Water by the spoonful comic
Storyboard Text
- Haikumom: Rise and shine, kiddos, the rooster's a-crowin', it's a beautiful day to be sober. Your Thursday morning haiku: if you get restless buy a hydrangea or rose water it, wait, bloom Orangutan: Ninety-one days. Smiley face.Haikumom: Orangutan! Jesus, I thought my primate friend had disappeared back to the jungle.Orangutan: Disappeared? Yes. Jungle? Happily, no.Haikumom: I'm trying to put a high-five emoticon, but my computer is being a capital B. So, high-five!
- Chutes&Ladders: Orangutan? I was about to send out a search party after your rear end. Kid, log on. No news is bad news. Orangutan: Chutes&Ladders, giving me a hard time as usual. I'd expect nothing less.Chutes&Ladders: Your last post says: "Day One. Packing Bags, gotta run, and then you don't log on for three months?Orangutan: I was going to Japan, I had to figure out what shoes to bring.Haikumom: The country?Chutes&Ladders: What happened to Maine?
- Orangutan: And I quote, "Get a hobby, find a new job, an exciting city, go teach English in a foreign country," Did you guys think I wouldn't take your seasoned advice? I was batting 0 for ten, and for the first time, guys, I feel fucking free.Haikumom (Nonjudgmental): Censored.Orangutan: I wake up and I think, What's the world got up it's sleeve today? And I look forward to the answer. So, thank you.Chutes&Ladders: We told you so. Orangutan (Playful): Shut up.Haikumom: Your Welcome.
- Orangutan: I gave my parents the URL. My username, my password. They logged on and read every post I've ever put on here and for once they said they understood. They had completely cut me off, but after reading this site they bought me the plane ticket. One way, I teach English in the mornings, I have a class of children, a class of teens, and a class of adults, most of whom are older than me, I am free in the afternoons. I have a paycheck which I use for legal things like ice cream, noodles and socks I walk around feeling like maybe I am normal. Maybe, just possibly, I'm not that different. Or maybe it's just homeland delusions.
- Chutes&Ladders AND Haikumom: Homeland?Haikumom: You're Japanese?Orangutan: I was, for the first eight days of my life. Yoshiko Sakai. Then on day nine I was adopted and moved to Cape Lewiston, Maine, where I became Ma--M.M., and where in all my days I have witnessed one other Asian. In the Superfresh. Deli counter. Chutes&Ladders: Japan...Wow, that little white rock sure doesn't discriminate.Haikumom: Amen.Orangutan: Mango Internet Café. I'm sitting in an orange plastic chair, a little view of the Hokkaido waterfront.
- Haikumom: Japan has a waterfront?Chutes&Ladders: It's an island. Haikumom: Really? Are there beaches? Can you go swimming? Orangutan: The ocean reminds me of Maine. Cold water, very quiet, fisherman, boats, the breeze. I wouldn't try swimming. I'm just a looker. I was never one to actually have an experience. Chutes&Ladders: Ah the ocean...There's only one thing on this planet I'm more scared of than that big blue lady.Haikumom: Let me guess: landing on a sliding board square?
- Chutes&Ladders: Lol, truer words have never been spoken. You know I was born just a few miles from the Pacific. In the fresh salt air. Back in "those days" I'm at Coronado Beach with a few "friends" doing my "thing" and I get sucked up under this wave. I gasp, I breath in and my lungs fill with water. I'm like, this is it, I'm going to meet my maker. I had never felt so heavy., not even during my two OD's. I was sinking to the bottom and my head hit the sand like a lead ball. My body just felt like an anvil. The next thing I know there's fingers digging in my ankles. This lifeguard pulls me out, I'm throwing up salt water. I say to him, "Hey blondie, you don't know me from Adam
- but you are my witness: today's the day I start to live." And this lifeguard, I mean he was young with these muscles, this kid looks at me like, "Who is this big black dude who can't doggy paddle?" When I stand up and brush the sand off me, people applaud. An old lady touches my cheek and says "I thought you were done for. " I get back to San Diego that night, make one phone call, the next day I'm in my first meeting, sitting in a folding chair, saying the serenity prayer. Orangutan: I hate to inflate your already swollen ego, but that was a lucid, touching story. By the way, did you get the lifeguard's name? He sounds hot.
- Haikumom: Hey Chutes&Ladders, it's never too late to learn. Most YMCAs offer adult swimming classes.Chutes&Ladders: I'll do the world a favor and stay out of a speedo. Orangutan: Sober air toast. To lifeguards.Chutes&Ladders AND Haikumom: To lifeguards. Orangutan, Chutes&Ladders AND Haikumom: Clink.Haikumom: Chutes&Ladders, I'm buying you a pair of water wings.
- Subway Maine Line
- Elliot: Subway Maine Line. Lar! Laaar, what's it doing for you today? Staying in the shade? I got you, how many do you need? Listen, the delivery guy's out and my little sports injury is giving me hell so can you pick up? Cool, sorry for the inconvenience. Let me grab a pen. A'ight, pick a hoagie, any hoagie!
- Ghost: "Momken men-fadluck ted-dini gawaz saffari?"
- Ghost: "Momken men-fadluck ted-dini gawaz saffari?"
- Ghost: "Momken men-fadluck ted-dini gawaz saffari?"
- Rosie's Diner
- Elliot: You were supposed to meet us at the flower shop.Yaz: The deposit was due at nine.Odessa:My Alarm clock didn't go off.
- John: Hi, I'm John, nice to meet you.Yaz: Yazmin.Elliot: You one of mom's rehab buddies? John: We know each other from work.
- Elliot: You scrub toilets?Odessa (To John): I'm a practitioner of the custodial arts.Elliot: Is she your sponsor?John (To Odessa): I thought this was going to be a private meeting.Elliot: I'm her son.John (To Odessa): You must have been young. Elliot: But I was raised by my Aunt Ginny and that particular aunt just died. (To Odessa) So now, you got three hours to find some money to pay for one basket of flowers in the funeral of the woman who changed my pampers.Yaz: We're all supposed to be helping out.Odessa: You both know I run out of minutes all the time. No one could be bothered to drive by and tell me face to face?Elliot: Because you always bothered to drive by and say hello to Mami Ginny when you knew she was sick? Because you bothered to hit me up one time this week and say, "Elliot, I'm sorry your mom died."Odessa: You still got one mom alive.
- Elliot: Really? You want to go there?Yaz: The flower place needs the money today.Odessa: She was my sister and you are my son, too.Yaz: Two Hundred dollars by end of business day. Odessa: That's my rent.Elliot: Then fifty.Odessa: I just spent fifty getting my phone back on. Elliot: Ten dollars. For the woman who raised your son! Do we hear ten dollars? Going once! Odessa: I spent my last ten at the post office.Elliot: Going twice!John: Here's fifty. (They look at him like he is crazy) Two hundred??Elliot: No offense, I don't take money from users. John: I'm not...I think that was my cue. Odessa: Sit down. My son was just going.Elliot: Did the World's Best Mom here tell you about her daughter?Odessa: I'm about to throw this coffee in your fucking face. Yaz: Come on Elliot, I'll pay for the flowers.
- Elliot: I looked at that chat room once. The woman I saw there? She's literally not the same person I know. (To John) Did she tell you how she became such a saint?John: We all have skeletons.Elliot: Yeah well she's an archaeological dig. Did she tell you about her daughter? Odessa (Suddenly resigned): Go ahead, I ain't got no secrets.Yaz (Getting up): Excuse me. Elliot: Sit here and listen, Yaz. You were born with a silver spoon and you need to know how it was for me.Yaz: I said I'd pay for the goddamn flowers so LET'S GO. NOW!Elliot: My sister and I had the same stomach flu, right? For a whole day we couldn't keep nothing down. Odessa: Three days... You were vomiting for three days straight. Elliot: Medicine, juice, anything we ate, it would come right back up. (To John) Your co-worker here took us to Children's Hospital.Odessa: Jefferson.
- Elliot: It was wall-to-wall packed. Every kid in Philly had this bug. ERs were turning kids away. They gave us a flier about stomach flu and sent us home. Bright blue paper. Little cartoon diagrams. It said give your kids a spoonful of water every five minutes.Odessa: A teaspoon. Elliot: A small enough amount that they can keep it down. Five minutes. Spoon. I remember thinking, Wow, this is it. Family time. Quality time. Just the three of us. Because it was gentle, the way you said, "Open up." I opened my mouth, you put that little spoon of water into my mouth. That little bit of relief. And then I watched you do the same thing with my little sister. And I remember being like, "Wow, I love you, Mom. My mom is alright." Five minutes. Spoon. Five minutes. Spoon. But you couldn't stick to something simple like that. You couldn't sit still like that. You had to have your thing. That's where I stop remembering. Odessa: I left.
- Elliot: A Department of Human Services report. That's my memory. Six hours later a neighbor kicks in the door. Me and my sister are lying in a pile of laundry. My shorts was all messed up. And what I don't really remember is my sister. Quote: "Female infant, approximately two years, pamper and tear ducts dry, likely cause of death, dehydration." Cuz when you dehydrate you can't form a single tear. John (To Elliot): I'm very sorry... (He puts some money on the table) For the coffee. (Exits)Elliot: Some friend you got there. Yaz: Mary Lou. We can at least say her name out loud. Mary Lou. Mary Lou. (To Odessa) One time you came to babysit me, you brought Elliot and Mary Lou-she was still in pampers- and Mary Lou had this soda from 7-Eleven. She didn't want to give me a sip. You yelled at her so bad, you totally cursed her out and I said, "You're not supposed to yell at people like that!" And you said, "No, Yaz, let her cry. She's gotta learn ya'll are cousins, ya'll are flesh and blood, and we share everything. You hear me, Yaz? In this family we share everything." You walked out of the room, came back from the kitchen
- with four straws in your hand, sat us down on the floor in a circle, pointed to me and said, "You first." I sipped. "Elliot's turn." He sipped. "Mary Lou's turn." She sipped. Then you sipped. You made us do like that, taking turns, going around in a circle till the cup was empty. (Odessa hands Elliot a key)Odessa: The pawn shop closes at five. Go into my house. Take my computer. Pawn it. However much you get, put towards a few flowers, okay?(Odessa exits)
- Odessa's Apartment
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