Favourite Character
Tiffany Daniels adored the Truman Show.
It had been playing all her life, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. She had grown up with Truman, watching after school as, after school, he watched TV. He was like her best friend - she lay on the living room floor and did her homework while Truman and Marlon did theirs. When Truman had gone camping to play Arctic, she’d dragged the portable TV and her tent out there too. She didn’t get pneumonia, but she did get a cold, and a stern talking to from her mother.
Truman was sleeping.
Tiffany was, quite frankly, disappointed. She’d had a long, hard day at work, and she’d been hoping to come home and have Truman there to comfort her.
That in mind, she crawled off the couch, crossed to her bookshelf, and pulled out her favourite tape. The catalogue for the show offered some tapes for sale, but by the far and large, old episodes had to be caught on reruns. She had her favourite series of episodes, however, on a tape she’d got off a guy online. He had every episode on tape, and if you gave him an episode title and ten bucks, he’d get you an illegal copy.
Popping her video into the VCR, she curled back up on the couch with her bowl of popcorn, and hit play.
That familiar face flashed on her screen, gangly and thin and adorable at sixteen years old. He was on that familiar beach, bonfire burning cheerfully in front of him and Marlon, who were sitting side by side on a log.
Marlon had a can of beer in hand, one he apparently had smuggled from his dad’s fridge in the basement.
Marlon and Truman were smashed. A single can each, and both were three sheets to the wind, and both had descended into giggling and snickering and clapping each other on the shoulder and declaring vows of friendship and love and devotion.
“I love you, Marlon,” Truman giggled, leaning heavily on his friend’s shoulder.
Marlon giggled. “I love you too, man. Like, more than any crappy guy on TV. I love, like the real you!”
“I love the real you, too!” Truman beamed, then leaned over, and kissed Marlon.
Marlon blinked at him, blearily. “What was that for?”
“Cause I love you,” Truman giggled.
Marlon blinked, then slowly smiled. “Hey, that’s cool.”
“We’re drunk, Marlon,” Truman said cheerfully, clinging to Marlon’s arm.
“Mn-hn.” Marlon grinned, and kissed him again, and again.
Soon they tumbled off the log, on the side away from the fire, thankfully, and Truman rolled on top of his best friend, straddling him. He slid his hands under the other’s t-shirt, making him buck and gasp, but neither teen slowed in their frenzied, almost desperate kissing.
“Truman!” a voice shouted, and the boys hastily broke apart, straightening each others clothes as another classmate hurried up, grinning. “I heard you guys got beer! Hey, Marlon, what’re you guys doing?”
“Nothing,” Truman said quickly, clearing his throat. “Beer?”
Tiffany turned the TV off then. After that, it just got boring, and very drunk.
But that one moment, interrupted by a scripted friend... neither had mentioned it again, but she saw the way Marlon’s eyes liked to linger on Truman when he wasn’t looking, a sad, almost wistful look in his eyes.
There was a reason Marlon was Tiffany’s favourite character.
There is a poster on Tiffany’s living room wall, a poster proudly declaring “Free Truman!” and below it, in marker, she’s added:
“Free Marlon, too.”
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