Episode One: Living Room

*Hallway*

To the north is the bathroom.

To the south is the bedroom.

To the west is the living room.

To the east is the spare room.

[West]

Ah, the living room. Commonly referred to as the 'lounge room'. But it doesn't feel correct to call it that. You barely use the 'lounge'. Which you call a 'couch'.

Until now, you didn't realise what a linguistic trap your living room was.

There are little flecks of paper everywhere. Notes, the corners of envelopes, bills in uncertain stages of payment.

Windows cover one entire wall, floor to ceiling. The room is customarily at the extreme of the weather. From what you gather about the furnace you are standing in - it will be a warm day.

[Look]

You are in the living room. Curtains cannot stop the assault of the day here. It is bright.

A pile of clothes is draped over an armchair.

Your mobile phone sits on the floor.

A pile of hastily-opened envelopes sits on the table.

Your wallet is in front of the television.

The front door is here. Stoic. Silent. Locked.

To the east lies the hallway.

To the west lies the balcony.

To the north lies the kitchen.

(To the south, the wide, wild world.) - Upon using keys.

[Look at couch]

It's a fairly standard couch. Blue. Covered in cat fur. The arms have been adequately ripped up by the multitudinous scratching of claws.

Your forearms can vouch for the effectiveness of sharpening claws via armrest.

Definitely.

[Use couch]

You sit on the couch. You try folding your legs beneath you. You lie down. You prop one leg on the top. You sit on the armrest.

Nope. You just don't get the allure.

[Use couch]

You tried. You failed. Better to leave that one to the philosophers.


[Look at clothes]

You get a definite color scheme vibe from the pile. High contrast. All roughly in the same color range.

Black, white, red, grey.

Purple for boxer shorts.

Your public-image costume is woven in there somewhere.

[Use clothes]

You carefully extract your costume. Suit jacket. Button-up. Trousers. The freshest pair of socks you can muster. A belt.

You don't know how they became so tightly integrated with the rest of the pile - seeing as you haven't touched the other clothes in a while.

Mystery of the universe.

[Use clothes]

Sir Edmund Hillary you are not. You've got your costume. Better to leave that business to the professionals.

[Look at costume]

A basic suit/shirt/slacks get-up. You're sure to fool 99% of people with this business.

The trick is to wear it like you're naked. And thus have nothing to lose.

Self-destructiveness is the inverse path to confidence.

The other is skill. But that requires constant, careful maintenance... and what are you - a doctor?


[Use costume] - (the office is now open)

You pull on the slacks, button up the shirt, throw on your jacket... after many false-starts, you thread your belt through the waistband.

You work your feet into the socks, and buckle yourself into a pair of barely-functional leather shoes.

Tread softly.

An carry a big stick.

[Use costume]

You could get naked - dance around - feel the cool breeze against your skin.

But you'd still be you. The rest is just denial.

[Look at phone]

It's your phone. It dings when you have email. It dings when you have a message. It subjects you constantly to the whim of any barely-sentient ape with access to oppose-able thumbs.

And that's exactly why you got it.

The time is currently [the time].

[Use phone]

You have: 2 new emails.

Email 1: Did you know that you could get some form of super-special deal on some rewards card that you registered for on a complete whim, for a service you never use?

Well... you can.

Email 2: Hello. How are you? I am fine. Events happened. Anecdote of import. Notification of desire to 'catch up'. Sign off. Friends name.

You aren't sure which one was generated via template.

[Use phone]

No new messages. No new emails. Nothing but a 2/3rds full battery bar and the possibility of tapping into a vast network of dynamic information.

[Take phone]

You take the phone, with a little fancy flip - catching it between two fingers by the top.

You don't know who you are impressing - but you're certain they're damned impressed.

[Look at envelopes]

You hate mail. Every day, in every way - some whore is trying to wet their beak.

In some weird type of Pavlovian-conditioning - your anxiety levels shoot through the roof at even the sight of an address.

There's something under the pile - something irregularly-shaped.

[Use envelopes]

You brush the envelopes to the floor and kick them into a corner. Ahh... they were obscuring your keys.


[Use envelopes]

They're dead now. They can't hurt you, or anybody else.

Their authors, however... will need to be taken care of.

[Look at keys]

Your keys. A purely utilitarian affair. You keep a pair of nail clippers on your keyring - and insist that they are must-have.

Nobody seems to believe you. But once you have seen a slightly-too-long thumbnail, you cannot un-see a slightly-too-long thumbnail.

And it will eat you up inside.


[Take keys]

You take your keys. The percussive jingling is quite soothing.

[Use keys] - you can now exit: South

The front door is now prepped for thoroughfare. You spin your keyring around like a trick-shooter, and make a subtle pose.

[Look at wallet]

The masculine of the handbag.

It is crammed with the evidence of your participation in petty commerce.... along with a small amount of cash... and proof of your identifying statistics as a functioning member of society.

[Take wallet]

You take your wallet. Ahh... a little bit of money... a little bit of power.

[Use wallet] - creates cash in Inventory, creates identification in Inventory.

You open the wallet and take stock of your financial situation. Enough cash to tolerate a day of standard events with a chaos-variance of maybe... five-percent.

[Look at cash]

Cash. You won't count it. You aren't a shopkeep.

[Look at identification]

Is that who I am???

I guess that is who you are.

Mr. Hunter Fielding.
Date of birth: 12th March, 1982.
License type: Full - standard vehicle.
Organ donor: Most definitely not. Most positively not.

The photo is certainly of you... but you feel cheated that your existence is somehow summarised by four lines.

[Look at television]

Flat-screened. Black. Of moderate size. You barely use it. But tomorrow they could make it illegal to scoff at the proletariat - and you know for sure they won't send you a courtesy email to notify you of the change.

So you mount your tele-screen, and let them talk incessantly at you.

[Use television]

You turn the television on and scroll about the free-to-air channels. All of the children's cartoons are in 3D now. Nothing 2D. Nothing fun. It seems like everybody is having and enjoying a dramatic adventure.

You can't think of anything worse to start the day than a heaping helping of drama.

You have a tenuous grasp on the metre of your heartbeats as it is.

[Use television]

You've been there. It was a disappointment. A niche hobby. This television thing will never catch on.

[Look at windows]

A sprawling suburban vista. The sun, the clouds, the delicate haze of pollution, some leaves, television antennae... it's got it all. Talk about your attention to detail.

The brief: Sir, I need a scene that I can look at for decades and never find anything of interest.

The reviews: A triumph!