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In Search of Lulz, Intro

Started by Eater of Clowns, September 06, 2012, 10:44:04 PM

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Eater of Clowns

"Spaughsun!  My office!" came the roar from the roarer's office. 

The roaree turned to his computer and closed the browser window currently displaying a house cat in an amusingly compromising position.  Then he put the phone back on the hook after conveniently hanging it up improperly fifteen minutes into the day and leaving it there for the subsequent three hours.  Then he removed the discreetly placed headphone from his right ear, put the magazine he was reading in a drawer, and paused the tower defense game on his phone.  He closed the second browser window, getting rid of the tabs open to "8 Most Hilarious Hamburger Disasters," "5 Bizarre Art Restoration Mishaps," and "Top 10 Most Inane Top 10 Lists."

As he took the short stroll to his boss's office, he thought this was it.  This was when his completely sane and viable career choice of writing professionally for a dying industry would, shockingly, prove to be unwise.  His boss looked haggard, tie loosened around his collar, top button undone, hair in wisps around his head.  This was the type of guy that still described his career as "newspaperman" at parties.

"You gently requested my presence, sir?" Rory Spaughsun asked.

"Sit."  Rory sat.  "Do you know what this is?"  He slid a piece of paper across his desk.

Rory picked it up and knew immediately.  "This is the lulz, isn't it?"  A yellow smiley face glared hideously back at him, cigarette lolling out of its mouth and party hat that might be on fire tilted roguishly to the side.  Instinctively, he bounced the face up and down in his hands.

"That's the lulz.  Or, well, that represents the lulz.  The lulz themselves, well..." he trailed off.  The lulz were missing.  They'd been missing for some time.

Rory understood.  "You want me to find them and write an article on it?"

"What?  No!  Hell, no, I'm firing you.  Nothing personal, boy-o, but this place is sinking and I just found out that you were never on staff to begin with."

"Of course not, sir, I'm an intern.  I have the paperwork right here."  Rory, seemingly from nowhere and disarmingly quickly, produced a much mishandled document riddled with haphazard signatures and mostly faded lettering.  "See it says right here, I'm to..."

"Spaughsun, I've seen the paper.  You've handed it to me every time we've seen each other, including last Tuesday when you passed it to me under the stall after running into me in the bathroom.  Thing is, I can't read any dates on that thing any more but I'm dead sure that four years as a paid intern is just far too long.  Circulation is low right now and we have to cut back a bit."

"But right here, sir, that's the dean's signature and uh, well I think that's yours there next to the coffee stain, and here's mine, and..." he pointed frantically around the paper, at one point poking a jagged hole through a critically weak spot.  "The dates are backwards!  Yeah, like European dates where the month and day are reversed," he cried desperately.

"I'm sorry, m'boy, I am.  I hate to do this kind of thing to a budding young reporter like yourself.  Just get out of here, alright?  You're welcome, by the way.  You can swim to shore from here.  The rest of us will be bailing this thing out and hope not to drown."

The poignancy was lost on the stunned Spaughsun, who pointed weakly at a signature in the corner from a delivery driver a few years ago that Rory thought had a very official looking script.

"Put the damn paper away, Rory," his boss told him sternly.

Rory obeyed, sliding the ragged thing up his sleeve.  He sat there a moment, still stunned even after assuring himself every day for the last four years that exactly this would happen.  He rose from the chair and gathered his dignity, appearing much like a drunk just after openly urinating on a public corner.  He reached the doorway and, leaning slightly, turned back to the desk.

"But the lulz.  What does this have to do with the lulz?" he asked.

"Nothing, Spaughsun.  They're gone.  I just like remembering sometimes is all.  Remembering the fun we all had before all of this."  He gestured quickly around the disheveled office.  Somehow he caught the dull, unmotivated newsroom as well as the busy and anxious streets outside.

The young man nodded.  He didn't bother going back to his terminal, having lived in it like a squatter for the last few years.  He figured one day they'd just deactivate his keycard and he wouldn't be able to get in the building to his workstation.  Then a year ago, when that actually happened and he just started piggybacking the doors, he figured security would haul him off and bodily toss him outside.

The newsroom was filled with hushed whispers of "Goodbye Rickie," and "He was still here," and "Who the hell is that guy."

Outside was loud and hot and still cold to the bone, uncaring and unenthusiastic.  But with the sunlight on his face, Rory Spaughsun felt great.  He took a deep breath, choked on the greasy garbage scented air, and strode forward with purpose.

Because he had one, now.

He was going to find the lulz.
Quote from: Pippa Twiddleton on December 22, 2012, 01:06:36 AM
EoC, you are the bane of my existence.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 07, 2014, 01:18:23 AM
EoC doesn't make creepy.

EoC makes creepy worse.

Quote
the afflicted persons get hold of and consume carrots even in socially quite unacceptable situations.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Oooh, this is lovely! Very engaging.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Luna

Death-dealing hormone freak of deliciousness
Pagan-Stomping Valkyrie of the Interbutts™
Rampaging Slayer of Shit-Fountain Habitues

"My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know, everybody you see, everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake, and they live in a state of constant, total amazement."

Quote from: The Payne on November 16, 2011, 07:08:55 PM
If Luna was a furry, she'd sex humans and scream "BEASTIALITY!" at the top of her lungs at inopportune times.

Quote from: Nigel on March 24, 2011, 01:54:48 AM
I like the Luna one. She is a good one.

Quote
"Stop talking to yourself.  You don't like you any better than anyone else who knows you."

Murmur

Please continue? This is just getting good...
Tolerable Terror for Toddlers Legionaire, Nixon Division™

"Onlookers will be horrified and amazed by the sheer volume of fluid."--TGRR

"SaraLee, I say unto you!  If ye have a cake and halve it, and then halve it yet again, you would have four quarters and yet still not have a dollar.  Eat of that cake, for it is cake which is NOT cake, which ye may have half a mind to have at a reasonable price, yet in indecision achieve satori with said stale Moon Pie.  That's what you get when YOU FUCK WITH US." - DOUR

Eater of Clowns

Thanks, and

Quote from: Murmur on September 06, 2012, 11:56:48 PM
Please continue? This is just getting good...

I intend to!  I'm on vacation next week and a bit busy for that time, but I've got some ideas for this brewing.
Quote from: Pippa Twiddleton on December 22, 2012, 01:06:36 AM
EoC, you are the bane of my existence.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 07, 2014, 01:18:23 AM
EoC doesn't make creepy.

EoC makes creepy worse.

Quote
the afflicted persons get hold of and consume carrots even in socially quite unacceptable situations.

The Wizard Joseph

That was a pretty awesome intro... more, MORE!
You can't get out backward.  You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting.  If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation."
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality :lulz:

"You program the controller to do the thing, only it doesn't do the thing.  It does something else entirely, or nothing at all.  It's like voting."
- Billy, Aug 21st, 2019

"It's not even chaos anymore. It's BANAL."
- Doktor Hamish Howl

LMNO

Nicely done.  I want to see where this goes!