Thursday, August 30, 2012

In the Hot Seat

They told him where to look, what to wear, and how to speak.  He was tied tight to the chair, they said it was to keep him from messing up the shot, but he felt it was to stop him from escaping at the end of the interview.  He isn't believing any of their lies about what this is and how it will end.  The lights are hot and won't allow him to see his interviewers.  If he tries to look around and not directly at the camera they shock him. 

Questions come from everywhere in a tinny electronic voice, it sounds like an old recording.  He answers crazy questions that have no reason to be on video.  They aren't personal questions that dig into his live, more along the lines of does he remember his first dream, what would he do if his favorite toy was destroyed, and why does he walk on the left side of the sidewalk?  Bizarre questions that start to panic him because of how close they must have been following him to ask these unimportant questions. 

The last question is the important one and he doesn't even realize it.  The recording asks him "one or two?"  It repeats a couple of times and then he hears the click of the record machine as it continues to turn yet it's at the end of the tape.  Is there anyone behind the lights and the camera, he wonders as his seat starts to warm up.  He screams for someone to let him go, that the lights are getting hot and he answered all of their questions.  The room starts to fill up with the smell of cooking meat and burning fabric as the lights burst into flames and his seat cooks him alive.

"The questions are ready for our next subject.  Please follow the line to the set and allow us to give you some guidelines..."

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Five Sentence Fiction: Medicine

I think the visions are happening again, but some days are harder than others to tell if I'm here or there. I want to be here, where I am chained to the robotic head of my "best friend" and go on adventures through out this wasteland of dirt and broken cities. The days I take the pills the head spits out, I go to some place of desks, normal people, houses, and real food. But, I know it's a trap sent down from the computer to the evil "best friend" that talks to me incessantly when I forget to take the pills, it tells me this isn't real, that I'm hiding here. This will be the last time I go there, I like it here and I hope smashing the head will help get me free.