“Hey, Bim?”
“Not now, Will, I’m practicing.”Bim was pacing in front of his enormous mirror, holding flash cards in one hand and snapping his fingers with the other. He was wearing his fresh suit that he never seemed to take off and was muttering lines to himself, snapping five times when he appeared to mess up. He didn’t even bother to look up when the eccentric Ego Wilford stuck his head tentatively through the doorway.
“I have a question.”
“Wilford, I’m in the middle of something!”
“I already asked Google and Dark and The Host and the Doctor and NO ONE is giving me good answers! Please?”
The suited Ego sighed, dropped his hands and turning towards Wilford. “Alright, fine, what is it?”
Wilford, after a moment, took a step into the room. Bim narrowed his eyes at his shoes, which Wilford immediately took off upon the glare. Throwing the shoes hastily outside of the room, he sat down on Bim’s pristine bed, wrinkling the sheets in the process. Bim gritted his teeth as he fetched the pink shoes from the hallway and lined them up neatly next to his other pairs. He fixed them once, twice, six times before he was satisfied with the arrangement of said shoes. Once that had been taking care of, he finally turned his attention to Wilford.
“What seems to be the problem, Wilford?”
“Well, I was thinking about my interviews…” Wilford began, twirling his mustache nervously. Bim immediately lit up with interest; the only time he could ever stand Wilford was when they were talking about their shared interest- their television shows.
“What about them?”
“I just finished another one, but once we were done, my interviewee didn’t want to talk to me, the bastard. He just sat there in a pool of his own blood. He didn’t even breathe! What a dick move, not even wanting to share the same air I breathe, huh?” Wilford swung his legs angrily, fumbling his hands about as he did. His words got more jumbled the more he ranted, and Bim had to process the words for a moment before realizing what Wilf was saying. “So, my question is: Am I a cool guy? Why don’t my interviewees like me? Why aren’t I cool like Bingiplier?”
Bim held up a hand. “I’m gonna have to stop you there, pink boy. We have to address a very serious matter here. Did you just call Bing cool?”
“Well, yeah, he’s got a skateboard and cool glasses and everything!”
Shaking his head, Bim began to pace once more. “We’ll come back to that later. What did you say about the interviewee sitting in a pool of his own blood?”
“Well, he wasn’t cooperating, and I-” Wilford broke off as Bim whipped around to face the foot of the bed, tapping five times on the wood.
“Continue, Will,” Bim snarled, noticing the dip in conversation. He hated when people waited for him to finish his counting.
Wilford darted his eyes hastily from Bim’s hands and sighed before responding. “Like I said, he wasn’t cooperating-” Bim tapped again- “so I just tried to tickle him with my knife to get him to be in a more agreeable mood! Then he gave me the cold shoulder.” Wilford’s shoulders slumped as he remembered, fighting back tears.
Bim stopped pacing. “Wilford, you don’t understand, do you?”
Wilford looked up. “What do you mean?”
Shaking his head, Bim looked out in the hallway at the different Egos’ doors. “They all have their reasons for killing. But you? I thought you just enjoyed it. I didn’t know that you didn’t…”
“Killing?”
“Wilford, you have to understand. In order to sell your show, you have to make it exciting. You have to increase tensions, drama, suspense, all that. And you’re doing it perfectly.”
At those words, Wilford let the tears fall. “Well, it doesn’t seem like it.”
Sweeping a hand through his perfect hair, Bim knelt down in front of the crying Ego, looking up at his face. “Take me for example. Remember the time I ground Danny up into hamburger meat? That was to raise the stakes. To make the show more interesting to watch. We get nowhere with namby-pamby shows like the ads Ed does.”
“I like Ed. I bring him into our meetings for a reason.” Wilford pouted, legs swinging faster now. Trimmer had to duck out of the way and stand up quickly in order to avoid them.
“Okay, alright, Will. I’m just trying to help,” Bim responded defensively, becoming even more annoyed at the wrinkles on the bed. “Could you just- could you just stand up for a second?”
Confused, Warfstache did as he was told, substituting his leg movement for his hands now. Wilford had trouble staying still, and would often flap or wiggle his hands, annoying the other Ego to no end. Right now, however, Bim was too focused on the bed.
“You didn’t help me at all,” Wilford told Bim, offended. He picked up his shoes and shoved them onto his feet, stomping out of the room.
Wrinkles in the bed straightened, the show host turned to the door, debating whether he should call Wilford back in. As he did so, however, he saw that his shoes were messed up again from Wilford’s careless exit. Cursing three times, he fixed the shoes six times and walked back to the mirror, picking up the cards again and practicing again. Or tried to, anyways. He couldn’t focus now.
“We’re more alike than you realize, Wilford,” He sighed. And it was true.
The Performer and the Entertainer
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