Act 2, Scene 3

MELI

My hands, my pencils, my brushes meant to say “I love you”, but he’d rather have it said differently.

Fair, quite honestly.

Still, any artist worth their salt understands that any and all criticism hurts, even if just a tiny tinge; you can’t help it, especially when it’s aimed at what you think is your masterpiece.

(And I mean “masterpiece” in the classical sense, the sense where it qualifies you as a master.)

There would be no issue if I wanted to use it to apply my scholarship, it was “mine to do with as I please” is what he told me, but I decided to start another project from scratch, this one based on my head, or how Fede had described my head, at least.

Aaaand… things got better!

…

That was a bold faced lie I just told! The government began hounding us for tax evasion!

Uh you see. (It sounds quite stupid out loud). I had been earning some extra doug has an oil painting teacher, working sort of informally, and when it came time for me to register myself as a law-abiding tax-payer, in all that chaos of paperwork, and signatures, and birth certificated did our venerable government realize that I was a virtual destitute while also having never paid a tax in my life.

They pinched me and they pinched Fede at an afternoon barbeque with my parents, who very paternally decided not to get involved.

(As Dad) I’m sorry honey, I’ve got enough problems with these assholes.

And what followed was the beginning of the worst time in my life.

They accused us of some weird tax evasion scheme that Dad supposedly was involved in and more bureaucratic crap that I refuse to understand.

Despite being quite terrified, I didn’t think explaining the head situation was a good idea, but Fede said:

(As Fede) We could give them a demo.

“In front of others?” I asked.

“Why not”, he said, and unexpectedly, broke my heart.

We asked the tax ghouls to leave the office for a second and when they came back Fede was inside my aching head. Then it was my turn in his head and so and and so forth, like some sort of Three Stooges bit. They had us bring objects inside and take objects outside. They tried looking through a security camera how it happened, but all they could see was how in one frame, there were two of us, and in the next, only one.

            END OF SCENE