Forsaken
Part 1: Mousse Faces the Truth: The love that was never meant to be
All characters in this fan fic belong to Rumiko Takahashi except Paul Sherman who is mine and Superman who is owned by DC Comics. And no, this isn't a crossover. Superman is just mentioned, but not used in this fic.
Mousse's head throbs in pain as he awoke from his deep drugged- induced slumber. He held his head in his right hand and moan out a curse at his terrible headache. The hard coil springs of a cheap mattress cut into Mousse's back. He realized was in a bed. Mousse opened his eyes only to see blotches of brown and irony. Mousse struggled to recall the events of last night that left him in a stranger's room. As he concentrated, Mousse began visualizing all that happened to him.
"Stupid duck boy! Look out and see!" Mousse peeked out the door and saw Paul sitting in the far corner tapping his feet, impatiently.
Mousse ducked back into the kitchen (no pun intended). "I don't see anything wrong."
Shampoo grabbed Mousse by the collar. "Customer is filthy negro. Shampoo don't want black rubbed off on her. Make you go out instead."
Mousse winched at the thought of his precious Shampoo as a racist. Mousse was tempted to stop right there, but he knew he had to keep searching in his memories for what happened to him.
"Actually, I wouldn't. It always left a bad taste in my mouth. Do you have American liquor, Jack Daniels perhaps?"
"No, we don't."
"Are you sure? Because you're menu says it has alcoholic beverages from distant lands."
"The menu's referring to China."
"It also says throughout the world, so that's more than just China."
"Look old man!" yelled Mousse, "I've been here a lot longer than you! I should know what we have and what we don't, and I say we don't have anything from America."
It was the black man that Shampoo didn't want to serve. Why was his face so prevalent in his flashback Mousse asked himself?
Cologne stopped in mid-sentence when she heard Mousse screaming from the kitchen. Paul and Cologne ran to the kitchen.
When they came in, they saw Mousse nursing his left arm, which was drenched in blood. He was staring on in utter disbelief and shock at the object of his affection, love, and agony, which stood ten feet from him wielding a butcher knife stained in dark red.
"What's going on here!" demanded Paul. "Well, care to explain this." His question was directed at Shampoo who looked cold and had a fierce look in her eyes.
"It was an accident, Mr. Sherman," answered Mousse, grimly and solemnly. "That's all it was, an accident. I should have not been here," he was saying as he marched out the back door of the kitchen leaving a trail of blood behind.
Mousse began to weep bitterly. His only love, Shampoo, tried to kill him and all because she did want to serve a customer. "Why, Shampoo, why?" he cried out. He rolled out of his bed and fell to the floor. Mousse was on his hands and knees beating the floor with his fists. The floor echoed with a hollow resonance with each blow. He got up and began feeling for his glasses wondering why he didn't end his miserable existence then and there.
Mousse sat Indian-style on the railroad tracks running on the outskirts of Nermia. It was pitch black at this time of night. Clouds covered the stars during the night of a new moon. Mousse hugged himself tightly shivering. How fitting, he thought, that the night he would end his existence would so readily fit his life: cold, dark and bleak. A light a few miles down the tracks stabbed the darkness. The 10:48 freight train to Nermia is always a few minutes later, he thought.
"Why I am still alive," Mousse whispered to himself?
"Hey kid, you might wanna spend a day to two thinking over your decision to meet your maker on account that suicide's a little permanent." The voice seemed to Mousse strangely familiar.
Mousse stood up. "Who are you, how did you know I would be out here, and what's business is it of yours?"
"One: I was at the Neko Cafe just a while ago," the voice called out as its source stepped out of the shadows and into the light of a streetlamp, "two: I've seen that look on your face a dozen times before and each time it was just before some poor idiot got zipped into a body bag, and three: I make it my business." The figure was very tall. In fact, he was taller than any man Mousse ever seen before.
"Now I remember you," Mousse replied. "Go home, old man. You can't force me off these tracks." The train whistled in the background. The man pulled out a gun from his coat pocket. Mousse was a bit surprised to see it since he was trained to detect conceal weapons by his sensei in the art of Hidden Weapons. "So, you're going to save me the trouble of suicide and kill me yourself." Mousse stretched his arms out as if to embrace the Grim Reaper himself. The tracks were shaking as the train's headlights were illuminating the spot where Mousse was standing.
"Kid, I don't feel like dragging you back to town, so get off those tracks, NOW!"
"I'd rather you'd shoot." Pleads to get off the track were being shouted by the conductor of the train.
And the man did just that. It wasn't very loud, due to the fact that the gun was equipped with a silencer on the end of the barrel. Mousse was knocked back a few inches. To Mousse's surprise, instead of blood staining his ceremonial fighting robes, a cylinder with hairs on the end was sticking out of his chest. He pulled the object out of his chest and saw a needle on the end. As he did, he felt light-headed; the world was spinning; the lights from the train and streetlamps were blurs. "What did you...do to.... do to... to me?" Mousse tried to say over the roar of the train. Then he felt something impacting his chest knocking him to the ground. All he could make out now was the passing of the cars of train.
Now, everything made sense to Mousse. That old fart from the Neko Café: he was the one that pushed him off the tracked at the last second. It was his fault; the old man was the one that turned Shampoo against him. What was his name again...aw yeah...Paul Sherman. And it was this Paul Sherman that wouldn't even allow Mousse the dignity to end his misery. All he need was his glasses and his armament of hidden weapons and he could...Suddenly, it dawned on him: he felt a lot lighter, as if half his body weight was gone. He reached into his coat and found all of his weapons-his chains, his throwing knives, his bombs-missing. The old fart did it to him again. Mousse felt naked without his hidden weapons. Mousse hit the wall with his fist or tried to hit the wall with his fist. He missed and fell over landing face first into the hard concrete floor. Mousse picked himself up and rubbed his nose. It wasn't broken, but it was bleeding. Mousse held his bloody nose and felt around for the bathroom in order to get some toilet paper to clean the blood off his face. Eventually, he managed to feel around and find a doorknob. Mousse opened the door and felt along the wall looking for a light switch.
"I guess you found me out," called out a voice over Mousse's shoulder. Mousse may not be able to see, but he knew who was talking to him: Paul Sherman. "I'm the vigilante Armament," he said, "but it doesn't matter whether or not you know my second identity. I'm an old man who doesn't have long on this earth anyway. So you can tell whoever you want. I no longer care."
"You old b@#$%d! What the hell are you babbling about?" Mousse spat.
Paul Sherman franticly pointed inside the closet. "You don't see it: the Armament costume hanging up in the closet!"
"Not without my glasses I can't."
"That's right! I forgot you wear glasses. It looks like I gave myself away."
"'Gave yourself away'?!?" said a bewildered Mousse. "And who's Armament?"
Paul Sherman laughed. "A name I went by before your time. I should have known you haven't heard of Armament."
"I don't care if you're Superman!" yelled Mousse. "You're going to pay for turning Shampoo against me."
"You mean the girl that sliced you up with that butcher's knife."
"You make it sound malicious," said Mousse defensively.
"You're one serious lovesick fool."
"I don't need my hidden weapons to send you to hell, old man! I can take you one hand-to-hand."
"Well, it's a good thing I'm not using my bare hand, isn't it." Paul Sherman shot Mousse again with his tranquilizer dart.
"Not...not...again." And Mousse collapsed into unconsciousness.
Mousse woke up again in the same hard mattress with the same splitting headache he had the last time he woke up. Only this time, he was handcuffed to the front and back board of the bed. "Old man! Where are you?"
"That's Paul Sherman to you, kid." Paul was sitting on a chair right next to Mousse. Outside each window was pitch darkness. Mousse pretty much slept the entire day away.
"Don't you have something better to do than harass me? You're to blame for Shampoo turning against me."
"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be born black. That was my parents' fault."
Mousse was in shock. "How did know about...what Shampoo said in the kitchen."
"I didn't need to hear anything. I could tell by reading her body language; the way she looked at me, the tone of voice, the fact that she could wait to get away from me. When you're been around as long as me, you know these things."
"Shampoo isn't a bigot! You're...you're...taking things out of context."
"What is the color of the sky in that little world of yours?"
Mousse slung his head back and hit the mattress. This Sherman guy was right. It was horrible to think of his precious Shampoo as a bigot.
"I know this is hard on you, but you need come down to earth."
"I understand. But even if she's a racist, I won't ever abandon her. I just have to overlook it, that's all."
Paul jumped out of his chair and stomped his foot on the floor. His arms were swinging wildly. "You're impossible."
"Even if she was a murderer, I'd still love Shampoo."
"That's very sweet of you, kid..."
"Mousse. My name is Mousse."
"Well, that's very sweet of you Mousse," said Sherman trying in vain to hide his sarcasm, "but she doesn't feel the same about you." Paul Sherman pulled out a mini-tape recorder out of pocket. "I thought getting to you might be a little hard, so I bugged that little restaurant you worked in and taped this." He pressed play on the mini-recorder and laid it on the table.
The tape recorder hissed with the crackling sound of static. Despite this, Mousse could make out the commotion of many people conversing among themselves in the café.
"Shampoo!" a voice called out. It belonged to Ryoga. "Hey Shampoo! I need to talk to you for a sec."
"Shampoo busy!" she spat. "Café been busy since stupid Duck Boy been gone. He no longer here to mess things up."
"Well, if you see him, just tell him to come over to the Tendo dojo. Ranma wants to see him."
"If Shampoo sees Mousse, Shampoo will kill Mousse."
Mousse winched at the vicious tone of Shampoo's voice. It's like he's seeing a darker side of her. She sounded like the older members of the Amazon tribes: the ones set in the old ways of doing things, such as men being expendable; something even lower than the livestock to be toss asunder once it outlived it usefulness or simply became an annoyance.
"Shampoo!" Akane Tendo yelled out. The sound of her feet was heard in the recorder, so she must have been stomping her feet the whole time. "How could say that about Mousse."
"Easy, Mousse is garbage and deserves to die."
"You don't mean that." It wasn't Akane but her older sister, Kasumi speaking this time. "I know you deep down inside like Mousse."
"You're worried about him, aren't you?" asked Ryoga sheepishly.
"Haw!" cackled Cologne. "It Shampoo was worried about that useless man, she wouldn't ask to call forth Ja'Noise Ho." At the sound of the word, Mousse gagged and threw up the little bit of food in his stomach.
"Ja'Noise Ho?"
"An old Amazon phrase. It literally means 'garbage that must be burned if the wind blows it back into the village'."
"If stupid Duck Boy comes back to Amazon village or Neko Café, Amazons will kill him."
"What sort of people are you!" yelled Akane. The entire café went quite for a second and then became noisy again. "Why would you do this?"
"Men," said Cologne, "with the rare exception to specimen like my fiancé Ranma are waste of flesh and Mousse is the worse of them. Is that not right, my child?"
"That's right Great-Grandmother," acknowledged Shampoo.
"Come on, Ryoga, let's go back to the dojo," said Akane. "I won't be coming back again."
"Neither will I, Akane," said Ryoga.
"Kasumi, why are still standing around for?" Akane called out.
Kasumi said in a low, almost scolding voice, "Shampoo, I've very disappointed in you." A few gasps at Kasumi's uncharacteristic words could be heard.
Paul clicked off the recorder. He stood over Mousse who was wallowing in his own grief. "Why," he asked, "why did you show me all of this?"
"Because I can't baby-sit a grown man. I hoped that maybe you knew the truth you could move on with your life."
"Well you can forget about it, because Shampoo was my life. I don't know what to do without her."
"I'll tell you what you could do, grow a backbone and be man that's what."
"You know I'll just try to kill myself again."
Paul, with a speed Mousse didn't expect from the elderly man, grabbed Mousse by the collar. He glared with righteous indignation at Mousse, who started to tremble in Paul Sherman's grip. "You're about as dumb as they come. That's what she wants you to do: kill yourself and do the dirty work for you." Paul dropped Mousse's head back on the couch. "Just answer me this one question and answer it honestly: do you think Shampoo would cry for you if they found you dead."
Mousse started sweating. He knew better than anyone else the answer; an answer that ripped him from the inside. "She just thinks that I'm not worthy of her right now."
"Just answer yes or not. You don't have time for an essay."
"It's not that simple."
"The hell it isn't. What's the point of pining over a woman that won't even shed a tear for you at your own funeral? Now tell me the answer."
"No," Mousse cried, "no she wouldn't. Shampoo wouldn't cry for me if I died." and a floodgate of tears burst through Mousse's eyelids.
"Now, let me ask you this: why would you want to die for a person like that?" Paul turned off the lights and lay down on a sleeping back on the floor. "I'll give you the rest of the night to think about what we talked about. See you in the morning." And he went to sleep while Mousse stared at the ceiling thinking about what he just said about Shampoo.
"Shampoo wouldn't cry for me if I died."
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So ends part 2 of my little story. Thanks to the readers for showing an interest to the story, especially Maricruz. If not for your encouragement, I would have left story wither on the vine and forget about it. Thanks.
Part 1: Mousse Faces the Truth: The love that was never meant to be
All characters in this fan fic belong to Rumiko Takahashi except Paul Sherman who is mine and Superman who is owned by DC Comics. And no, this isn't a crossover. Superman is just mentioned, but not used in this fic.
Mousse's head throbs in pain as he awoke from his deep drugged- induced slumber. He held his head in his right hand and moan out a curse at his terrible headache. The hard coil springs of a cheap mattress cut into Mousse's back. He realized was in a bed. Mousse opened his eyes only to see blotches of brown and irony. Mousse struggled to recall the events of last night that left him in a stranger's room. As he concentrated, Mousse began visualizing all that happened to him.
"Stupid duck boy! Look out and see!" Mousse peeked out the door and saw Paul sitting in the far corner tapping his feet, impatiently.
Mousse ducked back into the kitchen (no pun intended). "I don't see anything wrong."
Shampoo grabbed Mousse by the collar. "Customer is filthy negro. Shampoo don't want black rubbed off on her. Make you go out instead."
Mousse winched at the thought of his precious Shampoo as a racist. Mousse was tempted to stop right there, but he knew he had to keep searching in his memories for what happened to him.
"Actually, I wouldn't. It always left a bad taste in my mouth. Do you have American liquor, Jack Daniels perhaps?"
"No, we don't."
"Are you sure? Because you're menu says it has alcoholic beverages from distant lands."
"The menu's referring to China."
"It also says throughout the world, so that's more than just China."
"Look old man!" yelled Mousse, "I've been here a lot longer than you! I should know what we have and what we don't, and I say we don't have anything from America."
It was the black man that Shampoo didn't want to serve. Why was his face so prevalent in his flashback Mousse asked himself?
Cologne stopped in mid-sentence when she heard Mousse screaming from the kitchen. Paul and Cologne ran to the kitchen.
When they came in, they saw Mousse nursing his left arm, which was drenched in blood. He was staring on in utter disbelief and shock at the object of his affection, love, and agony, which stood ten feet from him wielding a butcher knife stained in dark red.
"What's going on here!" demanded Paul. "Well, care to explain this." His question was directed at Shampoo who looked cold and had a fierce look in her eyes.
"It was an accident, Mr. Sherman," answered Mousse, grimly and solemnly. "That's all it was, an accident. I should have not been here," he was saying as he marched out the back door of the kitchen leaving a trail of blood behind.
Mousse began to weep bitterly. His only love, Shampoo, tried to kill him and all because she did want to serve a customer. "Why, Shampoo, why?" he cried out. He rolled out of his bed and fell to the floor. Mousse was on his hands and knees beating the floor with his fists. The floor echoed with a hollow resonance with each blow. He got up and began feeling for his glasses wondering why he didn't end his miserable existence then and there.
Mousse sat Indian-style on the railroad tracks running on the outskirts of Nermia. It was pitch black at this time of night. Clouds covered the stars during the night of a new moon. Mousse hugged himself tightly shivering. How fitting, he thought, that the night he would end his existence would so readily fit his life: cold, dark and bleak. A light a few miles down the tracks stabbed the darkness. The 10:48 freight train to Nermia is always a few minutes later, he thought.
"Why I am still alive," Mousse whispered to himself?
"Hey kid, you might wanna spend a day to two thinking over your decision to meet your maker on account that suicide's a little permanent." The voice seemed to Mousse strangely familiar.
Mousse stood up. "Who are you, how did you know I would be out here, and what's business is it of yours?"
"One: I was at the Neko Cafe just a while ago," the voice called out as its source stepped out of the shadows and into the light of a streetlamp, "two: I've seen that look on your face a dozen times before and each time it was just before some poor idiot got zipped into a body bag, and three: I make it my business." The figure was very tall. In fact, he was taller than any man Mousse ever seen before.
"Now I remember you," Mousse replied. "Go home, old man. You can't force me off these tracks." The train whistled in the background. The man pulled out a gun from his coat pocket. Mousse was a bit surprised to see it since he was trained to detect conceal weapons by his sensei in the art of Hidden Weapons. "So, you're going to save me the trouble of suicide and kill me yourself." Mousse stretched his arms out as if to embrace the Grim Reaper himself. The tracks were shaking as the train's headlights were illuminating the spot where Mousse was standing.
"Kid, I don't feel like dragging you back to town, so get off those tracks, NOW!"
"I'd rather you'd shoot." Pleads to get off the track were being shouted by the conductor of the train.
And the man did just that. It wasn't very loud, due to the fact that the gun was equipped with a silencer on the end of the barrel. Mousse was knocked back a few inches. To Mousse's surprise, instead of blood staining his ceremonial fighting robes, a cylinder with hairs on the end was sticking out of his chest. He pulled the object out of his chest and saw a needle on the end. As he did, he felt light-headed; the world was spinning; the lights from the train and streetlamps were blurs. "What did you...do to.... do to... to me?" Mousse tried to say over the roar of the train. Then he felt something impacting his chest knocking him to the ground. All he could make out now was the passing of the cars of train.
Now, everything made sense to Mousse. That old fart from the Neko Café: he was the one that pushed him off the tracked at the last second. It was his fault; the old man was the one that turned Shampoo against him. What was his name again...aw yeah...Paul Sherman. And it was this Paul Sherman that wouldn't even allow Mousse the dignity to end his misery. All he need was his glasses and his armament of hidden weapons and he could...Suddenly, it dawned on him: he felt a lot lighter, as if half his body weight was gone. He reached into his coat and found all of his weapons-his chains, his throwing knives, his bombs-missing. The old fart did it to him again. Mousse felt naked without his hidden weapons. Mousse hit the wall with his fist or tried to hit the wall with his fist. He missed and fell over landing face first into the hard concrete floor. Mousse picked himself up and rubbed his nose. It wasn't broken, but it was bleeding. Mousse held his bloody nose and felt around for the bathroom in order to get some toilet paper to clean the blood off his face. Eventually, he managed to feel around and find a doorknob. Mousse opened the door and felt along the wall looking for a light switch.
"I guess you found me out," called out a voice over Mousse's shoulder. Mousse may not be able to see, but he knew who was talking to him: Paul Sherman. "I'm the vigilante Armament," he said, "but it doesn't matter whether or not you know my second identity. I'm an old man who doesn't have long on this earth anyway. So you can tell whoever you want. I no longer care."
"You old b@#$%d! What the hell are you babbling about?" Mousse spat.
Paul Sherman franticly pointed inside the closet. "You don't see it: the Armament costume hanging up in the closet!"
"Not without my glasses I can't."
"That's right! I forgot you wear glasses. It looks like I gave myself away."
"'Gave yourself away'?!?" said a bewildered Mousse. "And who's Armament?"
Paul Sherman laughed. "A name I went by before your time. I should have known you haven't heard of Armament."
"I don't care if you're Superman!" yelled Mousse. "You're going to pay for turning Shampoo against me."
"You mean the girl that sliced you up with that butcher's knife."
"You make it sound malicious," said Mousse defensively.
"You're one serious lovesick fool."
"I don't need my hidden weapons to send you to hell, old man! I can take you one hand-to-hand."
"Well, it's a good thing I'm not using my bare hand, isn't it." Paul Sherman shot Mousse again with his tranquilizer dart.
"Not...not...again." And Mousse collapsed into unconsciousness.
Mousse woke up again in the same hard mattress with the same splitting headache he had the last time he woke up. Only this time, he was handcuffed to the front and back board of the bed. "Old man! Where are you?"
"That's Paul Sherman to you, kid." Paul was sitting on a chair right next to Mousse. Outside each window was pitch darkness. Mousse pretty much slept the entire day away.
"Don't you have something better to do than harass me? You're to blame for Shampoo turning against me."
"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be born black. That was my parents' fault."
Mousse was in shock. "How did know about...what Shampoo said in the kitchen."
"I didn't need to hear anything. I could tell by reading her body language; the way she looked at me, the tone of voice, the fact that she could wait to get away from me. When you're been around as long as me, you know these things."
"Shampoo isn't a bigot! You're...you're...taking things out of context."
"What is the color of the sky in that little world of yours?"
Mousse slung his head back and hit the mattress. This Sherman guy was right. It was horrible to think of his precious Shampoo as a bigot.
"I know this is hard on you, but you need come down to earth."
"I understand. But even if she's a racist, I won't ever abandon her. I just have to overlook it, that's all."
Paul jumped out of his chair and stomped his foot on the floor. His arms were swinging wildly. "You're impossible."
"Even if she was a murderer, I'd still love Shampoo."
"That's very sweet of you, kid..."
"Mousse. My name is Mousse."
"Well, that's very sweet of you Mousse," said Sherman trying in vain to hide his sarcasm, "but she doesn't feel the same about you." Paul Sherman pulled out a mini-tape recorder out of pocket. "I thought getting to you might be a little hard, so I bugged that little restaurant you worked in and taped this." He pressed play on the mini-recorder and laid it on the table.
The tape recorder hissed with the crackling sound of static. Despite this, Mousse could make out the commotion of many people conversing among themselves in the café.
"Shampoo!" a voice called out. It belonged to Ryoga. "Hey Shampoo! I need to talk to you for a sec."
"Shampoo busy!" she spat. "Café been busy since stupid Duck Boy been gone. He no longer here to mess things up."
"Well, if you see him, just tell him to come over to the Tendo dojo. Ranma wants to see him."
"If Shampoo sees Mousse, Shampoo will kill Mousse."
Mousse winched at the vicious tone of Shampoo's voice. It's like he's seeing a darker side of her. She sounded like the older members of the Amazon tribes: the ones set in the old ways of doing things, such as men being expendable; something even lower than the livestock to be toss asunder once it outlived it usefulness or simply became an annoyance.
"Shampoo!" Akane Tendo yelled out. The sound of her feet was heard in the recorder, so she must have been stomping her feet the whole time. "How could say that about Mousse."
"Easy, Mousse is garbage and deserves to die."
"You don't mean that." It wasn't Akane but her older sister, Kasumi speaking this time. "I know you deep down inside like Mousse."
"You're worried about him, aren't you?" asked Ryoga sheepishly.
"Haw!" cackled Cologne. "It Shampoo was worried about that useless man, she wouldn't ask to call forth Ja'Noise Ho." At the sound of the word, Mousse gagged and threw up the little bit of food in his stomach.
"Ja'Noise Ho?"
"An old Amazon phrase. It literally means 'garbage that must be burned if the wind blows it back into the village'."
"If stupid Duck Boy comes back to Amazon village or Neko Café, Amazons will kill him."
"What sort of people are you!" yelled Akane. The entire café went quite for a second and then became noisy again. "Why would you do this?"
"Men," said Cologne, "with the rare exception to specimen like my fiancé Ranma are waste of flesh and Mousse is the worse of them. Is that not right, my child?"
"That's right Great-Grandmother," acknowledged Shampoo.
"Come on, Ryoga, let's go back to the dojo," said Akane. "I won't be coming back again."
"Neither will I, Akane," said Ryoga.
"Kasumi, why are still standing around for?" Akane called out.
Kasumi said in a low, almost scolding voice, "Shampoo, I've very disappointed in you." A few gasps at Kasumi's uncharacteristic words could be heard.
Paul clicked off the recorder. He stood over Mousse who was wallowing in his own grief. "Why," he asked, "why did you show me all of this?"
"Because I can't baby-sit a grown man. I hoped that maybe you knew the truth you could move on with your life."
"Well you can forget about it, because Shampoo was my life. I don't know what to do without her."
"I'll tell you what you could do, grow a backbone and be man that's what."
"You know I'll just try to kill myself again."
Paul, with a speed Mousse didn't expect from the elderly man, grabbed Mousse by the collar. He glared with righteous indignation at Mousse, who started to tremble in Paul Sherman's grip. "You're about as dumb as they come. That's what she wants you to do: kill yourself and do the dirty work for you." Paul dropped Mousse's head back on the couch. "Just answer me this one question and answer it honestly: do you think Shampoo would cry for you if they found you dead."
Mousse started sweating. He knew better than anyone else the answer; an answer that ripped him from the inside. "She just thinks that I'm not worthy of her right now."
"Just answer yes or not. You don't have time for an essay."
"It's not that simple."
"The hell it isn't. What's the point of pining over a woman that won't even shed a tear for you at your own funeral? Now tell me the answer."
"No," Mousse cried, "no she wouldn't. Shampoo wouldn't cry for me if I died." and a floodgate of tears burst through Mousse's eyelids.
"Now, let me ask you this: why would you want to die for a person like that?" Paul turned off the lights and lay down on a sleeping back on the floor. "I'll give you the rest of the night to think about what we talked about. See you in the morning." And he went to sleep while Mousse stared at the ceiling thinking about what he just said about Shampoo.
"Shampoo wouldn't cry for me if I died."
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So ends part 2 of my little story. Thanks to the readers for showing an interest to the story, especially Maricruz. If not for your encouragement, I would have left story wither on the vine and forget about it. Thanks.