TMODM pt. III

First day back at home. Luckily his phone was lost in the accident, no messages. He could only imagine the kinds of reporters and radio DJs lining up to interview him, he had no stomach for fanfare. Or at least, no desire for it. His mom had been by the place to clean out the perishables from the fridge when he was laid up. His bills were paid. For the first time in weeks, he was a free man. Now that he had all that free time on his hands the possibilities were limitless, he could go for a walk, go downtown, check on his friends, he wasn’t ready to check his e-mail but now that he was free the first thing he did was turn on the TV. Like hundreds of millions of others he’d sit on the couch and dispassionately watch TV.
Tits and cars, tits and cars. That’s the first thing he noticed. It never struck him before but something deep inside him stirred and got all shook up in his accident. It seemed like the world around him had turned into a young man’s wet fantasy. Television and billboards no longer sold him a better mind or a better life, they sold him better sex, better social status, a status that seemed further and further out of reach but could be his if he only ACT NOW for low introductory interest rates. Giant chorus lines of leggy women kicked at him from behind the plasma, wind-blown open-shirted men with hard bodies and women draped over them like fertile ornaments said this could be yours but he didn’t want it to be his. What would the end result of all this be? It wasn‘t just TV and billboards, the entire world around him was saturated with media, it bled the stuff. Before long he was convinced that tombstones were the next thing to go. JANE B. BELOVED AUNT, CHOSE PEPSI. HERE LIES JOHN DOE, HAVE A COKE AND A SMILE AND SHUT THE FUCK UP. You couldn‘t walk down a dark alley without some entity in a trench coat saying, “Hey buddy, you gotta see this.” Image after image flashing at blazing speed, dizzying, made him wonder if he was the one that was weird, if he was crazy for not buying and not buying into all this. Of course he was, if everyone else was thinking one thing then he would have to be crazy to think another. “Come on,” the serpent TV said, “you’re young, don’t be so uptight. You think too much. You need to get laid. You need to fuck as many chicks as you can, cause that’s what we do. Welcome to the dream, this is what life’s all about. You know it feels good, don’t worry about all that other stuff, this is what you need. Your mind isn’t your greatest asset it’s your body, come on, put it to work. We’ll start you off slow, we’ll be gentle at first. And don’t resist because you will join us or you will be crushed.”
Everybody needed bigger cars and bigger tits and bigger bank accounts and the positive images pit pious green warriors carbon friendlier than thou. Media was a skirmish and he found himself a pacifist. No, not a pacifist, a civilian. There you go walking down the street, minding your own business then WHAM! solicitation. The battle the media waged was in the mind. Uncle Sam was no longer an avuncular figure of brave stoicism, he was a slut in the passenger seat of a convertible waiting around for a driver, any driver, YOU! Of course. What better propaganda was there than tits and cars? A better life, a better mind, a person could live without those things but take away what entertains them most and they react just like junkies.
The incidental jingle for CNN’s Election Center trumpeted him back to reality at large.
“Thank you everyone who voted for me,” the man at the podium says. The crowd starts to erupt, his voice beginning to lose the fight, “a vote for me is a vote for change--” He waves to the good people, a man at the height of his powers, a man who craves more.
“Arizona Governor Henry Falconer,” the Election Center host begins, “accepts the Republican nomination for President (dramatic pause) of these United States. We turn now to--”
He turned off the TV. Who watched that stuff? Who really cared?