FADE IN:
INT. TOKYO, DETACHED SUBURBAN DWELLING, an IDEAL ENVIRONMENT for CHILD REARING
KEN ISHIGURO approaches the audience to preface his tale.
KEN ISHIGURO
I am the male protagonist of the piece, and despite my having an illegitimate child with YUKI MATSUSHITA, who is both older and less attractive than my apparently infertile wife RYOKO YONEKURA, not to mention a second illegitimate child from a former transgression which is never really delved into, I represent the most sympathetic character in this charade. I just hope my wife doesn’t find out.
RYOKO YONEKURA
Find out what? That you had a son/daughter with the older and less attractive YUKI MATSUSHITA? Thankfully, I am already determined to beat the odds and have my own child out of sheer spite, destroying your life in the process, because of a single drunken throw away comment you made some years back that wasn’t directed at me and I may have misinterpreted. Consequently, I find it hard to really be any more annoyed with you than I already am.
KENTAROU KOIZUMI
Yes, it would certainly be a double standard for your husband’s philandering to be the soul source of your annoyance. I’ve seen the way you look at my calligraphy brush.
RYOKO YONEKURA
Naturally, I won’t mention that you’re the infertile one until after you’ve burned your bridges with YUKI MATSUSHITA, and started to form a relationship with my child who you had also assumed to be yours.
KEN ISHIGURO
Me? infertile? How could this be?
RYOKO YONEKURA
The doctor said.
KEN ISHIGURO
But I already have one, or possibly two other children – I wasn't paying attention.
RYOKO YONEKURA
The doctor said.
KEN ISHIGURO
Then I shall take you at your word. This does not bode well. How could my life possibly get any worse?!
Phone rings.
SOME RANDOM BLOKE
My wife just left me and took all my furniture. Women are all bastards!
KEN ISHIGURO
Sorry, who is this?
INT: TOKYO, URBAN STUDIO APARTMENT, a LESS SUITABLE ENVIRONMENT for CHILD REARING
KEN ISHIGURO
Are you sure this boy/girl’s mine? You see I’m apparently infertile which brings my fatherhood into question. My wife RYOKO YONEKURA told me the doctor said so, and despite her harbouring a long term grudge, having a supposedly sperm-bank child out of spite, and being determined to destroy my life by all means at her disposal, I have no reason to disbelieve her nor to seek a second opinion over something so apparently trivial.
YUKI MATSUSHITA
How dare you even suggest such a thing. Just for that, I shall blackmail your company costing you your job and the pension fund you spent your entire adult life accumulating.
She does.
KEN ISHIGURO
Piss! How could my life possibly get any worse?!
KEN ISHIGURO goes into a coma and dies.
RYOKO YONEKURA
Oh no! I care slightly!
EXT. TOKYO, LATER
YUKI MATSUSHITA
Well, the important thing is that I’m left with the business I established using money extorted from a man who can now never come after me, I have my very own trophy son/daughter minus the inconvenience of a male partner, and am generally happy with the way things have turned out. Life has never been better!
RYOKO YONEKURA
I too am in the same situation, but strike “business established using extorted money” and replace with “two storey detached suburban dwelling, twenty five remaining years of mortgage payments, and no visible means of income.” Life indeed has never been better!
KEN ISHIGURO
And I shall be back from the grave next season to exact my imaginative revenge upon the living.
Everybody wins, except the brow-beaten husbands who had been made to sit through the entire series by their overbearing wives.
END
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