He wakes up groggy, after another late night of typing ‘I AM NOT FAMOUS ANYMORE’ over and over again in his twitter feed. He’s done this for some time thanks to the ever leering public, that keeps reminding him that he’s screwing up.

This morning he tries something different.

‘WHY DO SEAGULLS FLY OVER THE SEA?’… submit.

Shia gets up from the pool of his own sweat that was once a bed and puts on a nearby t-shirt. He gurgles orange juice in his mouth that’s been sitting outside of the fridge since Wednesday. Dips a tooth brush into a bottle of Jack Daniels and proceeds to brush his teeth.

He’s a busy person today.

Shia has rented out space to invite people to watch him be sad. It’s a performance piece. If Shia is going to lose his mind, he might as well do it under the guise that it’s artistic. The idea came to him from the scattered comic books and german novellas all around in this tiny little apartment he now occupied.

He looks back to his twitter account. The only replies are from people that beg him to follow back, favestar letting him know that he received 60+ likes for his tweet, and the countless others that want him to stop. None of them were the answer he was looking for.

So he tries again, ‘WHY DO SEAGULLS FLY OVER THE SEA?’

He slams closed his laptop and turns on his iPad, because it’s easier to take with him while he’s on the move. He doesn’t really like it that much, but he wants to keep up appearances with anything that makes him feel socially accepted. It really helps in looking like he’s busy, when he quickly pulls it up to his face as people walk by.

Putting on a hoodie, heavy coat, Shia walks out the door.

Having no need for cars anymore, he decides to walk to clear his mind for any other ideas he could think of making. He’s thinking of getting someone to help make a documentary about this publicity stunt he’s built up in his head. It’s the story about how he’s retiring from acting to pursue a different career. Let himself go, grow a beard. He’ll definitely direct it, and he’s thinking of Zach Galifianakis as the lead. Maybe he’ll pursue a career in piano playing.

The beef arrives at the art gallery that he’s rented out. Inside, it’s completely empty aside from two chairs facing each other. he pulls a paper bag out of his jacket, puts it on his head, and sits down.

“THE DOCTOR IS IN!” he screams at the top of his lungs, to let people know that he’s ready to art.

Silence for about 10 minutes. Nobody has entered. A small handful of people are standing at the window, looking in with their smartphones. Recording whatever it is that the wild LaBeouf will do next.

Perhaps that’s the thing that made him start to weep.

The thought rolling around in his head for the past month, is that nobody has been taking his art seriously. He plagiarized to make a statement, and he continued to plagiarize to make his point but nothing caught fire.

Thinking of fire reminded him of the time he ignited his most cherished script from ‘Even Stevens’. He had so much fun on that episode and shared a lot of laughs. Ever since he experienced the horror within himself during the filming of Nymphomanic, he hasn’t been the same. He’s not the same Shia.

His boisterous tears kept on for another 30 minutes until somebody walked in.

“Can you keep quiet?” asked the man, “I’m trying to busk out here bro.”

“I’m sorry-I’m sorry,” Shia sniffled, “I just.. ugh. you know.” Shia looked up at him, the paper bag now soggy in parts where the tears rolled down.

“It’s okay. Just-god man, get a hold of yourself.” The man was about to turn to leave which prompted Shia to extend his hand.

“Wai-wawawawaitwaitwait.” The man rolled his eyes and turned around. Shia’s time was now, as he cleared his throat justly. Maybe this will be his moment of redemption.

“I.. I just want someone to sit here and listen to me… for once. you know?”

“I get that. it’s just that it seems kind of fa–“

“–can you do this for me please? sir?“ The man shrugged as if he just lost a bet with friends outside. He’d have bet 20 dollars that he’d be in and out.

“fine.” The man plopped down onto the chair infront of Shia, and slapped his hands down onto his knees. “Whatcha got?” 

Shia slowly lifted the paper bag off of his head. Tears rolled down his eyes and snot caught in his beard. He blew his nose with the bag and tossed it onto the floor beside him, then began to speak.

“It was the first time I ever wanted to do something that I had a real passion for. Daniel Clowes’ work spoke to me a lot as a child, and I wanted to make this as a love letter. Sure the material is his, but I put a lot of my own sweat and blood into making this short film. It was a small oversight for me to just slap my name all over it and not give credit where it’s due. But people do it all the time, and how am I any different? how am I so special?”

“I think you missed the point bra–“

“–So I apologized. But I didn’t know the right words to say, so I just wanted to go to the internet for help. I thought that if I found the right words that I wanted to articulate, then surely people would understand. but that didn’t work either. It seems nothing works anymore, no matter how sorry I become. The internet just makes it worse for me, and won’t let me do as is.”

“Yeah but you gotta–“

“– See the thing is, I always have these ideas. Not just movies, but for products; appliances. I’m always coming up with something, because that’s what creators do, we create. I have this idea, and I’m looking into a couple of investors right now. This device right? It beams television directly into a person’s brain.”

“Wait. What?”

“But then I got to thinking, what if you could take this device, and use it on other people. Take their thoughts, and put it in-into this ‘melting pot’ of thoughts see? Because people… We are billions all over this planet earth, and at some point we all have to have the same idea. And I was thinking… If I made this device, and had all these thoughts, then that means I wouldn’t be infringing on anyone’s thoughts, rights? Their thoughts are my thoughts. We are all one. As… A people.”

Just as the man was starting to become far beyond uncomfortable, Shia checked the twitter on his iPad.

A reply from @Megabrown3122, made Shia’s eyes light up. ‘I duno Y do seagulls fly over the sea?’

“Give me a second.” said Shia, to the man as he was about halfway off of his chair. Shia began to type Hastily.

‘BECAUSE IF THEY FLEW OVER THE BAY, THEY’D BE BAYGULLS.’

…submit.