CHAPTER 2 : I'm Reminded of a Song...
Candidate 2
A tall lady with a tall but attractive face face and single jointed arm as long as a long arms and legs so long she stood just a little below Brook in height. Her hair - done up in a bouffant with a fancy cap pinned to the side.
Her lilting way of talking turned Brook off at once - an Opera singer!
His soul had no use for such 'high art'.
She was surprisingly young. With much makeup. Thick red lipstick.
An arrogant beauty.
She enters and proffer's her hand delicately in his face.
"You sure are tall!", Brook exclaims, sweeping her hand to his teeth.
From his sockets he can see she looks rather...offended.
"Well sir. I'm here on recommendation. I shall sing for you a song. Ah! A song so beautiful, so marvelous, your soul, it shall be released unto the heavens."
"No thank you!", Brook says without thinking. But he couldn't die yet!
"Oh Laboon!", Brook begins wailing on his sleeve.
Her offense meter seems about to reach the stars.
"Well. I shall bear no further insult Mr Bone."
"Err..the names Brook", he sniffs, looking at her.
"As I was saying, I, I myself the great Madam Chirii shall sing for your cursed soul!"
"Ah, yes Ma'am..", Brook answers with some alarm at her flashing eyes.
The good Madam, she begins with setting her pitch.
La la laa~aaa
a a a ah a ah ah aaaaa~
aaaa~aaaaaaaaaaa ahhhh aaaaaaa~aaaaaaaa
ahhhhhaaa~aahahhh
ahhhhhhh~aaaaaa~~h!
She's set at last.
Brook gulps back his joke about having no ears. Who said he had none?
They're hurting!
He lifts a bottle of wine and pours himself some. It warms him. Oh yes. Yes...he hadn't any stomach to hold it though!
She's still glaring. Best not to laugh.
He offered her some. She takes it and swirls the glass around a bit before sipping it delicately once.
She then begins in full force :-
Sshhheeeeeeeee~eeeeeeeee Pro-misssssssssssssssssd mmmmmeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Her virrrrrrrrrt~uuuuuos chas~titttttttttyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...
Brook's wine glass shattered before hers did. As did a few of his bones. He felt his ribs vibrate and his sternum crack. His skull almost exploded and his teeth shook in his jaw. The mirror, the window, the bottles, his teacup, a teapot, they shattered into pieces.
Then. And only then, the wine glass in her hand shattered.
Her shriek at that didn't quite reach the same pitch but the chandelier above their heads shattered into a rain of crystals. One hit him on his forehead and Brook, already in pain collapsed face-forward on the floor.
How pathetically weak!
And he dared call himself one of the Mugiwaras?
"Oh master! I'm so sorry. I overdid myself. How may I apologize.", came her wailing alarmed falsetto.
Brook wished he could ask her to shut up. But...he was Brook. He said it a little different.
He raises his skull from the floor and looking at her says,
"Well Madam. It would ease my soul if you'd show me your panties."
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
The noise of glass already shattered shattering. His ribs cracked. And his skull cracked. And he stuffed his phalanges into his 'ears'.
Brook has collapsed again. Face-down. 43 degrees only though. Such a pain...
The door bursts open at last.
'So late', thinks Brook.
"What's the matter with you?", yells the manager terrified at Brook's odd angle, fearing the worst for his golden goose.
He pays no heed to the woman though. She who has fainted.
Big mistake.
"You!", come her yell freezing the manager in his tracks halfway between her and Brook. Her one eye is open and livid.
"Have you no manners!? Not asking after a lady first! And a...and a..mo~mol~..."
Here she bursts into a high shrieking sob whose pitch pained all animals on the island that night.
"Wh-a-t happ-en-ed he-r-e?" , the manager asks, flailing his joints in order specified, still not getting what all this drama was about.
"THAA~T MAAAA~N", she yells in a falsetto, before bursting into another fit of faked hysterical sobs.
"He tri~ed to~ ro~b me~..."
Long dramatic pause where she sniffs in a very unladylike exaggerated fashion fashion.
"...of my cha~sti~ty!"
Let us not dwell on the incident of some expletive by the manager that invoked the soul of Mephistopheles from within her. If not her pitch, her words would make the strongest wither and the bravest quiver while several other bones all turned in their graves at lands far, far away. By the end, he had her by the limb and shoved her roughly on her way, her falsetto piercing a cave through the skies.
"Is that the way to deal with one so chaste?", asks Brook unnecessarily, yet lying at 43, unable to adjust just yet.
"Chastity my foot! Why do you think manger no.1 wasn't the one that came, eh?"
"Why?", asks Brook, though he felt it hardly mattered who did come.
"She's his ex, thats why! She wrung him dry long ago, see. You be glad we've seen the end of her."
"I doubt that.", says Brook. Realizing something odd, he asks "Why did you call her then?"
"Well...see...he did say her voice was soul-moving enough. And if she found out about these interviews later...", he finishes with a move depicting the execution of Madame Guillotine.
"Ah. I see. I see.", says Brook. "But.."
"..I have no eyes. Ha ha. Very funny.", completes his manager drily. He curses again. "He and his soul-moving banshee!"
"I think you misheard him. He definitely meant soul-shattering.", says Brook who felt very, very shattered at the moment.
"A cup of tea please."
To soothe his powdered nerves.
"What do you think you're ordering me around for!?", yells the manager.
"Hmmph", Brook says swiveling his skull 90 degrees away. "I'd never sing again!"
"All you high-maintenance artists!", grumbles the manager stomping away.
In the warm, well-lit room bare of glass, Brook lies down upon a divan, straightens his single-joint and with much humor tickling his humerus and lifts the ukulele off the ground.
Stringing it, he says to no-one in particular, "I'm reminded of a song..."
He'll note them down.
This was good. If things went this way in two years he'd have many such songs to entertain his crew with.
"...The woman he did not love."
Candidate 2 : Disqualified
