J. D. Gormaz
Were we able to foresee our future actions, even the steadfast determination to contradict our fate would become a self-fulfilling path. Joan embarked on such a roller-coaster when the skies became orange and the world as we knew it started to draw to a close. Little did she suspect that yesterday’s shortcuts beget tomorrow’s nightmares. Her day dawned with upheaval, one of seismic proportions. As a wannabe actress, her dream of world fame had been granted not by the savvy of a knowledgeable agent, but by courtesy of a wayward leprechaun called viral phenomenon. Overnight she had become the laughingstock of the digital planet. She blushed with shame at the memes and coarse collages: Joan Bradford holding Kate Winslet’s waist on the prow of the Titanic, Ms. Bradford as a time traveler grabbing a bunch of statuettes during the First Oscars Awards ceremony, Joan in a spacesuit during the first moonwalk, Robert Redford taking Joan for an aerial ride in his Out of Africa yellow biplane, Joan Bradford on top of a human pyramid with the rest of the Bradfords in the famous Eight is Enough intro, Joan Bradford as Joan Crawford in a promo poster of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Joan surrounded by Brad, Bradley, Jennifer, and Julia in the most famous Oscars’ selfie, Joan as Bradley’s newest girlfriend, and Elon’s and Shrek’s. Joan Bradford? What a two-bit alias! Someone wondered in one of the myriad threads. Joan was cute and comely, that is, in a pixie format. Thus, she had played the female antagonist of a bunch of unusually short beaus, so as to make them look towering. More often than not, she was just a quiescent figure in the background, which was akin to being hired as an extra. After years of vain struggle, one day she pasted her face onto the bodies of female glitterati attending A-list venues. Her less than reputable agent did the rest, leaking rumors of her elopement with a member of Tinseltown’s cream. An autograph hunter had debunked the blatant sham. He uploa
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