and one hundred and thirty seven ringtones.
They expected trouble afterwards, but Entitlement was relatively good-natured about it all. They didn’t even have to increase security; each day for the next two weeks, she showed up at a different time, doe-eyed, each time with a new excuse about being a redraft, a wild card re-entry, technical staff, Monomania with a much-needed makeover, and so on. Each time after being blocked, she went away and added another ninety minutes of bewildered vitriol to her blog. Then, on the sixth day, she made a round of calls to media outlets seeking and failing to drum up an interview, then an easily-traced bomb threat to the show’s production company, and that was it. Rumours that poison-induced deaths of family pets trebled in seven suburbs close to her single-bedroom house were not investigated.
* * *
Day 71
“You’re way off. I’m Hunger. HUNGER. Nothing to do with famine. Famine is what leads to me. Famine my bitch , yo. I join as the junior partner, no-one has their eyes on the new boy, then bam, here comes the pitch, Me 1, Stick Figure 0, and then there were three. Easy. No one likes an old road, capisce ? Then Slimey takes a dive, say it out loud, always on the verge, we’re down to two. Now the Buff Dude, he will be tough. I’ve read his press and he’s all that and then some. He smells like everything that people leak, plus my old metal class and a gas pump. I don’t walk in blind, he’s a threat, true ’nuff. But say the rhyme wit’ me: People go to war, for things they feel the hunger for. In the end, it all comes down to What. You. Want. He can stay on after. He’s got skills.”
[ Exit interview. Production crew were seen continuing to explain what this meant as they were walking him off the secure set an hour later. ]
* * *
Day 76
Sensation on the eve of the tenth week’s second elimination program—the bodies of Post-Modernism, Oil, Malice, Nature, Liberalism and Greed, drained of blood and partially eaten, were found roughly stacked in front of the house television within a 18th century claw-foot bath filled with fresh sesame oil. Each head was topped with a party hat filled with tiramisu.
“Wasn’t me,” said Insanity, chewing on a femur. “Wasn’t even here,” he explained reasonably, scratching his back with a machete, its blade showering crimson flakes down his shirt into the slight gape of the back of his jeans. “Not even here now,” he objected mildly, as he was led to the door by large blue-clad people.
This, say it with me at home, changed everything. While the majority of the victims had never been seen as end-game contenders, their survival so far notwithstanding, the departure of Greed and Nature made headlines.
The production team was in turmoil. Insanity had written about his intentions forty days previously in a large book with gold edging titled ‘My plan’ which he kept on his apartment kitchen table. His scheme—which took the form of a fifteen thousand word essay in which no adjective, verb or noun was repeated—had been overlooked because the cameras around the apartment had been resolutely trained on Insanity’s colourful and infinitely entertaining thoughts which he wrote on the wall in dense spidery handwriting. 6 Interestingly, despite the fact there had been many rounds of eliminations prior to his bloody rampage, every person named in the plan was still in the competition on that night. The plan was extraordinarily detailed, down to Insanity’s intention to play, and lose, a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos with Anarchy twenty minutes before deconstructing Malice with a kitchen knife.
Suspicion initially fell, not on Insanity of course, but on the contestants, both past and present, who had motive and ability to use him as a scapegoat. Falsehood, Self-Delusion, Ambition and Hubris were all in police interview rooms within the hour. However, each second that passed increasingly confirmed that
They expected trouble afterwards, but Entitlement was relatively good-natured about it all. They didn’t even have to increase security; each day for the next two weeks, she showed up at a different time, doe-eyed, each time with a new excuse about being a redraft, a wild card re-entry, technical staff, Monomania with a much-needed makeover, and so on. Each time after being blocked, she went away and added another ninety minutes of bewildered vitriol to her blog. Then, on the sixth day, she made a round of calls to media outlets seeking and failing to drum up an interview, then an easily-traced bomb threat to the show’s production company, and that was it. Rumours that poison-induced deaths of family pets trebled in seven suburbs close to her single-bedroom house were not investigated.
* * *
Day 71
“You’re way off. I’m Hunger. HUNGER. Nothing to do with famine. Famine is what leads to me. Famine my bitch , yo. I join as the junior partner, no-one has their eyes on the new boy, then bam, here comes the pitch, Me 1, Stick Figure 0, and then there were three. Easy. No one likes an old road, capisce ? Then Slimey takes a dive, say it out loud, always on the verge, we’re down to two. Now the Buff Dude, he will be tough. I’ve read his press and he’s all that and then some. He smells like everything that people leak, plus my old metal class and a gas pump. I don’t walk in blind, he’s a threat, true ’nuff. But say the rhyme wit’ me: People go to war, for things they feel the hunger for. In the end, it all comes down to What. You. Want. He can stay on after. He’s got skills.”
[ Exit interview. Production crew were seen continuing to explain what this meant as they were walking him off the secure set an hour later. ]
* * *
Day 76
Sensation on the eve of the tenth week’s second elimination program—the bodies of Post-Modernism, Oil, Malice, Nature, Liberalism and Greed, drained of blood and partially eaten, were found roughly stacked in front of the house television within a 18th century claw-foot bath filled with fresh sesame oil. Each head was topped with a party hat filled with tiramisu.
“Wasn’t me,” said Insanity, chewing on a femur. “Wasn’t even here,” he explained reasonably, scratching his back with a machete, its blade showering crimson flakes down his shirt into the slight gape of the back of his jeans. “Not even here now,” he objected mildly, as he was led to the door by large blue-clad people.
This, say it with me at home, changed everything. While the majority of the victims had never been seen as end-game contenders, their survival so far notwithstanding, the departure of Greed and Nature made headlines.
The production team was in turmoil. Insanity had written about his intentions forty days previously in a large book with gold edging titled ‘My plan’ which he kept on his apartment kitchen table. His scheme—which took the form of a fifteen thousand word essay in which no adjective, verb or noun was repeated—had been overlooked because the cameras around the apartment had been resolutely trained on Insanity’s colourful and infinitely entertaining thoughts which he wrote on the wall in dense spidery handwriting. 6 Interestingly, despite the fact there had been many rounds of eliminations prior to his bloody rampage, every person named in the plan was still in the competition on that night. The plan was extraordinarily detailed, down to Insanity’s intention to play, and lose, a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos with Anarchy twenty minutes before deconstructing Malice with a kitchen knife.
Suspicion initially fell, not on Insanity of course, but on the contestants, both past and present, who had motive and ability to use him as a scapegoat. Falsehood, Self-Delusion, Ambition and Hubris were all in police interview rooms within the hour. However, each second that passed increasingly confirmed that
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