The Waiting Room
~ Chapter Twenty-One
What Does Depp Dream About?
After
the wonderful lunch of mashed potatoes (did anyone have second
helpings?), Mort returned to his computer. He had deleted his earlier
attempt, having to agree with Shooter that with no punctuation Mr.
Depp would only see it as ramblings in his head. Besides, he knew
Jordan had taught him better than that.
He opened the laptop
to begin again but was stopped short by what he saw.
The
computer screen was filled. Just one word, over and over again. A
constant string that ran along, some in lower case, some in upper
case. The one word continued in plain font, and in fancy font, there
were symbols too but he assumed it was the same word, just encrypted.
He clicked to the next page.
It didn’t end. It was
if the computer had taken on a life of its own.
“F--k this
s--t,” he cursed and hit the delete button. The screen
flashed
clear. Mort shook his head in a ‘so-there’ kind of
manner as he
sat back into his chair, grabbing his slinky, bouncing it from hand
to hand.
Then in horror, Mort watched the screen as it began
again…first the word appeared, letter by letter, as if
someone was
slowly typing, trying to find each key…then it began to go
faster,
and faster…until the screen was once again filled, the same
word
over and over again.
“Are you broke?” He screamed at the
computer. Roux set aside his guitar and before Mort knew it was at
his side.
“Is it broke? You know…”
Mort held up
his hand to stop him. “Don’t even go
there!” He warned the
gypsy, pointing a finger to emphasize he meant business.
“Just
don’t even go down that road!”
Roux nodded he understood.
“Just trying to help.” The Irishman glanced over
Mort’s
shoulder and at the computer screen.
“I know what is
wrong…actually nothing is wrong with the
computer.”
“What
the f--k do you know about computers. Look at this thing.
It’s
doing its own thing.”
“No” Roux shook his head. “It’s
not the computer that’s doing this. It’s
‘him’.” Roux
pointed upwards. Mort rolled his eyes. Why did they always point up
when they talked about him, like they were pointing to heaven, when
it was his fault they were stuck in this room like purgatory? Just a
pit stop to hell, Mort thought.
“Okay, I’ll bite. What do
you mean it’s ‘him’?” Mort
imitated Roux by pointing his own
finger up, but he used a different finger to make his point.
“I
mean he's dreaming. This is Depp dreaming.”
“Dreaming? You
mean he’s sleeping? Can’t be. We all know that when
he sleeps, we
sleep. Unless he’s day-dreaming.”
“He well could be,”
Roux shrugged. “I only know that this is in Depp’s
dream.”
Mort looked at the computer screen and the words that seemed
to continually tickertape across the screen…
lori…lori…lori….lori….lori….lori….lori…lori….lori….lori….lori…lori