Gail finished Tuesday at around ten PM. This was a greater achievement than it sounded, mostly because halfway through it had turned into Thursday, then Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She surveyed her apartment, considered her fridge, turned her head to the stove, then the sink full of the morning\u2019s dishes and last night\u2019s dishes and last morning\u2019s dishes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFuck all of this,\u201d she mumbled, and she took an anonymous frozen lump from the freezer and was just about to feed it into the microwave when sixteen very large police piled through her door and fanned out tactically through the apartment shouting \u201cCLEAR\u201d and shooting her neighbour\u2019s dog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou have failed to appreciate the value of food,\u201d said the largest of the police, putting a handcuff on each of her wrists and two on their own out of sheer overexcitement. \u201cYou are hereby sentenced to snaxecution!\u201d
\u201cDo I get a trial?\u201d asked Gail. Her neighbour\u2019s dog was still barking, and therefore still being shot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTrials are for people that don\u2019t need to be snaxecuted,\u201d said the largest of the police, cuffing Gail\u2019s microwave. \u201cNow start perp walkin\u2019 or get perp dragged.\u201d
Gail walked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
***<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The waiting room was mechanical and round and filled with round mechanisms. Strange acidic smells eeled through the air. Two hours in, Gail asked for water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo water for you,\u201d said the largest of the police. \u201cOnly colours. You want blue, green, red, or purple?\u201d
\u201cBlue,\u201d said Gail. She got a bottle with blue in it, which tasted like blue. The big metal doors on the far side of the chamber slammed open when she was trying to swallow and she inhaled blue until the largest of the police held her upside down by the ankles and shook the blue out of her. Upside down, light-headed, she saw a wretched husk of a crumpled figure being wheeled away in a gurney.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou\u2019re next,\u201d said a serious man in a serious jacket with a serious mouth. He looked like someone had replaced his head with a mailbox and put NO FLYERS above his eyebrows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCan I finish my blue?\u201d managed Gail eventually, after the largest of the police remembered to put her back down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou won\u2019t need to,\u201d said the serious man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So they took her through the big metal doors and put her on a sofa and put a bowl of Cheetos in front of one hand and a bowl of chips in front of the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cChoose,\u201d said the serious man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat flavour are the chips?\u201d asked Gail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSalt and vinegar.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gail picked up a chip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTrick question!\u201d shouted the largest of the police. \u201cYou get both!\u201d
\u201cShut up,\u201d said the serious man, seriously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSorry. I get excited.\u201d
\u201cYou get both,\u201d said the serious man, to Gail. \u201cIt was a trick question. Now watch this.\u201d
The serious man turned on a screen and filled it with a deeply inadequate Netflix original.
\u201cIt was cancelled on a cliffhanger due to poor viewership,\u201d he explained. \u201cGoodbye.\u201d
Then he dragged the largest of the police out by their ear and left Gail alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There were no windows. The door was locked. There were no controls for the screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So Gail watched, and as she watched, she ate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
***<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The serious man came back after an unbearable amount of time with more bowls and a tub of ice cream and a terrible, terrible threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWould you like to watch the last five episodes of the series you just watched, OR see three made-for-tv movies recorded before 2008, determined at random?\u201d he asked, consulting a tablet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBwuh,\u201d said Gail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat was a trick question,\u201d said the serious man. \u201cYou will watch both. This bowl has party mix made of adequate cheese puffs, terrible pretzels, crappy corn chips, and excellent tortillas. This other bowl has popcorn with too much cheese powder. This ice cream isn\u2019t a flavour that actually exists but it doesn\u2019t taste like anything you want right now. Goodbye.\u201d
Gail felt very strongly that she was meant to feel very strongly about this situation, but she was full of congealed sodium food colouring, and grease and it filled her throat like old dirty socks. Instead she croaked, and coughed, and watched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
***<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next visit brought two more choices: a procedurally-generated playlist of youtubers reacting to videos of youtubers reacting or a video documentary on why the earth was definitely flat; and a 24-pack of expiration-discounted store-brand half-stale cinnamon buns or a previously-opened plastic vegetable tray with half-eaten ranch dip that had a soft carrot lodged in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThese are both trick questions and you will receive both of them,\u201d explained the serious man. \u201cIn addition, you will also experience an internet outage sometime in the next hour. It will last between twenty and twenty thousand minutes. Have this pack of mint gum.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo,\u201d managed Gail. The serious man ignored her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
***<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNow you will watch this livestream of a room full of puppies. The puppies are all asleep and one of them knocked the camera around to face the wall. There are six people in the chat and none of them like each other. There is no moderator. Here is a full Halloween-sized bag of gummi worms.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
***<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis Korean drama is subtitled until the last two episodes. Take this bag of stale mini marshmallows.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
***<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is a recording of someone\u2019s wedding. There are six more after this. None of them are edited. Here\u2019s a store-brand cake that someone ate half of, asymmetrically, without using a knife.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
***<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is just TikTok. And here\u2019s something that\u2019s legally not a box full of pizza pockets. They are still frozen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
***<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCan I leave?\u201d managed Gail. It had taken her several trillion years to make this thought, and it arrived frail and flat and already-defeated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnytime you want,\u201d said the serious man. \u201cLet me unlock the door for you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gail stood up and felt like she could never do that or walk or move or think ever again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cReally?\u201d she asked, because she wanted to be disappointed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cReally,\u201d said the serious man. \u201cBut just do you know, you\u2019re not done.\u201d
\u201cWhat?\u201d
\u201cThis will happen to you once or twice a weekish for the entire rest of your foreseeable life,\u201d said the serious man. \u201cSnaxecution is not a procedure. It is a practice. And once you\u2019re checked in, you can never check out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
***<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gail went home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She surveyed her apartment, whose door was still hanging on a thread from a boot, whose neighbour\u2019s dog was still yapping angrily about having been shot, whose fridge was still judgemental, whose microwave still tempted, whose sink was still full of dishes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She had no idea what day of the week it was and wasn\u2019t sure if any of them could possibly be told apart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was just one question left. One thing to consider. One obstacle between her and bed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dinner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m ordering pizza,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because of course that had always been a trick question.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gail finished Tuesday at around ten PM. This was a greater achievement than it sounded, mostly because halfway through it had turned into Thursday, then Monday. She surveyed her apartment, considered her fridge, turned her head to the stove, then the sink full of the morning\u2019s dishes and last night\u2019s dishes and last morning\u2019s dishes. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-short-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamieproctor.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamieproctor.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamieproctor.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamieproctor.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamieproctor.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2750"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jamieproctor.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2751,"href":"https:\/\/jamieproctor.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2750\/revisions\/2751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamieproctor.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamieproctor.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamieproctor.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}