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The nuclear doctor
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The nuclear doctor |
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patchoulipumpkin Member
since 2000-01-01
Posts 196Bermuda |
Just something i'm experimenting with, might be too weird, but i don't know, hope you like it.. He laughed to himself a bit, at how ridiculous it all was. Grand prize, world destruction. There was just nothing left to do, all the game shows had just become dull. It was only a matter of time after Murder 1, that it would get to this point, he thought. The rules for the game were fairly simple, the object was to answer as many questions as possible, and after reach round of succesful answers you were given different levels of prizes. After round 1, you were given a bullet in a gun, and could either kill someone with that or, trade it in and get a bigger weapon, the grand prize being a nuclear arsenal, and the power to push the button. Murder 1 preceded, BomBs Away, and it was the most popular show going. The first winner was some weird, skinny guy from some hick town, who’s last question for the bullet was, “What’s the name of the president of North America”. It was simple, in the old days, the questions were much harder, but back then people went to school, and they were called something Kevin thought of the word, “edict, edu, eman, educated… That’s it. His great-great-great grandfather was the last to go to college, but even he was rare because, most of his friends had skipped it to make money, straight off the computer. “It must have been so lame” he thought to himself. Kevin had never read a book before, but he had seen a couple, one of his friends, Harry was an avid reader. But he was always scared and nervous, and always worried about things. He wouldn’t stop talking about the past, and how there wasn’t any TV, and how the world was so much more different than Now. Without Computers, or anything. Harry was having trouble though, he fried himself out in a mental hospital, where they say he swallowed his own tongue. Too scared, Kevin thought, he was way too scared. When Murder 1 started, everybody watched it, it was the thing to do. People would just stop what they were doing, and turn on their eye-TV, and sit back and watch, it was the 1950’s version of the family. Now there wasn’t any kind of family any more, but economic tribes. It consisted of people who were blood relatives, but there wasn’t any hierarchy, it was just a gathering of family who all helped bring up the younger ones. Nobody really knew who was who’s father, or mother, because it didn’t really matter, if someone was older, it meant that they brought up the younger ones. In place of titles, people had numbers, which contained all of there information, and there access into the mainframe where people conducted business. So there weren’t any ties to anyone, it was only numbers that tied people together. It just depended on where you were born, and when you were born that determined your tribe, that was broken up into series of 50. If you were born of a number 50 in a sequence, you would be surpassed by someone else who would be number 51, a baby and so on. And you would be considered a succesor of that baby, even though you would never see them. It was pretty confusing, but it was also very simple. Anyway, the first winner of Murder 1, killed his wife, because well, it was assumed he didn’t like her. This kind of thing was pretty standard when the show was going, people would kill tribe members usually, until one man, Himensa Johnson, shot the president, and the style of the game changed from then on in. All kinds of leaders were shot, only to be replaced by new ones, and when it was figured out that nobody could actually gain anything from this, Uruaya Friendly topped it off, by shooting the host of Murder 1. It was actually pretty funny at the time, and there was a stunned silence, when he did it, followed by a resounding applause, in which everybody understood his intent. So, not to lose ratings, Murder 1 was replaced by Bombs Away, taking it to a higher level, where you could win carpet bombings, napalm bombings, all sorts of different kinds of bombings, big and small, the grand prize being the nuclear bomb, that would unleash a nuclear storm that would take out most of the world. When Kevin got on the show, he didn’t know if he could win, but the questions were incredibly simple, as compared to earlier shows that asked about geography, and politics. Now, those things were made obsolete by business, so there wasn’t as much mystique anymore, or any separate cultures to pool questions from, so the difficulty level wasn’t so hard. Most of the questions dealt with the senses, smells, sight, touch, and that kind of thing. For instance, you would watch a television screen that flashed images for thirty seconds, and you would have to name 8 images you saw. Or you would have to smell things with a blindfold on, and name that smell. And so on. Kevin won the game, and was given the controls, and the ratings went through the roof, though they didn’t mean anything anymore. So he pushed the button and everybody died in exicitement and irony. Kevin didn’t even know what he was doing, though. He won, so he followed through, but he felt a bit cheated, because there was nobody left to share it with. Only he was given an airtight capsule with 15years supply of food and virtual software to give him something to do. The thing that was different about Kevin was that he actually liked people, but people didn’t like people anymore, so being alone in his capsule made him very lonely. He wanted to be a human, he wasn’t ashamed of it like those cyborg people who fused themselves with technology and computers. And he became more and more attuned to himself for those 15 years, smelling his own smells, his stinky armpits, the smell of his farts, his crotch sweat, and everything. He loved it, to him it was much better than the virtual world created around him, that while it was encoded with particular smells for objects, they all had the same chemical compound to it, that only made the smells variations of a larger chemical smell. Also, as part of his provisions was a gun, with a full clip in it. He wasn’t sure what it was for, but he thought about it a lot. For 15 years he thought about it, until it finally donned on him. They expected him to kill himself. It was the final point of the game after all. But what they hadn’t anticipated was that Kevin was the happiest he had ever been. While he had been scouring his airtight capsule he had found a book and taught himself to read, slowly, letter by letter word by word. Its not that he was illiterate, everybody could read, its just that he had been so out of practice, from all of the sensory stimulation and communication that he needed some time to refresh his abilities. The book was The cat in the hat, by a Dr. of somekind. And he thought, that he wanted to be a doctor too. It seemed like a lot of fun. So after 15 years was up, and he popped the air capsule a rush of air came bursting in, and he could smell, for the first time, something real, he opened the clip, laughing, and popped every bullet onto the ground. He reached out of the capsule, saw the sun for the first time, and left behind the gun.“I’m going to go find some doctors” he said. And he skipped away, over broken buildings, ashes, and burnt grass, clicking his heels, with the dream of becoming a doctor, and laughing for something, instead of against it. Game Over < !signature--> quote: [This message has been edited by patchoulipumpkin (edited 01-30-2000).] |
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Dusk Treader
Moderator
Senior Member
since 1999-06-18
Posts 1187St. Paul, MN |
A very interesting story, pretty weird, but very cool. It's scary to think that humans could sink to such levels.. I especially like the ending, intriguing tale! In flames I shall not be consumed, but reborn. -- Abrahm Simons |
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childomine Senior Member
since 2000-01-25
Posts 818st. petersburg, FL |
I think this is absolutley awesome! Unthinkable for its improbabilities and frightening for its possibilities! Quite intriguing. |
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&dispose Junior Member
since 2000-01-30
Posts 18 |
Jealousy, deciet, lies, greed and hatred. The very root of hedonism. Life is a game and we all make choices, what you have written is a pretty accurate account of the "Game of 'Life'". Nicely Done. It was once said: "If you love something, let it go. If it comes back, its yours forever, if it doesn't, it was never meant to be." What if its dumb? - &dispose |
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&dispose Junior Member
since 2000-01-30
Posts 18 |
Jealousy, deciet, lies, greed and hatred. The very root of hedonism. Life is a game and we all make choices, what you have written is a pretty accurate account of the "Game of 'Life'". Nicely Done. It was once said: "If you love something, let it go. If it comes back, its yours forever, if it doesn't, it was never meant to be." What if its dumb? - &dispose |
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Christopher
Moderator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-08-02
Posts 8296Purgatorial Incarceration |
I want to applaud this! It is creative, and barring a few spelling errors well laid out! The format is easy to follow, (though you could have split the paragraphing a bit more!)  However as to the story: Creative, original, refresshing. I loved the way you drew the reader to expect a "sad" ending, however provided not only a plausible, but "happy" ending! Three cheers for this magnificent piece of fiction!!! |
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