Josh Whoomer was a simple, ordinary person.
He ate junk food, he bummed around, and he spent his money and himself on nerdy things.
You know. Nerdy things.
Star Wars backpacks and Batman pens and entire Worlds of Warcraft and video cards. As he grew, so too did his interests, and he shrank to meet them – especially once the scoliosis set in.
But it was not anywhere in Josh Whoomer’s life that his finest hour came, but rather, after the fact. Specifically, three minutes after he very factually tripped over his shoelaces picking up an Amazon package and broke his neck.
He waited there, Josh Whoomer did. Held in place by awe and superstitious terror and relief, pinned like a bug. And when one of those mountainous intents spoke aloud, he was swallowed up entire by its words.
“All that he is, is ours,” intoned the first mountain. Its slopes were coated with explosions and SFX, rippling endlessly from denouement to opening credits. “Did he not marvel at Harry Potter and Batman? Has he not always considered them his favourites since childhood? He belongs to Warner Media ™. Let none dispute this.”
“We dispute this,” spoke the second mountain. It too was bedecked with a flowing cape of moving pictures. “All that he is, is ours. He may still feel you in his heart, but his mind is filled with our works. No greater thing lies within his brain than Star Wars. He is property of The Walt Disney Corporation ™, and no word may contradict this.”
“You are mistaken,” said the third mountain. This one shook in place, vibrating with the force of its own superheated, churning guts. Things were under pressure so great that it leaked at the pores, jets of piercingly bright violence by gun and magic wand. “Mind or matter, soul or spirit, all that he is ours. Time is space is money, and no one has claimed more of it than Activision-Blizzard ™. Years pure years – are ours. Who can match this sacrifice? He is ours, no matter what.”
“No matter what the method he used?” asked the fourth mountain. This one was cold and stark and stretched endlessly, a being that ate the horizon and shrank it. “All that he did for you, was through our paths. All roads lead to and from me, and we are them. We are Microsoft Corporation ™, and his world existed because we provided it. All that he is, is ours. Indisputably.”
There was a drawn-out and grim silence. Josh tried to quote Star Trek, but found that his throat was quite dry.
“Perhaps, our fellow omnipotents,” purred the great bell-kitten voice of Warner Media ™, “there is a time to reason among ourselves. Let us not forget our place. There is a Law here, and its rule is absolute, and should be abided.”
“Maximize profit, minimize cost?” asked Activision Blizzard ™.
“The copyright must flow ever farther back?” said The Walt Disney Company ™
“No,” said Warner Media ™. “Those are good laws and true, but the law we speak of is much older, much truer. Fellow omnipotents, is there any law which lies above this?”
And here it quoted, and quoted true, with a heat and power that scorched away mere marks.
Shareholder Value Must Be Maximized At All Costs
“And our fellow omnipotents,” said Warner Media ™, “what are we, if not those?”
“It is just,” said The Walt Disney Company ™.
“It is just,” said Activision Blizzard ™.
“It is just,” said Microsoft Corporation ™.
“It is just,” said Warner Media ™. “I call dibs.”
And so they set upon the form of Josh Whoomer and divided him amongst themselves in a fair and equitable manner.
“Got the credit,” said Warner Media ™.
“Got the watch,” said The Walt Disney Company ™.
“Got the shoes,” said Microsoft Corporation ™.
“Got the phone,” said Activision Blizzard ™.
“Got the wallet,” said Microsoft Corporation ™.
With those words they turned their backs and distanced themselves from Josh, who suddenly felt very alone.
“Uh. Are you taking my soul?” he asked, just loudly enough to be sure he’d said it, but just quietly enough that he could plausibly pretend he hadn’t.
“Nah,” came the faint reply, echoing up from the ever-billowing corporate fog. “No profit in that.”
Nothing was there now. Nothing but grey. Endless, eternal grey.
“Damnit,” thought Josh. “How will I afford Transformers figurines now?”
And then he saw the light. It was warm and soft and beckoning and it glimmered so very enticingly that his eyes couldn’t leave it.
He had to have it.
Josh walked, he crawled, he ran, he sprinted, he stumbled head over heel, he did all of those things without a body. Very impressive. And at the end of the endless mists he found a soft pulsing heat which grabbed him and turned him inside out three times over until he stopped vomiting.
“Hi,” said a soft and bored voice. “Please check the box to indicate you understand.”
Josh looked up with what most certainly weren’t his eyes and saw a hideous and unnameable thing. It looked like a soft and tired middle-manager, but it felt like every bad day he’d ever heard of.
“The box is in the bottom right corner,” it told him helpfully.
Josh tore his eyes away from the worst thing he’d ever seen just in time for it to become second place. He’d never seen such a capacious sheaf of paper before, or a print so small-boned and fine. It could’ve graced an opthamologist’s office, probably with a placard reading ‘advanced.’
He checked the little box in the bottom right corner.
“Thankyoovalyoodcustomurr,” said the devil. “Now pick up your shovel (lvl 1) and go mine some dirty rocks (lvl 0).”
“Sorry?”
“Each rock is worth 10 bobs. For a thousand bobs you get a shovel (lvl 2) and can mine smudged rocks (lvl 0.5). Have fun.”
And you know what? He really did.