It's 4 am, and sleep once again eludes our hapless player in the game. Let's call her Sherri (rhymes with cherry, which she lost when she was 15.) The television drones on with its usual pack of drivel, mostly commercials for health and fitness schlock gadgets, hair replacement therapies, new and improved diet plans, and used car showrooms - the seamy side of Madison Avenue. The shows are all reruns of hollywood flops. The (relatively) cheap studio in the pretentious suburb turned urban sprawl has thin walls, Sherri can hear the snoring of the jerk next door and the crying of Maria's new baby two apartments down. Or is it Maria?
Sherri worked as a secretary for a big company until their latest "downsizing', when her entire department had gotten sacked. She was good, she had the right junior college certificates, she even dressed the part, wore the right makeup, was subscribed to all the popular magazines, and had her department store credit cards maxxed. In short, she was everything that she'd been told was a ticket to success. Then why was she crying, feeling betrayed? Even the people in the unemployment office had treated her like dirt.
She stubbed out her cigarette, vowing once again to quit her non-PC habit before it killed her. Had her co-workers found out her dirty little secret and lobbied to make sure she was on the list? Naaaah, that was too paranoid. She'd have to tell her shrink about it. Oh, yeah, she couldn't afford her shrink anymore, she was gonna have to call and cancel the appointment.
Her unemployment only gave her enough to pay her rent and utilities with a little left for food. She was gonna have to sell her new car if she didn't find work in the next week, she couldn't make the payments. Maybe she could get enough from that to keep the credit card people off her back... Her mind went in familiar circles. She had to dress for interviews, she had to eat, she had to pay bills, and there was the tube - exhorting her to "buy X, you NEED it to have a better life".
Sherri lit another cigarette, she'd quit tomorrow ("yeah right", the voice in the back of her head mumbled.) She once again tried to figure a sure-fire way to "make it". Her family didn't have any money, her father had been laid off from his factory job years ago and was doing security work, her mother did a little housekeeping under the table. Maybe they'd let her move back in - they owned their house, bought when her dad made good money and housing was cheap. She'd have to put up with the crap though, that's why she moved out to begin with. Hmmmm, make that a desperation option.
The tube droned on, an ad for some exercise machine blaring from the speaker. It was loud, catching her attention. There, on the screen, was a woman who looked almost like her, extolling the virtues of the gadget with a saccharine voice. Sherri looked away, but all she could see were piles of tabloid, news, womens', and health, magazines - little yellow stickies marking recipes and diet advice. She wandered into her kitchen, dropping ashes on the floor. All that was in the 'fridge were a few carrots in name brand packages. The freezer only had major name diet frozen dinners, calories pre-counted, just the thing for a girl on the go...
Going nowhere. With that sudden realization, something snapped. A low growl emerged from her throat as she realized how she'd been had. A closet full of poorly made clothes that cost her a bundle, a pile of magazines that gave her no real advice when she needed it, and a cheap apartment that cost too much. Status, beauty, a great figure. The last "date" she'd had got too fresh and wouldn't hear no (what did he think, girls who answered personals were easy?). She'd been forced to walk home, ruined a pair of nylons, and lost her best heels.
The bimbo on the tube was now parading around with a hunk in front of a fancy sportscar. "Fuck you!" Sherri howled, slamming the knob to turn it off. That not being sufficient, she ripped the plug out of the wall and threw the box to the floor. "No more Bullshit! You lied to me, you all lied!" She then meticulously shredded every one of her fad magazines into a heap on the floor, reading the cover blurbs and adding "Bullshit!" to each one as she did so.
Then she hit her bathroom, and pitched all the perfume and makeup samples that she'd been "meaning to try" into the trash. Muttering "basics, basics", she threw away everything that was not standard, simple, and fast. Her closet was next: every trendy piece went into a bag for charity, she only kept the time tested standards - the wool suits, the basic dresses, her T-shirts and jeans.
Happier, she went back and sat down. What had she just accomplished? God, if her friends from work saw this they'd swear that she'd cracked up. Then again, she hadn't seen them since the lay-offs even though Carol used to call her up so they could go cruise the bars every Friday night. "Hmmmmpf, she probably didn't want to be stuck paying the cover" Sherri muttered. "What a bitch."
Her mind raced, the adrenaline from her rage still running in her veins. "Who the fuck am I, anyway? Why am I here? What the fuck am I going to do with my life? How?" Sherri asked herself. The little voice, always popping her bubble, asked "Why?"
She found herself crying. She didn't know the answers anymore, the faddish magazines hadn't given her the answers to her questions - especially not the last one. Oh, she knew plenty on how to dress, diet, cook, put on make-up, talk to the mythical Mr. Right, dress for success, optimize the use of her personal calendar and leave "effective voice mail messages". But nothing important, not now. She cried some more.
Again, something snapped. Maybe the cords binding her to shallowness, probably the cords holding her to normalcy; "sanity". She pulled herself up in front of the bathroom mirror and looked. There she was, thin, brunette, makeup smeared by the tears that streamed down her face, unemployed, unemployable ("I'm sorry, we don't have any openings." "You're overqualified, I'm afraid. We don't need someone at that level") and going nowhere.
Slowly, a grim, almost macabre, look came over her face. "I'm gonna find those damned answers, myself, and I'm gonna take the world on my terms from now on. If they don't like it, Fuck 'Em, they've fucked me long enough!" Having said it, Sherri started to laugh, almost maniacally. As her laughter dropped to a chuckle she got rid of the remains of her makeup. A crazy grin on her face, she headed for her bed, turning out the lights. "Busy day tomorrow" she muttered, again with a chuckle.
As Sherri drifted off to sleep she realized that the snoring buzzsaw next door was silent, and the crying from Maria's had stopped.