viber bleated its antediluvian yawps because V didn’t give an eff about tweaking the factory settings in his electronic devices and/or household appliances. The manufacturer’s vanilla defaults, staple chow from the microwave, amiable blondes were just fine to go on with, why to ask for more?He’s not racing after the mainstream frills in things of common usage. The simpler, the better was his long-standing life motto. He’s not a nitpicker to wrinkle his nose in the attitude of a seasoned geek because of the already mentioned eff not given about the cutting-edge trends and opinions entertained in the crowd of enlightened mudaks.
Not that V pulled for return to Nature – back to caves, and stone axes drastically simplifying your views and values. Not yet. He simply kept away from buying selfie sticks, and scalp ticklers, and stuff like, well, you know. And even though not affiliated with any branch of the cult of Simpletonians maintaining that Simplicity is the ticket to your peace of mind, deep in his heart he agreed to their Ace argument—you certainly would watch a windmill up the hill on a breezeless day much longer than a remote control on your lap during a sudden blackout. Simple machines do have some charm about them, if you think of it.
However, opening paragraphs are not the right spot to pump up sermonizing. It’s a discourtesy towards unsuspecting reader in their expectation for the initial rush of adrenaline by the sixth line, at most, thru their system… Now, V, reach for your non-tweaked stone ax! Do something! Act, V, act!
He grabbed his Samsung from its prostrate position upon the desktop to slightly tap the “answer” sign. Huge pan-cake of a map diffused over the screen whose edges cut away the caller’s ears. The operation was counted for by the contact who, in a well-trained manner, kept the phone too close to his phiz, like, it was a hanky for him to sneeze out his cold picked up a day before, the very next sec, ‘Apch!. Aapch!. CHWHOO! This motherfuc…Apch!. Aapch!.,' and so on.
However, in a perfect state of health, the pan-cake-faced guy was, as always. Keeping the phone too close to the map was just a simple trick of his to hide from contacts the bumped up protuberances of his ears.
So a simple-minded gull for you. Blessed with such a generous handout from Mother Nature he long ago could become a megastar in movie comedies. Yeah. Cooler than Mr. Bim. Or Bum? But certainly not Bam… though, on the second thought… hmm.
Yep. V obviously has ditched film-going for a considerable stretch already.
“Shame on you, Mr. Moron! Still stuck in your quaggy complexes? Scumbag teener! With your God-sent edges you should by now be running for the second-term presidency! What a compelling image! The ears so attentive, pleasantly round, warmhearted ears they are! A catchy slogan for your preelection picture, like, “We can hear the voice of the people!”, and no dirty tricks with ballot boxes at polling stations, like end-day blackouts, are needed.”
None of that was told by V to the face in Samsung, he merely thought it to it. Healing anyone’s psychic traumas caused by agonizing procrastinations with getting rid of their virginity within the framework of society demands to be quick at it and become a clear-cut market-target pruned properly, and compliant with the political dictate to succumb and uphold the all-accepting dumbness was not his job. Even less wanted V act the voice crying in the wilderness. That’s why he simply said:
‘Hi, Lex. What’s up?’
‘Hello, V. Still toiling for half a zilch? Wish it left you before you got munched to mash, that your silly hope to rip a lincoln off theprozza.com. Typing a ton of hooey per day for a goose egg in the buff, huh? Forget it, bro! They fork it out only to their kin mobsters, alphabetically, while you’re no relative there, not in the least degree. Don’t cut the figure of a dark horse knocking at the Ku Klux Klan’s door.’
‘For prozzas I care no more than for pizzas, Mein Herr. They’re a simple tool for whetting my skills and personal style. A propos, their Challenge of Month is a good spur to get over the damn writer’s block, “Half kingdom for a plot! All topics are sucked out dry. A-fucking-priori!”. While there, you don’t strain yourself, “Hi, scribblers, here the theme for you. Saddle up!” The guy collecting more likes and reposts gets $100. Pretty simple.’
‘Quit screwing both the keyboard and yourself. How much green have you corralled from those monthly literary races so far? Come on! You spend on doping more than the prize itself!’
‘Twice I was in the group of 20 in the lead.’
‘Wow! Attaboy! With 20 racers flagged off at the CoM start, right?’
‘See, the audience there is different. They think along the lines fixed by Disneyland and Steven King, the slightest step aside from the deep-seated rut and their emergency brake gets fired off. Every single like I glean there is a beam of hope for us to understand each other over the barriers of stereotypes dividing our nations by the endemic peculiarities in our respective debilities.’
‘Here! Here! Aye and yep! Over again! Seems like the patients at funny farms for their privileged cuckoos are allowed to frisk in grazing grounds of the Internet. Hence the splash dung of the couple of inadequate likes you’ve raked up so far. Or, maybe, from rehabs. Hold out, bro! Our objective is not money but the principle, right? And then, what is a piece of paper $100 worth? It won’t burden your pocket for any longer that the first maverick blonde in you way, will it not?’
‘Shut the fountain of your sermon, Padre.’
’Well, in short, there’s a friendly offer to you, V. Some real something. Nobody would ditch the suggested deal even convulsing in St. Vitus dance, V. It’s a bonanza, some fucking oil fields. BP and Shell would tear hair from each other scrambling for the exclusive right to hummer lullabies on you 8 nights a week. Improvising jazz, follow me?
‘What?! Drilling their wells in my private parts? Screw you, oilman!’’
‘Come on, man. I was purely metaphorical… What matters is that such a chance turns up once in a life-span.’
‘A-ha! I dig it now. You’ve sampled a shot of metaphorical shit from that bonanza and completely forgotten that I’m straight.’
‘Since when?’
‘I see. The stuff’s been way too strong for you. Call me tomorrow after you’re back from the strawberry fields.’
‘Wait-wait-wait! I mean business!’
‘Then talk business instead of balling it up with goofy drivel of an upstart pimp.’
‘Well, look… There’s some stuff that’ll make you famous, V. Wanna be a celebrity like Joyce or Pynchon, or Hemingway?.’
‘The third guy from you’ve just mentioned. Who? Again?’
‘Hemingway? I be damned if I know. My ex-girlfriend was once a month drenching his paperback with an outpour of tears.’
‘Girls and books? Things incompatible. You’re still not quite steady on your pins. Moreover, the mankind en masse have given books up… So you felt jealous and memorized the guy’s name?’
‘A girl from the hinterland might very well keep an extra Ace or two up her sleeve, believe me, buddy. Anyway… I’ve got a big file whose content will shatter the world in three days at most. The hot thing is only waiting for a lover boy to edit, sign it with his name, and become famous overnight. How’s the perspective, huh?’
‘OK, I’m in. Just for the sake of saving old man Lex from OD. Drop the file to my email box.’
‘Nah, handsome. Forget it, I don’t have anything to do with emails.’
Which is absolutely true. For some time already Lex has grown too concerned about his personal data privacy and stuff, you know. His case acquires symptoms of an unhealthy aggravation, more and more so. The guy got hopelessly stranded, nautically speaking. You might one whole week wheedle of him something as innocent as, ‘Hi. Catch the link: http://sweet-granny/bedtime-tales-for-grand-kids/introduction.html,' before he freak-and-feints out at the last moment. Maybe, because of his employment at some hazy firm working for the government.
A row of squat buildings behind the steely mesh of high fencing, the guarded iron gate,