I'm so sorry this took forever to update! Summer reading really sucks.

Part 4-in which the camera sees things it never wanted to see

The morning after the "Frenchman" incident, Mark was dead to the world. He had very few memories of the night before, except there had been an awful lot of—tea? How was it that tea made him feel like a ton of bricks had been dropped on his head, then a steamroller drove over his head/pancake (as it was very squished by now) and then a lawn mower…you get the picture.

Regardless of the state of his head, Mark was being roughly shaken by his frazzled, caring roommate. "Mark! Mark! You have to get up! You'll be late for work!"

"Unh washu nemashmoken," muttered Mark in the language of sleep. There was a snowball's chance in hell he was getting out of bed this morning.

Five minutes later, a grumbling, half-dressed Mark was stumbling towards the coffee shop where he worked as Roger's shouts of "Bring me back a muffin!" rang in his ears. At least he wasn't afraid that his roommate was actually showing some pathos for him. Yet as Mark dodged early morning taxicabs and buses, he couldn't help but get the feeling that he was forgetting something…

Roger stood in the loft holding Mark's most treasured possession in his hands. He was so glad he'd slipped that Lunesta into his tea the night before—yes, it had been absolute hell trying to wake the sleepy filmmaker (Roger thought as he gingerly touched the bruise blooming over his eye)—but the revenge would be worth it. He grabbed a reel marked, "Christmas" and set about to work.

Mark came home at exactly seven minutes past five, being the very punctual person he was. He'd never gotten home at a different time other than 5:07. Although the effects of the sleeping pills were still wearing off, he decided to edit a few film reels before retiring to a very long sleep. He snapped his camera into the projector, worked his filmmaker voodoo magic, and previewed the reel he was going to show his friends for Christmas.

(Little did Mark realize that he had, in fact, forgotten his camera that morning, and thusly the footage of pigeons, children playing in the park, and drug dealers being arrested, which he had actually filmed with his scarf, were all figments of his imagination.)

Instead of his introduction of giving Christmas wishes to all of his friends while Roger, extremely frustrated with his guitar started screaming at it and throwing the coffeepot in the background, the film began with a shot of Roger's stomach. Roger's stomach with a face drawn on it in Sharpie markers.

"Hi, everyone!" Roger said in a falsetto while making his belly button do the talking. "It's Mark here, and I just want to wish everyone a shitty Christmas. I hate all of you! Drop dead! Well, that's going to happen to Angel and Collins and Mimi and Roger anyways, so ha! Neener neener neener!"

It only got worse after that.

After Roger was bored with the talking-tummy idea, the camera cut to a shot of several apples sitting on the counter. He'd given them faces with Sharpie as well and was re-enacting a very dramatic scene from "A Few Good Men".

"The truth!" the Granny Smith screamed. "You can't handle the truth!"

"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the war room!" cried the Red Delicious, quoting Doctor Strangelove.

"Frankly, Miss Scarlet, I don't give a damn," replied the golden apple as it retreated from the counter while the Red Delicious burst into tears. This was all well and good until Roger smashed them all the pieces while laughing insanely. He shot over a minute of gory footage of the tragic deaths of seven apples, five bananas, nine kiwis, and fifteen blueberries. After the carnage, he narrated, "Eh, Mark can take care of that,"

Then there was the Bohemian Sock Puppet Theater, doing their "Roger is a Sex God" show. Then there was footage of Roger, dancing on the table, wearing a lampshade on his head, singing, "Oh, Marky, you're so fine, you're so fine you blow my mind hey Marky! Hey Marky!". Then there was the Kidnapping of Roger's beloved Fender, Musetta, as Mark's camera held her for a ransom of ten pounds each of Starbursts and double chocolate muffins.

Mark could only watch in horror at the seventy five minutes of unedited, completely puerile garbage that Roger had filled up his day with.

Yes, Roger would die a very slow and painful death.

His soon-to-be-late roommate was sitting on the table on which he had previously danced, staring into space and pretending to think. "Roger…" purred Mark slowly as he stalked towards him. "Roger…you wouldn't have happened to have my camera with you today, did you?"

"Nope, you took it with you to work, as always."

"Oh really? Then how do you explain this!" Mark cried and pointed towards the projector, which was showing the ending of the footage Roger had shot (it was another "drop dead" message from Mark the belly button)

"Wow, Mark, you've got some twisted ideas for stuff to film. I mean, shots of your abs? No one wants to see that Mark. And that's so mean, what you said about poor Collins and Angel and Mimi, not to mention me. What's with the fruit? And….aw, the "Roger is a Sex God!" show. Isn't that cute? Marky, I didn't know you cared!" He embraced his roommate in a tight hug, who now looked as though he was about to strangle Roger with whatever items he could find.

"Roger…"

"What is it, my little Markykins?"

"…you're dead."

Roger laughed as Mark chased him around the loft, hurling various missiles at him and screaming death threats until someone slid the door back.

"Hey Mark?" his cousin called out. "Hey, I just wanted to let you know that you never picked up your hat, and I thought I'd give it back…"

Roger froze dead in his tracks as realization dawned on him. There was something very familiar about this man with a goatee and beret that could suddenly speak English…

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