The Trickster Diaries/Chapter 69

I’m not sure how comfortable I feel divulging more about her personal world — where she lived, her occupation, her passion. Holding on to something private isn’t the concern. Neither is betrayal, nor some obscure notion within me that I need to protect her. Enough will be revealed.
Let’s just say she wasn’t from around here. Crazy thing is, after only a week I was no longer thinking in my own time zone, but ahead three hours. I knew where she was, approximately, what she’d bought at market, where her pets were sleeping, her thoughts, sometimes, like one night when she expressed complacency about her GIF work. “Listen,” I told her, “besides feeling mystified and engaged, your work gives me ideas, like, what if you took a million GIFs, developed a storyline, then strung them together to tell that story in feature length format?”
She went nuts, started telling me about her plan to run graphic narrative over three or four, sequentially lined up, 2–3 second GIFs.
Me: You’re not already? Didn’t the three sequences you posted this morning tell a story, minus the graphic narrative?
Juliette: I’m speechless. You’re the only person on the planet to have picked up on that. But listen, go back, your feature length GIF idea? — GENIUS!
Me: Do I foresee a future collaboration?
Nothing. Eleven o’clock her time. Time for bed.
95 percent of her 500 posts were GIFs. All b&w. All from old films. There was the occasional photo, rarely anything but a self portrait, rarely revealing eyes. But, very near the beginning of her feed, a link to YouTube videos of her recapping a popular cable channel horror show.
The genre figured, but, see, this is where guys like me think: OK, honey, you’re strange and deep, your GIFs are magnificent works of art, but taking on a video cam is where the show unravels, like guys who think they can write just because they’re staring at a computer screen, typing.
My right index finger hovered forever over the mouse. Finally I clicked. Five videos. All about 30 minutes long, recapping E1 through 5.
I was shocked. She was in total control all the way. She’d either thought of everything ahead of time — props, lighting, script, intro music, the wine, fashion — or, not sticking to script, she was making it up, improvising as she went along. She was so good at charisma you didn’t know charisma was happening.
And parts, (even though I’d never seen the show the recap was about), seemed trance induced, through her cadence, intentionally leading the viewer to fits of hilarity. She brought it to life. The characters were people you knew.
She never lost stride, never broke character, and through it, the clearest, kindest, subtlest form of mockery you’ve ever witnessed.