Dating : Banbury Story!

The man, simply known as, “Siempre” exited the private elevator and strode with a purpose down the marble black and white checkered hallway. His prized Patrick Ewing sneakers (The Eclipse, aka the 92 Olympic model) squeaked slightly, the noise reverberating off the high ceilings while his old black duster dragged slightly on the floor behind him. Stephen, an eager chap fresh out of law school and one of three executive assistants, met him approximately forty percent of the way — as is the custom at Netflix.

“Siempre! We’re honored to have you here. Can I get you anything to drink?” Siempre reached into his jacket and pulled out an empty flask. A soft sigh fluttered across the space between the two men as Siempre gave careful consideration to his query.

“In honor of today’s meeting, I would like something red.” Stephen wrinkled his brow and asked,

“Anything particular?”

“I would like something grand for my gustatory cells.” For the second time in as many seconds, Stephen wrinkled his brow before resuming his normal positive demeanor and scampered off to find a red drink. The second executive assistant, Martha, picked up the baton. Martha had worked as the second executive assistant for the last eight years and only recently received her own executive assistant — Stephen. Her career trajectory was a source of pride. She would be sure to mention having her own executive assistant if you started a conversation up with her at the local coffee shop. Martha always spoke in a clipped tone, regardless of who she was addressing.

“Siempre! Please, he’s waiting.” Siempre followed the middle-aged woman through the automated oak doors and stepped inside the office of Bill Netflix, CEO of Netflix, seated at the other end of the room behind a desk made entirely of glass. The blinding white wool carpet gobbled up each and every step. Bill ran his hand through the sides of his thinning hair, looked up from his tablet, stood up, and met Siempre in one of three sitting areas. He gestured for him to sit in the easy chair next to the massive floor to ceiling windows covering the right side of his office.

“Siempre. Thanks for coming down. You’re a legend in this business, and I’ve been looking forward to this meeting for a very long time.” The two men shook hands, with Siempre intentionally giving Bill the dead fish. He removed his duster and draped it on his chair, showing off a dark green t-shirt and a comfortable pair of black sweatpants.

“Thank you, Bill Netflix. Please, what did you have in mind?”

“Straight to the point — one of the many reasons why Netflix is so eager to get into the Siempre business. Actually, it’s me who should be asking you what you had in mind? Netflix is committed to making whatever you imagine into reality. So tell me, tv show? Limited series? Movie? Documentary? A new type of genre? I’m all yours.” Siempre took a deep breath and, upon exhale, found a red fruit punch drink in hand, courtesy of the already departing Stephen. He smiled, took a sip, and began.

“I don’t know what to call it. But I have an idea.”

“Brilliant! Tell me.” Bill Netflix gave a side glance, and Teddie Bridgewater — not the quarterback for the Carolina Panthers but rather the first executive assistant for Bill Netflix, sitting in the third seating area ten feet away held his fingers over his laptop in anticipation.

“There is a man. For the sake of this conversation, let us use my name, Siempre. Siempre has exquisite hair. It’s dark, let’s say chestnut brown. Not an old chestnut that a squirrel misplaced. This chestnut is new to this world; it’s brownness conveying youth and vigor to the animal kingdom and curious children. This new chestnut brown hair has length and depth and width, a real-life equation for solving a three-dimensional cube, a mathematician’s dream, a sixth-grade boy’s nightmare and pours down the top of his slightly oval head into a loose convection of love, hanging slightly above his eyes.” Bill Netflix was all eyes and ears, sitting at the edge of his chair in rapt attention.

“Yes! Tell me more.”

“There is a commotion outside his door. We learn that Siempre lives in a modest one-bedroom apartment on Union Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.”

“Fantastic — relatable.”

“He opens the door and doesn’t see anyone — until he glances down. That’s when he meets the squirrels I alluded to earlier.”

“Squirrels? Interesting. We have a squirrel trainer on retainer no big deal.”

“The squirrels are actually from the past. They are Revolutionary War squirrels, sent by George Washington to secure the independence of the colonies.”

Bill Netflix tapped on his chest and exclaimed, “Who doesn’t love good ole George?”

“Of course, Siempre is slightly upset, seeing how there are rodents in his apartment hallway that costs more than a two thousand square foot house in Iowa. But they beseech him for his time, and he allows them inside, all two hundred of them.”

“Scratch that we can CGI no big deal.”

“As the squirrels explain their predicament, Siempre finds himself staring at his hair in the mirror above the fireplace. The fireplace was built with bricks created by the old Irish immigrants from the 1850s. They were known for their exquisite bricklaying, a tradition passed down from father to son for generations. The old bricks capture an innocence when the poor believed they were poor, unlike today, where the poor know they are poor. There is a natural part at the bricks’ apex that mirrors Siempre’s hair as if those Irish bricklayers were actual soothsayers who knew who they were building for one hundred and seventy-odd years prior. This part — the hair not the bricks, causes his hair to almost feather away; it’s quite breathtaking, much more than the already breathtaking bricks.”

“I know the best stylist— we won’t even need a wig!” Siempre ignored the remark, content to drip in his own creative juices, like a man with a soup fetish watching his favorite video one might find if they look hard enough on the world wide web.

“The squirrels continue to tell their time travel tale to save the Americas from impending doom from the imperial British, but Siempre is too lost in his own beauty to hear them. Until there’s an explosion outside.”

“Twists and turns!” Siempre stood up and gazed out one of the floor to ceiling windows, forcing him to drink in all of midtown. The only sounds came from the clacking of Teddie Bridgewater’s laptop as he raced to keep up with genius.

“A gigantic goose is rampaging through Williamsburg. His quacks cause sonic booms, windows explode, mailboxes fly through the air. People scream and run for cover. An old woman is trampled by time.

“We might not even need CGI for this; our special effects team is fantastic.”

“The goose monster arrives at Siempre’s apartment and sticks his tail feather against the modest bedroom window, the one with the stained glass. For a brief second, nothing happens, until a bellowing squirt deafens the occupants of the Williamsburgh apartment. Green goose shit covers the entire building, invading every open space. The squirrels are buried alive in two feet of green goose shit. I want the audio to sound like a man suffering from a concussion. A low siren of sound that slowly ramps up until you realize you aren’t hearing a siren; you are hearing the rapidly extinguishing cries of the squirrels, drowning in shit.

“My oh my.”

“Thankfully, Siempre was spared certain demise by a timely trip to the bathroom to comb his luxurious hair. But the goose monster doesn’t know that and departs. We later learn he was sent by the Nazis to kill the revolutionary war squirrels and Siempre — who is obviously the key to the entire multiverse!”

“Multiverse! I smell sequels!”

“Siempre steps back inside his living room, now completely covered in green goose shit, and a portal opens from the fireplace. The immigrant Irish workers had foreseen the attack and built a time device, let’s call it a machine, to allow for Julius Caesar and Cleopatra’s arrival. They’re here to prevent a genocide!”

“I’m thinking Sandler and Aniston.”

“Julius Caesar and Cleopatra ignore Siempre’s invitation to sit in his goose shit covered furniture and instead continue standing. They relay to him the true nature of those nazi bastards! Turns out the nazis aren’t really nazis. They’re aliens who have been secretly living in the clouds of Venus for hundreds of millennia!”

“I’m smelling Star Wars money.”

“The aliens were soundly defeated in a previous war here on Earth seventy-one generations ago, lost to the sands of time. The literal sands of time in the Sahara desert. Julius Caesar and Cleopatra transport Siempre to the Sahara, using the same time vehicle where they spend three days and three nights digging underneath a maple tree that had no earthly right to be there. They unearth an ancient tomb that shows, via magnificent hieroglyphics, one group of humans who betrayed their kind to aid, abet, and worship these Venusian monsters that look like jellyfish. They find an ancient manuscript in the skeletal hands of the woman who was ritually sacrificed on an altar made primarily of copper. Siempre can read the title of the manuscript immediately, and curiosity leads him to open the book where he realizes he’s able to both read and comprehend the words inside. Turns out, the Venusians have one collective hive mind. They called it…Siempre.”

Bill Netflix stared at Siempre with his jaw hanging open and a tear rolling down his left cheek. “Wait, if the hive mind is named Siempre, then that means — “ Siempre slowly nodded and pointed to his temple.

“That’s right. Siempre is the leader of an alien race sent here to terraform the earth so that the Venusivian nazi jellyfish can live in our oceans.”

Now it was Bill Netflix’s turn to stand, and he paced the room. The walls seemed to be closing in on him. He unbuttoned the top three buttons of his shirt and whispered,

“Jesus.”

“And that’s just the first episode.” Bill Netflix, now blinking back tears of money, walked over to his desk, opened the top drawer, and handed Siempre a blank check.

“You write in the number you deem suitable for Netflix to partner with you, and we’ll start staffing the writer’s room on Monday.” Siempre smiled, gave a second dead fish handshake, and dropped his red fruit punch drink and a smoke bomb. When the smoke cleared, Bill Netflix, Teddie Bridgewater, Martha, and Stephen stared in shock at both the red stain on his blinding white wool carpet and the outline of an eccentric man somehow preserved in the full-length window. They watched Siempre soar between the skyscrapers, gliding on his duster screaming,

“BANBURY STORY!”