LASHES ARE HALF OFF: peeled by dainty fingers and neatly tucked away in a medicine tin: BARBITURATES for the headaches, the HEARTBREAK that occurred on screen / off screen ( where did one draw the line? WHO WAS MARILYN MONROE ? ): but that mask was off. Smeared into make-up wipes and cleansing pads dotting the CLINICAL space of the VR limo: gone were the sharp wings, the blush, the drawn on beauty mark and that oh-so KISSABLE mouth: just NORMA JEANE, bomb girl extraordinaire: unfiltered, unprocessed; utterly and completely FRIGID with their LED eyes and synthetic skin. All sharp edges and hard lines: a pretty face that would not sell without a MILLION DOLLAR SMILE. Tough fucking luck: there was nothing to smile about with the kid in front of them bleeding into the carpet like a gory NIAGARA FALLS.
“What have I told you?” Quiet. Dangerously soft: not unlike the lecture that had been given hours prior: watched it drip in SLOW MOTION like a child who’d held a magnifying glass to an ant colony. How could they be anything less than APATHETIC? It had become a mantra: DON’T FUCK WITH WORLD. A chant that grew louder and louder; static and tinny like bad playback. A chant they ignored consistently. Constantly. They’d no pity for anyone who didn’t have the sense to listen: this one hadn’t been around the block once; acted like they knew everything: didn’t matter if GOOGLE was their search engine! “Don’t be shy, kid. Tell me verbatim.”
Predictably, the sales pitch had failed. They’d some vain hope that cartoons and promises of WAR RENEWED would sway Wednesday: make his heart race, get him an UPGRADE. Their time was tight, precious; not to be wasted like it had been back there. The Technical Boy had not helped: their smugness, their utterly unforgivable rudeness -- NO LIVE TV MANNERS AT ALL ! An already VOLATILE situation ready to EXPLODE. They had to do it; if the kid couldn’t learn one way, they would learn another with a hand far firmer than a mouth that never stopped talking. “A pity. You had such POTENTIAL.”