“The red pill or the blue pill?”
“I remember you,” said Joshua.
"You take the blue pill, the story starts again. You wake up in some hotel, some country. Believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Australia, and I show you how deep the reality goes."
“You were under the glittering West End. Under The Mouse Trap. 59th year of its run. Holding a clip board.”
“Red pill. Blue pill.”
“Weren't you?” Joshua remembered a tunnel. A long tunnel. From a dressing room...
“61st year now.”
Joshua knew this lady with the clipboard. And now the pills. Still in her twin set and flat shoes. Wouldn't tell him what his next job was. Back in '11. He wanted tele. Interestingly, he got tele.
“You got the tele,” she says.
“You have something to do with that?”
“I did not. You were correct for the part.”
“Correct?”
“Correct.”
Joshua wonders how she got into his mother's grannie flat. From London's glittering West End. This was Australia. 2013. This was Pelicanville, for God's sake. He hadn't been in London for ten months.
2am.
“I'm here now. I have a job,” said Joshua.
“One day a week at a university?”
“It pays stupidly well.”
“So does this. But you know that.”
Joshua did know that.
“Where?” said Joshua.
“A bit of Asia. A bit of Europe.”
“I was just saying to my friend Button yesterday - ”
“We know.”
Joshua looked at his laptop. A video about Japanese Butoh. He'd taken to it and hoped his students would too.
“- that I'd like to go to Asia again.”
She sighed and shifted weight from one wide-fit, light-plum pump to the other.
“How long?” said Joshua.
“One year.” She looked at the palm holding the pills. Back at Joshua. “Maybe two.”
“And if I take the red pill?”
“Your current life continues. You finish out the year at the university. You try to make a go of a career here in Australia. You see a lot of your family and Australian friends. It's not terrible. Not at all. The beach.”
Joshua liked the beach.
“And if I take the blue pill?”
“You wake up in approximately 40 different hotels in the next year...or two...and clock up over 1000 performances of Milky Coffee and sit in approximately 40 different aeroplanes and go through approximately 60 different security checks - ”
“Sixty? How does that work?”
“Airports get frisky.”
“What else?”
“Your entire life will seem unreal and strange and you'll be confronted by cultures you have not previously encountered and sometimes the food will be extremely alien and/or very cold and you'll be woken up by the call to prayer in more countries than you expect.”
“I don't like being woken up.”
“Whereas you'll also be living in some long, tilted dream. It will seem real. And it will, in fact, be real. Except it won't feel real.”
“How's the pay?”
“A bit better than the 08/09 tour.”
“That's still good.”
“It will be like being in a float tank and listening to a lot of Brian Eno.”
“I like both of those.”
She subtly lifted the palm holding the pills. Made them roll from left to right. Joshua looked at the clipboard under her left arm.
“Do you know what I'm going to say?” he said.
She pushed her arm closer to her flank. The beading in her cardigan caught the light of the laptop. There was a momentary sparkle. Her lips thinned.
“When did you start wearing the baseball cap?” said Joshua.
“Red pill. Blue pill,” said The Casting Director. “I really don't care.”
Joshua looked at the oblong colours in her unlined hand. He already had 389 performances of Milky Coffee under his belt. Fun times. But he was older. Less alcoholic. Did he need to go back? It was a lot of Milky Coffee. But he missed Asia. He missed feeling like he didn't really belong to a country or even a planet. He closed his eyes and remembered all the fish hooks falling away. The drops of blood falling into new and unknown, smiling mouths. Spinning him. Catching him. Covering him in nets. Peculiar, wonderful nets.
Joshua opened his eyes. She was smiling. And extended her hand. Joshua looked at the powdery-white, mouth-spread, contorted man on his laptop. So beautiful. So strange. The place in-between. So they said. Looked at the pills.
And reached out.
