bullet in the brainpan, OPEN

[radha bancroft]

"at last,
we can retire and give up this life of crime."

Pigeons had never been so fascinating as they were at that moment. Actually, now that her mind had shifted to the subject, she could remember being utterly excited to run through a gathering of birds in the middle of a wide stretch of sidewalk, setting her eyes fixedly on the innocent little fluffs of feather, yelling like an ancient tribal warrior as they scattered under her feet. Of course there was no point in running through a flock of dirty birds but it was one of those little things, a rite of passage, which every kid had to do before they were old enough to realize how dumb it was. Though as a kid one could think that the birds would take a mighty revenge, like something out of a horror movie; wasn’t there that one movie, some Alfred Hitchcock picture? Radha thought so and her thoughts shifted again. She could have gone for a marathon of old black and white movies, nothing like the brightly altered pictures that were common now, way too fucking bright to be though of as real in any believable way. At least old movies were honest in that fact that they were kitchy and meant to be over the top; it was all hardcore romance and scary shadows in horror flicks, sunsets in black and white. That shit was gold.

Radha would have much rather been in her apartment smoking something stronger than a cigarette, lounging around and watching tv like she did on those rare late night occasions when she had nothing else to do. That was the best way to fall asleep; with the tv on and a snack still in her hands, dozing off comfortable and not with the knowledge that she had to work the next day. Fuck… work. Radha had twenty minutes for lunch everyday, not enough to walk to a nearby bistro or café and get something that was halfway decent; the lunch crowds took over the fucking places before she could get there, like clockwork, no matter how she timed it. They were always there and she was doing a loser’s dance on the sidewalk across the street, half-mumbling profanities and lighting up a cigarette immediately to relieve a small amount of frustration. She packed a lunch from home most days, or brought in whatever leftover take out happened to be standing on the refrigerator shelf when she opened the door. A lot of Chinese food and cold pizza was gotten rid of that way; Radha did cherish her microwave as a most prized possession, heat in thirty seconds and yummy food. Or the closest that she got to it. The extent of her cooking technical skills went into making toast, cereal, and sandwiches. She could count the number of times her fire alarm had gone off on two hands.

Her tongue clicked against the roof of her mouth as she held out a bit of her sandwich to the nearest bird, staring at her with beady little black eyes. The image of the animal biting her finger off along with the bread, unleashing a gushing flow of blood, flitted through her mind for a second. “It’s fucking peanut butter,” she muttered to the pigeon from her spot against the wall. She wanted a smoke so she was eating outside a measurable distance from the front door into the lobby. There was a slight chance that Radha would be ‘frowned upon’ for eating out there like a bum and feeding the pigeons and she didn’t want to test those odds. The pigeon continued to stare at her, a bunch of its friends cooing softly behind it. She tossed the piece of bread closer to the bird and leaned back, pulling up one knee, slouching. “You’re welcome,” she sighed, taking a bite from her lackluster lunch item, followed by a sip of lemonade. Her phone buzzed from inside her pocket but she ignored it pointedly. She was on her lunch break and that meant that she was not working for the next seventeen minutes or so; whatever it was beckoning her could wait until then. Radha pulled the crust off of one side of her sandwich and squeezed it between her fingers; it crumbled and she tossed the bits towards the birds, watching her intently until she would leave.

clothesclick

[melanie thomas.]

Mel was tired, exhausted really. When you spent ninety percent of your time shooting or running to a shoot, and then on top of fashion week and the ridiculous amount of jetlag that had been hitting her lately, someone might as well have run over her with a semi truck. No, two semi trucks. The seventeen year old was obliterated, her brain was so fried she felt like she could just pass out at any minute. The bags under her eyes were consequently huge, and yet the bastards at the agency still had enough in them to give her time for a lunch break. It kind of made her want to punch someone. Or just rip their heads off. What the fuck did she need a lunch break for? At the moment the pressure to be thin had never been more suffocating and it was sort of like she was walking on a tight rope line, about to fall to both sides but unable to do anything about it. The moment she did, lord knew both her sanity and her personal welfare, or what was left of it, would go right down the shitter. Why had her father pushed her into this again? Oh yeah. Those puppy dog eyes. Fucking cunthead. Shoving her fingers through her loose blonde hair, the stick-like figure seemed to sway a little bit as a cross breeze hit her, the expression she always wore while walking evident even now, her countenance blank and seemingly airy, a little bit sad.. She didn’t do it intentionally, but the camera loved that aspect of her face so it seemed inevitable on all fronts. Sighing, she stopped in front of the building and looked back at it, wondering vaguely, just for a moment, if someone inside even noticed she’d left to go, presumably, eat. Fortunately she was not doing so, she was going to go down to the small park near the offices where she could rest a little bit and catch up on personal time before someone else jumped down her throat with commands and demands and expectations she knew she could never reach, because she just wasn’t a coat hanger. Tomorrow, she flew out to Martinique for a shoot and then she was out to Milan, where she’d be walking for some of the names like Donna Karan and Tommy Hilfiger, Chanel. Can’t fucking wait. Rolling her eyes, heels clicking resolutely on the pavement, Mel seemed to drift easily into the park, her presence alerting the only two people or so she could see that she existed without her even having to say anything; that was apparently one of the things people looked for in a model. Presence. She couldn’t give two shits and it showed, but they never wanted that impression from her and somewhere deep down, she was probably trying to impress her dad…

Even though she had long ago given up on the impression that it might work. And then her eyes fell on a familiar face, one that wouldn’t easily be forgotten even if she wished she could, because it wasn’t particularly inviting or achieving, the countenance merely existing in a sea of people who were striving for the best of the best, and mostly getting what they asked for. Radha. She frowned, but unfortunately she needed to speak with her anyway, even though she’d much rather swallow her own tongue. The fucking flights hadn’t been scheduled yet, and she had to leave tomorrow. There wasn’t any time for lagging. “Hey, you deal with flying and shit, right?” her tone was one of impertinence, obviously it really didn’t matter to her much if she did or not, because the fact of the matter was that she had no one else to spend her lunch period with anyway, so why not Radha? She was perfectly eligible to deal with some degrading and a good dose of annoyance from someone who was merely seventeen and already achieving so much more than so many people that were middle aged. “Your lunch break I know, but I’ve got two planes I need to be on in three days, and I don’t have the tickets yet.” she couldn’t resist throwing in a little dig, something slightly subtle but probably still enough to annoy the other girl, because obviously she wasn’t the cutesy person she tended to be in front of the cameras, she was a raging bitch with no regard for anyone other than herself and one other person, and barely even her. Suri wasn’t that bad. She could tolerate her, sometimes. “Not like you’re really doing anything important.” she didn’t shrug, didn’t blink, merely stared with her large blue eyes, the vibrant red lip that had been painted on for the shoot prominent amongst her otherwise makeup-free face. Mel didn’t like to overdose on that nasty shit unless she was going out or working; then and only then was it okay.

outfit: here.

[radha bancroft]

The point of getting to do out for lunch was the ‘going out’ part. So, yeah, she could have stayed in the building and eaten at her little desk, laden with papers and folders and shit that was at some time recently important but had evolved into just another thing that Radha would find under the other things at the end of the month and wonder where the fuck it had come from; notes and scribbles littered her table, comments from people on the phone, designers and photographers and family members, and her most hated: boyfriends and girlfriends who tied up the lines by saying a simple greeting and wanting to talk personally with their fuckbuddies. Radha wanted to jam the phone in one ear whenever that happened, but she had to keep as much of her cool as she had to begin with and say politely in a distinct monotone that that was not possible. And then click with the receiver and she could roll her eyes and bash her forehead quietly against her desk, hating her job but continuing on with it. Were she sitting at her desk right now, her little doorless windowless cubicle of a ‘space’ she could have been eating her dry tasteless sandwich but she would have been bombarded at the same time with the mundane tasks that overtook most of her time; answering the phone, taking down messages, being ordered around by her superiors, being looked down upon by models and professionals. Oh, the fun of work. Somewhere she didn’t get the memo on the fun part.

The last thing that she wanted was to be interrupted in the only speck of peace that she was going to be able to enjoy for most of the day. It was just Radha and the birds, their suspicious little eyes, and the people walking by and otherwise going about their daily activities. Like all fast Hell she wished sometimes that she could have chosen a different profession, an actual profession that she was interested in and was good at. Not that she wasn’t adequate at what she did. If she was even a little bit less than exemplary she would have been fired like a ton of the timid little bastards that were employed each year; she saw them walk out through the clinical front lobby trying not to look too devastated, the girls in their fake-model clothes swallowing back tears. Poor little things and yet here she was in a job that supposedly they all wanted, and she was so sick of it. Fuck it, she’d still be there in five years so the use of complaining now was useless.

Radha winced and blinked for a full second, closing her eyes and hoping that the girl would be gone when she opened them. Alas, magic was not with her that afternoon and she was looking at a face that was way too familiar and altogether way too unwelcome when she was still grasping at the last half of her lunch break. Mel couldn’t do her the small nicety of leaving her alone for fifteen minutes, of course not. Even though she’d be back in the building in a short while and she could be used as a human target for rude orders that Radha could do nothing about. Her dignity was already in shreds and the seventeen-year-old was simply adding insult to searing injury. A day in the life, unfortunately. Radha took no pity or sympathy with the models that she saw each day; they could be overworked and moody and unhappy but so was she and she got no sympathy for it, being just an underling in the giant corporation. “Do I have the word ‘lackey’ tattooed on my forehead now?” she mumbled more to herself as she tilted her head to one side, listening idly to the girl, ignoring the urge to get up and walk away at the tone that Mel used. “I’ll get ‘em to you,” she said, picking off ore crust and tossing it to the birds. “But I’m off the clock right now so you’ll have to wait.” The last little bit that she threw in made Radha glance up icily and she stood, chewing the last bite of her sandwich and taking a cigarette between two fingers. She almost wanted to make a caustic remark but she bit it back in the course of maturity or something like it; she doubted that it would make a difference though. The bitch would find something else to say whether or not Radha retaliated.

[melanie thomas.]

“Oh, yeah. Sure.” she shrugged her bony shoulders, hopping up on the wall beside her head. She wasn’t the type to demand that she get up and do it now, although Mel didn’t doubt the other girl probably thought she would have. She didn’t really care enough to pursue that line of thought and therefore, ultimately she’d just sit there and find something to amuse herself with until Radha was done. Kicking her heels against the brick wall, she tilted her head back and let her eyes fall on the sun, unafraid of the potential blindness because she was by far too focused on the beauty of the ellipse in the sky, the thing that let everyone live… well if light was your resource, how did blind people survive? She pursed her lips, fingers coming up to brush the strands of flyaway hair out of her delicate features, mile long legs nearly touching the ground from the high perch upon which she sat. Mel found it difficult to find pants, tights, skirts.. Everything looked disproportionately small on her, something she didn’t really appreciate. The only thing that fit well no matter what style were shoes, and perhaps that was why she’d amassed such a collection. Mel had shoes from everywhere… Paris, Milan, New York, Canada, South America, the islands.. All of the designers had at one point attributed to her shoe collection, it was rumored that she had more pairs that Paris Hilton. Not really, but it would have been nice to think that someone would compare the two… after all, she had more of a claim to fame than that stupid twat did. But it didn’t matter. The shoes she wore now were too simplistic to really compare to anything that might have set her off, the orange color she wore the only hue that really popped in the whole ensemble. Even then, she appeared like something off a runway, that effortless sort of chic that so few people seemed capable of. Mel could make rags work, and it was part of why she was still in the business even though one or two people tops could tolerate her. Sighing heavily, she leaned back on her palms and brought her eyes level with the center of the park, the pigeons… the girl with her really did seem like she took a ridiculous amount of time to finish a sandwich that really didn’t look that appealing, but then Mel wasn’t good with food preparation or the amount of time it took to eat something, obviously she wasn’t that into it.

“When is your almighty presence going to be gracing the office again?” she questioned a little impatiently, not having realized that she’d be made second priority to a quintet of birds, or their needs. Mel’s job was on the line, here, as well as the other girl’s if she fucked it up.. Because everyone knew that if she got fired, the whole company and everyone who’d ever bothered to be affiliated with her would be in deep shit. It was probably another of the reasons no one had said anything or attempted to get her the fuck out when the first offensive words came out of her mouth. That and she was damn good at her job, her father’s previous position as a scout had really done the trick when it came to her. Biting lightly on her lower lip, she crossed one long, slender leg over the other and took in the whole of the female before her, eyes pausing briefly on the horribly beat up pair of converse on her feet and not bothering to feign mild disgust. People should at least take care of themselves and not show up to work looking like she’d just gotten off the streets, right? Even the jeans were a bit big and it was slightly disturbing to her, the slenderness of someone who had no right to be that skinny. Receptionists and people who ran the errands were supposed to be fat and uncomely, not wildly attractive and lazy but still managing to look less like a bum and more like something off of the runways. “Or does your council hold you steady?” she questioned sarcastically, waving her hand at the pigeons… birds. Fucking birds.


outfit: here.

[radha bancroft]

She was high, she had to be, when she had once thought that this would have been an okay job. Better than an okay job if she was going to stop lying to herself and get the facts right, just as she remembered them from.. what was it? A year and a half now that she had been working for the magazine and then kind of also for the agency now that they had merged; it felt like a hell of a lot longer than a handful of months and countless weeks that she had sat at one desk and then another, walking around the city running errands for people who didn’t remember her name. She was one more in a sea of faces; Radha was under the impression that to the highest-up on the list of influential people all assistants’ and interns’ faces looked the same and they could all be called by the phrase ‘Hey you’. It was what she replied to, on instinct now. She automatically looked up like she was being called on in school. Yeah okay, she got to be around the more glamorous people and got to see the designers and sometimes was swept of for shows when her boss called for it, or one of the models needed someone to be around, whatever the reason. The last-season clothes got passed down to her, though she could have done without a lot of them. She liked her old clothes better, worn-in and shitty faded stuff; heels she could have done without altogether. Radha was tall like a lot of the models, though she lacked the presence to pull it off. She looked more like she was hunched over a lot of the time.

“Fourteen minutes,” Radha pocketed her phone after she had checked the time, kicked up a loose pebble as she wandered around in circles, sending the pigeons away from the walkway, only to see them scamper back into the path of her sneakers. They expected more food from her but she was all out for the time being; perhaps she would return later that night, late probably, when she got out of work. She could get a bag of potato chips from a vending machine on her way out and take a detour from her normal route to her apartment building and scatter crumbs on her way, like a dumb kid from a story. The filthy birds could follow her home like a parade. Radha leaned against the wall that Mel was sitting atop, exhaling smoke from between her parted lips, enjoying the brief moment of tranquility, ignoring the girl as she closed her eyes and took another long drag. Damn, the room would have filled up quick with smoke if she was permitted to smoke as much as she wanted inside the building. The fire alarm probably would have gone of as well, sensing the foggy smoky room. It was so unfair; she wanted to smoke now before she lost the ability again for another few hours, unless she could get away to a window somewhere in there and lean out with a cigarette perched between her lips.

Her eyes passed over the birds as they were pointed out to her. They’d finally given up on her and were pecking their way slowly towards a patch of grass a ways down the path. Radha waved two fingers lazily in their direction, a smidge of ash dripping off of the end of her cigarette with the motion. “Farewell,” she said, brushing a stray few strands of hair away from her forehead, tossing her head to one side to avoid using her hands. She leaned her elbows over the wall and leaned back easily, not bothering to leap up to sit next to Mel. Being on a lower level suited her better, for some reason; she was on a lower level than the girl her junior so she couldn’t complain though she would have enjoyed it immensely. “What’re you doing ‘round here anyway?” Radha asked suddenly, tilted her head up towards the girl. She pulled up her shoulders and turned the palms of her hands up in mild curiosity, “Talking to me no less..” Making her realize that she was indeed carrying on a conversation with an assistant and not one of the other models might produce the reaction of the error in her social judgment and she would walk away, heels clicking threateningly in her departure.

[melanie thomas.]

Fourteen minutes. You could destroy a whole school and a whole town in nineteen, as proved by both columbine and a whole other fictional incident loosely based off of the real thing by some retarded american author. Who even gave a fuck about Americans anyway? They all sucked, even Mel wasn’t a fan and her own father had been born and raised in New York. Rolling her shoulders, she soon moved to stretching her neck to the side and then cracking her fingers, limbering out before she had to go back to the agency, get her tickets and then show up on time for her night time photoshoot in the park, sans a shirt or pants to keep her warm in the late spring chill that seemed to permeate even her bones. But that was the price you had to pay when you were automatically born into beauty. Sometimes, even on the days when she was feeling cranky and irritable from not having eaten anything for days on end, she could find it within herself ot be grateful for it. But beauty, even understood beauty, was both a curse and a gift. A curse because there was nowhere you could go that was even mildly undercover, not even to the mall or a restaurant.. And a gift because when you did go to those places, and you were recognized, you could get things for free or discounts… or you could always meet people and no matter what you said, you’d still be lovely in their eyes. It was this attitude that had propelled her in the business, not the expression on her features or even her easy acceptance of everything that came with making big bucks or having a rich father that happened to have a soft spot for parties and social events, and bringing you along to them. Sighing, she dug around in the heavy bag on her shoulder for the pack of cigarettes somewhere in it, wasting her life away smoking even though she was just seventeen years old. What the fuck ever, it was France, right? Who didn’t smoke there?

Kicking her ankles against the bricks once more, she put the stick between her maroon lips and lit it, watching as the smoke curled out an upwards, freed towards the sky in what might have otherwise been the sort of trap that left someone impoverished and uncomfortable throughout life. But no, smoke couldn’t be contained. In many ways mel longed to be as free, and then she realized that if she so chose she could become untethered as well, and that longing went away… and she was left with nothing. Because wanting something left you just as unhappy as not wanting anything did, and in the end it was better to just not have any expectations or yearnings, because nothing of what you wanted was going to come anyway. Coughing lightly with the slight sound that most smokers could easily procure, Mel wriggled her toes in her shoes and watched as the other female scattered the birds, a slight smirk on her lips. She could feel that most of the people in the park, which was what, two or three? Were wondering as to their acquaintance and why exactly someone like her was sitting with someone like the other girl, obviously of different social ranks and understandings. Well, she didn’t know.. Other than that she didn’t have anything else to do, and they’d end up in the same room ten or so minutes from now anyway. She tilted her head like a disobedient puppy, exhaling the drag she’d taken on the cigarette and bringing it up for round two, not really intentionally dragging out the silence but Radha did have a point, what the fuck was she doing? Other than making a fool of herself, of course. Mel had the tendency to embody everything that a model was supposed to be, obviously.

“Waiting for you to finish your break,” she stated bluntly, after the brief interpretation of her own motives had set in. “And I usually don’t spend my time talking to pigeons; you’re the closest thing to humanity here.” sometimes she wondered if her tongue was dipped in poison, or if there was some other particular reason she was always so unaccountably rude. Most of her attitude was totally uncalled for, considering everything this person did for her, and all the times she’d probably been saved by her in the past when it came to, say, late plane tickets. She wouldn’t be surprised if there was some kind of ulterior motive behind everything that the other did, and if by completing her ultimate task, she’d send Mel on a downward spiral of losing life and humanity. Nope, not surprised at all.


outfit: here.