DIVE - A Lala Pune Story
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Lala by alex mitchell || @red_fathom || alex-mitchell-studio.com
A few months ago, my mom sent me a link to a Linkdin job opening for an app called “Choices.” You might have seen it - it’s a choose your own adventure style “game” where you get to play as a somewhat customizable lady who has a will they wont they adventure around a hot dude. It’s like a modern day bodice ripping dimestore novel very much for teenagers. Frankly, not my scene. Also the place seemed like the conditions were pretty crummy and the pay was bad. All to say, not a dream job.
Still, I couldn’t shake this persistent nagging voice in my head telling me, “if I was too good for the job, I should prove it.” How could I consider myself good at what I do if I couldn’t fart out a little romance sample? It was too much of a challenge to my pride for me to dismiss. A few days later, I had a story written: an account from Lala’s point of view of the night she met Tech Wizard.
I’ve uploaded it below. I hope you dig. PS: I did not get the job.
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Lala Pune, a monkey woman, squeezes between a troll the shape of a refrigerator and a ghoul wearing a ten-gallon hat. She leans over the bar and waves her tail in an attempt to flag down the bartender. Lights flash above her, Christmas lights veining in and out of half broken light panels, bleeding neon pink and greens over the slouching truckers surrounding her at the bar.
Even among the unseemly, with eccentric appearance of the customers in this dusty trucker dive, Lala stands out: her body is covered in a light grey fur so fine that it shimmers in the dusty light. Her appearance is amiable - a button nose and large mouth that rests in a light smile. She wears frayed, ankle cut jeans with a hole in the back for her tail and a tank top with an image of a cat asleep on top of a truck.
The bartender smiles as he approaches her. Lala raises her voice so that he can hear her over the animatronic country band:
“Can I get the ZiekWeiss on draft, and a green tea?”
He nods, grabbing a goblet and clicking on the hot water heater. The country-singing robots plunk out the opening verse of Johnny Cash’s “I Still Miss Someone.” Lala turns to watch them. The three-headed chorus bot is malfunctioning: every time the heads open their mouths to sing the sound is a warbling shattered glitching noise, washing skittering drums and bassline with a quivering white noise. The lead singer is a steel bodied mannequin with a cowboy hat. He grips the microphone with sexual fervor - altogether his body movement is too enthusiastic for the song.
The chorus bot crackles, clipping and chirping, echoing the singer’s last line. Lala’s ears perk up at loud conversation at the door. The boisterous laughter ignites the bar, as the patrons turn to them. Some recognize them and wave at them, smiling.
Her eyes lock onto a blonde twenty-something garishly draped out in wizard robes covered in moons and stars. A gentle face, warm, sparkling blue eyes. A soft exterior that belies burning passion. He's got a nervous smile, but the nerves can't hide his dimples. A natural charm comes from him, even though he seems guarded. She holds her gaze on the blonde stranger in a wizard robe. . She catches him looking back at her, his face turns red as he turns putting on a casual act. She laughs at that.
“He’s cute” she thinks. He has a gentle face, soft, blonde, laugh lines around the eyes. She feels compelled to get closer to him, wonders, briefly, what would it feel like to be held by him.
Lala jumps as the bartender plops down a glass goblet of beer and a mug of tea before Lala. Embarrassed, she murmurs a thank you, and grasps the stem of the goblet and the hot handle of the mug of tea. She shakes her head as if trying to get a dream loose, stepping across an abandoned dancefloor.
The corner of the bar smells a bit like sawdust. The lights are dim, except for the spot on the band. Lala crosses to her companion, Popo, a cloaked man, sitting on a worn couch. He is middle aged, with long hair hanging over his face. He looks at her and nods as she approaches him. She hands him the mug, he takes it, hands on the steaming hot ceramic. If it hurts, his face doesn’t show it. He takes a sip of tea, and closes his eyes, a slight smile on his face.
He’s quiet. He’s always quiet. Conversation is minimal in the cabin of Lala’s truck. He sits looking out the open window, smoking, she drives, listening to the radio. Most of the time the silence is comfortable, like a quiet moment shared with a close friend, but in small moments it is lonely, howling emptiness. Lala takes a seat next to him, taking large gulps of her beer to drown out his quiet.
What I'd do for a little conversation, she thinks. She glances back at the bar patrons, coming to life as they greet these new visitors. She shirks at the thought of actually walking up and starting a conversation.
What would I even say? I'm such an idiot, I'd just stumble over my words. I'm not that interesting anyway.
Lala thinks about her day today. It was long, she’d been driving since six in the morning. The ride today was monotonous; the highway extending before her eternal, surrounded by a sun scarred landscape. It had been like that for weeks. Lala shudders at the thought. How had her life come to this? Isolated and tedious, every day the same unrecognizable stretch of road, every night shacking up at sleazy truck stops with their greasy food, surrounded by people facing the same deep loneliness of the road. She had grown to recognize that sadness even behind their smiles.
Is this me now? Is this the rest of my life? She thinks.
She takes another deep swig of her drink. As she finishes her beer, the dwarf server approaches her with another full goblet.
“From the wizard in the corner.” She says, handing Lala the beer. Lala turns red. The dwarf smiles
“Good luck tonight.” Lala takes the drink, unable to control her huge smile. She takes a deep breath, stands up. Popo glances up at her.
“I’ll be back later, Po.” She crosses to the wizard and his companions.
Her heart beats as she approaches the circle.
She recognizes the cat-eyed man in the middle: a fellow trucker, Dak Rambo a wild and gregarious lunatic of a man. She’d once ran convoy with him from Fresno to Las Vegas. The rest of his companions are similarly striking: a slight elf woman with flowing silver hair, a young man with a scarred face covered in mechanical augmentation, and a roly-poly one-armed boy.
“One of you guys buy me a drink?”
The group look over to her. Clearly, they were egging their friend along to buy her a drink. He stands nervously looking around the bar, fidgeting uncomfortably. When his eyes catch Lala, there is an undeniable spark of attraction. The rest of the group starts to feign interest in other parts of the bar to give their friend space. The augmented man makes a great gesture of feigning interest in a broken Sex and the City pinball machine by the bathrooms.
“Oh, wow, they have an arcade! I’m gonna go check out one of those games.” He waves to the wizard, “Catch you later, Tech Wiz. You got a ton of money to buy drinks though, right?”
The cat eyed trucker bursts out: “He does! He’s the richest man in the east!” Dak winks at Lala.
The young woman with the silver hair stiffens up, giving the wizard serious side eye.
“You bought someone a drink?” She gulps and laughs it off “Aha! That doesn’t make me jealous at all. Not at all.”
The trucker waves to the pinball machine. “Hey everybody, let’s go over there to that side of the bar!” They display over the top interest in the dilapidated arcade.
The young woman sighs. “But I’ll be over there if you decide you want to talk to me instead.”
The young woman turns dramatically and walks off with an incredible sass to her step.
Lala takes a drink of her beer and gives flirting eyes to the young wizard.
“So, what’s your deal, huh?”
“Uh… oh, god, what is my deal? Um…” the wizard is lost for words. His eyes dart around as if seeking out what “his deal” is.
God, how am I this bad at flirting. She takes a corner of her robe in her hand
“Those are some funky robes.”
“These?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, god. Yeah, they’re pretty cool, they’re actually antiques.”
She raises her eyebrows, “Wait, are you a magic user?” (Come on Lala, as if that wasn’t obvious.)
He gulps, “Let me ask you a question. Would that be cool - If I was a wizard?”
“Oh! Yeah - yeah, I’m with Goro-Goro-Quick. Only magic adept truckers get to be involved in the company.”
Tech Wizard’s eyes light up, “Whoa. That- are you serious? That is so cool.”
Lala smiles shyly “Yeah, yeah.”
“So you do magic?”
“Yeah! Yeah, I can do some light magic work. I know there’s all this bias here stateside, I don’t need to talk too much about that but yeah, yeah.”
Jesus, she thinks, stop saying “yeah.”
He extends his hand, “By the way, my name is Squirt, but you can call me Tech. That’s what my friends call me.”
Lala takes his hand
“I’m Lala. Call me Lala.”
The band kicks into a raucous rendition of “Born on the Bayou.” The bar is roaring now.
Tech leans to Lala’s ear. She can feel his breath on her neck. The fur on her arm stands on end at the thrill.
“Hey, um… do you wanna- it’s kind of loud-“
Lala lightly grasps Tech’s hand.
“Hey, do you want to go up on the roof?”
He laughs, “Roof? Yeah, I was, no joke, literally just about to say that.”
“Yeah, I know how to get up there.”
Lala takes Tech’s hand and leads him through the pulsing dance floor to a door to a stairwell beside the animatronic band. She glances to the ruined couch - Popo’s head has fallen back, mouth open, fast asleep.The two rush up the stairs, and open the door to the roof. The night rush out to them - the evening is warm, the moon is waning bright, illuminating the brick roof in silver light. Lala guides Tech to a seat beside the bar’s gleaming neon sign.
Tech exhales, “That was a good call.”
Both bodies breathe short breaths consumed in the electric tension between them. Lal’s heart is beating fast, she can almost taste the thrill of the moment. Tech’s arm is around her. His arm feels strong around her, but tender. She can feel that he is shaking slightly. Lala squeezes his hand. “You’re cute, you know? You’re cute. You’re a cute wizard.”
He turns red, “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Cool. I really like your fur.”
“Thanks.”
“And your style, and your face. Basically all of it. I…” Tech’s face is bright red now. He sputters attempting to keep composure, “I’m so sorry, I… I don’t do a ton of normal social interaction, so I feel like I’m kind of rusty.”
Lala gives Tech a big grin. God, I’m glad I’ve run into someone as socially inept as me, she thinks.
“You’re doing a great job.” She says.
Tech takes a deep breath.
“Do you ever feel like… do you ever feel like sometimes there is… like there’s the astral plane, right? There’s magic, and you can pull something from the air, right? There are energies in the air that I feel like we’re tapping into when we cast spells and I guess… do you feel like that there might be more to that energy than we know? Maybe there’s energy between people? Like magnets or something? I mean, I don’t know, I only know so much about my spells. I’m a stupid American.”
There’s a pregnant pause. Lala leans in to kiss Tech Wizard.
His lips are sweet, his beard is warm. She climbs into his lap and he holds her. She can feel his body against hers. Warm, welcoming. Every kiss pulls her deeper. They let themselves fall gently to the floor. His hands trace love lines on her lower back.
When they finish their embrace, they both sit up, cuddling up to each other. He takes her hand. Their legs sway off dangling off of the roof. The sun is rising. Lala feels him drifting to sleep. She rests her head on his shoulder and closes her eyes. Maybe the loneliness of the road is not forever.