You answer the phone. It is Tom Cruise, the actor. He says he wants you to become a Scientologist.
'Seriously, Mel. It's done wonders for me,' says Tom Cruise, 'I really think you should give it a go. At least attend a couple of the meetings, you'll love them.'
Tom Cruise phones you regularly - sometimes twice a day - to try to convince you to join the Church of Scientology. You wonder if maybe Tom Cruise is having an affair with your girlfriend. Perhaps these calls are an elaborate ruse. Perhaps Tom Cruise phones up hoping to speak with your girlfriend but, when you, Mel Gibson, answer, he is forced to carry out this unending quest to persuade you to become a member of his religious community.
'Are you still there, Mel?' asks Tom Cruise.
You tell him that yes, you are still here. You have noticed there is a quarter-full bottle of Coors behind a plant-pot near the phone. You had hidden it there earlier in the week when you were drinking it and your girlfriend had entered the room. You ask Tom Cruise to tell you more about Scientology. Does the Church of Scientology, you ask Tom Cruise, have any specific doctrinally dictated views on the subject of, say, infidelity?
'Well, that's an interesting question, Mel. Helluva interesting question! Ha ha. Glad you asked it. See, it's a complicated area because there are always...'
You quietly rest the phone's handset down beside the phone. Then you wander around the room, running a hand through your hair. You feel restless. You see that on a chair by the door there is a magazine which has been dropped over your girlfriend's handbag. Although it appears to have been casually put down there it arouses your suspicion. Is the magazine concealing something?
You pace across and rifle through the handbag. It contains: a plastic packet of paper tissues, a clementine, an empty mineral water bottle and an address book. None of these serve to provoke your suspicion. You flick through the address book. It contains little in the way of surprises being, as it is, blank with a price sticker still on the front. You wonder if you should be suspicious of the lack of suspicious contents in this bag. Where, for instance, is your girlfriend's lipstick? All her makeup, in fact? Her mobile phone? Could this be a dummy bag? And what about the magazine which was nonchalantly draped over it? Was this intended to be some kind of signal, possibly directed towards a member of the house-staff she was having a covert affair with? Possibly towards Tom Cruise. An open, face-down magazine could represent a set of bedsheets. A handbag could represent a vagina. Yes, you reflect, this isn't entirely outside the bounds of plausibility.
'...I suppose the real question you have to ask yourself in this situation, Mel - any situation, really - is "What does Xanu want me to do?" If you ask yourself that....' You pick the phone handset back up off the table and place it back into the cradle. There is a laptop computer propped up behind the phone.
Do you want to:
Turn the laptop computer on and glare at some images of Tom Cruise whilst imagining him having intercourse with your girlfriend.
Drive round to Tom Cruise's house and use the laptop as a weapon with which to attack him.
'Seriously, Mel. It's done wonders for me,' says Tom Cruise, 'I really think you should give it a go. At least attend a couple of the meetings, you'll love them.'
Tom Cruise phones you regularly - sometimes twice a day - to try to convince you to join the Church of Scientology. You wonder if maybe Tom Cruise is having an affair with your girlfriend. Perhaps these calls are an elaborate ruse. Perhaps Tom Cruise phones up hoping to speak with your girlfriend but, when you, Mel Gibson, answer, he is forced to carry out this unending quest to persuade you to become a member of his religious community.
'Are you still there, Mel?' asks Tom Cruise.
You tell him that yes, you are still here. You have noticed there is a quarter-full bottle of Coors behind a plant-pot near the phone. You had hidden it there earlier in the week when you were drinking it and your girlfriend had entered the room. You ask Tom Cruise to tell you more about Scientology. Does the Church of Scientology, you ask Tom Cruise, have any specific doctrinally dictated views on the subject of, say, infidelity?
'Well, that's an interesting question, Mel. Helluva interesting question! Ha ha. Glad you asked it. See, it's a complicated area because there are always...'
You quietly rest the phone's handset down beside the phone. Then you wander around the room, running a hand through your hair. You feel restless. You see that on a chair by the door there is a magazine which has been dropped over your girlfriend's handbag. Although it appears to have been casually put down there it arouses your suspicion. Is the magazine concealing something?
You pace across and rifle through the handbag. It contains: a plastic packet of paper tissues, a clementine, an empty mineral water bottle and an address book. None of these serve to provoke your suspicion. You flick through the address book. It contains little in the way of surprises being, as it is, blank with a price sticker still on the front. You wonder if you should be suspicious of the lack of suspicious contents in this bag. Where, for instance, is your girlfriend's lipstick? All her makeup, in fact? Her mobile phone? Could this be a dummy bag? And what about the magazine which was nonchalantly draped over it? Was this intended to be some kind of signal, possibly directed towards a member of the house-staff she was having a covert affair with? Possibly towards Tom Cruise. An open, face-down magazine could represent a set of bedsheets. A handbag could represent a vagina. Yes, you reflect, this isn't entirely outside the bounds of plausibility.
'...I suppose the real question you have to ask yourself in this situation, Mel - any situation, really - is "What does Xanu want me to do?" If you ask yourself that....' You pick the phone handset back up off the table and place it back into the cradle. There is a laptop computer propped up behind the phone.
Do you want to:
Turn the laptop computer on and glare at some images of Tom Cruise whilst imagining him having intercourse with your girlfriend.
Drive round to Tom Cruise's house and use the laptop as a weapon with which to attack him.