The Newcomer

“Killer!” Peter established. “The guy is a real lunatic, and you know what? He's also going to kill me for having to kill her in first place!”

“Oh! That's a dangerous man!” Carl agreed.

“Then,” Sophie proclaimed, “we should all just see to it we can't be found out about, right?!”

“Right!” Two of the others said at once. All seven who were gathered felt that they should be able to kill the four of them soon enough not to be discovered by the police or something.

“But why,” a guy who tended to be into faking that he was a journalist named Benny Ray said. His actual name was Andrew, but he always, almost, called himself Benny. “Why should we seem to be innocent when all they respect is violence and so!?”

“Ben, we don't all have to agree that you are as smart as they think you are! It's not about your newspaper now! It's about that they don't want to seem dangerous, and neither should we! By the way, I think they shouldn't be expected to take it seriously if the news papers seem to think we are smart at being killers too!”

The guy who pretended to be a reporter looked at him, and answered: “Look, I have the real competence to fake that we're into both innocence and guilt, so much at the same time that we really can be respected by both parties. Both those who are violent and those who are like us!”

“Look,” Leslie broke in, “it's not really too important whether or not he, the guy your imitating, will propose us to be seen as baad people, or good ones! It's about to which extent they believe that we have the potential to deal with them as those kinds of people who are super smart to kill.”

Andrew looked at her, as himself for a while. Then he changed his appearance back to being Benny Ray, and answered: “Don't dare to say to us that we shouldn't be portraying that in the media! Don't dare to say to him, that guy who sort of am what I appear to be here that we shouldn't be into seeing it in you to be killers as well! Don't dare to say to me that he's not a killer that Andrew! Don't dare not to view yourself as the potential killer of a conspirator with both him and the ones who assist in his representation of me amongst the assumed to be mediocre, but who are actually of really good help for us at the newspaper sometimes!”

Leslie looked at him again. This time she felt an astonishment over his attitude. “How can I speak to a someone who's not here to represent himself!? What the fuck do you think we are around here?! Some actors whom you can just use for that game your trying to pull?! I, for one, don't like it! Why,” she turned to Peter, “do you try to fake that his attitude isn't very immature!? And why the fuck should we all have to accept that shit from him!?”

Peter ignored her. Instead he looked at Carl and said: “I propose we both go to that gathering where the journalists present the issue about the good people's assumptions! Then, perhaps, they can happen to let us in to the feeling of what should be said in the media!”

Carl seemed introspective about what his friend said. “Okay,” he answered. “Let's go there and have them seem good enough to present that attitude about themselves for us! Let's go there and find out how to make Andrew seem even more like Ben! I suppose you and I should be the ones to leave for it, when it's time for it. But I suppose Leslie couldn't come whit us?!”

“No!” a girl named Ashley broke in. “No way that Leslie should be trusted about it! But in a sense, she should be there to learn something. So I propose she come with us to have it she's Annie Brown!”

“I couldn't pretend to be Annie Brown any more than he can pretend to be that journalist of some kind! And besides, why should we go to a journalists' meeting when we don't even have the educations for knowing how to run a newspaper?!”

Ben, as it seemed, glared at her. “We shouldn't put up with this kind of behaviour! Even so, Leslie, you aught to try to learn what the advantages of this so-called theater is about! I propose you go there this evening, and try to be Annie, and then also have her grateful for being represented amongst them!”

“Oh, gosh! How can this hocus-pocus be something that I'll have to learn here! I thought this was a serious club! How the fuck do you expect me to want to learn that?!”

Ashley and radiated modishness when she looked at her and answered: “We don't feel you should not be into the same kind of clarity on the ones whom they seem to be as us! Even so, they should never be able to find out that from you! It isn't we, it's they who will be seen as the lunatics who never underestimate their capacity! It's they, not us, who will never be careful in the contexts of public attention! Therefore you should be careful what you say here, because we never seem to be the ones we are, unless we can be taken as small stuff! For instance, I'm not Ashley if I want to be that small-stuff girl whom doesn't get the point of being superb so that everyone can see it! Now your not Leslie - can you follow? - unless you wanna be that small-stuff woman who doesn't pertain to actual superb attitudes about herself! ... Now, if you get that part, Annie, you don't have to fret anymore about the public opinions! Just remember that Leslie will take care of it!”

Leslie looked thoughtful. But she also was drawn to the high regard of a self in Annie, whom she almost seemed to seem to be, even without any effort for trying to pretend. She straightened her back, then, and said: “You all should view me as Annie, then! But you all should be clear on it: I am not Annie when I come back to the naive attitudes of that Leslie Stephenson! And thereby, I propose, I am not Leslie now, because I want to feel part of this company! And I want to take par tin the atmosphere around here!”

“Good! Great!” and “Annie, your very welcome with us!” people greeted the newcomer.