FicWad

Having lived with Josh Rogan for several months, Thompson Thompson had grown to understand certain things about the man. For one, he didn't watch network television except for ten shows that he never missed, and still considered this "not watching network television". For two, that was a damn perfect place to leave his socks and he'd appreciate it if Thompson got off his back about it, Jesus, weren't things hard enough? And for three, whenever Thompson came back to the apartment after a hard day's work at the video store, Rogan would either be in his room demanding to remain undisturbed, or lurking in the front room to ambush Thompson with a /non sequitur/.

"Do you think a human being could survive for four hours impaled and in blazing heat?"

Today was the latter.

"I mean, He-Man or something is one thing, but we're talking a normal human here."

"You had a bad day, didn't you," Thompson said.

"I had a bad /week/. Monday I got kicked out of my play for missing a stupid rehearsal that I didn't need to go to. Tuesday I got a fairly well-paying job as submissions editor for a little fiction magazine. Wednesday I got my first few submissions, Thursday I handed in my resignation, and Friday I found out we have no disposable razors in the whole house. I tried slashing my wrists with safety scissors but it's just not the same."

"I'm going to assume that either the submissions were really bad or something else happened. Did your car break down?"

"No, it..."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. It was..."

"I really think you should check."

"My car has not broken down."

"How do you know if you don't check?"

"Thompson."

"Yes?"

There was a brief pause.

"/It turns out/," Rogan announced, "that the magazine I was working for has something of a reputation for accepting stories that wouldn't be published in other media, if they're high-class enough."

"Porn?"

"And lots of it. I mean, I've no problem with porn in the main..."

"You have a large box of it under your bed," Thompson said, with the air of a schoolteacher correcting a maths problem. "Most of it's in the main compartment, but there's a false bottom underneath which you keep more advanced magazines and DVDs."

"...How did you know?"

"About the box? I guessed."

"What about the false bottom?"

Thompson smiled, enigmatically and not a little creepily. Rogan decided to continue his story.

"See, the first submission I received - the very first submission - was about a genetically engineered girl who comes to a mansion for a dinner party, has sex with everyone, and is then spitted, slow-roasted, and eaten, conscious throughout the whole process. Including the eating. And I had to read through all of it. This was my first indication that the universe hates me."

"When you were twelve, you told me the first indication that the universe hated you was the fifty cent increase in the price of Action Man comic books."

"...So it was the most recent indication that the universe hates me. Anyway, as mentioned, I approved a story about a pretty glasses-wearing librarian who found love with another pretty glasses-wearing librarian, tendered my resignation, and looked for a straight-razor."

"Surely a story itself isn't too bad, though," Thompson said, trying to be the Voice of Reason while wearing a shirt that said The Sun Will Come Out To Blind You Dream/. He'd special-ordered it from a Japanese company. "At the very least the author isn't /actually genetically engineering girls in order to have sex with them and eat them." He paused. "To the best of our knowledge."

"Well, it's mainly the fact that I had to read it. Not to mention that it was eroticised. I'll never have sex comfortably again."

"To be perfectly honest your chances weren't looking that good to..."

"I mean," Rogan continued, deliberately and ruthlessly running over the rest of Thompson's sentence, "what sort of person would get off on it?"

"Hello!" Jimmy the Bastard announced himself, pushing over the door, and Rogan collapsed into a chair, one hand in front of his eyes.

"Now he's going to tell us about this cool story he just read on the Internet. God I don't believe in, give me strength..."

Jimmy the Bastard looked at Rogan for a moment, and then visibly dismissed him as a conversation partner and turned to Thompson. "I came around to see if you guys were interested in going to a movie."

"You came around so that you could use my car!" Rogan responded, taking his hand away from his eyes in high dudgeon.

"Yeah," Jimmy the Bastard said, unapologetic, "but I figured as long as I was using your car, I might as well invite you guys along."

"We won't be able to use Josh's car," Thompson said. "It's almost certainly broken down."

"What movie is it?" Rogan asked.

"You'll like it," Jimmy the Bastard replied. "It's a classic remastered for modern cinemas, with seventeen point whatever sound and better colour and possibly extra footage, maybe involving explosions."

"/Citizen Kane/?" Rogan asked, hopefully.

"/Silence of the Lambs/," Jimmy the Bastard responded.

Rogan stared at Jimmy for a full minute.

Jimmy looked puzzled.

Then Rogan shrugged. "Yeah, all right."