sneakykidwiththehair | Item 1

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Item 1 - Video!

[Public]

[Video clicks on, and lo! It's a teenage boy with a shock of grey hair. He's walking as he talks, wandering the halls of the Barge apparently aimlessly.]

Uh, hey, I don't wanna cause a stink, but there's been some kind of terrible mistake here. My- uh, my parents, are going to be losing their minds back home in New Jersey...

[There might be something ever so slightly shifty about how he says this, but then again, he is a recently deceased teenage boy. He could easily just be nervous.]

All of this-- this inmate stuff? Yeah, you definitely got the wrong guy for that. I got a perfectly normal, crime free life, back home with my family. Yes, we cheat on our taxes and have the occasional three am family-document-shredding-party, but who doesn't? By nine am we're back to pancakes and oatmeal, and that, [decisive finger jab at the screen.] Is how you live the American dream, right?

[Private to Inmates]

So, does anyone ever actually escape from this place?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Well, that all depends what you mean by escape.

Hello, lad. I'm Mason. I'm your friendly neighborhood grim reaper.

Edited 2014-09-14 23:51 (UTC)

I mean getting off this hunk of junk and not coming back, by some means other than being thrown over the side in itty bitty pieces.

Hi.

[Pause]

Shouldn't you have a scythe or something?

There's graduation, 'course. An'...no, that's all the ways I know.

Left it at home, I'm afraid. What's your name?

Seriously? No one's ever managed it? You don't even have, like, rumors about old timers doing it way back when?

Yeah, I bet, along with your big black cloak and your skeletal horse, right?

It's Dash.

Lad, I've been here a handful of months. I'm always drunk, I don't know where the fuck I am half the time. Don't fuckin' ask me complicated questions.

Dash. Dashie, my boy. You know nothing of death.

So? It doesn't seem like knowing about it has done you any favors.

I am a rare exception to the reaper rule. I did things that no one ought to do. Learn from my mistakes.

If you doing those things are a rare exception, then what makes you think I'd do 'em anyway?

[He laughs, in a way that sounds like he's actually saying the words: Heh, heh, heh.]

So what was your big mistake, Slick? No, wait, lemme guess... did you shoot President Kennedy?

Nah. Nah, wasn't even in fuckin' America. Wasn't even dead yet.

I killed someone. Someone whose time was not quite up yet. You don't do that as a rule, gen'rally.

But here, let's not get off-topic. You're a new one.

You say some-one, I hear some-president.

Yeah, I'm new, but what with my newness being a pretty boring topic, we're probably better off sticking with you being a murderer.

Reapers don't kill people. Not usually. We only take their souls once they've died. Don't they teach you anything?

Anyway. I only murdered one person.

Yeah, no. No one taught me the job description of the embodiments of death.

I think even only doing it once is usually enough for stuff like that.

That's because you're a know-nothing little twerp.

Aw, come on, don't be like that. Hey, if it makes you feel better, I'm pretty sure none of us are actually real, so you probably never actually killed anyone.

On, don't go saying shite like that. Makes everything complicated.

Fine, you wanna accept that you're a murderer, be my guest. Maybe you have to accept it. Maybe it's in the script. Maybe even this is in the script...

You sound like me when I've gotten ahold of mushrooms.

Mushrooms?

[What's this guy talking abo-- Oh wait.]

Oh, mushrooms! I get it. Well, yeah, I guess maybe the hippies were on to something, if that's what it takes for you to realize that the world ain't real.

The world's bloody real, mate.

I used to think so too. Now I know better.

How...how do you know better, then?

[Dumb, gullible Mason]

Three months ago, I woke up in this weird town, and when I say weird, I'm talking Bigfoot, Elvis, and aliens weird, only everyone acts like it's all totally normal, and anyone who sees a problem with this has something wrong with them.

So one day in this weird town, I wake up, and there's this film script on my doormat, and when I start reading it, it's like, the whole town comes apart around me, and I'm on this film set, and the people in this town who think they're all real, are all there, only they're just actors following a script, and word from the network is that our whole crummy little town is about to get cancelled.

Director calls action, our last episode gets filmed, and I get one last day in Eerie before waking up here. We're on an inescapable prison barge in outerspace that no one else seems to find weird, and I? Personally? Am getting a touch of déjà vu.

[He feels weirdly triumphant, laying it all out like that.]

You think you're the grim reaper? I say you're dark british comedy. What you aint is real.

[Mason is riveted.

And scared shitless]

Hang on. Hang on, no, that can't be fuckin' right. Someone's having a laugh, playing a trick on you, mate. That's not real. I mean, your not thinking it's real, that's not real.

Oh, come on! I saw the whole town rolled past me as backdrops and cardboard set pieces! It's the rest of this junk that's tricking us.

[Dash shrugs his shoulders.]

Believe it or don't. You might not even have a choice. All depends on the script, I guess.

I don't believe you.

I don't believe I could have gone 60 bloody years without knowing whether something's real or not.

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[Private to Mason alone!]

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