Chapter 6: On Thin Ice

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"Ok," Tim Darkton says, sitting on the director's chair, escorted by Phobia, Lapsus, and Oblivion. "This is our first production meeting. So, we have to make a movie based on the events of Riley's day. Who has the script?"

"There is no sting, I mean there is no script, bro: n-a-d-a," Lapsus says seemingly unworried.

"How come there is no script? What do you work with? When I was at Dream Studios, we had a whole team that looked at what happened to Riley during the day, we used to draft a summary and we put together the script every night."

"Well," Phobia sighs, "you don't have all that equipment here. And you don't have screens to see what Riley does, but you have us. And we have something great: the trash can."

"What?" Darkton exclaims.

"The trash can, bro," Lapsus goes on, "everything that is considered inappropriate in your beloved Dumm Studios is sent to the paper shredder. They throw all that valuable information by a tube and voilá! We have our script," Lapsus says, throwing a mountain of chopped papers all over the table.

"Is that our script?" Tim asks almost disgustedly.

"Yes," Oblivion says enthusiastically, shuffling papers. "Look, here are some words: Cold War, separated, on thin ice, rainbow crumbs. Hmmm . . . except for those rainbow crumbs, we have a great story on our hands. With a little I mpro we can work it out"

Tim Darkton notices something strange in Oblivion's left hand and asks:

"Sorry to interrupt you, but what is that written on your hand?"

"Oh, this," Oblivion says, as if it wasn't important, "it's a tattoo."

"Remember Dory," Tim reads. "Why do you have to remember Dory?"

"Good question. I don't know, and that's why I got this second tattoo," he says and shows the tattoo on his right hand that reads: Why?

"Ok, whatever," Tim says to move on. "What about the actors? Do we have actors or do we only have a fork and a trash can?"

"Oh, I thought you would never ask!" Phobia says excited. "Can I do it?" She asks the rest of the crew.

"If you can what?" Tim asks.

"If I can show you the secret door," she says, as she slides a piece of furniture that reveals a small wooden door with a sign that reads 'A113' and the infinity symbol on the side.

"I didn't know we had a secret door," Oblivion says, quite surprised.

"Mr. Director," Phobia says, opening the door, "let me introduce you to your cast."

Dozens of Riley's Imaginary Boyfriends immediately emerge and begin to say:

"I would die for Riley, I would die for Riley . . ."

"One day, they fell here, like money from the sky, I mean manna from the sky," Lapsus explains. "When Joy created the 9.999.999 clones, we had a serious overpopulation problem and we had to find work for all of them. We affectionately call them 'the Harrys'.

"Yes, they have their own style, but . . . they look all the same," Tim says.

"Hey, bro. Don't forget you have a computer hacker genius on your team," Lapsus says, "I have the perfect delusion, I mean the perfect solution: reality filters!"

"Oh! Do we have reality filters? That's great!," Tim says.

"Well . . . Not exactly, but it's almost the same. Let's say we have the left-overs. But we can cunningly put together something quite amazing."

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