combat boots!"
 
Lily replies through stiff lips "Hee-heeeeee."
 
"IT WAS NOT PERFORMANCE ART!" rages Switch.  "I wanted to go to Yosemite,
but nooooo, you lured me in with this crap about Burning Man, the biggest
annual art festival in the northern hemisphere.  I was thinking wine,
cheese, and Vivaldi.  Instead I get warm bottled water, hashish, and
techno until dawn!"
 
With a sneered "Hee!", Lily turns around and jumps back into the
suitcase, and pulls the lid shut on herself, raising a small cloud of
desert dust.  Switch thumps down on her butt on the carpet and begins
to chew the dust from one back leg, all the while muttering under her
breath "art festival!', and less pleasant things.
 
Alexandra in MA
[Posted in FML issue 4634]