A #dystopian tale of human enslavement and microblogging
Chapter Three
Man, it was hot. I’m talking Northern line in August hot. I stood there with trickles of sweat scuttling down my back like refrigerated Pachinko balls. What was taking them so damn long?
I thought about buzzing again, but that would’ve reeked of desperation. Or at the very least impatience. Or at the very most aggression. “Chillax,” I told myself. I was in Cali-forn-eye-eh, for chrissakes! The home of socially acceptable lassitude. No hurries, no worries. Just hanging out on the doorstep of an industrial unit soaking up a few rays. What could be more natural?
Then again, how long could I realistically stand here with a slightly unnerving ‘Wassup, dude!’ grin fixed on my face before a passing stray took advantage of my growing resemblance to a canine convenience?
What the hell was I doing here anyway? I’m no Marco Polo. Itchy feet are something I treat with a prescription. I hate the heat. Plus every Yank I’d met so far oozed confidence and charisma, whereas I felt like a simpering, weak-chinned arse every time my Home Counties whine leaked from my fish and chip hole. This was NOT cool. I needed to get out of there. Jump in the car and get the hell…
The door clicked.
The rising tide of panic subsided as quickly as it had risen. A let out a long breath, inhaled, grimaced and quickly popped a Lifesaver into my mouth. Shouldering the door aside, I took my first step into Twitter HQ. Man, it was cool. No really. I’m talking Circle line in January cool. These guys had some military-grade air-con.
The office itself was pretty nondescript. And pretty dark. I’m talking…you know, dark. As my eyes adjusted, the scene resolved itself into a large, open space with row upon row of deserted workstations. The single source of light came from the far side of the office – a bank of LCD screens flickering with, I imagined, the steady flow of tweets offered up by devout twitaholics from around the world.
That’s when I saw them. Hunched silhouettes that could only represent my first live sighting of the Twitterati. In a slight daze, I raised a hand in greeting and strode forward, eager to slap some backs and high some fives. I did my best to ignore the fetid aroma that became increasingly potent as I drew closer. I could relate, after all. I’d pulled the odd coffee-fuelled all-nighter in my time, and I hadn’t paused for a shower until I’d slam dunked those revenue figures, baby.
Suddenly one of them noticed me. I knew this because his head snapped up from his screen and he raised an arm in my direction. I began to reciprocate – thinking of maybe dropping in the classic ‘Bang, bang! Aargh, you got me!’ greeting – but froze when he slowly opened his mouth and let out an inhuman (and inhumanly loud) screech.
Now, I’m the kind of guy who gets off on a joke, I really am. Ask anyone at the office who I’ve punked with a post-it. But this was leftfield even for me. And when the others joined the dial tone chorus I started to get a little freaked. The fact that I could now see they were all completely hairless with skin the flabby white of a cod’s belly didn’t particularly reassure me either.
Option a) Twitter seriously needed to address its diversity commitment. Option b) Something distinctly atypical was occuring here.
As I slowly backed away from the advancing pack of enraged Twitterati, I began to suspect a sternly worded missive to hr@twitter.com would probably fail to resolve the situation.
Okay, okay, I’ve chucked in a few off-the-peg Morlocks at the end there. Yeah, I know, a bit lazy. But I’ve been really quite busy and just wanted to get the whole ‘horror’ thing rolling. Look, I’ll be straight with you. Up until now it’s all been a bit rushed and sketchy, but I’ve got this whole dramatic dénouement all planned out, I really have. It resonates. It has power. Remember The Sixth Sense? Well, it’s nothing like that.
