Note: Herewith, we have another collaboration, this time with George at Trefology. I made the initial serve, George professionally lobbed back, and several matches later the court referee deemed our gameplay irresponsible and sent us to the penalty box to think about what we had done. Enjoy.

Joan, left: “Okay, perhaps I did not make myself clear this morning when I left. I distinctly asked you to make two cakes for the Unconsummated Daughters of the Confederacy Cotillion this evening. This is not a complicated request. I spent the entire day searching this godforsaken city for just the right negligee that will entice a man to marry me despite having a nymphomaniac daughter who may or may not have killed my last boyfriend. I expected to return and find two glowingly-layered confections on the kitchen table. Instead, I spy a useless bowl of apples and a stack of discordant metal pans used by servicemen in a war that I don’t care about. Explain yourself immediately.”

Butterfly, right: “Pardon me?”

Joan: “Did you not hear what I just said?”

Butterfly: “I must have missed it.”

Joan: “What part did you miss?”

Butterfly: “Well, I heard you walk in.”

Joan: “Yes?”

Butterfly: “That’s pretty much it.”

Joan, sighing: “Are you serious? That’s a tremendous amount of expository dialogue to repeat. And I rarely do second takes of a scene unless the lighting doesn’t meet my expectations.”

Butterfly: “I hear you on that. But try again anyway.”

Joan: “Hmm. Thanks for you unrequited encouragement. But I’m still amazed that you didn’t fully absorb my mesmerizing oratory. You didn’t catch any of it?”

Butterfly, fiddling with some nutmeg: “No, ma’am, not a single mesmer.”

Joan: “Well, you missed some brisk dialogue.”

Butterfly, still fiddling: “I don’t doubt it.”

Joan, watching Butterfly fiddle with the nutmeg: “How much longer are you going to mess with that?”

Butterfly: “Almost done. But really, what’s the record? Because I may not be able to stop. Nutmeg does that to a person.”

Joan: “Perhaps if you studied my expert craft more closely you could get bigger roles where you are actually listed in the credits.”

Butterfly: “Ma’am, this is Hollywood in the 1940s. You take what you can get.”

Colander of Apples, right: “Amen to that!”

Joan, looking at the apples: “Good heavens! I may need a medication adjustment.”

Butterfly: “Ma’am?”

Joan: “Did those apples just speak?”

Butterfly: “Yes, ma’am, but not for much longer.”

Joan: “And what does that mean?”

Butterfly: “They are to be mashed for supper tonight. I figure, a nice apple pie will help you soak up all that gin you’ve been guzzling.”

Colander of Apples, screaming: “Nooo!”

Joan: “Gracious! Why is the fruit screaming? No offense to this film’s costume designer.”

[Cut to Costume Designer giving a thumb’s up.]

Butterfly: “Oh, don’t you worry none, they’re some bad apples. They deserve what’s coming to them.”

Joan: “Bad, as in rotten?”

Butterfly: “Bad, as in immoral. For centuries, metaphorically speaking, apples have been partly responsible for all of the world’s ills, going as far back as the very first day of creation.”

Joan, dismissively: “I see. You seem to be speaking of biblical things, and my publicist has warned me that I should support such an angle even if I don’t have an actual soul. Say, is that one apple actually sleeping through all this?” [She picks up an apple, examining it. The apple is making a soft snoring sound. Joan flicks it with her finger.]

Apple: “Hey! At least buy me dinner before you do something like that.”

Butterfly: “Ha ha. He was faking it. Just like you. Well, except for the dinner part. Nobody has to buy you anything to get you to toss your panties out the window.”

Joan, putting apple back in the colander: “Well, do as thou whilt, Butterfly. As my dear friend, Monsieur Verdoux, once said to me, ‘These things must be done’.”

Colander of Apples, disconsolately and speaking at the same time: “We’re doomed!” “I regret nothing!” “Can anybody validate my parking?”

Butterfly: “You see? They know what they did was wrong and now they must pay. It’s funny, when I was a little girl, I didn’t even like to throw away an apple core because I knew those little apple seeds had some big dreams.”

Joan: “Such as?”

Butterfly: “I don’t know, I suppose they want what everyone wants, maybe put down some roots. Start an orchard. Anyways, so I would eat the whole apple, core and all and every last seed. I figured when I was dead and buried maybe one of those seeds would grow from my lifeless body into a large apple tree.”

Joan: “Are you finished?”

Butterfly: “Well, you did ask.”

[Colander of Apples begins to softly weep, whilst a violin plays in the background.]

Joan: “I don’t think I did.” [Looks at apples.] “Are they crying?”

Butterfly: “Apples are sensitive folk. Chuck full of vitamin C, too.”

Joan: “How fascinating. Well, that’s it for me.” [Claps-out like a black-jack dealer.] “Look, I’m late for a session with my therapist, the only one that I am not sleeping with, and we seem to have veered from the original script in the manner that most movies do when the director thinks he knows more than the writer. Plus, I think we may have broken the fourth wall.”

Butterfly: “Like the Bugs Bunny?”

Joan: “Like the Bugs Bunny.”

Butterfly, looking directly at camera: “I’m going to get that rabbit!”

[Apples start laughing, forgetting that two seconds ago they were doing a scene from “Camille”, because things that fall from trees have short attention spans.]

Joan: “Well, you’ve amused the fruit, anyway.”

[Costume designer looks up from his notes, proffers another thumb.]

Butterfly, nodding toward the apples: “They get it.”

Joan: “Whatever! Anyhoo, I’ll take a pass on the apple pie tonight. Serve it to the other guests, but only the males. And be sure to throw in some Spanish fly so that at least somebody will want to ravage me after the table has been cleared.”

Butterfly: “A Spanish fly? Now I have heard everything. Ha-ha.”

Joan: “As for my own incessant needs, I’d like you to prepare me a mock apple pie, sans Spanish fly.”

[Butterfly shakes her head and laughs again at the word, Spanish-fly.]

Box of Ritz Crackers, screaming: “Nooo!”

[Pause for the readers to make this cryptic culinary connection.]

Butterfly: “Are you sure you don’t need some special sauce for your pie? Something high-octane?”

Joan: “Not this time. We can’t have a repeat of last week when I stupidly slept with Tallulah Bankhead just because I couldn’t keep my jewel box shut.”

Butterfly: “Understood. I can still hear the lambs screaming.”

Joan: “I don’t get it.”

Butterfly: “Well, you know, every now and again I like to throw out a reference for the modern readers.”

Joan: “Butterfly, you are so cray.”

Butterfly: “Now you’re getting it! You know, I may not care for you personally, and these are not the type of roles I would prefer to do, but I have a mortgage to pay and I plan on keeping my bread buttered.”

Joan: “Excellent. With that degree of hypocrisy, you’ll go far in Hollywood. Now, I’m off to my therapy session, followed by two hours of floating in a vat of formaldehyde so that I can look unnaturally dewy for this evening’s party. I trust that all will go well with your preparations and get my little soirée on its tits.”

Butterfly: “Of course, Mistress of the Mattress. The meal will be flawless and you can rest assured that you will be the center of attention.”

Joan, smiling primly, tromps toward what she presumes to be an exit from the kitchen. It is not, proving instead to be an entrance to the expansive pantry. Revealed are 47 vats of Crisco and what may or may not be a voodoo doll that looks suspiciously like Bette Davis. Joan pretends to do an inventory check, closes the pantry door, locates the true escape portal, and totters out.

Box of Ritz Crackers: “Something tells me you aren’t going to make a mock apple pie.”

Butterfly: “That something would be right.”

Colander of Apples: “And something tells me that you won’t need real apples, either.”

Butterfly: “Right again.”

Bottle of Arsenic, hidden behind Crisco Can #46: “Is this where I make my entrance?”

Butterfly smiles primly.

Fly, buzzing on top of the apples: “Eso es todo, amigos!”

[Iris out on fly as Looney Tunes theme plays.]

Director yells cut, the set darkens, and all the characters fade to mere shadows on a screen.