Joan of Arc (Again)

Joan of Arc goes to a casting call.

They tell her she can be The Girlfriend.

She blinks.

Her armor reflects the harsh lighting as she says,

"I am a French national hero, and a saint besides.

I have led men into battle to fight and die.

I have been wounded and burned,

And you offer me the part of The Girlfriend?"

The man before her is bored.

There are a million young actresses who would leap on this job like rabid minks.

"So do you want the part or not?"

Joan of Arc rides her noble steed past Starbuck's.

Someone driving past in a pick-up truck honks the horn, yells "hey baby!" and whistles.

It is raining.

Joan of Arc sees her ex-girlfriend coming out of a women's bar on Harrison Avenue.

The same one who told her to take her "funky frog ass back to Quebec."

Joan of Arc is not Canadian.

Saint Teresa of Avila appears and finds Joan sitting on a bus bench, devouring a huge chocolate brownie.

She says, "Hiya, Toots. Nice horse. So...talk to me."

"Life sucks," says the Maid of Orleans.

"I'm unemployed, single and hormonal;

Everything around me seems trivial and unkind.

I feel that I was meant for more than this,

And that, perhaps, I have been born in the wrong time."

"Listen, chica," says Saint Teresa,

"You are more than your circumstances, finer than your failings, and there is honor and purpose in every breath you take.

Besides that, you are loved, more than you know."

"Aw g'wan," says Joan of Arc.

She raises an eyebrow.

"You're not going to start in about Jesus, are you?"

"Nope," says Saint Teresa of Avila. "It's just us girls here. Now fork over some of that brownie. You're such a pig."

Joan of Arc laughs around a mouthful, and breaks off a gooey hunk for Saint Teresa of Avila.

"Fuck you," says Joan of Arc, but she is smiling.

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