Animating the Mannequins. (standard:drama, 498 words)
Author: Ocarina	Added: Dec 01 2002	Views/Reads: 3215/1	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
He stood in front of the rows of glassy blank faces, cleared his throat, ran his hand through gelled blond hair and began.

He stood in front of the rows of glassy blank faces, cleared his throat,
ran his hand through gelled blond hair and began. His arms waving at 
points – expressing and emphasising the words, the mannequins dressed 
in designer clothes staring. 

“Fact!” He declared, with a flick of a lightly tanned hand, “Is a lot
stranger than fiction!” 

One or two painted eyebrows slowly rose. 

“And I, will prove this to you!” 

So he continued, highlighting a true tale about an Italian lady who gave
birth to sixty-three children in twenty-seven separate pregnancies, 
then one about three passenger ferries on different occasions sinking, 
the sole survivor being a man, each one different, but each bearing the 
same name. 

“So!!” He yelled, making the mannequins jump in surprise, “Isn't the
story of Jesus an example of this?!” 

At that moment, glassy stares slipped over, they had heard enough about
Jesus, a few shrugged that ‘they guess' stranger things had happened. 

The young man, suddenly noticing that he was losing them, raised his
voice even further – his arms flapping. “And! If Jesus was born today, 
what would he get?!” 

“...?” Commented the rows of shop window dolls, now that the interesting
stories were obviously over, sinking into a stupor. 

One track-suited creature raised an arm, slowly, lazily. “A TV crew!!
Reality TV!!” It barked. 

The assembled nodded at each other and started to mutter about ‘Big
Brother' while the man looked on in vain as this new deity consumed 
their thoughts. Another arm was raised and, now desperate, the blond 
man smiled hopefully at the perfectly painted features peering up at 
him. 

“I don't think so. If a woman believed she was going to give birth to
the son of God now there would not be a TV crew... or even the best 
doctors,” her high soft voice rang clearly through the hall now, the 
plastic heads absorbing all, “She would be sent to some sort of home, 
and the baby put up for adoption. There may be already another Jesus 
with a foster family, badly behaved and on some kind-of drug for 
thinking God talks to him. In fact, I think its been done... if there 
was a God, and now God has given up... nothing can get through to us 
now, well, nothing like that anyway.” 

Another blank-stared doll nodded. “Yeah, if he was on TV like, it'd be
boring, creepy religious people don't make good viewing. Especially 
without explosions... war... guns... you know?” 

The assembled mannequins blinked in unison at the man, whose eyes were
wide and had taken two steps back from the podium. His carefully 
crafted notes, done out of love, lay scattered all over the shining 
wooden floor. 

Smirking, the moulded creatures tilted their heads to one side, their
almost identical haircuts in the fashion of the time. Only varying from 
girl to boy, moulding perfectly with their perfect heads. 

Then, in rows, stood up and slowly walked out of the hall to their
lessons. 


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