It was a late night at the office, which, at the promo
department where Brick worked, meant 6:30. Yes, it was one of those all-nighters that we all hear about, but pray that we never have to experience
firsthand. The industrial strength fluorescent lights burned brightly above
Brick's screen-exhausted eyes. How many times can you render a 45 second promo?
If the editing software keeps freezing,
then we'll have to say a bunch.
Now it goes without saying that a long day of editing takes its toll on the mind of a man. When you live 45 seconds at a time, you tend you lose a grasp on the big picture. Especially if you're trapped in a private hell of you own creation like resident complainer, Brick. Last time we saw our disgraced guitarist, he was speaking to G Mod in Alice in Chains lyrics. Now, well, at least he was getting some work done. (Yes, it is exactly this in depth detail that has made this workplace plotline so popular, we think).
"****! I got the wrong text graphic..." Brick slurred after hours perfecting the perfect promo (the holy grail for Masters of Ephemera). "All that work for nothing." In this the distance he heard the faint sound of a hotel bell followed by a sneeze that rumbled like so much uncaged thunder. Although he felt the uncouth stare of the wily G mod upon him, he could tell that he was not to be found.
The emotionally drained promo maestro leaned back in his chair and out of the corner of his eye spotted the lovely jewel of an assistant producer, Amethyst, sitting at an empty cubicle, earbuds in her ears, an expression o her face that came close to the appearance of a woman pleasuring herself to maximum levels of ecstasy. Brick surely thought that he might be hallucinating after ten hours of editing a promo about the history of intercourse movie that was premiering the following weekend. Why they would broadcast such an unapologetically explicit feature during the Saturday morning cartoon timeslot was a mystery best left unsolved.
Brick removed the ragged foam headphones from his neck and walked up to the clearly satisfied and independent Amethyst. Just as he reached the cubicle where she was sitting, he saw her body spasm slightly before releasing back to her normal state. She opened her eyes with a grin of sly bliss. Her eyes shined brightly before fading to normal.
"You okay, Amy?" Brick asked in a half perturbed monotone.
"Brick, you're still here..." she droned on distractedly, "huh."
"You seem, content."
"Yeah..." she said, quietly yearning for the release offered by a timely cigarette. "I just listened to my favorite
song. I must have listened to it two hundred times this week... but it gets me off everytime. is that weird?"
"No..." Brick said as he glanced at Amethyst's mp3 player, only to see it set to infinite repeat on ELO's Mr. Blue Sky, "...or maybe.... Seriously? ELO?"
"It's the bass line... It makes me... shiver."
"Okay..."
"What are you still doing here?" She asked now that she completely un-aroused.
"Editing the sexy promo."
"Ah... the Saturday morning special."
"Yeah... What were they thinking?"
"I think it was a scheduling mishap."
"Well, I sure as hell am not going to re-do the promo now. It'll go on the air, errors and all."
"That's wreckless."
"Don't you mean reckless?"
"Yeah, women love having their spelling corrected by ugly dudes."
"Hmmm..."Brick mumbled, stifling back the self-loathing that swelled inside him.
There was a moment of awkward silence that was interrupted by Amethyst's next train of thought.
"Everyone else left already."
"Yeah. So is there any reason you decided to stay so late, other than listening to ELO?"
"Well, " she started, her brow beginning to wrinkle with worry,"I was worried about running into Eugene."
"The Pterodactyl swooping in for the kill?"
"Sort of. I've never seen him as angry as he has been lately. The completion of that new broadcasting tower has him on edge."
"That big tower of stone reaching high into the sky is a broadcasting tower?"
"That's what I've heard."
"Who builds communications equipment out of stone?"
"I don't know. I heard something abut it coming from an old Mayan or Babylonian design."
"Oh yeah, the masters of modern communications equipment," Brick remarked with painfully obvious.
As is usually the case when two characters are alone in a building afterhours, the lights began to flicker in an unsettling way. Hey, can't mess with a classic. Am I right? M'i'right?
"Aw jeez..." mumbled Brick, "What fresh hell is this?"
"Huh," Amethyst commented. "It reminds me of a rave i went to a few years ago."
"Wow, I really don't know anything about you."
"Nope, you really don't, do ya?" She said as she got up to investigate the cause of the weirdness.
Brick, his interest in Amethyst shaken by his complete ignorance of her back-story. Wait do we even know her full back-story? Aw, never mind. Almost as soon as the flickering began, it had already subsided. Yeah, you know where this is going.
'What's going on?" Brick asked as he approached the door leading to "the other side".
He turned to look, but Amethyst as gone. All that was left was the door with bright light pouring in underneath. Without a moment's hesitating he turned the doorknob and the light consumed him. When his iris' adjusted to the sudden influx of illumination.
The "other side", as it was always referred to, was nothing more than a storage room. Within the large storage containers were pieces from his past his ld bandana, his first guitar, the Tigerman costume, and the camera equipment that filmed the material for the promos he became so adequate at making over the last few months.
As confusion drained his face of that ridiculous pink color, Brick heard a scream. It came from the next room. He dashed round the corner only to find himself surrounded by glass replicas of the entire company.
"What the ****?" he pondered as he examined the lifelike replica of John Slate. The facsimile was so precise, it was hard to tell that it was a fake. "No way..."
The glass Slate's vacant stare turned into a sharp glare as his translucent hand grasped Brick around the throat.
"Traitor!"
"Ugh..." Brick struggled.
"It's all your fault. Everyone is gone...because of you!"
"I... ugh..."
"It was supposed to be ME! I was the favorite! Fortune was supposed to favor me!"
"Slate..is that... you?"
"Hello, brother," said the sculpture, it's glass arms burning with dragon tattoos from the late MFUJ vocalist's memory.
Brick's struggle to get free finally succeeded. he grabbed a nearby wrench and shattered he sentient glass being. All of the other figures shattered from the impact until brick was alone standing over the shattered features.
"How could you do this? "Amethyst murmured as she approached Brick from behind. "We were so close... Brick?"
The walls of reality began to collapse and where once there was the claustrophobic glass fragment event, there was the familiar confines of the cubicle where promos were made daily. Amethyst was standing over Brick with a great deal of concern. Despite the earlier presumption that G Mod had disappeared, Brick felt his icy claws scratch his back.
"I offer you a taste of things to come," whispered the malevolent G Mod, sending a cold numbness down Brick's spine. "Fear me!"
