The Homecoming of Lucian Wren

By Richard Quarry

Today the Machines deliver the new Benjamin. But for Lucian Wren, a beleaguered scriptwriter in a world ruled by cradle-to-grave teleprompters, that's no cause for celebration. For the two-year-old they've cast for the "reality" show featuring himself and his overstuffed Central Casting wife is a giant pumpkin-headed monster a couple of hatchets past Lizzie Borden. And in this Brave New World where everyone lives by the script and citizens gleefully endure public humiliation on shows like Sticking It To The Joneses and What's Left? to grab their three minutes of fame, Lucian badly needs to boost his ratings — or become a contestant on his biggest rival's smash hit, Shark Tank. Where the blood in the water is real.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Quarry
• Release date: Oct 5, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215101100

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The Homecoming of Lucian Wren

Richard Quarry

Copyright © 2022 by Richard Quarry

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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The Homecoming of Lucian Wren

Thursday morning they delivered the new Benjamin.

Not today, dammit, wailed Lucian Wren, shielding his eyes against the glitter sparkling from the pink cotton-candy walls of the romper room. I’ve got a deadline.

The Machines remained implacable.

YOU SPECIFIED THE DATE IN YOUR SCRIPT.

Lucian kept trying to wheedle and cajole, as was his wont. And the Machines turned a deaf pickup, as was theirs. The camera booms swung out testing the angles while the freshly-deposited Benjamin stood in his crib, laughing maniacally as he tried to kick out the slats.

As Lucian started to pound the heavy-textured walls himself, knocking pink flakes onto the fluffy baby-blue carpet, Ermalie made that familiar clucking sound.

Lights, camera, action, she counseled.

Lucian rubbed his abraded fist. Where’s Koduella? She just going to green-screen again?

Apparently.

A wooden slat cracked, then broke. "Ah-ooga-ooga-ooga," the new Benjamin yelled in triumph as he tried to dismantle the rest of the crib.

We should get that fixed before he hurts himself on the splinters, said Ermalie.

Lucian stared askance as the new Benjamin, who fairly dwarfed the crib, continued his assault on the wood. The child’s pumpkin-shaped face, ringed with copious curls of pumpkin-colored hair, along with the bulging green eyes with their demented golden gleam, suggested an oversized Koala bear gone rabid.

Won’t hurt him, Lucian said. Clearly they sent us an android by mistake. One of those demolition-flick block-monster things.

THIS IS A TWO-YEAR-OLD CHILD, the Machines proclaimed. AND YOU WILL TREAT HIM AS SUCH.

Boof-boof-boof, grunted Benjamin, kicking the slats even harder.

And that’s his vocabulary? Lucian complained to the monitors. Ooga-ooga-boof? Come on guys, you’re killing my story arc. I’ve scripted six episodes of Koduella driving him schizo. This … two-year-old, as you call it, is already starting out three hatchets past Lizzie Borden.

YOUR SCRIPT CALLED FOR A TWO-YEAR OLD. THIS IS A TWO-YEAR OLD. FOCUS GROUPS INDICATE A HIGH CUTENESS FACTOR. TAKE YOUR PLACES.

Oh great, sighed Lucian. And I suppose my so-called wife’s in a stupor someplace. Or shopping. Or both.

Quit fussing, said Ermalie. I’ll shoot the scene.

Slipping off her dressing gown, she handed it to a gofer who hurriedly exited stage right. Underneath she wore her slut suit. Or rather, one of Koduella’s slut suits; thigh-high leather boots with spike heels, a white plastic miniskirt that covered her scarlet thong underpants just so long as she didn’t lean an inch in any direction, and a deep purple cling-to top slashed to the nipples.

As Koduella’s body double, Ermalie possessed the same knock-out figure as the starlet, though cultivated in the gym rather than Koduella’s increasingly bionic, botoxed, and airbrushed exterior. Unlike Koduella, however, Ermalie could actually act. Not to mention walk across a sound stage in spike heels without causing the mikes to squeal in protest.

Unfortunately for Ermalie, her face, which Lucian found ineluctably fetching in a rather skeptical, strong-chinned, show-me sort of way, also suggested thoughtfulness. And of the 1,384 reality TV shows that dictated social mores and aspirations, the five slots for thoughtful women under thirty had all been taken.

APPROACH THE BABY, the Machines directed.

Lucian did so, cautiously, with Ermalie trailing, sneering like she thought it just peachy-keen that he’d