Real Entertainment

It was a dark and stormy night. The valiant knight approached the dark castle where the beautiful princess was being held captive by the evil monster. His polished armor glowed brightly in the bright moonlight, reflecting the brightness of the stars in the sky. As he wielded his magical elven sword he wondered about the words of the wise wizard who sent him on his quest.

At that point, I had to stop. I couldn't bring myself to care what happened to the valiant knight and the beautiful princess enough to finish reading the manuscript. I threw it on top of the pile I'd already dragged myself through. There were times when this job almost became more than it was worth. I knew that there were people who supposedly had worse jobs, janitors, and trash collectors, and kindergarten teachers, but none of them had to tolerate this kind of filth.

It was late and I'd been suffering through knights in shining armor and evil alien overlords all day. This was the kind of junk you had to put up with as an intern at a sci fi magazine, but I was starting to regret my chosen career path. Perhaps I should have stayed in college. It probably wasn't too late for me to go back. I shouldn't have to resort to this kind of work to pay the bills for the rest of my life. I was still young. Youngish.

Regardless, my work day was more or less over at that point, and it was time to head home anyway. I was living on the edge of the city. Not the good edge, where all the new construction was being done. The crappy edge, by the sinkhole, near the industrial park and the zoo. I'd been living there since I dropped out of college and moved out of the dorm. It wasn't so bad, I shared a weird little run down hovel with one of the guys I used to work with at the park and ride. The house was shit, but the rent was cheap, and our nearest neighbor was almost half a mile away. On the way home I stopped by the burger place at the corner so I could flirt with the drive through girl. She gave me extra pickles.

I was just turning onto the gravel poured through our front yard when my roommate came stumbling outside. He was already stoned, but he was awake so that was no surprise. I climbed out of the little two door I was driving and reached out for the joint he held out to me.

“You get enough dwarves and space nazis today?” He asked sleepily as I sucked in the bitter smoke.

“You get enough porn and cheese sandwiches?” I coughed back at him as I handed the joint back. I wasn't a regular smoker, but when your roommate is, you tend to get your taste in, and after the day I'd had, I wasn't gonna say no.

He chuckled and we made our way back into the house. I left the front door hanging open as I stepped past it onto the filthy carpeting. It was early summer, or late spring, and the weather was just the right temperature. We didn't even bother to close the door at night most of the time. It didn't hang right anyway, and the thick spray of raid we applied to the door frame and windows kept the pests out. It even smelled kinda fruity.

We plopped ourselves down on the broken couch that filled most of the tiny living room and stared at the giant tv we'd rented that filled the rest. I was ready to hammer some citrus drink, get high, and watch trash.

“You hear about the Chancellor?” Kevin wasn't what you would call “up” on world events, but apparently he'd watched news at some point today, and felt like sharing.

“Yah. I heard on the way home. What the fuck huh?” It had been all over the radio. The Chancellor had died. Choked on a cookie they said. Chocolate Chip.

“And I've always thought that was the most gentle of cookies.” He actually sounded contemplative. Maybe he meant it.

We fired up the tv and plugged ourselves in. The pain was almost immediate. Ever since we'd gotten the new cables the sensation had become so much more, I don't know, vibrant, then before. Usually when we'd plug in, the pain would be more like a memory of pain, like the day after you burn your finger. It still hurts, but man, yesterday. But with these new cables, it was like knives were twisting in our toenails.

We sat there for hours. Just watching the shopping channel and drinking citrus, passing a joint back and forth. We didn't feel up to rolling after a while, so we just loaded the little stone we kept on the arm of the couch. Sometime around four I fell asleep on the couch. Sometime later Kevin found his own bed.

The next day I woke up with spittle dried in my beard. The sun was well above the horizon and I could smell what was left of Kevin's breakfast through the empty doorway that led to the kitchen. It was my day off, but Kevin had already headed into the industrial park to load pallets for six hours. They claimed to do drug testing at the warehouse he worked in, but that was really just to scare away the losers. He'd worked there for nearly two years now and they hadn't tested him once.

I shook myself and stretched hard enough that I had to sit back down on the couch for a moment. I tried again, and this time I made it all the way to the fridge to see what we had to snack on. I didn't normally go out on my day off if I could help it, but if I needed food there was a chinese place down the street, and the burger place of course. I found the remains of a bag of burgers from some time earlier in the week and took it into my room with me.

I wiped the grease from the burgers off on yesterdays shirt as I plugged in to my computer. The pain was more muted here, I couldn't afford a nice set up like we had in the front room, but it still managed to fill my mind. News about the Order vote to replace the Chancellor was ignored as I logged onto the gaming board. Old boss, new boss, not interested. The game was in progress when I joined, but it never really stopped, so I took my place and began.

The first opponent I faced was crafty. He placed his exes in the center and at the corners, but I'd seen this maneuver before and easily countered him. I continued to play for some time, and added a few other players to my challenge list so I could find them later. The pain filled my mind with clarity.

Eventually I ran out of old burgers and went back to the fridge for a drink. I checked, but we were all out of citrus, and we didn't drink the rust that came out of our kitchen sinks, so I headed into town.

As I drove past the industrial park I saw them cringing in the shadow of one of the great factories. It wasn't that unusual. They were chased away from the polite parts of town, but you could always find them on the fringe of the fringe. In back lots and stinking alleyways. There wasn't anything new or rare about the poor. Honestly, we were only slightly better than they were. At least we could afford a roof that leaked, water you couldn't drink, and doors you couldn't close. But we did have entertainment.

That was what made them so pathetic. It wasn't the dirt on their faces, or the hollowness of their cheeks. It was the empty look in their eyes. Who knows how long it had been since they'd felt pain? Even the cheap grainy pain I got through my computer was more than these poor unfortunates ever got. How could a man feel alive without pain? What would be the point?

I decided while I was out I'd stop by the chinese place anyway so I could get something to eat later. While I sat in the drive through I listened to the radio play. Nothing that mattered. World events. Celebrity gossip. Equally important. I traded my chit for the bag of boxes and headed back to the house.

On the way back, I saw the urchins again. It was unnerving, being confronted with such dejection. Ignoring them was easier, so I did. When I got back home I tossed the food in the fridge for later and decided to plug in to the tv.

I spent almost all my time plugged in to either the tv or the computer when I wasn't at work. It was funny, in a way, that I spent so much time at work editing those god awful stories for people who still read magazines, and so much time at home plugged in. Reading was so boring. Words couldn't hurt you, it just seemed like wasting your time. Real entertainment was supposed to hurt. Anything else was dross.