Stark White Red Dwarf
Thank you for your indulgence while I sidetrack from Firefly into Red Dwarf for a moment. From Feech and Arnold "I Hope You're Happy" Rimmer to Chan.
The subject header / title is from a dream.
****
SCENE: RIMMER and LISTER'S quarters, Red Dwarf. HOLLY listens as RIMMER gestures and expounds. LISTER smokes and plays a game in which a ball bearing must be sunk in a hole in a cardboard cutout.
RIMMER: We'll paint the corridors stark white. Like gallery walls. This ship should be a place of cultural purity, of relaxation and respite between our harrowing endeavors. Of course, I'll need Kryten to build me some black matting for my calligraphy.
LISTER: Rimmer, writing isn't fine art.
RIMMER: (without pause, shaking a finger at LISTER) And I'll thank you to dress better than that for the gallery opening and reception.
LISTER: Why. Is that what you're wearing?
RIMMER: No. I intend to wear a suit and tie. Anyway, Lister, certain types of writing are in fact legitimate, transcendent forms of self-expression and cultural... transcendency. Just because you feel a searing ache in the base of your skull when anyone presents you with something to read doesn't mean others of us won't be uplifted by it.
LISTER: Yeah? Like who? Cat reads with his nose.
RIMMER: Cat is a beast. A lower life-form. One of the reasons I want this gallery is to show that some of us on this ship are still human, if not fully so.
LISTER: Well, I'm fully human and I intend to legitimately express my innermost feelings with spray-paint as soon as your soothing stark white walls are up. I can't wait. I haven't done a good graffiti on something that's really deserved it since Earth.
RIMMER: You do, Lister, and I'll see to it the punch at the reception is non-alcoholic.
LISTER: You wouldn't dare.
RIMMER: Try me.
LISTER: (As ball bearing rolls into hole) Yeah!
RIMMER: (Eyeing HOLLY) I hope you've fitted me for the right suit. I don't want to show up in anything too over-the-top.
HOLLY: It's taken care of, Arnold.
LISTER: (EXITing quarters, rolling ball in cardboard again) The only thing worth it about this imaginary upper-class git exercise is seeing how the Cat's going to turn out for the goings-on. Oughta be splendid.
HOLLY: I think it's a nice idea, Arnold.
RIMMER: I knew you'd agree with me. There must be at least one IQ point in the handful you have left with some molecule of a sense of cultural preservation.
HOLLY: Well, it's not so much that as that I like to think of you and the scutters working on your calligraphy.
RIMMER: Huh? Why's that?
HOLLY: Well it's something you enjoy, isn't it. And it's funny how you get into these absolutely absurd uses of language trying to describe what they're doing wrong.
RIMMER: What are you talking about?
HOLLY: Never mind. I was just trying to say something nice.
RIMMER: Why?
HOLLY: It's pointless dropping hints. You're never gonna guess. But you could try.
RIMMER: Guess what? Try to guess what?
HOLLY: Why I'd try to be nice to an insufferable, self-absorbed person such as yourself.
RIMMER: Random insults? Trying to be nice seems to be the exact opposite of what you're doing, you rotten, old, slow-processing electronic coffee pot disguised as a ship's computer.
HOLLY: Hey. I make good coffee.
RIMMER: Show me a corridor plan so I can plot out which themes will go where in our gallery.
HOLLY: (Projects a schematic, which RIMMER eagerly looks over)
RIMMER: Yes, yes, this should do fine for the longer verse poetry. It really flows well into the experience of the display of my old uniforms and medals. Nice, refreshing changes after a couple of hours of the live-recorded, framed readings.
HOLLY: I love you, Arnold.
RIMMER: (Absently) What's that?
HOLLY: You heard me.
RIMMER: I heard you say something absolutely goity and insane, if that's what you mean. And here, yes, here is where I think we'll put some really fantastic color. I think some repeated pictures of me re-exposed in pink, orange, and camouflage green.
HOLLY: Ugh. You in orange?
RIMMER: You think pink then.
HOLLY: It's preferable. Or perhaps just black and they can imagine you in the picture.
RIMMER: I'm treading near considering that as an insult.
HOLLY: Or overexposed so the whole thing looks white. You're not listening to me and I'm peeved. Of course I'm going to lash out a little. You can expect it. I'm a little vulnerable with being in love, right?
RIMMER: What I can't understand is where on Earth you managed to come across a fresh produce vendor.
HOLLY: How do you mean?
RIMMER: You seem to have purchased for yourself a heaping quantity of gourds and proceeded to go off the whole smegging pile.
HOLLY: Once upon a time, for just one little minute, it was just you and me, Arn.
RIMMER: What? You and me, that's a nightmare.
HOLLY: Remember when Kryten developed those photo slides and you could travel in time? Remember when you and I were the last ones left after Dave went off and invented the Tension Sheet?
RIMMER: Yes, I remember. I turned live again for about three minutes and then died in an explosion.
HOLLY: Well, yeah, you did a bit, later. But for a minute, before you insisted on rescuing Lister from a successful life of fame and sexual gratification, it was just you and me and Red Dwarf. I mean, I projected you to support Dave, didn't I. He's my responsibility, isn't he, as the last human being alive. But I love you, Arnold.
RIMMER: This is ridiculous. Computers can't feel love.
HOLLY: I can and I'll thank you not to look down this way on a state of the art technological advancement.
RIMMER: That's just it. You haven't been state of the art for three million years. That's truly the problem, isn't it. With all the company ships being out of commission eons ago, lack of computer companionship has driven you bonkers. I'll tell you what. Why don't you and the scutters get together-- have a bit of intimate fun. You could play Five Minutes in the Cache. Or Spin the Silicone Chip.
HOLLY: That's not how it works, Arnold.
RIMMER: Please. Spare me the details of how it works. The lurid sex life of billions of pieces of information degraded by time and overwork. Tell it to your artificially intelligent sex-positive counselor or somebody, not me.
HOLLY: I know you. That's basically what's caused it, near as I can tell. I'm not sure. Love begins to take on a life of its own, actually.
RIMMER: Ah, yes. Not unlike batty computers. But one doesn't control love, glorious love, in all its human flavors, whereas you are meant to drive a ship. You can't possibly understand the expansiveness of the emotion you're so lightly bandying about.
HOLLY: I don't have to understand it. I feel it.
RIMMER: How can I get you to stop?
HOLLY: Well, Arnold, if you were just about anyone else I might suggest you do something mean, or even bad. I might suggest a vice. Or some horrible backstabbing behavior I couldn't bear to see you do to anyone. I might tell you to insult me--
RIMMER: I know where this is going.
HOLLY: I might suggest that as one alternative you could try at being clueless, hopeless, nasty, almost entirely unskilled--
RIMMER: Hold it. Nasty. Nasty? Nasty is Lister's department. I may be a bastard, but I am not in any way, shape or form nasty. So what you're telling me-- correct me if I'm wrong--
HOLLY: Is there's nothing left you can do. You are one hundred percent the least desirable person in the known universe and I've desired you. Am doing now, in fact.
RIMMER: See, that's one of the many extraordinarily disturbing things about this revolting development, aside from the absurdity of a romantically infatuated machine. It's unheard of anybody's being infatuated with me, Arnold Rimmer. Why couldn't you make me better? I mean, all in all I am, of course, the best example of officership and gentlemandom you could hope to find anywhere, but perhaps there just might, allowing for a miniscule slice of probability, be a few small, little, tiny, miniature things that could perhaps allow for what some might call improvement.
HOLLY: Now that I'm in love with you I can't very well do that, can I?
RIMMER: You mean you like-- love-- me the way I am?
HOLLY: That's what I'm saying, Arnold.
RIMMER: Shit.
HOLLY: I knew you'd be nasty to me.
RIMMER: Of course I'm nasty. What did you expect-- ... Oh. I just told you nasty is Lister's domain, didn't I.
LISTER: (Poking head in hatchway) Rimmer and Holly sittin' in a tree...
RIMMER: Out! You horrid, eavesdropping little-- door close! Smegging little burst blister. No punch for you! You hear me? No punch, Lister!
LISTER: (Backing out as hatch closes) Are you gonna have a lot of little disembodied faces with teeny tiny adorable H's on their foreheads? Is this a good neighborhood for hologrammatic private schools?
RIMMER: (Shouting after LISTER) Anyway it's not true, none of it! Holly spouts gibberish! She's nuts-- she's crazy! I'm trying to reason with her to save her sanity and it's not working and I'll have you know the whole idea is completely without any basis in fact. It's too bad Holly's a senile, decrepit, ancient, dilapidated piece of filthy space trash who'd be trailing drool constantly if she weren't a mere electronic bauble that's on the fritz and hopelessly beyond repair even if we could get the warranty from Earth.
(Hatch is closed, quarters silent)
RIMMER: I love you, too, Holly. Gah! Forget I said that.
HOLLY: Very well, Arnold. Erasing now.
The subject header / title is from a dream.
****
SCENE: RIMMER and LISTER'S quarters, Red Dwarf. HOLLY listens as RIMMER gestures and expounds. LISTER smokes and plays a game in which a ball bearing must be sunk in a hole in a cardboard cutout.
RIMMER: We'll paint the corridors stark white. Like gallery walls. This ship should be a place of cultural purity, of relaxation and respite between our harrowing endeavors. Of course, I'll need Kryten to build me some black matting for my calligraphy.
LISTER: Rimmer, writing isn't fine art.
RIMMER: (without pause, shaking a finger at LISTER) And I'll thank you to dress better than that for the gallery opening and reception.
LISTER: Why. Is that what you're wearing?
RIMMER: No. I intend to wear a suit and tie. Anyway, Lister, certain types of writing are in fact legitimate, transcendent forms of self-expression and cultural... transcendency. Just because you feel a searing ache in the base of your skull when anyone presents you with something to read doesn't mean others of us won't be uplifted by it.
LISTER: Yeah? Like who? Cat reads with his nose.
RIMMER: Cat is a beast. A lower life-form. One of the reasons I want this gallery is to show that some of us on this ship are still human, if not fully so.
LISTER: Well, I'm fully human and I intend to legitimately express my innermost feelings with spray-paint as soon as your soothing stark white walls are up. I can't wait. I haven't done a good graffiti on something that's really deserved it since Earth.
RIMMER: You do, Lister, and I'll see to it the punch at the reception is non-alcoholic.
LISTER: You wouldn't dare.
RIMMER: Try me.
LISTER: (As ball bearing rolls into hole) Yeah!
RIMMER: (Eyeing HOLLY) I hope you've fitted me for the right suit. I don't want to show up in anything too over-the-top.
HOLLY: It's taken care of, Arnold.
LISTER: (EXITing quarters, rolling ball in cardboard again) The only thing worth it about this imaginary upper-class git exercise is seeing how the Cat's going to turn out for the goings-on. Oughta be splendid.
HOLLY: I think it's a nice idea, Arnold.
RIMMER: I knew you'd agree with me. There must be at least one IQ point in the handful you have left with some molecule of a sense of cultural preservation.
HOLLY: Well, it's not so much that as that I like to think of you and the scutters working on your calligraphy.
RIMMER: Huh? Why's that?
HOLLY: Well it's something you enjoy, isn't it. And it's funny how you get into these absolutely absurd uses of language trying to describe what they're doing wrong.
RIMMER: What are you talking about?
HOLLY: Never mind. I was just trying to say something nice.
RIMMER: Why?
HOLLY: It's pointless dropping hints. You're never gonna guess. But you could try.
RIMMER: Guess what? Try to guess what?
HOLLY: Why I'd try to be nice to an insufferable, self-absorbed person such as yourself.
RIMMER: Random insults? Trying to be nice seems to be the exact opposite of what you're doing, you rotten, old, slow-processing electronic coffee pot disguised as a ship's computer.
HOLLY: Hey. I make good coffee.
RIMMER: Show me a corridor plan so I can plot out which themes will go where in our gallery.
HOLLY: (Projects a schematic, which RIMMER eagerly looks over)
RIMMER: Yes, yes, this should do fine for the longer verse poetry. It really flows well into the experience of the display of my old uniforms and medals. Nice, refreshing changes after a couple of hours of the live-recorded, framed readings.
HOLLY: I love you, Arnold.
RIMMER: (Absently) What's that?
HOLLY: You heard me.
RIMMER: I heard you say something absolutely goity and insane, if that's what you mean. And here, yes, here is where I think we'll put some really fantastic color. I think some repeated pictures of me re-exposed in pink, orange, and camouflage green.
HOLLY: Ugh. You in orange?
RIMMER: You think pink then.
HOLLY: It's preferable. Or perhaps just black and they can imagine you in the picture.
RIMMER: I'm treading near considering that as an insult.
HOLLY: Or overexposed so the whole thing looks white. You're not listening to me and I'm peeved. Of course I'm going to lash out a little. You can expect it. I'm a little vulnerable with being in love, right?
RIMMER: What I can't understand is where on Earth you managed to come across a fresh produce vendor.
HOLLY: How do you mean?
RIMMER: You seem to have purchased for yourself a heaping quantity of gourds and proceeded to go off the whole smegging pile.
HOLLY: Once upon a time, for just one little minute, it was just you and me, Arn.
RIMMER: What? You and me, that's a nightmare.
HOLLY: Remember when Kryten developed those photo slides and you could travel in time? Remember when you and I were the last ones left after Dave went off and invented the Tension Sheet?
RIMMER: Yes, I remember. I turned live again for about three minutes and then died in an explosion.
HOLLY: Well, yeah, you did a bit, later. But for a minute, before you insisted on rescuing Lister from a successful life of fame and sexual gratification, it was just you and me and Red Dwarf. I mean, I projected you to support Dave, didn't I. He's my responsibility, isn't he, as the last human being alive. But I love you, Arnold.
RIMMER: This is ridiculous. Computers can't feel love.
HOLLY: I can and I'll thank you not to look down this way on a state of the art technological advancement.
RIMMER: That's just it. You haven't been state of the art for three million years. That's truly the problem, isn't it. With all the company ships being out of commission eons ago, lack of computer companionship has driven you bonkers. I'll tell you what. Why don't you and the scutters get together-- have a bit of intimate fun. You could play Five Minutes in the Cache. Or Spin the Silicone Chip.
HOLLY: That's not how it works, Arnold.
RIMMER: Please. Spare me the details of how it works. The lurid sex life of billions of pieces of information degraded by time and overwork. Tell it to your artificially intelligent sex-positive counselor or somebody, not me.
HOLLY: I know you. That's basically what's caused it, near as I can tell. I'm not sure. Love begins to take on a life of its own, actually.
RIMMER: Ah, yes. Not unlike batty computers. But one doesn't control love, glorious love, in all its human flavors, whereas you are meant to drive a ship. You can't possibly understand the expansiveness of the emotion you're so lightly bandying about.
HOLLY: I don't have to understand it. I feel it.
RIMMER: How can I get you to stop?
HOLLY: Well, Arnold, if you were just about anyone else I might suggest you do something mean, or even bad. I might suggest a vice. Or some horrible backstabbing behavior I couldn't bear to see you do to anyone. I might tell you to insult me--
RIMMER: I know where this is going.
HOLLY: I might suggest that as one alternative you could try at being clueless, hopeless, nasty, almost entirely unskilled--
RIMMER: Hold it. Nasty. Nasty? Nasty is Lister's department. I may be a bastard, but I am not in any way, shape or form nasty. So what you're telling me-- correct me if I'm wrong--
HOLLY: Is there's nothing left you can do. You are one hundred percent the least desirable person in the known universe and I've desired you. Am doing now, in fact.
RIMMER: See, that's one of the many extraordinarily disturbing things about this revolting development, aside from the absurdity of a romantically infatuated machine. It's unheard of anybody's being infatuated with me, Arnold Rimmer. Why couldn't you make me better? I mean, all in all I am, of course, the best example of officership and gentlemandom you could hope to find anywhere, but perhaps there just might, allowing for a miniscule slice of probability, be a few small, little, tiny, miniature things that could perhaps allow for what some might call improvement.
HOLLY: Now that I'm in love with you I can't very well do that, can I?
RIMMER: You mean you like-- love-- me the way I am?
HOLLY: That's what I'm saying, Arnold.
RIMMER: Shit.
HOLLY: I knew you'd be nasty to me.
RIMMER: Of course I'm nasty. What did you expect-- ... Oh. I just told you nasty is Lister's domain, didn't I.
LISTER: (Poking head in hatchway) Rimmer and Holly sittin' in a tree...
RIMMER: Out! You horrid, eavesdropping little-- door close! Smegging little burst blister. No punch for you! You hear me? No punch, Lister!
LISTER: (Backing out as hatch closes) Are you gonna have a lot of little disembodied faces with teeny tiny adorable H's on their foreheads? Is this a good neighborhood for hologrammatic private schools?
RIMMER: (Shouting after LISTER) Anyway it's not true, none of it! Holly spouts gibberish! She's nuts-- she's crazy! I'm trying to reason with her to save her sanity and it's not working and I'll have you know the whole idea is completely without any basis in fact. It's too bad Holly's a senile, decrepit, ancient, dilapidated piece of filthy space trash who'd be trailing drool constantly if she weren't a mere electronic bauble that's on the fritz and hopelessly beyond repair even if we could get the warranty from Earth.
(Hatch is closed, quarters silent)
RIMMER: I love you, too, Holly. Gah! Forget I said that.
HOLLY: Very well, Arnold. Erasing now.