Advocate v. Aerospace Engineer

The Advocate hauls the fresh body of the Actor away. He hauls the decomposing bodies of the Administrator and of the Actuary and of the Acrobat and of the Accountant away. He piles them atop each other in no specific order.

The Advocate kicks the pears in a pile. He gathers the broken frame and the glass and the timber and the Styrofoam packing material and the Accountant's newspaper and throws it all in a pile. He pockets the Actuary's silver pen. He disrobes and dons the Actor's red English hunting jacket. He hangs his wig and gown on the nail in the oak. The Advocate is balding.

The Aerospace Engineer arrives. He asks the Advocate (in a cheerful tone) if the Advocate is here for a duel. I am, the Advocate says (in a less than cheerful tone, but far from a cheerless tone). Good, good, says the Aerospace Engineer, I'm in the right place.

The Aerospace Engineer is a young, fair-haired, slope-shouldered man, slim and tall and awkward. He regards the Advocate, a balding man with a pronounced forehead, with deference. The Advocate's eyebrows are untrimmed and this along with the pronounced forehead and bald head adds a severity to his gaze. The Advocate gazes at a notebook in the front pocket of the Aerospace Engineer's windbreaker.

This notebook is filled with abstruse ideas and Reliability Block Diagrams, says the Aerospace Engineer. The Aerospace Engineer works in reliability engineering.

The Advocate asks him to speculate. The Aerospace Engineer considers, then apologizes, saying that, having just been introduced to the dynamics at play within this existence, knowledge of the factors (static and variable) is so limited that any opinion on his behalf at this period in time would be pure conjecture.

The Advocate sighs and walks to the rosewood table. The Advocate takes up two pistols. The Advocate walks to the Aerospace Engineer and asks him to choose. The Aerospace Engineer chooses a pistol and they walk to the place in the field, fifteen paces apart.

They raise their guns. Their guns go off.

Actor v. Advocate

It's early morning when the Actor wakes to the crack of a pistol, the sharp splintering of glass above him and glass showering his face. The Actor jumps to his feet. A stout man in black gown, wig, and white bow tie stands fifteen paces from the trunk of the oak. The man raises his pistol and cocks his pistol and fires again. This man is the Advocate. The Actor falls. The framed photograph, knocked from its center by the first bullet, bucks wildly from the second bullet and falls, landing at the base of the oak, propped by a root of the oak, beside two rotting pears lying adjacent to the Actor's face.

Stop, says the Actor. The Advocate advances. Do you know who I am? asks the Actor. I do, says the Advocate. The Actor frowns, shaking glass from his hair.

The Advocate picks up the framed photograph and nods and shows the Actor. The Actor's wife is shot between the eyes and the face of his mistress is missing, a smoking bullet hole. The Advocate drops the framed photograph in the Actor's lap. The Actor tosses the frame aside and stands.

The issue here, says the Actor, standing over the Advocate, is transgression of unspoken rules. You can't just come here and start shooting pistols at random. We're here for a duel. The Actor jabs the Advocate on the chest with his knuckle. And what's more that's my pistol with the red ribbon, he adds. The Advocate looks down and flips the pistol and holds the pistol by the barrel and carefully removes the red ribbon. The Actor takes the ribbon. The Advocate raises the pistol and then brings the butt down on the Actor's nose. The Actor falls.

The Advocate walks to the rosewood table and picks up the other pistol. He throws the other pistol at the Actor's feet then takes his place on the field. The Actor stands and takes the pistol and takes his place fifteen places away.

I should let you know, says the Actor, holding his bloody head back, pinching his bloody nose shut, that I've shot two men and a woman dead on this field.

Ball sack, says the Advocate.

They raise their guns. Their guns go off.