BURNING GALILEO

Chapter 11 - Resolution

John Varhite, the actor who played Galileo, stood in front of his locker in studio 25's dressing room. He looked in the mirror, combed his stringy hair and exhaled. He mumbled to himself as he took the baggy 17th century replica pants off, and put on some modern gray slacks.

The frilly shirt however, remained. He liked the pure cotton shirt, and how it made him feel, to look different.

He walked outside and made his way home.

"Hey! Aren't you that fascist on TV? — who doesn't believe in Global Warming?" said the woman with white hair and glasses.

"Uh, sorry — what!? I'm an actor." "Check your privilege fascist!"

She walked by him, glaring at him with pure hate in her eyes.

John kept walking.

Jesus Christ, some people can't separate fact from fiction nowadays!

"Hey esé! What's up?!" A man with a blue bandanna on his forehead, pulled down below his eyebrows, called to him from a parked car.

John kept walking, strategically ignoring what he thought was a typical gang-banger.

He heard car doors slamming behind him.

Keep calm and walk resolutely John!

"Hey esé! What's up?!" came the call again. This time from another voice.

So, this is it...fight or flight John, no time to think. Act now!

John turned around and said in his most confident voice, "What do you want?!"

"What's up?!" came the same reply. The gang-banger with the goatee approached him. In a sudden burst of speed he rushed at him with both hands and pushed him.

John tried to parry the attack, and barely succeeded to stay on his feet. Turned ninety-degrees to the left, the blow from attacker number two came from behind and over his shoulder—he never saw it.

He stumbled forward as his body failed to do what he commanded it to do. He saw the ground rushing up to his face, as his feet would not follow his upper body, which was tilting dangerously forward.

He heard laughter behind him. "Stupid old white dude!"

John took a deep breath. He mustered his strength and got up and started running. His hearing was acute, his vision tunneled and went gray around the edges. Suddenly he felt nothing and ran without feeling the pavement beneath him. He was floating and flying as adrenaline gave his legs inhuman strength.

John was elated. He knew he was getting away from his attackers. Time slowed down as the street corner in front of him came nearer and nearer effortlessly. He only had to make it around that corner, and then one-hundred yards, or a little more, and there was a police station. That's all he needed.

He didn't see it, but heard it: a faint thumping noise as a piece of broken glass hit him on the cheek. He felt no pain, but kept running. Then he heard a weird whistling sound. Like the sound of the plastic handle of a paint roller flying through the air and whistling.

It warbled in the air, in a great arc that started in the gang-banger's hand, reached its crescendo above the parked cars, and ended with a 'thunk'!—in John's skull. Then he heard nothing.

John fell on his side. He laid there, motionless on Ventura Boulevard, as the blood red circle around his face widened, a paint roller handle sticking out of his head.

The frills on his shirt fluttered in the breeze that pushed the smoke from studio 25 across the land.

The End