WILLIAM AND WHITE

The T.V. screen blips and then cuts to black for a split second. This drastic change causes your body to spam and your mind to draw to immediate attention. Your vision is now consumed with the image of an entire audience of children screaming with excitement. The high-pitch of their fervor is enough to pierce your ears and cause your face to a grimace. Panning into the screen, in an unnaturally close close-up, you see a jubilant face painted like a clown brandishing a large and toothy smile.

“HI KIDDOS!! YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS??”

The children heighten the sharpness of their cheers.

“THAT’S RIGHT … PSYCHO BILLY’S HOUSE OF SLAUGHTER!!!”

As you brace yourself for more audible impact the children’s cheering is nearly unbearable for you.

“OKAY BOYS AND GIRLS; PUT YOUR HANDS TOGETHER FOR THE WHITE PLAYER!!!”

The cheering continues its jarring drone and the clown waves the tops of his fingers at you in a coochy-coo manner.

“HI WHITE PLAYER!!! SORRY TO KEEP YOU WAITING ALL CRAMPED UP IN THERE!!!”

He rolls his eyes in an exaggerated way.

“BECAUSE YOU ARE MY GUEST ON THE BESTEST GAME-SHOW EVER TO GRACE GOD’S GREEN EARTH. Games games games, everything is a game ... yer gunna do your typical white-thing ‘cause that’s yer game … WELCOME WHITE PLAYER!!! WELCOME TO MY HOUSE OF SSSLAUGHTER!!!”

There is calliope music that begins to play in a wonky way as its exasperated and muted notes compete with the hellish high-pitched voices of the youthful audience. The camera pans back now and you can see that this clown is certainly middle-aged but has a certain limber quality to his movements. Around him lie large objects of primary colors set onto a white background.

He takes a great deep exaggerated breath while he makes time for a dramatic pause. Then rapidly leans back to his uncomfortable close up to mumble:

“When I say everything is a game I mean that EVERYTHING IS A GAME!! Your life is a game, my life is a game, and no matter what, NO MATTER FUCKING WHAT we play the GAME!! So my part of the game is that I got to give you rules and bull shit, blah, blah, BLAH!! All I really care about is that you gather those scavenger items, then I can meet the THORN IN MY SIDE, FOR THAT LAST TWO THOUSAND TIMES, WHITE PLAYER!! So … you gunna do this so we can do that and get yer shit together for our final fucking show down?”

“I SURE FUCKING HOPE SO!!! fer yer sssake. I am the one that not only brought you here but essentially created you, I am you’re alpha and I am gunna be your omega so you see you oughta just stick with me and trust me your gunna have a GRAND! OLD! TIME!!”

His face has busted into an intimidating excitement and he inhales again exageratively.

“So yer gunna be a good contestant and stick to the game and give us a good show right?? Yer gunna play this thing through like a fucking Shakespearean comi-tragedy right to the fucking last scene getting them all in stitches, huh?? Yer gunna sing and scream bloody murder all night long??”

It is during this brief pause that you notice the children have stopped their incessant drone but you are not certain for how long it has been dropped.

“ALRIGHT, WERE BACK!!”

The children’s chorus of pain begins sounding again assaulting your ears from either side.

“OKAY, WELL WE HAVE GONE OVER ALL THE RULES AND THERE IS ONLY ONE THING TO ASK …”

The children and the clown scream in an ear-drum battering unison

“ARE … YOU ... READY???”

The final word is left with a pause lasting longer than the previous pauses in this conversation. You have a sick feeling in the bottom of your stomach as you feel you are being watched.

The television has grown silent and motionless besides the clown’s subtle sway and blinks. The pneumatic tube hisses and continues to slide in its downward motion. Your pulse throbs from the center of your chest and outward pressing at the very things strapping you in.

What do you do?