Y.A.I.W.L.R.
By Paul Stansfield

(continued)

"Ah, that's the point. Those things are obsolete. The new trend is filmmaking with actors who don't know that they're in a movie. The cameras and microphones and everything are usually hidden, like today. Or, when they're not, the thespians are securely hypnotized before and after. It grew out of method acting, taken to the extreme. All acting is seen as fake and bad. Only the purity of realness is acceptable."

"But it's still not real, though, is it?"

"True, but the actors don't know, so to them it is."

"How do they know that the actors are going to do and say the right thing? How do they keep to a script?"

"They don't, exactly. Dialogue is all ad-libbed, clearly. They manipulate circumstances so that usually they get the response they want, but it's very flexible. And scripts are seen as hopelessly binding, and uncreative."

"What if someone gets hurt, say, in an action scene? Don't they sue?"

"Sometimes. The director and producers have to demonstrate that they used reasonable safety precautions, but accidents happen. Sometimes they're punished. sometimes not. It's trendy right now for a director to have done at least a little jail time for their art. Shows that they really care about their craft."

They drifted over to a cafe, where people sat eating deli-style food. Doyle couldn't see anything that unfamiliar. "Listen to the radio for awhile, that's the next thing."

Doyle did. Four songs played as he listened intently. The first was kind of bluesy, the second sort of folky, the last two showed heavy bluegrass influence. They were okay; not bad, but not dazzling, either.

"Go ahead, explain."

"It's subtle. Did you notice that none of the songs faded out, that they all had distinct endings? All songs are like that now. Fading out is considered lazy and uncouth."

Doyle just laughed as they moved around the corner. A small crowd was looking at a pair of people standing on a patch of grass off the sidewalk. The couple was a woman in her forties and a man in his twenties. Both were naked. The woman had a black cable sticking out of her lower belly. As they watched she lassoed the young man around the neck with the cable as he moved away. She pulled tight, and the man fell backward, his fingers clawing at the noose. Doyle gasped as the man's face went from red to blue, and his frenzied contortions were accompanied by his messing himself. Just as his struggles were lessening the woman let go of the line. His last spasm tore the cable from her belly, ripping a sizable chunk of flesh from her as it did. As the young man lay still, it was now the woman's turn to gyrate and flip about in agony, as blood poured out of her abdomen. Doyle scanned the crowd. All were watching raptly, but no one cried out or made a move to assist. Finally the woman joined the man in death. The crowd paused for a moment; some clapped, most murmured, but soon all had walked away, leaving behind the two corpses.

"Was that a movie scene? Were those special effects, and those two are okay, or were they robots, and the crowd was the actors?"

"So my living means many more people die in performance art deliberately, or during accidents in movies that they don't know are being filmed. You sure you're not trying to get me to kill myself?"

"I told you, I'm not pushing either. That's your decision. But as for the deaths, it's usually their choice. Well, not for the movie ones, but deaths there are uncommon. Besides, I have similar problems seeing into their minds, but the performers and the viewing public seem very satisfied and happy with the results."

Then they were in a bookstore. There were the same bookshelves, checkout area, mini-restaurant, and reading chairs. Same now familiar 2051 customers. Doyle peered carefully and eventually noticed the change. "Those stacks there. 'Handwritten.' Are they rea1Iy?"

"Indeed. Very trendy. So much more special and individualized. Plus their large cost insures that the rich can feel superior to the masses. Some are handwritten by famous people, some by certain ethnicities or people with certain careers, some by kids, even. Character is more important than legibility. The very hottest item is erotica written by actual priests and nuns."

Doyle looked over the shoulder of a particularly well-heeled looking fellow as he paged through a book in that section. Sure enough, the words were written in cursive, using a reddish-brown ink. "'The Pteranodon and the Glacier,' by Ralph Garfield, handwritten by Tommy Griggs," was on the title page.

"This one was written using Garfield's treated blood as ink," said Adlai. "Don't worry, though. In this case Garfield died of natural causes and stated in his will that he wanted this done."

"Oh, so more carpal tunnel syndrome can be attributed to me. Yeah, I'm useful to the world. "

"You're so negative. You're not seeing that the printing industry was revitalized. Computers nearly killed it. Bookstores and printers have people who need jobs, have families, have physical and mental necessities that are fulfilled from this." Next they were floating in blackness again.

"You're too positive. What about the trees that are killed to make the paper, the resulting deforestation, resulting in animal and plant extinctions, less oxygen, and probably more global warming?"

Adlai laughed. "Relax. Recycling is extremely prevalent. Extremely few additional trees are killed. The environment's better than before, didn't you notice? There's less pollution — more power is gleaned from electricity and solar energy rather than from fossil fuels."

"So I at least did something good and worthwhile."

"You've made a big impact, but you're not responsible for everything. No, the eco-friendliness isn't because of you, and neither are the clothing styles. And the fact that there's no cash anymore, just debit cards, and more manned space exploration, these also have nothing at all to do with you. Stop being so pessimistically arrogant and just observe the changes I tell you about."