BLEEK

by James Jandak Wood

Simon Gottschalk glances at the clock, types a few words, researches information on the internet, but mostly daydreams while two discordant hours pass. Then another quarter-hour slips by while he worries about wasting time.

Even though the sun is easing past its zenith, Simon is still dressed in his bathrobe. He is typing a movie script on his laptop computer, seated at the massive, oak writing desk he bought when his first successful script, Martian Elevation, was purchased by Warner Brothers Studios. Set in the center of the living room, the desk relegates the sofa, chairs, and other furniture to crammed spaces against the walls. The desk would have fit perfectly in the home office of the mansion in Beverly Hills he had envisioned buying, a mansion approximately twelve miles and twelve million dollars away from where he now lives.

Stuck in a groove of his own middling success, Simon struggles to gestate a prequel. The original Martian Elevation netted him a tidy sum, though the critics panned it. Each of the film’s three sequels brought in less revenue than the one before. He has submitted other scripts, scripts not about Mars, but there is no interest in his gritty, real-world dramas. The studio wants screenplays based on his Martian characters, Bleek and Clucky, mainstays in the comic-con world played by b-movie actors Mark Hamm and Marsha Dalbright.

•      •      •