The world is gray. A man sits on a couch in a silent room, looking ahead vacantly.
"Have you ever felt listless?"
Cut to another place, a woman slowly hitting her head against a kitchen table, a dull expression on her face.
"Do you feel trapped in a sea of horrible tedium that does not abate no matter what you do?"
A third location, a man sitting in front of a working television, watching midday talk show reruns. He is slowly gouging his eye out with his thumbs, screaming, blood running down his face and onto his chest in streams.
"Would you do anything to alleviate your ennui?"
Colors return to the world, showing a healthy-looking woman, a different one than previously, with a distinctly colander-like helmet on her head with an antenna and goggles on it.
"Fear no longer! Perhaps you have no idea what to do with your life, but someone else does!"
Willy Pete Johnson appears, holding the same colander-thing in his hands.
"Willy Pete Johnson here, presenting the Swapmet, the solution to all your ennui-related problems! Become someone else, and let them become you! Explore a new body! Say inappropriate things to your new relatives! Have a new job and challenges to deal with to put yourself in perspective! All with the help of the Swapmet! Put it on, flick a switch, and voila, bodies swapped, new life obtained! Lonely perverts LOVE it! Wage slaves SWEAR by it! And it can be yours for a mere 59.99, a special, limited offer only available if you call the number 777-5615563! That's 777-5615563 for the deal of your life! Only 59.99!" he bellows out, poking the Swapmet expressively to punctuate his sentences. "But don't take it from me, take it from the satisfied customers!"
A blond-haired, unkempt woman wearing a trilby appears in view.
"I put on the Swapmet and did a swap, and now I'm this totally hot chick! Bitches now have nothing on me! I don't need them anymore! I don't need anyone!"
A toddler stands in a doorframe wearing a robe and smoking a pipe.
"You thought I'd be dead soon, consuming public, but guess what - by the holy power of the Swapmet you get to experience at least 60 more years of me! Hope the guy I took this from likes metastases!"
A middle-aged, worn man in a suit sits behind a very important-looking desk, addressing a camera that a lot of people appear to be standing around.
"And then I'm going to make a big rocket ship, and I'm going to send it to the moon, and we'll build a new kingdom, and it'll be totally awesome because I'll be king there! Oh, and, uh, gods bless the Swapmet! See, I worked it in there! I'm good at this!"
The assembled people cheer after the camera cuts out.
"You heard them, people! Imagine the possibilities that appear at your fingertips by the power of the Swapmet! Think of all the things you could do for only 59.99 if you call the number 777-5615563! That's 777-5615563!" Willy Pete says, reappearing suddenly in view. The commercial loops, displaying the same footage two more times.
This is ostensibly playing somewhere - where, however, nobody can say. Gods exist on a different level than conventional mortals, you know.
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Topic: Trumps-The Nigh-Invulnerable (Shelved for the Moment, may return to later) (Read 2614 times)