Short story – “Enslavement”

“Enslavement”

Jason forced himself awake.  It took him a few tries before he smashed the snooze button.  For nine semesters his earliest class had been at 10:00 or 11:00.  Now, every Tuesday and Thursday he had to get up for a damned 8:00 A.M. Lit 101 course.  It was a stupid course he needed to graduate, but one he had never found time to take in the past.  In what his parents hoped would be his last semester, all the more acceptable afternoon classes conflicted with his other needed courses.  He and his advisor spent two days juggling his schedule, but in the end he had to bite the bullet of an 8:00 A.M class. 

Jason sat on the edge of his bed and rubbed his eyes.  Last night’s poker game hadn’t ended until almost 4:00, not that Jason minded; it gave him the chance to win back the $40 bucks he lost to Mark Tuesday night.  But it made getting up at 7:30 a bitch.  He would like to just skip the class, but the professor was a real bastard, giving surprise quizzes that counted for a good portion of the grade.

#

As he lurched along the sidewalk towards the English building, Jason passed a bulletin board filled with fliers for local bands, pizza places, furniture for sale, roommates wanted, etc.  He almost walked past it, but a flier stuck on the end caught his attention.  It was just a sheet of white paper with the words, “Tear This Down!” written in purple marker.  Jason paused before it and stared at it.  He read through it several times, but could not figure out the punch line.

He finally reached out and yanked it off the board.  There was nothing behind it.  Confused even more, Jason turned the paper over.  “Do you always do what you are told?” was written in pencil on the back.

Jason was too tired to think about it.  He was going to crumple up the sheet, when he decided to stick it back on the board.  Sighing, he continued to class.

***

On one hand, this story touches on the question of whether having to do something you don’t want to do – getting up for an early class, going to work, paying taxes, etc. – counts as enslavement.  True, I’ve never been flogged at work, but I have had my life slowly sucked out.  Does that count?

Also, a question that has fascinated me for years is, “How do you make someone think for themselves?” It’s difficult to answer because if you make somebody do something, then did they do it themselves?  To explore this dilemma, in the past I have put up fliers like the one in the story.  I doubt anyone had an epiphany because of them, but I can hope that maybe – maybe – I started someone down the path to … something.

I first wrote this story for a friend’s website back in 2007.  I updated it for my collection A Man of Few Words.  I’m posting it here because I think it’s an interesting idea and I can easily link to it if I need to.

"Agent 202" A silly story

I wrote this back in 2012 as just a joke.  For the last few years I would tweet a link to it for Groundhogs Day.  But, when I was getting ready to do that this year, I saw that the original source was messed up a bit, so I'm reposting it here so you can get the full story without any issues.

"Agent 202"

"The decadent Americans are beginning to grow bold. We need to blunt their spirit. Agent 202, you know what to do."

Later

"Hopes for an early spring were dashed this morning when Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, meaning we'll have six more weeks of winter."

Register to vote/Check your voter status

It seems every four years the political talking heads come out and say that “This election is the most important election of the modern era.” And you know what, for 2020, they might actually be right.  Because if you think everything is hunky-dory, or you think that the best description of the country is a dumpster fire, whoever wins this November will have major repercussions.

Now you could just sit back and say, “Why bother voting when the system is broken?” Well, one aspect of why the system is broken is because too many people don’t bother to be a part.  The only way to have a government that reflects the country is if the majority of the people participated in choosing that government.  Our government is not perfect – it’s very far from perfect – but not voting is you saying you’ll just take whatever happens.  And if you don’t like what you’re given, well, you can’t complain because you had the chance to make your voice heard and chose not to.

The way to make your voice heard is to register to vote.  Registering to vote should be laid out on your state website.  But even if you’ve already registered, you should take the time to check your registration status, this should also be on your state website.  (You may also wish to double check on your polling place.)  An important reason to do this now, is that there are several reasons why your status could be wrong: you moved and forgot to update it, a clerical error, or maybe you were caught up in an overly enthusiastic purge.  Whatever the reason, if you check now and find a problem you can get it all worked out before Election Day.  Election Day is hectic enough without people waiting in line only to find out there’s an issue. 

So register to vote, or check your status, so everything will be in order come November 3rd and you can make sure your voice will be heard, in this, the most important election of the modern era.

Let’s talk about fan service

The idea behind fan service is to put something into a work – say a movie – that would please the fans.  However, lately it seems the term “fan service” is applied to any stupid shit that clueless, corporate stooges cram into a movie even though nobody wants it.  My opinion, is that – broadly speaking – there is good fan service and bad fan service.  The problem is that good fan service requires thought to be put into it, whereas any clueless, corporate stooge can cram in bad fan service.  This is something that’s been in the back of my mind for some time now, but it really came to the head recently with The Rise of Skywalker, so I’ll use examples from Star Wars. 

An example of good fan service – again, in my opinion – is the crumpled AT-AT where Rey lives in The Force Awakens.  There’s the nostalgic “I remember those” which seems to be the foundation of modern fan service, but it’s also an element of world building.  We had already seen a crashed Star Destroyer, but Rey’s AT-AT drives home that the galaxy is littered with the wreckage from the fall of the Empire.  If they had better scripts – and a plan – that might have built to something, other than a McGuffin in the wreck of Death Star II.

While I could use the wreckage of the Death Star II as an example of bad fan service – “I remember that” – I’ll go to the Prequels instead.  My example is Anakin building C-3PO.  Why?  To be perfectly honest, R2-D2 could have just shown up in Episode III in a cameo and that would have been fine, and would have fit in with that one line in A New Hope.  There is no reason for C-3PO to be in the Prequels, let alone having been built by Anakin.  Oh, it could have been fun to see how the two droids met if the giant shoehorn cramming them into the plot wasn’t so distracting.  And that is the problem with bad fan service: the eye-rolling distraction of them outweigh any benefit to the story of having them there.  Now, I remember at the time a friend going on about how R2-D2 and C-3PO were the only characters in all the movies, but there doesn’t seem to be a point to that.  Especially with the latest trilogy.  But the Prequels needed some nostalgia, since that’s easier to do than compelling stories.

I used to be a Star Wars fan.  I gave it up in the Prequel days, but this latest trilogy didn’t do anything to change that.  As a former Star Wars fan, I wanted good movies.  That might have brought me back.  But that requires actually writing good movies.  I didn’t want just any random shit to remind me of the good movies thrown on screen as “fan service.” But what can we expect from clueless, corporate stooges who are more interested in making a quick buck than lasting art.