The Hiss

Recently I went to a party where I was introduced to a talented young screenwriter who hissed at me. Like a snake. Like an actual fucking snake. I’m not sure why this occurred. However, I think it might have had something to do with my decision to consume four shots of whiskey, five beers and a bottle of wine. It also might have been the result of me having flirted incessantly with his then girlfriend via a string of compliments regarding her ample bosom (which in my defense was exceedingly ample). I believe my choicest line was something like, “Hey you, yeah, your breasts…outta control,” followed by a thumbs up. Furthermore, I think the screenwriter was pissed following my decision to force my way into a sweet guitar-harmonica jam via a mandolin I found hanging around on a living room table. I don’t know how to play the mandolin, but personally, I believe that the accompanying dance composed of pelvic thrusts and nipple stroking gestures in tandem with my on the spot lyrics regarding the Khemer Rouge’s many atrocities were enough to make up for my musical inability. After all, what party isn’t made better by a soulful reflection on the brutal violence that rocked Cambodia in the 1980s? Additionally, I suppose he was angry that I had shown up despite his numerous requests that I not be invited because I am, in his words, “a retarded uncontrollable mess of a human being.” Also I threw up on his jacket.
Disregarding what motivated his ire, however, it must be acknowledged that a hiss is a hiss and, as simple as it was in its design, his hiss affected me in a deep and profound way. I don’t know if you, the reader, have ever been hissed at, but it’s basically the equivalent of verbal Armageddon. Your immediate response is to find a dark corner, curl up into a ball and start shouting out the lyrics to every childhood song you’ve ever heard in an attempt to calm your shaken nerves. I decided to focus primarily on the theme song to the Canadian children’s show Under the Umbrella Tree, which actually sounds pretty good when accompanied by an out-of-tune mandolin and uncontrollable weeping.
Eventually one of my friends found me in this state, at which point I was escorted out of the party and brought back home.
The next morning when I woke up naked, pale and shaking from my hangover, like some sort of overlarge whiskey-breathed fetus, I came to the obvious realization that alcohol has the ability to turn the mildest individuals (myself) into raging breast-starved lunatics. However, this realization did not remove the stain of the screenwriter’s hiss. Everywhere I went that day I heard it. When I walked to a coffee shop I heard it, when I spoke to my friends I heard it, when I was dressing my pet marmot Xavier I heard it. The hiss had become my curse.
Eventually I realized what I had to do. I sucked up all my courage and I went over to the screenwriter’s house. I knocked on his door with thick resounding knocks to show my seriousness and waited for his answer. After a time, he came to the door. I looked him straight in the eyes, stifled my ego, and told him to go fuck himself. I then powered up the chainsaw I was holding and very elegantly, and in a way that showed how badly I felt about the incident, cut off the screenwriters left leg. However, even still I found that my apology somehow had been lost in all the yelling and the noise of the running motor. So to show that I really meant what I was saying, I let Xavier out of my backpack and launched him at the screenwriter’s testicles via a marmot cannon I had designed for just such an incident. Eventually when the ruckus died down, and the blood flowing from the screenwriter’s leg was suppressed via an impromptu bandage, he looked at me and said, “You know what David you’re alright. I was wrong to have hissed at you. Your even temper and ability to recognize your faults in the face of severe criticism has, if anything, only added to the incredible respect that I have for you. If this world is at all fair, you will get that Volcano lair you’re always talking about. Also I like how you dressed your marmot up as a fireman. It makes him look tough.”
To which I replied, “Thank you screenwriter, you’re not so bad yourself.”
To which he laughed merrily.
We then joined hands and wrote a screenplay about a race of marmot people that control the precious resource Cutenessium much to the annoyance of future humans, who use Cutenessium to power their mandolins. The script was sold to a major studio and released as Avatar.

~David “White Wine” MacLean