As the Harvest Moons
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Summary: Elli had never seen a soap opera before, and had no particular desire to change that. But when she woke up in a world gone mad, she knew she would have to learn quickly.
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In the beginning, there was the Soap.
Unfortunately, Elli dropped it in the bath, and thanks to all the bubbles, couldn't find it again.
However, as the doctor was right there, and very willing to help her search by groping around in the warm, bubbly water, the crisis was swiftly averted.
But this is not the story of the Soap, but rather of the Soap Opera.
"But Karen," Elli said drowsily, fighting off the cold-medication-induced urge to just go back to sleep, "who would write an opera about soap?"
Karen stopped short in the act of hooking up the little TV perched on the stand at the foot of her friend's bed.
"Look, just watch a few episodes, okay? It's not about soap, Elli," she hastened to explain. "It's about melodrama, and a lot of pretty people with ridiculous personalities, combined with extremely contrived and increasingly unlikley plot twists, which include, but are not limited to, evil twins, amnesia, resurrection, and of course, the old stand-by, The Coma. Oh, yeah; and everyone is sleeping with everyone else, so don't get too attached to a couple."
Elli blinked.
"Um..."
"It's better than it sounds."
"It would have to be," Elli commented, shaking her head despairingly. "Can't I just take some more pills and pass out again?"
"Don't worry," Karen laughed. "These hardly engage your brain at all. It'll be like you're passed out, even though you're awake. So your mind will think it's passed out, because if it tries to apply logic, it will explode!"
Elli blinked some more.
"Why do you like these again?"
"They make sense when you're drunk," Karen shrugged. "Whatever keeps me from lookin' for work. Now, I'll leave you with our spare TV, and the past three seasons of As the Days of Beautiful Passion Turn Into Another World – Mom and I have been taping it forever."
"That's a really unwieldy title," Elli said sadly.
"Yeah, I know. We have an easier name."
"What's that? AtDoBPTIAW?"
"No," Karen scoffed kindly, fluffing up Elli's pillow and sliding it behind her again. "That's silly! We call it Our Show. Well, enjoy!"
"Okay," Elli called after with a weak little wave, before turning her attention reluctantly to the screen. "I really hope Karen was exaggerating..."
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Four hours later had mercilessly crushed that hope.
"Turn it off," Elli whimpered, trying to spur herself into action. "You can do it, Elli! You are strong! You are woman! Roar! Oh, it's no use," she concluded sadly, collapsing in a little nightgown-clad heap a few inches from the head of the bed. "Meow..."
"Elli?" a kind, slightly worried voice called from the door. "Are you okay in there?" He smiled and shook his head at the sight of his little nurse and house-mate curled up in the middle of the bed and snuggling a pillow, clearly asleep. "Well, at least she's getting some sleep."
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"You've got a lot of nerve, coming back here, after what you did."
Elli stared confusedly up at the kindly old lady in the wheelchair, somehow managing to glare down at her. This, she surmised, had something to do with waking up on the floor of Grandma's house.
"Grandma?" she began, sitting up dizzily. "Why am I here?"
"That's what I'd like to know," Ellen spat, gesturing dramatically, "after what you did."
Elli shuffled back nervously, out of range of the old lady's cane, and then, with some difficulty, managed to stand.
"What did I do, Grandma?"
Ellen glared viciously from beneath her frilly cap.
"You've got some nerve, calling me that, after wh—"
"Yes, I know, what I did," Elli hastened to finish. "Whatever that was."
A tiny gasp drew both women's attention to the doorway.
"What is she doing here?" little Stu Greene demanded, glaring daggers at his older sister. "Doesn't she know what she did?"
Elli perked up, seeing her chance.
"Now, that you mention it, actually, I don't."
Ellen and Stu looked at each other dramatically.
"Do you think she really doesn't know, Grandma?" Stu asked in a low, intense whisper.
Ellen ran one wrinkled, lined hand through Stu's smooth dark hair.
"I don't know, child. I have seen cases like this, rare cases, in which a poor, pitiful wretch like this becomes so tormented with guilt that her mind blocks out her own heinous act, along with everything else."
"But she could be faking it," Stu suggested, watching his sister suspiciously.
"It's true," Ellen agreed. "Anyone who had done what she has done might try to get out of their punishment. There's only one man in this town who can tell us if her amnesia is real or feigned."
Stu's eyes lit up.
"We'll take her to see the doctor!"
"Finally," Elli breathed fervently. "The doctor's always logical and cool-headed. Maybe he can tell me what's going on."
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"What in God's name is going on here?" Dr. Tim Trent demanded, bolting from his desk, eyes narrowed, raking one hand through his hair and leaving it wild and disarrayed, as the siblings entered his office. "Why have you brought her here, to me, after what she's done?"
"Well, there goes that idea," Elli sighed sadly.
"Doctor, we think Elli is suffering from amnesia!" Stu spoke up.
"Amnesia!" the doctor repeated, alarmed. "Stu, it's time for you to go home. This...this place of death is no place for a child. I'll see to your sister."
"Take care of her, Doctor," Stu implored. "She's still my sister, even after all she's done."
Elli crossed her arms impatiently as the little boy hurried from the Clinic.
"I suppose it would kill any of you to be specific," she groused.
The doctor fixed her with a piercing gaze.
"It's easy for someone who has no idea what you've done to talk about it as if it's an everyday thing," he said heavily, leading her into his office and settling her on the cot. "But we know."
She gritted her teeth, and forced a pleasant smile.
"I wish I could say the same, then."
"Alright. I'm going to administer the amnesia test," he announced dramatically, dropping to one knee before her. "Think carefully before you answer. What is your name?"
"Elli," she replied hesitantly.
This, apparently, was not quite the answer he had been hoping to hear, for his eyes widened, and he flung himself from her.
"It's feigned! How could you play so cruelly with a tragedy like--"
"Did I say Elli?" that same young lady asked with a self-deprecating grin. "Because I meant Bertha."
The doctor stopped dead in his furious pacing, and stared at her, crestfallen.
"She doesn't know," he murmured, head in his hand. "It's amnesia, alright."
Wow, Elli noted silently. I don't remember the doctor being this stupid yesterday.
"I would know if you were lying," he continued, dropping to the cot beside her and leaning forward until their faces were nearly brushing, "for I have psychic powers."
Wasn't this flaky yesterday, either.
"Why, God?" he howled, so abruptly that she jumped, missed the cot, and toppled to the floor. "Why have you taken her from me? It wasn't enough to lose her to what she's done, now I've lose her to her own guilt and torment! HOW MANY TIMES MUST I LOSE HER!"
"If you're psychic, wouldn't you know that?" Elli muttered.
He stopped again, and stared.
"Do you know what it's like to live with so great a power? I can't use it irresponsibly, or the whole world would be threatened! But perhaps, if I had used it in time, this could have been prevented. If I had but known what she was going to do, I could have found her...talked to her...stopped her."
His last statement was quiet, with plenty of dramatic gesturing and stage direction.
"And now, here she is. Her body, her face, is that of the woman I loved. But the essence, the soul, the woman herself, is long gone, buried beneath what she did!"
"What did she do!" Elli demanded, voice growing slightly shrill.
"She..." He stopped. "She...I can't even say it."
"Grrgh!" said Elli pleasantly. "Maybe you can show me through interpretive dance, or draw me a picture, or act it out, or something!"
He glared yet again.
"Do you think this is the sort of thing a man can just talk about? Here you sit, before me, close enough to touch, to hold, to nibble gently long into the night, and yet so far away. Why does God continue to torment me? After all I've gone through in my life...all starting with the death of my pet bunny, Snuggles, when I was three. That was the tragic day that made me decide to go into medicine. I swore on the grave of Snuggles that I would never lose another bunny. It was about this time that bunnies went extinct. If only I had been able to save Snuggles...it might not have been so."
"You had a pet bunny named Snuggles?" Elli exclaimed delightedly. "That's cute!"
"And then, when I was six, my father died. I couldn't save him. I wasn't old enough to get into medical school. They sent me back to recess. And I swore that someday, I would get out of that playground and save lives! And then my mother died when I was ten. I was sent to live with my grandmother. She was old, and deaf, and died three months later. The orphanage was not so nurturing of my aspirations of medical school. But it didn't really matter, because it burnt to the grown the next day. I found work eventually, in a factory run by a sick, sadistic foreman, and from there it was a long and arduous process to earn the money needed for years and years of schooling.
"But I did it. And then I met you. And we fell in love. Desperately, immediately, wonderfully in love. And all was finally going right. And then, a mere three years later, the mere blink of an eye, you..." He hesitated. "You..."
"I...?"
"You..."
She watched in growing concern as his face contorted with the effort to spit out the words. Any more of this, and he was going to burst something.
"Can I make you some tea?" she asked timidly.
He turned sharply.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you? To poison me. Kill me, as you killed my spirit."
"Um, actually, I just thought some tea might help you relax," she admitted.
He blinked.
"Oh. Tea sounds nice. Let's go."
She watched, head swimming with confusion, as he swept dramatically upstairs.
"Oww..."