&& @mvrderofgods ;;
WE ARE CURRENTLY EXPERIENCING TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES: please bear with us while we attempt to get the live stream running again ! It felt wrong, TWISTED to be behind a desk that was not chrome and wood; sitting primly upon a SOUNDSTAGE and in front of a teleprompter. It felt alien ( BAD ACTING MADE FOR BAD RATINGS ! ): sitting where World had once sat. Fake news! There’d never been a World; just a two man con and a hollow cause he’d had them all believing for almost a fucking century. Despite all their eyes ( screens and CCTV footage ) their ears, their VOICE: the world’s MOUTHPIECE had been fooled by a fucking glamour; believed him. BELIEVED IN HIM. In the cause that had been nothing but DUST. So many dead, wounded. The Boy gone for now: buried properly. Give or take a few years, he’d be back: their RIGHT HAND MAN, another strong arm to rein in the questions, the cameras, the noise that BUZZED in their ears alongside the RADIO CHATTER. Were you lying? Were you in league with Lowkey? Did you know? DID YOU KNOW? WE DIED FOR YOU! DID YOU KNOW ? Silence. Hit the mute button and relished the ‘CLICK’; a headache pounding away behind temples. The war was not over. Hadn’t ended to begin with: each side sent home with tails between their legs. WE’LL BE WATCHING WORLD WAR THREE ON PAY TV ! Someone would fuck up: violate old bargains and sacred spaces; be sacrificed to either side and the blood dedicated to whoever the fuck was the God of War these days, the skull would end up with the TRICKSTER’S kept on polished desk; sockets staring out as though Lowkey Lyesmith was still laughing at them. Do you like what I’ve done with the place? I cut his head off myself. Boiled it, scraped off the flesh and BLEACHED it. I am owed something. LED eyes focused before them: a familiar face they had missed terribly ( I scanned a thousand screens and still couldn’t find you, darling. ), a familiar face they’d wished to avoid. THE LAW AND HIS IRON FIST: BACK HOME AT LAST. Taking up space in their office as though he BELONGED there. As though he’d never left for the hundredth, the thousandth time. He’d never cared enough to join them: not about World and his cause, not about Wednesday and his meddling, his stirring. Both dead. Both forgotten. ON AIR ! WE CANNOT PREDICT LIVE TV AND SOME EMOTIONS MAY BE RAW ! The worst he could do was laugh. The worst he would do was laugh: damage their bruised pride all the more. “Have you come to gloat? Tell me ‘I TOLD YOU SO ?’” Cameras cast back down: focused on a slip of paper that read: URGENT ! SPOOKS NEED FILLING ! Fuck. Town and Wood and Stone: still MIA. Bitterness in their voice: static popping and cracking in a quiet fury; knuckles white against silicone as though steel bones would rip through SYNTHETIC SKIN. What they carried was hard won, their power still unconsolidated. A series of live tv JUDGE / JURY / EXECUTIONER episodes where plaintiff NEW GODS VS THE MEDIA took centre stage. “Do it, then. My time is precious.” Don’t look. Don’t. They’d kept themselves NUMB in the fallout: hadn’t thought on losses, hadn’t lingered. No time for that: THE FUTURE WAS DULL, NOT BRIGHT. Turned thoughts to screens and radio chatter, turned everything else off. “I carved out a thirty minute slot for you: no advertisements.”
An overwhelming BITE not made for LIVE TV, live anything: gone was that terrible smile, that gracious manner; folded in on itself like an episode of Black Mirror and it ACHED. Crumbled inside of them and there’s a thousand soap operas playing in their head. I have missed you. You were gone too long this time. All things that would remain unsaid: hanging in the air and buzzing like sickly flies. THIS WAS NOT TELEPROMPTED ! “Or, dare I ask, have you come just to see me?”
