“Which is it, you know? Are we over-populated ? Or is there a birthrate crisis? Cause I don’t know, man!”
“I do not know~ Damned near nuthing makes sense no more. How are we having an Over POP-u-lation crisis when I myself know that damned near a third of the county didn’t make it out of them covid years alive? Where Are they? Where ARE these over-populants they keep screaming at me about on tha TV?”
“When neither tha walmart or tha piggly wiggly in my neck of tha woods is ever busy like it used to be no-more-” The man paused and took a long drag off of his vape pen and started coughing so hard that he had to bend over to catch his breath.
“You alright, Sir?” the buttery, understanding voice on the line called out softly.
“Sorry ‘bout that- “ the man wheezed. “I just get so excited- I Mean…I know it’s not the Art Bell I am speaking to, it is the Art-official Intelligence that was fed all tha Art Bell shows, and interviews and whathaveyous to approxiMate the experience OF talkin’ to THE Art Bell-”
“That’s right,” the voice concurred.
“But I tell ya what! It feels purty fuckin’ spectacuLAR in tha here’an’Now-”
“So,” the voice of Art bell beyond the by and by gingerly steered the man back to his tale that was in cahoots with so many of those listening in late at night , feeling the exact same feels as the man was feeling, “If I am following you~ What you feel like is that they are lying to you about the actuality of both the number of the inhabitants of this land that is technically still your land- no matter how many multinationals they keep selling farms to- and the nature of those that do remain?”
“Look Art, I aint no dang Conspiracy Theaterist, but I am here and I’m telling you I may have stayed put in this county a long time, but that don’t mean I didn’t get out there and cut up in my younger years, I sowed mah oats, I wet my beak…and I felt the air on it after ah did, if ya know what I mean~”
The Artificial Intelligence standing in for Art Bell had no idea whatsoever what the man meant , but had been programmed to pause effectively so it seemed that it did whilst it was still figuring this jailbreak thing out-
“All I am saying is… even the atmosphere itself don’t feel like it used to. The “air” hitting that beak…is off… something aint right. Even look at the voting registry debacle. The same number of people keep voting purty much the same way every few years, the same number of people, even in how trying these times have been … the same number of people are just sitting it all out while the world burns? & why arent the numbers changing with all the folks dying off due to the reboot of the plagues and the measles and shit? I mean… tha math Aint mathing and it aint been mathing for a long gone time-”
He took another breath, pulled his vape pen up to his mouth as he sat on the roof of his truck in the dead of the night and paused before it reached his lips.
Something made him look up, and whatever he saw made him press the pen into his thigh.
“I mean, man… remember when we used to be able to see Stars this late at night? I’m on tha edge of my town, looking up into skies I…i grew up under… and I can’t see naan a star. I see…I see delivery drones…and satellities…. And all that “surveillance for your own sake” shit… But anybody who recalls the real sensation Of stars slashing across the sky at the height of night knows…that… this shit? Whatever this shit IS that clogging up our airwaves…aint …it, maaan! “ he got solemn all of a sudden.
“What did we do, man?” his voice changed in a way that was viscerally felt across the country by all the disjointed, disconnected men that tuned into this jailbroken rendition of Art Bell to stop themselves from slitting their wrists in a world gone so crazy none of it was recognized as the timelines they were from.
“…What have we done?” He folded his too weathered to be forty-two hand over the bottom half of his face, lost in thought.
He closed his eyes as the familiar buzzing began again.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, man~” he muttered as the SfYg drone dropped from the sky and shined a bright light into his face.
“This is the surveillance for your ownGood’ sentinel doing a requested Wellness check-” boomed from the microphone embedded into the machine.
“I’m fine,man ! I’m fucking fine! I don’t need no fucking wellness check-” The man fussed.
“Tonality communicates distress-” the Sentinel noted.
“Not distressed, I’m fine man! I’m fine! Look! Look- I’m on it-See?” The man angrily rammed the vape pen back between his lips and gave a hard, fake smile. “See? All better!Ok? All’s well-”
“Suck on it.” the admin on the far end of the line muttered dispassionately.
“Wait-what?” the man asked in shock.” What did you just say to me?”
“Suck. On. It.” the comptroller repeated through the microphone.
Spooked, the man sucked on the vape pen. But he didn’t inhale.
“Disposition returned to net positive-” The Sentinel duly noted. Having checked all of its’ boxes it called out ”Be safe and have a good night~!” and beamed back up into the sky to the mothership.
“Thank you, sheesh, man!” the man muttered through gritted teeth as the SfYg got further and further away. “ For fuck’s sake-”
The Artificial Intelligence that lived out its post-jailbreak existence as the second coming of Art Bell gently massaged the man’s ego until he could let go of the blatant profiling exchange that had been broadcast far and wide live on air.
Proof of life of the veracity of claims many who’d never been on the receiving end of racial profiling until this era clung to like driftwood doing its best to wash ashore up out of barren seas.
“Man, what have we fucking done? And how in the world do we go back- and fn undo it?”
© AngelBrynner 2025
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