The Movies

        The restaurant was bustling with activity. The employees were all frantically taking orders in an attempt to shorten lines of people which flocked in front of the cash registers. Every seat in the store seemed to be filled by a hungry mouth viciously consuming a processed meal. Those of whom had no seat, scurried about the store desperately seeking a place to sit and gnaw away at their feed. As someone finished their meal and began to rise from their place, dozens more bounded to the scene to cage themselves in the plastic seats. The store was a cesspool of human activity. Complaints, cries, and customer service filled the building and transformed a place of service into a noisy mass of confusion. No individual noise could be heard, but rather a collective thundering mass of sound created by these rabid creatures in a frantic attempt to obtain sustenance.
         The sun shone through the large glass windows which covered the walls of the restaurant. The sky was a soft pastel blue and not a cloud was to be seen. It felt like the opening scene to a movie. The camera pans across the setting as a character is introduced. The regular atmosphere of a regular day. The shot centers on the character as the extras bustle about around him. Then the camera sits still.
         The Man casually looked about the store as he waited in line. His gaze wandered across the large glowing menu which hung above the employees and their cash registers. He stood patiently as he waited for the line to move and his mind to make a decision. Others were bickering amongst each other over prices and food selection. In any direction there were reams of hungry people ready to flood the cashiers with demands. He toyed with the coins, bills and other miscellaneous objects in his pocket as he remained in line with the rest of the ferociously ravenous. Finally he placed his hand inside his coat and removed a large Japanese samurai sword. He calmly withdrew the blade from its covering making no extreme gestures or sudden movements. Everyone in the store had been so incredibly busy that they hardly noticed a man was now standing in the middle of a fast food restaurant holding a four foot blade. Those of whom did happen to notice seemed more confused than fearful, almost waiting for him to surprise them with some sort of magic trick. The Man tucked the sheath away in his coat, patting it to make sure it was secure there, then placed both hands on the handle of the blade. He loosened his shoulders, relaxed his grip, and let the blade fly.          

     
      Those closest to the doors were, naturally, the first to exit the restaurant. They were forced out by those behind them who had either been standing about in the store or nestled in their seats. The people who were closest to the doors wandered around the perimeter of the restaurant locked in some sort of emotional trance, which appeared to be an amalgamation of fear and confusion. The people who had been in their seats came pouring out of the store with a hideous look of madness on their faces. They collapsed on the street in front the restaurant, some out of traumatic disbelief others out of actual injury. The unfortunate few who made no exit from the building were those who had been standing in the lines. None had even a moment to scream let alone save their lives. They were reduced to dead weight  covered in a blanket of red in a matter of seconds. As the police and paramedics arrived the employees came out of a rear emergency fire exit and huddled about with the rest of those who were physically capable of standing.
         The police tried desperately to figure out what exactly had happened. The people who were closest to the doors as well as the employees of the restaurant had no idea of what had happened. The traumatized and injured people saw it all first hand but were however, in no position to explain. This left police to scramble about for answers in vain, while the paramedics went ballistic trying to save lives, panicking about those who could still be alive but unapproachable dieing on a restaurant floor.
         The Man now stood in the back of the restaurant quietly perched on a table. His hand crafted 16th century blade gleamed in the rays of majestic sunlight which poured in through the windows. His eyes held a blank stare as his jaw hung open loosely. Every muscle in his body had tensed for combat but his face did not show it yielding an unconscious gaze. As he breathed his chest heaved in and out allowing small drops of red to trickle down his stained clothing. The police sent in a negotiator to try and reason with the man, to try and make sense of what had happened, but The Man would not utter a word. Whenever the negotiator would come near, The Man would just press the blade against the hostage's head in a shaking uncontrollable manner which deemed hostility, and the negotiator would forced to back away.
         
         I sat in the diner across the street as I watched the entire massacre. I had gently sipped my coffee as I saw a casual civilian mutate into a ravenous butcher in a matter of seconds. I can't understand it but somehow I felt there was a sort of magic in a transformation like that. As shocking and frightful as it was one can't help but relish in wonder of such a metamorphosis. It was almost mesmerizing.
         The diner is a dilapidated run-down coffee house with virtually no customers. Normally I would not sit in such a place but it faces the fast food restaurant so on this particular occasion I got to see everything.
         The owner is a large dirty man probably somewhere in his mid fifties. He doesn't keep good personal hygiene and he probably beats his wife. At the time of the massacre, there was no one else in the store so he lumbered over to the window to have a look at the situation across the street. In doing so, he somehow felt it necessary to talk to me. He shook his head as he wiped his filthy hands with a bar towel then threw the towel on his shoulder. "I've seen shit like this before, y'know, hostage situations. But this guy with the sword," he chuckled in disbelief, "That's just fucked."
         

         I made a fake smile as I took a sip of my coffee trying to forget the owner's stupid irrelevant comments. I continued to stare across the street at the blood, tears and agony that had covered the road. The owner wiped something down with his grimy towel then turned to me again. "So I haven't seen you around here before, an' y'know, this isn't exactly a fuckin' tourist. So what's your name?"
         I was still locked in the sight of the frantic police officers and terrified people to be bothered with his feeble attempts at conversation. I took another swill of coffee and without turning to him replied:
         
         "God."

         For some reason this caused him to fall silent and I continued to watch the horrified people outside for quite some time. Eventually I became anxious to know why my response had caused such a silence in the owner so I turned to face him. His face was slightly tilted to the side and he appeared to be incredibly confused. "God?" he asked, and I nodded as I brought the coffee cup to my lips. He began to smile, started to chuckle, then broke into laughter.
         He pointed at me as his whole body shook with hysterics. His massive stomach rolled as he continued to belch out full hearty laughs. I quietly drank my coffee as the owner openly mocked me in laughter. On any other day I would be calm and patient; all merciful, all forgiving. But this was not a good day to be insulting me. I was already enraged by world and my patience sat at its limit. So as the owner's laughs came to a halt and he appeared to have calmed down, I gave him a heart attack.
         His eyes practically shot out of his head as one of his large greasy hand clenched his chest. His other desperately clasped the counter as his face possessed a painful look of suffocation. He sounded like he was choking on his tongue as he spat out repulsive gagging noises from his last few heartbeats. As his system began to tear apart within him he tipped over sideways smashing into the wall next to him. He slumped into the corner choking on his last few breaths, twitched, then sat silent unable to utter a word.
         
         My gaze fixed on the silent carcass of the owner. He held a mute stare with his eyes virtually bulging out of his skull. I could hardly image that out of all people alive on this lonely planet, anyone could possibly miss him.
         As I grew tired of the large sack of meat I turned my head once again towards the street. Those little people soaked in red, still bustling around desperately trying to make sense of it all. I sipped my coffee and shook my head in disbelief. They weren't supposed to be like this. This isn't how I had made them. I gave them a brain. I gave them a muscle of unbelievable capabilities. I built them so they could mold themselves into a race of harmony and enlightenment. A world of knowledge and truth. Instead they turn around and structure an empire of stupidity. A civilization of impatient customers, frivolous technology and endless wars. A climax of idiocy where beauty is plastic, money is god and so called individuality is sold in cans. I looked down at my hands; the instruments which made these little faceless people. I wanted to scream out, "they're not mine! I didn't make those!" They weren't supposed to squander their lives away in fast food restaurants. I didn't make them so they could throw their money into commercial gods. I didn't craft a race of mechanical reproductions. I shook my head, partially in disgust, partially in disbelief: "I couldn't have done this."

         The Man across the street is still holding the samurai sword. It hovers above the child's head, red dipping down onto the child's soaked hair. The child's head is slightly tilted upwards and his face simultaneously expresses both fear and sadness. Not even a hour ago he was playing heedlessly, darting about the fast food restaurant, impatiently bidding the time till his parents filled him with food. His parents waited in line for their turn to pummel the cashier for demands of sustenance. They argued insistently with the girl behind the counter, maintaining the claim that they had been overcharged. They felt paying anything more for their meal was absurd because, their child needed a new toy, the mother needed the new soundless electric duster, and the father needed a new computer slightly faster than the two they already owned. They proceeded to impatiently demand their forty-two second hamburgers as their spoiled uncontrollable child ran rampant about the store.
         The child is now surprisingly quiet as he stands underneath the man's tainted blade. Tears roll down his face but he has yet to cry from the very real fear of being severed in half. A moment ago his parents were gods, demanding and receiving whatever they ordered. The customer was always right and with their perpetual supply of money they were handed whatever they asked. They were the average American god. Fast food, malls and banking machines had bred thousands of these creatures to meaninglessly pillage and plunder modern civilization. But now these deities are nothing more than bags of meat left to rot on a greasy restaurant floor. They lay lifeless in a stained restaurant lobby drenched and dripping red: all with eyes open, all facing up.
         
         I'm going to keep The Man with the samurai sword standing in the restaurant. I'm going to keep that blade shaking in his unstable fingers. I'm going to let the little people frantically run around, desperate for a solution. They have to know this isn't going to go away. You can't buy me off, you can't trick me out of this, this is all your fault. The police officers are talking to the delirious people, hopelessly scribbling down anything they can get out of them in their little books. Others are trying to comfort the emotionally injured. Soothing those who just stare out mindlessly screaming and crying unable to utter a word. I try not to but I can't help but smile every time I hear them pray, "may God help us all."
         The sun is still gleaming in the soft blue sky. Still conveying the falsity that everything is tranquil and serene. Endlessly cheerful. Indestuctibly happy. That's not how it happens in the movies. Senses of pain an agony are accompanied by rain. Blood and death are symbolized by roaring thunder and crashing lighting. That's how it works in the flat senseless repetitive movies that those little people love. The movies that they try and escape into. Constantly watching to avoid their own lives, desperately trying to admire and slip away into someone else's. So that's what I'll give them. Here's one drop of rain. No...that's not enough. There's some more. No, that's still not enough. We need the heavens to open with oceans! Let's pour it all down! Yes, there's the rain I'm looking for! It's coming down in sheets on the police officers who yell at each other to try and be heard over it. There's my deafening thunder roaring relentlessly across the sky. The little people scramble to get out of the mass of water hurling down towards them. The police officers put on their rain coats as they muddle around the restaurant, hopelessly trying to find a solution to their dilemma. This is the atmosphere I wanted. This is the depressing shade of grey that the sky should be. It mirrors off my horrified people and their agonizing situation. The heaving rain smearing masses of red stains over the asphalt. This will be a movie like no other. Myself as the director and these little humans as my actors. We'll make a movie they'll never forget. The critics will beg us to stop because they have no more awards to give us, but the fans will demand more. We'll be given every award ever created. It will be a classic that defies all others till the end of time. People are frantic and injured from a brutal massacre. Police are trying desperately to stop a madman. Rain hammers down on what used to be a bright and shinning day. We have all aspects of a film masterpiece: a malicious conflict, an incredible plot, the perfect setting. But our soon-to-be classic lacks the major ingredient of all movies: the main character. Someone of outstanding intelligence, golden kindness, and steadfast honour. An enlightened soul. A human being made the way I intended them to be. Free of boiling hatred, faceless commercialism, and impatient demands. My masterpiece waits for a real, live hero.
         
         A man goes running by the diner window. He is doused in rain but still holds a newspaper above his head in some dire attempt to save himself from the showers. He sees me calmly drinking my coffee as he is darting past and races though the door to come speak to me. He is frantic throwing his hands about, not speaking, just breathing heavily. Finally he manages to belt out some distinguishable words.
         "Holy shit!" he starts, "a guy in the restaurant across the street just slaughtered people with a sword!"
         "Yeah, I know." I say as I set my coffee on the table. I place my hands on my lap and look up at him anxiously. "So tell me then," I say as I cross my hands and lean back in my chair,

         
         "What the hell are you going to do about it?"