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I’ve got chills down my spine.
“So what the hell was it?” Alice asks.
“Exactly”, Logan says profoundly, “That’s what I’ve been wondering ever since that day too.”
“There are no photos, no official reports and nothing else to corroborate the story”, Jack says.
“Apart from the two other men who were with me”, Logan says.
“Who didn’t enter the enormous skull and who haven’t spoken about that experience since”, Jack adds.
“So what happened?” I ask.
“I don’t know. All I know, whether you want to believe me or not, is that something weird happened on the way out of that place, that shouldn’t happen according to the laws of science on this planet. Jack thinks I’m full of shit, but I’m not the kind of person to make this up.”
“I don’t think you’re full of shit”, Jack chimes in. “Seriously, you know I don’t. I’m just trained to look for plot holes, that’s all, it’s in my nature. I don’t like things that don’t make sense.”
“Your entire career is based on things that don’t make sense”, Logan says.
“My entire career is based on making the unbelievable believable”, Jack argues. “There’s a huge difference. A plot hole is when something happens that defies the laws of the universe you create. Stories must make sense within their own worlds, regardless of how believable they are to someone from a different universe. If the gates of hell existed in a world where we all knew that hell existed, it wouldn’t be so difficult to believe.”
“There isn’t much difference”, I say. “Unbelievable things happen in believable worlds all the time. Most sci-fi or superhero films have bizarre things happen in real life situations.”
“Yes, thank you, Penny”, Logan says proudly, lifting up his glass to chink it against mine. “I knew my brother was wrong.”
“All of those things go on to be explained. Superman, the X-men, Invasion of the body snatchers. Any example in any decent narrative without plot holes explains the appearance of the extraordinary. I’m just saying it’s the explanation we lack.”
“Agree”, Alice says. “I guess it would be easier to believe if we knew why it took you hours to leave.”
“Thank you, Alice”, Jack says, and chinks his glass against hers.
“Wait, wait, wait”, I say, taking the opportunity to put my hand on his arm to pull it out of the way. “Sometimes you have to suspend disbelief and just believe, don’t you? Isn’t that the magic part? The leap of faith? Indy would never have gotten to the holy grail if he didn’t believe the unbelievable existed. This is no different to that.”
“Touche”, Logan says excitedly. “I think she’s got you.”
Jack smiles. “The path is always there though, he just has to believe it exists to cross it.”
“It comes out of nowhere!” Logan says. “He can’t see it until he throws stones onto it.”
Jack shakes his head. “He can’t see it at first because he doesn’t believe it exists. That doesn’t mean that it wasn’t always there.”
“Exactly like the gates of hell”, Logan says.
“More like when someone has a crush on you and you don’t see it”, Jack confirms, and my heart skips a beat as I wonder if he’s seen right through me.
“You’d believe me if you saw them”, Logan says.
“I believe you already”, Jack says. “If you say it happened I know it’s true. I’m just telling you that if I made a film out of it, I’d have to work out a legitimate reason for why it existed, that’s all.”
“To be honest”, Alice says, “four hours of darkness might be a bit boring for your average film goer.”
“It’s a great story, Logan”, I say. “Not many people can say they’ve been to hell and made their way back out alive. I’m glad you did.”
“Me too”, Jack says, reaching around me for a moment to put his hand on Logan’s shoulder. “And seriously now, when you first told me that story and I thought I might have lost you, I couldn’t help wondering if you’d already make a will.”
“Thanks bro”, Logan says. “I’ll keep you in mind for when I get round to that.”
For the briefest of moments I’m trapped in a twin hug and I don’t want the sensation to end.
“Anyway”, Logan begins. “The moral of the story is that even if there’s something in the world that seems completely beyond the realms of possibility, don’t be surprised if you suddenly find that it exists.”
I look from Logan across to Jack expecting some kind of retort.
“Okay, I can’t disagree with that”, he says. “Even if I’m programmed to want to know why.”
The table falls silent for a moment, during which time I can see Alice thinking hard.
“Okay, wait”, she says eventually. “If we are meant to believe this happened, and I’m not saying it didn’t, and it took you four hours to do something that had just taken five minutes, what exactly are we believing in?”
“That there are weird things that happen in the world for no reason”, Logan says. “That can’t be explained by books, or science, or the world that we live in, or sometimes even by the limits of our imagination.”
“Man you guys are way deeper than I expected”, Alice says, with a giggle. “I’m going to need several more drinks if this is going to continue.”
“It was a weird experience, though”, Logan says. “If you want deep, you ought to listen to Jack go on about narrative structure and suspension of disbelief. He could bore you for hours.”
Yes please, is what I’m thinking. Please don’t stop talking and don’t move from here, either of you. Jack can talk for as long as he likes about rock solid story structure and infallible reasoning, while Logan tells me any one of a thousand of his incredible adventures, because I truly believe I’ve found my matches. That, and the fact that I’m so hot right now I think if I moved the wrong way too quickly I could come.
I feel like I’ve won a competition to meet the two most perfectly matched men for me in the whole universe, and can’t take my mind of what I’d like to happen after the television crews have packed up and everyone else has gone home. I feel a sudden urge to draw on the walls, but it’s more than that. I feel an urge not just to draw what I’m thinking but to do it, to adjust my position slightly and let the wicked times commence.
“There is a clear dichotomy in my work”, Jack begins, just the way his tongue wraps itself around the word dichotomy enough for me to be convinced of his prowess in bed, “between what we produce at the studio, and how much hard work goes into it. It’s likely the same for Jack when after hours and hours of work, the only thing he has to show for it is a three thousand year old jaw bone, or for Penny perhaps, when after countless hours spent perfecting a picture someone only looks at it for a minute.”
“Or when they grafitti over it the same night I draw it on the wall”, I say cutting in, while I glare at Alice accusingly.
“I can bore you all day with structure”, Jack says, but structure is never going to be exciting to anyone who isn’t interested in what happens behind the scenes. The finished product is what excites us all. We want to see the magic trick, not the hours of preparation that go into making it work. I love my job, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything, but when I tell people what I really do as a movie producer, they tend to quickly lose interest.”
“It interests me”, I say, trying not to blush. “But maybe that’s because I work in a creative field too.”
“What about you, Alice?”, Logan asks. “You know, before Jack gets wound up in another one of his boring anecdotes about how he thought of the perfect character flaw, or how the arc of the antagonist is just as important as the arc of the protagonist. What do you do for work?”
“I’m a florist”, Alice says. “My mom has a shop up in Williamsburg that used to belong to my grandparents. I’m there part time while I finish up college. I didn’t quite get through in one go the first time around but t
hat’s another story.”
“Nor did I”, Jack confesses. “Actually I didn’t get past the first year.”
“Those creative types think they don’t need to study”, Logan says.
I push him on the shoulder, a solid section of pure muscle. “Hey! I finished college”, I say.
“Are you studying floristry?” Jack asks.
“Psychology”, Alice says, “So be careful how you behave.”
“Oh man”, Logan says, “If you’re looking for subjects, you’ve got the perfect candidate here. You could spend your whole career on studying Jack.”
Jack laughs. “You know there are things that I achieved as a child that Logan has appropriated as memories of his own. If that’s not messed up, I don’t know what is.”
