Groundhog Mondays

Steve looked out over the city. It was cold, wet and dreary. This wasn't how he'd quite imagined his bigshot movie producer career turning out. He'd been stunned to find himself in the management fast track, only after a few short years.
Soon he'd had a corner office, an SUV, a wife, a dog, a lawn, a maid, a child on the way and a markedly different outlook on life.
Now he was 35, and he was almost a geriatric compared to the rest of the the studio.

Where do the days go? Time has just passed on by. The hungry rumbling of a stomach neglected only reminded him of the fatigue that sat behind the eyes - leaden and aching. Scripts were piled up on his desk - gaudy remakes of shows from the post 50s Americana, tacky prequels that made old once more new.
Why do they keep sending in this crap? Did we really need another rosy cheeked, sexually repressed stereotypically housewife invading the psyche of middle America; riding on a catchphrase that isn't hers, standing on the shoulders of barely remembered childhood television?


In the street below, a platoon of National Guard marched past, on their way to who knew where. The thud-thud of boot on pavement, the rifles slung at shoulder arms. It was a frightening sign of the times.
The faces of the Guard told a story all of their own - they were unwashed, dirty, tired and irritable. Since the Gulf states suffered a series of hurricanes which caused extensive damage, there was less and less fuel to go around. The commitments of troops overseas had meant a rising cost to the American people - first Iraq, then Iran, Mexico, Venezuela, and now the talk of conflict in Nigera. There was no fuel left. Not for the ordinary people. Only the rich. Even the poor soldiers found themselves transported as infantry had had to do for thousands of years before them. Just hoofing it.

A burnt out oil drum kept passers by warm, a dishevelled man hovered about it. He was there every day. Crazy old Ned. Some of the others in the office said he used to be in real estate - before the crash. Now he was dressed in rags, unshaven, and constantly hungry.
The red cross reported that poverty in the United States of America was at an all time high - the GDP was massive but the populance gained nothing.


At least, Steve thought, I'm not out there. Poor bastards. I wonder what they'd do if we could do it over again. How would we change it? Tell our loved ones what we really think and feel? Not turn a blind eye to what's blatantly wrong, simply in the name of greed? Would we have spent less and valued more, embracing the simple aspects of life?
Hah! The more there is, the more people take. If you cut back, your neighbour just collects your share. A mirthful smile crossed his lips.
You'd take it all back, wouldn't you boy. You aren't suffering... not like old Ned is. But you'd change it all. So many of your friends...

He blinked twice and swallowed a little. He sat down and picked up a script. It was titled "The old Professor Peter Peckinpah all purpose anti-personnel Peckinpah pocket pistol under the toupee trick" - some cheesy remake of Get Smart, a show where nothing went right and everything was slapstick. At least it was better than Gillian's Survivor - a second rate hack mashup of Gillian's Island into the Survivor format.
Who pays for this rubbish? A proverbial million monkeys pounding away could have done better - hell, even one. Creativity was a stark, fluid stain on the bootheel of the entertainment industry. There was very little that was good and true left in the world - even in the places in which people tried to escape to.
It'd probably been a mistake to campaign so hard for the DRM related laws. Reverse engineer a copy protection scheme these days, and you'd find yourself sharing a cell with a large man named Bubba. The industry had lobbied so hard for them - utterly afraid of "illegal pirating" of the precious lifeblood that was their trade.
DRM had been a farce. It was like selling a product at gunpoint - if you use it the wrong way, we'll sting you in the wallet. We don't trust you enough to not rip us off. We think you're stupid enough to want to buy our product while we're threatening you, instead of just taking the free version. Try to copy it and we'll go after you like a sonofabitch.
Consumers didn't like it, consumers didn't pay for it. The lobbying got more frenzied, the penalities harsher. It seemed that corporate America was destined for a showdown with the People of America. Things came to a head as law suit after law suit was filed.
Then, in a moment that changed things forever, a rock struck and injured the president of Time-Warner/AOL. He found himself unconcious and bleeding on a footpath, surrounded by lackeys who were altogether useless in their dark suits and slicked back hair.
A youth was seen fleeing the scene, but the police dragged their feet in the investigation.
No one was ever arrested for it. People began to realise they could strike back.
Early on it was just a few angry unwashed youths, raising the red flag and commiting petty vandalism. With the PR blunders that followed - you can't escape! Don't think you'll get away with this!, it was no surprise that violence escalated.
Thousands of youths protested now - not against the war, not against the starvation, but every time they saw each other getting arrested for sharing music on their IPods.

Youths. Protesting against us. We became a bigger, more tangible evil than Satan and the President put together.
They saw there was less penalty for violence and murder than for stealing music, so they just snapped. People were arrested daily, chaining themselves to buildings, commiting arson, muggings, stalking and harrassment. There's no business like show business... but even this was a little cutthroat.


The last of the Guard had moved out of sight. Probably none of them older than 19. These are the people we've got protecting us against kids vandalising our business model and way of life. Boys fighting boys, making them use tear gas and arrest their own peers. The angry protesters were known to throw everything from rocks to Molitov cocktails; the National Guard used water cannon and microwave crowd control to drive them back. Half of the boys in uniform probably didn't even know why they weren't part of the angry mobs. They didn't understand why they were ordered to injure their friends and neighbours to protect men in suits they'd never meet.

Life shouldn't be one lived in this kind of fear. Steve felt a sudden urge to weep. He hated himself, what he did, what he stood for, how he'd succeeded while everyone around him failed. There was nothing special about him - he'd just been lucky. Here he was, trapped in his plexiglass tower of corporate entity, crying like a little boy lost at the unfairness of the world.

He turned sharply away from the window, unable to bear the sight of a world gone mad. He inhaled through his nose, long, loud, and miserable: a sniff that betrayed the emotion in his body. He was willing himself to regain some composure. The tears wouldn't stop, neither would the hateful voices of betrayal whispering how unworthy he was to be in this station of life.

He slumped down into his chair and hugged his knees to his chest. The extreme anxiety attack would pass... it would pass. His breathing fell from rapid to slower, trembling hands began to settle. He picked up the Get Smart remake. There was a gag about a cone of silence running here - it wasn't particularly good, but it did remind him vaguely of his childhood.

Get Smartalways had been good. It had cheered him as a kid. He flicked over the dog eared pages, not really focusing on anything in particular. The bumbling authorities, the KAOS goons - a shoe phone and a bumbling incompetence. Those are the things you never saw in movies these days; slapstick had died along with freedom, both a very long time ago.
A thought occured to him, and he picked up his pen. A single tear clung to his eyelashes, trickling over onto his cheek. He jotted down a note in the margin, beginning to feel somewhat better - a warmth inside of him seeming to take possession.

He was going to give society a new birth; a do-over on the past 50 years. The reason everyone wanted these remakes in because of how depressing the world actually is. It was a surreal escapism to a time that used to be. But he was the one who could make it happen.

Steve almost began to hum as he flicked through the pages before him, thinking of how he could give the world back it's smile.

One shoe phone gag at a time.