Studio - Scrub

by Elleran Field - Lagn

Edited by M. Jenkins

Published on www.Issuu.com

April 2012

All images and content copyright property of Elleran Field -Lagn

After her heart attack Ruby was physically unable to, and not

allowed by what she called her pushy Doctors, to compete in

decathlons any more. Yes, at 75 she was still doing decathlons.

Ruby was so tough and so fit before her heart attack that she would

make muscle men at the local gym look like little girls. In fact one

of her favourite sayings was “Man up lady bird,” and she'd yell it to

her fellow decathlon competitors as she whizzed past them, who

where often twenty or thirty years her junior.

She was also not allowed to continue her rock climbing and

abseiling either, much to her dismay. So she spent her days, and a

lot of the nights huddled under a blanket next to a window listening

intently to a police scanner with a pair of binoculars on her knee.

Her theory was that if she couldn't be part of the action, maybe

she'd at least be able to see or hear it going on. When the police

caught the bad guys she would cheer as though she was watching

her favourite football team win a game. And when the criminals

would get away, she would mutter to herself that if she was out

there she would catch them and then damn her body for not letting

her do what she wanted.

Pud walked Studio back through the maze of hallways and

rooms, or it could have been a different set of hallways and rooms,

she wasn't too sure because it all looked the same. By the time she

walked into her room night was falling outside.

“I had the cleaner make up a clean bed for you,” Pud said

gesturing around the room, I know there's not much in here, but if

you need anything you just let me know okay?” He said ruffling her

hair gently. “Now, come on,” he said turning to walk towards the

door, “its been a big day. Off to bed you go.”

He closed the door behind him and Studio stood bewildered, in

the middle of a room that was bigger than the size of the whole

mountain cabin that Pud had raised her in. She listened to Puds

footsteps fade off into the distance down the hallway. Looking

around the room as she stood there, she couldn’t imagine anything

else she would possibly need.

There was an enormous bed in the corner, a huge row of

cupboards against one wall that were as tall as the ceiling, an

enormous window through which she could watch the night lights,

and it was warm and dry. And carpet! The room had carpet! Studio

had never walked on carpet before the airport, and it was amazing

to her. The carpet in the airport was not in any way similar to the

luxurious, shaggy, soft carpet in her bedroom though and she was

almost hesitant to step heavily on it for fear she may bruise it. The

room was much more than everything that she had in the whole

cabin, let alone in a room to herself. Shrugging her pack to the

floor she walked over to the enormous bed and let out a noise half

like a huff, half like a sigh, before flopping down onto what was the

softest, most comfortable bed she had ever felt. She thought falling

asleep may be a little difficult because back in the cabin it was

black as pitch but here there was all the light from the city coming

in through the window. Little did she know that as soon as her head

touched the pillow it carried her on gossamer wings to the land of

sleep in a fraction of a second.

Studio woke in the morning before dawn to the loud sound of

traffic on the roads down below, feeling like she hadn't slept a wink.

After her initial deep sleep, she had woken often through the night

to the sound of Ruby's scanner echoing through the maze of rooms

and hallways. Every time she'd drift off back to sleep the sound of

voices or Ruby cheering would wake her back up. The mountain

cabin had been so deadly quiet, yet even elevated up from the

noise of the city in the top floor apartment, the din of this alien

place was deafening and encroached on her at every moment.

When Studio awoke, she realised she had no idea where the

bathroom was. Needing the toilet, she crept out into the hallway,

quiet as a mouse with the torch from her backpack and started

opening doors just enough so she could see if they looked like a

bathroom. Room after room, hallway after hallway, Studio opened

door after door. Soon she realised not only was she lost, but that

she really, really needed to find a bathroom immediately.

“Pud! Pud where are you?” She whispered at first, getting

louder and louder as the importance of finding a bathroom became

more and more urgent. “Pud?! I need the bathroom, I can't find it

and I don't know how to get back to where I was! Puuuud!” Studio

was yelling into the darkness by this stage, holding her torch ever

so tightly hoping Pud was nearby and afraid she would wet her

pants. “Pud!” she called again as Pud ran around a corner and

almost bowled her over.

“What's wrong? Are you okay? Why are you up?” A very sleepy

looking Pud asked Studio who was now going red in the face.

“I need the toilet,” Studio whispered, afraid that even talking

may be too much for her bladder to bear.

“Why are you up here? You're almost at the lifts.” Pud asked

looking confused

“I can't find one anywhere,” whimpered Studio, “please I'm

busting.”

“Follow me.” Pud said, racing off down the hallway motioning

for Studio to follow him. “Come, I'll show you.”

Pud led Studio back to her bedroom. Her bladder was so full

she felt like she was going cross eyed and thought that she might

pass out. Pud switched the lights on as they went in and walked

towards the cupboards.

“See,” he said opening a door that Studio had thought was a

cupboard, “you have your own bathroom here.” Studio pushed past

him and slammed the door, then gingerly tip toed her way across

the bathroom floor towards the toilet, as though her bladder was a

pressure sensitive bomb that may go off with the slightest motion;

and relieved that at least if she didn't make it to the toilet, she

would be standing on a tiled floor and not the carpet.

For the rest of hat day Studio was afraid to leave her room for

fear of getting lost again. Later in the day Pud came and found her

after realising he hadn't seen her for quite awhile. He was

wondering if she wanted something to eat, which if she did for her

would be breakfast, but it was actually closer to dinner time.

It took Studio a long, long time to get used to all the rooms

and hallways and rooms off hallways and hallways off rooms. She

always got lost, but eventually became less afraid and made a

game of it. She discovered that if she ran with her right hand on

the wall to the right of her as she left her room, if she went

somewhere; and then put her right hand back on the right hand

wall she'd eventually make her way back to her room. Ruby also

gave her a walkie-talkie in case of emergencies.

Most nights she was kept awake to some degree by the noise

of Ruby and her police scanner. There were also two fluffy dogs that

she occasionally saw as they darted around a corners like fluffy

barking high speed tumble weeds that belonged to Ruby, however

she never actually saw them with her. Studio would pretend they

were huge rats that squatted in the apartment, that they never saw

apart from the trail of destruction they left in their wake, like some

urban enigma or legend.

Studio started school. Because she was a little different and

had an advanced understanding of all the things that Pud had

taught her in the cabin on the mountain, according to the school

system she was backwards and a distraction to the other students.

She understood things like quantum physics, chemistry, applied

biomechanics, pharmaceutical sciences and aeronautical

engineering very well. But had little to no understanding of things

like national history and social etiquette. After a tumultuous

semester full of suspensions and F grades, Pud and Ruby quickly

decided to school her at home instead, which worked well for all

involved, including the school system.

Studio learnt a lot in the following years of home schooling

and because there were now two people teaching her, she learnt

faster than before. In fact she managed to finish her high school

diploma before she reached her teens and enrolled at a local

University for on campus classes in Classical Studies. She even

completed three degrees before she turned eighteen, but that was

only because she chose to study part time instead of full time.

One of the things she learnt was that Pud actually owned the

building in which they lived - all 75 floors of it. After they moved to

the city and she was introduced to the concept of rich and poor, she

had thought because Pud and herself had lived in such a small

modest cabin on the mountain that they were poor. Apparently that

was very far from the truth. She learnt from Ruby that Pud owned

not only the building they lived in, but several others in the city,

along with properties in the cities of other countries that he

traveled to for research in in the old days. Rather than move all his

things after working on a scientific development, he would simply

close off the access to the floor of the building leaving it exactly as

it was. So that if ever he wanted to look at something else in

relation to it, all he had to do was go back and open the door and

viola! Everything was where he left it! And when one building was

full, he'd simply buy another one.

According to Ruby around 15 floors of the building they lived

in were filled by these sorts of labs. There was also a library that

took up one floor, another floor packed full of artworks, old

paintings and statues Pud had accumulated; and a floor full of scrap

metal and junk that Pud thought may come in handy one day.

Ruby's health never quiet got back to what it had been before her

heart attack, and she spent her days listening to her police scanner

looking out the windows trying to see if she could catch a glimpse

of what she called the 'real world'. Pud was already a little bit anti-

city and hearing of all the crimes and troubles on the scanner only

made him more so.

“It's no good here.” Studio would hear him muttering to

himself. “No good at all. Just corrupting people is all this place

does. What a mess. What a mess.” Studio knew though that he'd

never leave Rubys side, and Ruby would never leave the city, so in

the city they'd stay. Corruption and all.

Pud spent his days hidden away in one of his many labs

working on new inventions and secret projects that Studio and

Ruby liked to guess were about animating zombies, or re-

awakening the dead.

“He'll be Pud-the-zombie-master.” Studio would laugh.

“Don't invite him to a funeral! Or there wont be a corpse!”

cackled Ruby in reply, listening to her scanner.

Among the many things Pud was working on where engines

that didn't need fuel, and a machine to pass air through to remove

carbon and pollution on an extremely large scale. He was also

working on vaccines, anti-venoms and trying to develop new

medicines. Studio knew there were often other scientists working

with Pud in some of his labs, but she never saw them and in fact

had never even seen the labs and for all she knew they didn't even

exist.

One day unexpectedly, Ruby gave Studio all her rock climbing

and abseiling equipment.

“The only way I'll get to use it again is if my dead body is

hauled down the side of the building.” Ruby laughed, “Here you

have it,” she smiled at Studio, “it may as well be used than gather

dust in here like I am.”

Studio spent many hours in between study, on one of the

empty floors making herself a climbing and abseiling wall. Which

she got quite good at going up and coming down without getting

her lamp arm or spatula leg tangled in the ropes, well hardly ever.

Ruby also gave her her vaulting poles, javelins, shot puts and

discuses. Studio would turn the music up super loud and pretend

she was a ninja, dancing around. Not so much planning to take up

decathlon as Ruby may have liked.

As Studio got older, she started to get itchy feet, well foot, well

you know what I mean. She wanted to get out into the world more.

She wanted to see how it all worked and break free of the confines

of the building and move into the vast unknown beyond university.

She also wanted to get away from the constant noise of Ruby's

scanner.

“I've applied for a job,” she said matter of factly to Pud as he

was reading the paper, hoping he wouldn't carry on.

“Eh..” said Pud as he glanced over the paper, “Good, good.”

Studio breathed a sigh of relief and hurried for the door hoping that

was the end of the conversation, just as Pud slammed down his

newspaper, stood bolt upright and whispered, “You've done what?..”

Ruby turned the scanner down and pretended not to be listening.

“Applied for a job,” stammered Studio biting her lip and not

wanting to turn around and look at Pud.

“But your leg, your arm... what sort of job? And where? Do

you need money? Because I can give you money. I don't think its a

good idea,” a shocked looking Pud said as he sat down in his chair

like he'd received the shock of his life.

Studios shoulders fell as she turned to Pud, “No its not that. I need

to get out. I'm an adult now. I want to be part of the world. I want

to be myself, to do something. I can't ramble around in here

forever. I'll be fine. People don't even noticed my arm or leg. I'm

normal, Pud, more normal than you think.” She sighed a long loud

sigh.

“I know you're normal, I just want you to be safe,” said Pud

apologetically. “I forget how much you've been through, how much

you've learnt. I'm old. Don't mind me. Of course you can have a

job. You're an adult - just.” Studio looks at him with her eyebrows

raised “So tell me about the job.” continued Pud trying to dodge a

bullet.

“It's no big deal. It's at night, in a diner down town.”

“At night?! After listening to Ruby's scanner and the stuff that

goes on out there?” Studio glared at him, and Ruby looked like she

was about to throw the nearest thing she could at Pud, giving him a

look that would re-melt lava. “Go on, continue, tell me about it,”

Pud said with a forced smile through gritted teeth trying to portray

some sense of composure.

“Well I haven't got it yet. It's at night, down town. I'll be

cooking. Just simple stuff. It's pretty quiet over night, so it wouldn't

be busy, the boss said. And its only 4 nights a week. And I was

thinking of enrolling to do a blacksmithing course during the day

part time at the same time.” Her eyes were shining with

excitement.

“Blacksmithing?” a puzzled-looking Ruby asked the question

why hanging in the air loud enough for all to hear.

“Think of all the stuff I could make. It would be fun. And I

could make art and sculptures and all sorts of things.” Studio

explained in a way that didn't really explain anything. She gave

Ruby a nervous smile. “Use it or lose it. Right?” she then smiled at

a stymied-looking Pud.

Studio hurried from the room holding her breathe hoping that

Pud wouldn't call her back in to argue or pick fault with the plan,

and headed towards her room.

“You can't wrap her in cotton wool her whole life you know?”

said Ruby to Pud turning down the volume of the scanner to

emphasise the importance of what she was saying. “She isn't one of

your experiments.”

“I know, I know...” said a perplexed Pud. ”It's just that...”

“Oh come on!” ordered Ruby, “Stop being such a kill joy. Leave

the girl alone.”

“...she can't cook,” Pud continued shaking his head ever so

slightly for side to side like he was trying to make the pieces of a

puzzle fall into place “And blacksmithing?” Ruby and Pud shook

their heads and chuckled to themselves.

Studio shut the door of her room behind her, glad that that

discussion was out of the way and went to her laptop to look up

blacksmithing courses.

She got the job. Her first night at the diner was fairly

uneventful, she cooked 2 burgers and that was it. Apparently it was

always quieter in winter. A lot of people came in on their way to or

from somewhere to defrost their hands with a cup of coffee, or at

least for a cup of brown slightly coffee smelling water that was truly

horrible. The boss of the diner had been having trouble getting

night staff, and was working the graveyard, himself as a result. His

level of interest and enjoyment in the experience was reflected

mirror image in the taste of the coffee he brewed.

After a month or so Studio had made herself some modified

attachments for her hand and arm to make cooking easier, with her

newly acquired blacksmithing skills. A clip-in frying pan, a mandolin

grater blade that attached with magnets to her forearm, a clip-in

spoon, ladle and knife. She had a few 'accidents' in her first couple

of weeks there that made her realise that using her pliers-hand

wasn't going to work. It got too hot being metal, and oily things

slipped out of it. It was also too hard opening glass jars of

foodstuffs with it, they'd just shatter. Sometimes when it was quiet,

she would use her spatula foot/leg to flip eggs or a burger, just to

amuse herself... just because she could.

Studio would read or even nap unnoticed when there were no

customers. The greasy, sweaty, grumpy boss always had his nose

buried in a form guide studying horses, dogs, or what-ever else

people where betting on, so he had no idea what was going on

anyway. Half the time Studio wondered if he would noticed if she

wasn't there. He was so grumpy he didn't even talk to the

customers. He'd half throw - half place menus in front of them

when they came in, then stand in front of them with a disinterested

sneer not quite making eye contact, yet looking off-putting in the

vicinity of their eyes. His pen would be poised on paper ready to

take their order without them even having had time to look at the

menu.

He never told Studio the orders when they came in. He'd

throw the slip through the service window and walk away. Many a

time Studio had to rescue smouldering orders from the flames of

the hot plates before they burst into flames. Studio liked that he

was grumpy, it meant he never tried to make small talk or ask

questions that she didn't want to answer. He had a perpetually

dripping nose, black bags under his eyes big enough to hide a Saint

Bernard, his hair was greasier than the fries they served, and his

clothes honestly looked like he had been working on someone's

very oily, very dirty car for days on end without a break. Studio

constantly wondered whether or not the diner would be busier if he

actually had, or at least looked like he'd had, a shower occasionally.

The majority of the customers were people who looked like

they had nowhere to go...shift workers on the way to work,

sometimes people in a small group after a night out, and taxi and

limo drivers. Studio's cooking didn't necessarily improve, well at

least not for a long time, and was certainly not even at an eighth

grade home economics standard. Thankfully though the food on the

menu was simple enough and being night shift, the customers

where all either too drunk, cold or desperate for food because

nothing else was open, that they didn't seem to care.

Studio never thought she'd miss the noise of Ruby's police

scanner, but early in the mornings Studio, when she was flipping

burgers in the diner she would often see police cars drive past with

lights and sirens on, obviously after someone. She would wonder if

Ruby could see it, and if Ruby knew what was happening. Ruby,

lonely now that Studio was otherwise occupied, had started keeping

a ledger cataloguing all the crimes that came over the scanner.

Before she had taken the job, Studio would often stay up into the

early hours of the morning sitting up with Ruby. They would watch

movies while listening to the scanner, talk about what might have

driven a particular person to commit a particular crime, imagine

funny things that could happen Blues Brothers style during a police

chase and joke about Pud. Ruby was now keeping herself busy

collating the areas with the most crimes, what types of crimes

happened in what areas, at what times, and police response times.

Of course having this sort of information on paper to read, visible

and tangible, made Pud dislike the city even more.

“It's terrible, Ruby. Morbid! It's a morbid hobby.” He'd say

shaking his head if he saw Ruby working on her statistics. “We

should be doing something to solve the problem.” Ruby would roll

her eyes and continue, not listening, “We should be helping, not

observing for amusement. It's just wrong...” his voice would trail off

and he'd leave the room or stare longingly out the window, while

Ruby continued listening to the scanner, taking notes while she

rolled her eyes at Pud.

One morning when Studio returned from work as the sun

was coming up, she found Pud, in a full body lycra suit facing away

from her lifting weights in the hallway. Albeit very small, very light

weights. He also wasn't lifting them very far or moving much, but

she assumed that that was his intention.

As she walked towards him she slowed down and crept a little so as

not to startle him and she observed what he was doing with a

quizzical look on her face. As he lowered the weights back to the

floor and started puffing as though he had just taken part in a truck

pull Studio cleared her throat “Uh-hum... Um, Pud, what are you

doing?”

Pud turned around, surprised to see her there “Studio! I'm

lifting weights.” Studio turned her head to the side so that she

didn't have to look straight on at seventy year old Pud in all his

lycra covered glory and tried not to laugh.

“Yeah, I can see that. Can I ask why though?” She asked,

pursing her lips afraid to look at him for fear of erupting into

laughter.

“Crime, Studio. It's everywhere and it's not going away. Just

ask Ruby. And what would happen if I was out somewhere and

someone got mugged? Would I stand there and let it happen.. oh

no! Well before I'd have no choice to watch, but now I'm working

on my fitness as a way of being prepared. Ready. That if ever I'm

faced with a criminal or a dangerous situation I can be part of the

solution. I'll chase them off or wrestle them to the ground and

restore some justice.” Pud picked up a small towel and wiped some

imaginary sweat from his brow.

Studio didn't point out that for any of that reasoning to be

feasible, Pud would need to leave the building on a regular basis.

“And the suit? What's with that? Scare them off?” She asked

glancing at him out of the corner of her eye, too scared to look at

him front on.

“This?” Pud asked, waving his hands down his body like a

game show model presenting a prize, “oh no, this is a muscle

compression suit I developed. It aids muscles regeneration,

oxygenation and circulation so that each workout that is done in it

has the effect of doing three work outs without the suit.”

Studio nodded in bemusement.

“Here do you want to try it on for yourself?” asked Pud,

wriggling his shoulders like a butterfly shedding its cocoon.

“No!” cried Studio a little too quickly and a little too loudly, “I

mean I'm so tired from work, and I wouldn't want to interrupt your

work out, and I'm so tired.” she said putting on her best sleepy

voice and stretching her arms above her head while faking a yawn.

“It would be no interruption, I've done my three minutes for

the day,” said Pud. “maybe tomorrow then.”

Studio let out a sigh of relief that Pud hadn't taken off the

lycra suit. The only thing worse than seeing Pud in Lycra would be

seeing him in his male version of granny panties. “Are you ok?”

asked Pud, as she sighed.

“Yeah, just tired,” she smiled

“Well I'd better put these weights away,” said Pud, “wouldn't want

anyone tripping over them now, would we?”

As Studio went to walk down the hall, there was a terrible

ripping sound as Pud bent over to pick up his weights.

“

Don't turn around, don't turn around. Just pretend you didn't

hear and keep walking.” Studio was thinking to herself as she

began walking faster and faster down the hallway until she ran into

her room and fell on the floor laughing.

Pud's work outs didn't last long. In fact the one that Studio

walked in on was the first and last. He was too time poor was his

reasoning. The fact that he struggled lifting half kilo weights and

that he split his suit and Ruby kept laughing at him was Studio's

reasoning. Pud decided his plan of attack, instead, would be to

develop a herbal medicinal drink that would have the same effect

on the body's metabolism as working out, and set up a lab and set

to work on a formula.

On one of her nights off Studio was looking for Pud and

couldn't find him anywhere. “Do you know where Pud is?” she

asked Ruby.

“Crying in the corner somewhere I expect.” was Ruby's almost

glib reply.

“What?! Why?” asked a confused Studio wondering what had

happened.

“Jane Fonda called, she wants her leotard back.” Ruby barely

managed to get out through fits of uncontrollable laughter.

Right at that moment an excited Pud came through the door. “I've

done it! I think I've done it! I've got the formula right. I'll need to

test it, on myself of course, but I think I may just have done it,” he

exclaimed, ignoring Ruby laughing next to the window. “If this

works the way I think it will” he continued waving a piece of paper

in front of Studios face, “nothing will stop me.” he said with a

gleeful look on his face and danced out of the room. Little did he

know.

….Next Issue out first week of June.

http://www.facebook.com/Studionovel