02-16-2016, 01:39 AM
Bright lights are nothing new to me.
Sure. I spend most of my days locked in an office tucked in the darker, murkier corners of Hell’s Kitchen. That’s true. Sue me.
But thanks to the bling hanging from the neck of local pimps, I’m used to sparkles. There’s nothing quite like the special glimmer of a freshly spit-shined dollar sign hanging just below the obnoxious Adam’s apple of a mofo dressed like Huggy Bear from Starsky and Hutch.
The movie, I mean. So basically Snoop Dogg.
You see, my part of New York City contains all sorts of low-life punks, but most of them are super down on their luck so the glossy, showoff sons of bitches tend to stick out. I don’t handle pretentious fucks very well, so naturally their jewelry requires another little rub with a Clorox alcohol wipe after they’ve had a little run in with me. Which they usually do, one way or another. Sometimes it’s because they pissed off the wrong person, but mostly it’s just because they’re unlucky. Caught up in a Ponzi scheme they didn’t even see coming.
I see most things coming. I can only think of a few times in my life when someone has actually managed to take me by surprise. A surprise birthday party, one time—though looking back I really should’ve seen the signs—and maybe Kilgrave. Just… all of Kilgrave. Oh, and now. Definitely now.
Seriously, though: imagine the shock a person must feel to be staring at the greatest and most extravagant city in the world one second and absolutely nothing in the next. It’s more than a little disorienting, if I’m being honest with you.
Well, I guess “nothing” is a bit of an exaggeration. There’s a fountain.
…why the ever-loving fuck is there a fountain?
I’ve always possessed one of the paler complexions in the world, so maybe my threshold for things like this got fucked up a little. But I’m not joking when I say that the floor (and essentially everything else surrounding me) is totally and completely white. Like, as if the world around me had just been sloshed with a giant vat of toxic vanilla ice cream. That’d be a helluva bullshit way to get superpowers, I think. You’d be like Mint-Berry Crunch from South Park.
Clichés will be clichés, I suppose, but things are cliché for a reason, so I waste no time sliding up the sleeve of my leather jacket and pinching myself. It hurts. I go nowhere.
And immediately, I’m thinking of all the worst things, right? I died and went to heaven, which means there’s actually a heaven and now I have to pay Trish, like, my weight in cash. Except, of course, I’m dead, so how exactly am I going to do that?
There are no clouds here, though, and no glowing angels with giant, obnoxious eagle wings floating down to point me in the right direction. So where the hell am I, then? Purgatory? Some sort of other afterlife the good religions of the world could never have predicted? A giant box where my soul is trapped for eternity?
No, not trapped, I think. Something’s coming into focus far away. A gate. Several of them, actually, on all sides of me. I rotate around, taking them all in.
As my revolution finishes, I’m looking back where I started except it’s noticeably less empty than before. Some cocksucker in a suit of unfortunately sterile-looking armor is standing in front of me. He’s got that ‘legs shoulder-width apart, gun down but ready to fire’ position going, and I suddenly become aware that any direction I run is a direction with no cover whatsoever. If this guy can aim worth anything, he’ll probably gun me down within a few steps.
Of course, I don’t run.
“Yes?” I say, sliding my hands into my pockets. Act like you’re supposed to be here, Jessica. Everything is totally normal.
“Identify yourself,” the asshole drones.
Wait a second—is this one of the guys from Star Wars that can’t aim worth shit? I’m suddenly feeling much more confident about my escape chances, if so. But to be honest, I’d never really been a big Star Wars fan—I’d just seen the memes—so without being able to say for sure, I stay put. For now.
“How about you tell me your name and I keep mine to myself?”
“I go by the designation TR-8R,” the Stormtrooper responds curtly, “and I must insist on you following your orders and revealing your identity to me, prime.”
“Prime?” I wonder aloud. What the hell does that mean? All of a sudden, I remember the little glowing man that spewed some bullshit to me about a new world or whatever. Honestly, I hadn’t really had my wits about me whenever I got swept away from reality (thanks, Jack D) and so I hadn’t really retained much of what the little guy had said, but now, stuck here in the worst place ever to have a hangover, I feel much more sober and much more confused in general about what the hell words like “Omniverse” and “Omnilium” and other bullshit with the prefix “Omni” tacked on the front of it mean.
I start to make connections. This guy’s white. The creepy dude who obviously wasn’t creative enough to think up nifty names for everything in this nightmare I’m stuck in was white. This whole room is white. Maybe it’s all connected.
“I’m Jessica,” I shrug, deciding it’s no huge deal for this guy to know my name. “Do you work for Omni Whatshisfuck?”
“What? Do I work for Omni?” the trooper asks, recoiling a bit. “Um, no, not exactly—” he stammers a bit as I made my way toward him, closing the gap of empty space separating us. For a second, we both stare at each other, him through his weird little visor and me through hangover goggles. Seriously, guys, my head is pounding.
“Okay, then I don’t feel bad about this. Not that I really would anyway.”
I sock him in the jaw. Pretty hard.
Sure. I spend most of my days locked in an office tucked in the darker, murkier corners of Hell’s Kitchen. That’s true. Sue me.
But thanks to the bling hanging from the neck of local pimps, I’m used to sparkles. There’s nothing quite like the special glimmer of a freshly spit-shined dollar sign hanging just below the obnoxious Adam’s apple of a mofo dressed like Huggy Bear from Starsky and Hutch.
The movie, I mean. So basically Snoop Dogg.
You see, my part of New York City contains all sorts of low-life punks, but most of them are super down on their luck so the glossy, showoff sons of bitches tend to stick out. I don’t handle pretentious fucks very well, so naturally their jewelry requires another little rub with a Clorox alcohol wipe after they’ve had a little run in with me. Which they usually do, one way or another. Sometimes it’s because they pissed off the wrong person, but mostly it’s just because they’re unlucky. Caught up in a Ponzi scheme they didn’t even see coming.
I see most things coming. I can only think of a few times in my life when someone has actually managed to take me by surprise. A surprise birthday party, one time—though looking back I really should’ve seen the signs—and maybe Kilgrave. Just… all of Kilgrave. Oh, and now. Definitely now.
Seriously, though: imagine the shock a person must feel to be staring at the greatest and most extravagant city in the world one second and absolutely nothing in the next. It’s more than a little disorienting, if I’m being honest with you.
Well, I guess “nothing” is a bit of an exaggeration. There’s a fountain.
…why the ever-loving fuck is there a fountain?
I’ve always possessed one of the paler complexions in the world, so maybe my threshold for things like this got fucked up a little. But I’m not joking when I say that the floor (and essentially everything else surrounding me) is totally and completely white. Like, as if the world around me had just been sloshed with a giant vat of toxic vanilla ice cream. That’d be a helluva bullshit way to get superpowers, I think. You’d be like Mint-Berry Crunch from South Park.
Clichés will be clichés, I suppose, but things are cliché for a reason, so I waste no time sliding up the sleeve of my leather jacket and pinching myself. It hurts. I go nowhere.
And immediately, I’m thinking of all the worst things, right? I died and went to heaven, which means there’s actually a heaven and now I have to pay Trish, like, my weight in cash. Except, of course, I’m dead, so how exactly am I going to do that?
There are no clouds here, though, and no glowing angels with giant, obnoxious eagle wings floating down to point me in the right direction. So where the hell am I, then? Purgatory? Some sort of other afterlife the good religions of the world could never have predicted? A giant box where my soul is trapped for eternity?
No, not trapped, I think. Something’s coming into focus far away. A gate. Several of them, actually, on all sides of me. I rotate around, taking them all in.
As my revolution finishes, I’m looking back where I started except it’s noticeably less empty than before. Some cocksucker in a suit of unfortunately sterile-looking armor is standing in front of me. He’s got that ‘legs shoulder-width apart, gun down but ready to fire’ position going, and I suddenly become aware that any direction I run is a direction with no cover whatsoever. If this guy can aim worth anything, he’ll probably gun me down within a few steps.
Of course, I don’t run.
“Yes?” I say, sliding my hands into my pockets. Act like you’re supposed to be here, Jessica. Everything is totally normal.
“Identify yourself,” the asshole drones.
Wait a second—is this one of the guys from Star Wars that can’t aim worth shit? I’m suddenly feeling much more confident about my escape chances, if so. But to be honest, I’d never really been a big Star Wars fan—I’d just seen the memes—so without being able to say for sure, I stay put. For now.
“How about you tell me your name and I keep mine to myself?”
“I go by the designation TR-8R,” the Stormtrooper responds curtly, “and I must insist on you following your orders and revealing your identity to me, prime.”
“Prime?” I wonder aloud. What the hell does that mean? All of a sudden, I remember the little glowing man that spewed some bullshit to me about a new world or whatever. Honestly, I hadn’t really had my wits about me whenever I got swept away from reality (thanks, Jack D) and so I hadn’t really retained much of what the little guy had said, but now, stuck here in the worst place ever to have a hangover, I feel much more sober and much more confused in general about what the hell words like “Omniverse” and “Omnilium” and other bullshit with the prefix “Omni” tacked on the front of it mean.
I start to make connections. This guy’s white. The creepy dude who obviously wasn’t creative enough to think up nifty names for everything in this nightmare I’m stuck in was white. This whole room is white. Maybe it’s all connected.
“I’m Jessica,” I shrug, deciding it’s no huge deal for this guy to know my name. “Do you work for Omni Whatshisfuck?”
“What? Do I work for Omni?” the trooper asks, recoiling a bit. “Um, no, not exactly—” he stammers a bit as I made my way toward him, closing the gap of empty space separating us. For a second, we both stare at each other, him through his weird little visor and me through hangover goggles. Seriously, guys, my head is pounding.
“Okay, then I don’t feel bad about this. Not that I really would anyway.”
I sock him in the jaw. Pretty hard.