OVER BLACK a woman speaks. There is a hint of Eastern Europe in her otherwise ambiguous accent.
The song says Love Makes the World Go Round and people believe it. I mean really believe it. Of course they don’t practice what they preach, now do they?
IRIS IN on GORGO’s FACE, slightly out of focus, causing her features to ghost from frame to frame and blend into the dark obscurity surrounding her. Dim circles approximate her eyes and a red smear of lipstick accents her pronounced lips which stretch and contract with every exaggerated syllable.
Look around, Glitchy. Can I call you Glitchy? Wonderful.
Does it really look like love is greasing the wheels of society? Love doesn’t make you lock your doors or convince you to buy an overpriced security system. It doesn’t make you argue on social media over the latest divisive issue created by some political think tank.
The camera lens adjusts at a crawl but with every tick, more of her comes into focus. Beautiful but scarred. Desirable but terrifying. The way her blonde hair has splayed out around her head reveals her position is not standing, but rather laying down flat on a bed covered in black vinyl.
When Matthew was writing down his gospel, the line should have read Fear Thy Neighbor because FEAR is what makes the world go ‘round. Fear is control. Fear is order. It isn’t your conscience preventing you from plowing over the school children bouncing along the crosswalk when you’re late for work and blasting I Can’t Drive 55 at full volume. It’s the fear of a life sentence in the state penitentiary that moves your foot to the brake pedal.
FEAR is the currency of GODS.
So what do you fear, Glitchy? Getting fired? Losing your apartment because you can’t pay the rent? Dying in your sleep? All of it falls under a single category.
The Unknown.
Above her, two dirty hands with knotted fingers slide into frame, one on each side of her head. In their grip are a pair of grimey handles capped with metal electrodes and long wires that lead off screen. She continues:
Humans used to fear getting eaten by lions but now that man is top of the food chain, your lizard brain has nothing concrete to focus on, so it branches out, makes you paranoid, makes you lose focus. Maybe that’s why you screwed the pooch in Clearwater. Maybe that’s why you couldn’t get the job done in Orlando.
Her own hand appears from below to shove a dental guard into her mouth. Her teeth nash down and her red lips spilling over the rubber. A low, muffled laugh begins building in her throat and her eyes go wide as she braces herself.
The other two hands then move the electrodes inward until the metal presses against her temples. An audible clack of a switch and a low hum of power precede the jolt of electricity striking her brain like a lightning storm. Her body stiffens like a plank of wood, then after a beat begins convulsing violently.
The lens LOSES FOCUS of the patient, blurring until she is unrecognizable. THEN the camera TILTS on its axis, rotating upward to reveal the one administering the shock treatment. It’s a woman, muscular and lean just like one on the table getting her brain fried. The same body. The same features. The same ratty patient’s gown.
The shot CONTINUES PIVOTING past the draped breasts and clavicles, up the neck to the jaw and over the angles of their lower face. The same scar marks their cheek as Yelena’s but their blonde hair is wet and hanging like a tattered curtain over their features. Their milky, opaque eyes peek through the clumped locks and their lips are a red-smeared smile.
This is GORGO. The real Gorgo.
The Woman Who Laughs.
You can still hear the body flopping on the table and the cackle of electricity as Gorgo’s mouth splits open like rotten fruit to reveal two rows of pearly whites. When THEY speak, their voice is gravel and fire and much deeper than before.
Don’t worry, Glitchy Max. We’re gonna help you out. You just need to get back to the basics, is all! Rather than waste your imagination dreading the unknowns of life, we’re gonna give you something tangible to fear.
Us.
Thump-cackle-thrump-boom-cackle, you can still hear the patient reacting to the shock treatment as the Woman Who Laughs’ terrible grin spreads like an epidemic across their face, causing the scar on their cheek to buckle.
Fear that we will win.
Fear that we will achieve what you never will.
Fear that we are everything you know you can never be.
Fear that when our arms wrap around your neck and squeeeeeze the last thing you’ll hear is the self-loathsome, insecure inner voice that has haunted you with doubt and dismay your entire life. Just before the lights go out, it will whisper…Gorgo was right.
CUT TO: BLACK.
Then comes screeching high-pitched laughter echoing like a mad woman in a cave but the pitch slopes downward and a chorus of more laughter joins in, until it turns into a demonic accordion of hee-hawing, maniacal howling.