furtl

by Strobe Witherspoon

  I eat the pie made with the Zef junglecrunch booty

  Then I cry. I am a butterfly. Be my samurai.

  ZEF SIIIIIDDDDE!

  Die Antwoord’s global superstardom surprised many who wrote them off as a one hit wonder after their “Enter the Ninja” video went viral in 2009. The duo, at that time joined in the video by a young man with progeria (premature aging), would go on to have the last laugh, scoring a number of hits, including their timeless ode to romantic courtship: “I Fink you Freeky.”

  After his second choco tequilarita, Manny started to loosen up a little, and after his third, he started to loosen up a lot, throwing a sit-down dance party on his barstool and performing an upper body robot dance to a Die Antwoord beat for an audience of none. By his sixth drink, college-era sense memories came rushing back via a reversal of fortune, or ROF, the official term for regurgitation adopted by the International Competitive Eating (ICE) league.

  Luckily Manny was able to stumble outside of HR McChugNstuff just in time for his stomach to expunge a 276 ounce medley of chocolate, tequila, and sugary margarita mix onto the already sticky parking lot asphalt. Worried about the robot security guard and that his cheek was going to make friends with said asphalt, Manny made his way to his car and drove off.

  After mistaking the curb for the parking lot exit and driving through a sage bush, Manny was back on the road and trying to focus on the two headlights in the middle. Manny also found himself swerving to avoid monster trucks that he was convinced were sent by the DCS to sabotage his escape from HR McChugNstuff (they were not).

  Manny made it back to the motel that he had been staying in for the last ten days, the Motel Suiteness. He made a habit of staying at a motel for a few weeks and then moving on, so as not to bring attention to himself. He was supposed to check out earlier that day, but after his third choco tequilarita he decided to forego finding a new place to sleep that night. This slipped his mind as he urinated in the bushes near the entrance, then lumbered past the checkin desk, just missing the coffee and muffin station.

  “You gonna pay for tonight or what?” the motel clerk yelled.

  Manny stopped in his tracks, mouth agape, fly open. He reached into his pocket for a hundred dollar bill, took two off-balance steps to the desk, dropped the bill in front of the clerk, collected himself, tucked his chin in, fixed his exhausted and inebriated stare on the door to his first-floor room twenty yards away, and marched himself to his destination.

  This exchange was in stark contrast to Manny’s typical encounters with motel clerks. When checking in, Manny grew accustomed to the gracious, if disingenuous, back and forth that occurred between both sides of this economic transaction. Cash payments at motels were still common, and as long as it looked like you were committing adultery or watching dirty movies, but not cooking meth or plotting a terrorist attack, the staff accepted non-fEPs remuneration. This meant Manny just asked for two keys with a pronounced American accent and overwrought deference to the clerk.

  Motel business, in fact, was one of the few bright spots of the US economy in recent years. Because of the DCS, viewing or arranging anonymous illicit and/or adulterous sex on the Internet became too risky. As a result, cash receptive motels on the outskirts of towns were popular spots for this type of activity. Some people hung out, looking for others willing to engage in sexual intercourse. And others rented a room to view pornography or R-rated movies on the motel’s old DVD players, a popular feature as these players did not have DCS tracking devices. The DVD players were so popular, in fact, that men in trench coats lingered outside of these motels. They descended on new motel patrons like hawks, flashing open their coats and aggressively pedaling, for instance, R-rated movies made illegal by KRRAMMO – Brokeback Mountain, Sexxxy Hooters Thailand Vacation, and Transformers 6: The Rise of Panopticon Prime were particularly popular titles.

  The next day, and many days after that, Manny made HR McChugNstuff his home away from his motel. Demoralized and directionless, Manny took solace in alcohol and music videos. After the first week, his tolerance started to improve and he was no longer finishing the evening off with a ROF. But by his third choco tequilarita, Manny would start to mumble to himself. “Freekin’ stupid nonsense craptology for the numbed out morons of this moronofied world of useless sheeple,” was one example of the spoken word poetry that erupted from his mouth when he was inebriated. Eventually he would grow uncomfortable sitting in the backless metal stool and retire to the Motel Suiteness for the evening. Each day he promised himself he would check out and move to another motel, and each night he failed to keep his promise.

  On the two week anniversary of his discovery of HR McChugNstuff, Manny saw something pop up on his screen. It read: “YOU HAVE BEEN POKED BY SEAT #34.”

  Manny looked around at the numbers above each barstool. He found #34, on which sat a woman with sunken eyes, hunched over and slowly waving at Manny. Manny waved back, then went back to watching the music video on the screen.

  Derrrkk! The DJ said, “And now a golden oldie from 2014.” On the screen were two lithe young ladies wearing frayed, bedazzled sleeveless T-shirts that were cut deep down the sides with deliberate imprecision, revealing brightly colored bras. They were sitting in a cramped rundown living room full of old timey chotchkes from various eras such as windup alarm clocks, quill pen sets, and backgammon boards. A thin hip-hop beat played in the background – no low-end bass sound whatsoever. The video looked like it was shot on an old cell phone from the late 2000s. The contrast to the Die Antwoord videos of the day was stark. One girl was on a beat-up Casio keyboard and the other was playing a ukulele. They traded lines back and forth in the hyper-boastful and hyper-feminine rap style that was trending with young Caucasian women on the Internet that year:

  Singer #1: I needed to get some information.

  Singer #2: for my situation!

  Singer #1: I didn’t know what to do

  Singer #2: So I told her

  Singer #1: furtl it!

  Singer #2: Look up that shit

  Singer #1 and 2: furtl it!

  Singer #1 and 2: Look up that shit

  During the teens of the 21st millennium, lo-fi videos on the Internet gave American artists the opportunity to get their art out to billions of people around the world. They also offered audiences an alternative to the slick big-budget productions fed to them by the major entertainment conglomerates behind established acts such as Die Antwoord, Nickelback, and the tween sensation, BoyTraPpP, an all-girl band.

  Culture critics called it the democratization of entertainment, and every now and then, as was the case with the “furtl it” video, they were right. Viewed over 398 million times, the “furtl it” music video made the singing duo, Dare/Money, multimillionaires from the furtl advertising revenue the video generated. Manny and his cohorts at furtl were more than happy to give it preferential search priority (PSP) at the time because they did not have to pay royalties on those viewings to any of the other music label conglomerates they had agreements with. This allowed songs like “furtl it” unparalleled exposure and, in this case, “solidified the furtl brand,” as the furtl public relations team put it. As Manny watched that video at HR McChugNstuff, he realized that the questionable ethics of PSP, seemingly harmless at the time, was in fact an early nudge down the slippery slope his former firm was now racing down.

  Manny fixed his stare on the smooth silver linoleum floor. All Manny wanted six years ago was to get away from this world that had turned on him, away from the company he created, from his failed marriage, from a country that seemed determined to win the race to the bottom. But Bhutan was merely a Band-Aid on a festering existential wound, he realized, and these wounds became persistent sources of sadness and anger as he sat at the bar night after night.

  Still staring at the ground and still shaking his head, Manny returned to his spoken word solo performance: “Stupid craptastic pieces of garbage destroyed my baby. They get in there and they suck and they suck and t
hey suck until everything you stand for is sucked right out. They suck it all, those sucktards.”

  When he picked his head up a few minutes later, the occupant of #34 had relocated to the stool next to his. “Hi, I’m Ruthie,” she said, limply extending her pale, pudgy hand to Manny. “I thought you could use some company,” she slurred.

  “Great!” Manny said.

  “You from these parts?” Ruthie asked.

  “No.”

  “You’re mysterious. I like that. That’s why I poked you,” Ruthie said, pressing a button on the table that slowly, mechanically, slid her stool closer to Manny’s. Her forced smile could not hide the steady downward trajectory of the leathery skin on her face, which looked exponentially worse as it got closer to Manny. “So what you doin’ here?”

  “Gettin’ a drink. Watchin’ some music videos,” Manny sucked down the final slushie remnants of his fifth choco tequilarita.

  The two singers were now yelling at the camera, their faces pressed up against the lens as cats jumped around behind them doing the hilariously cute things that cats do.

  “Furtl it”

  “Look up that shit”

  Manny looked at the screen.

  “furtl, ruined my life,” Ruthie said.

  “Your life?” Manny asked with angry bemusement.

  “Yeah, my life.”

  “What’d they do to you?” Manny asked, forgetting for a moment that the “they” of that question also included him.

  “You got a few hours?” she asked.

  “Not reall–”

  “So I was finishing up my PhD at Stanford–”

  “You were?”

  “Yes.”

  “I apologize,” Manny said.

  “Well, I was finishing up my dissertation, looking at post-structuralist folk literature of 19th century displaced Turkmen populations in northern Tajikistan…” Ruthie continued on, telling Manny a story of a younger, inquisitive Ruthie befriending a Tajik elder, taking a photo with him in a store that sold Islamic literature, and posting the photo on her furtl (formerly Soash) page three years ago. Some of her friends “liked” the picture, which raised a DCS red flag. Two weeks later someone bought literature from that store in Turkmenistan and came to the United States and tried to light a bomb in their pants at a rally for the governor of New Jersey, Michael Sorrentino.

  “Anyway, I lost everything after that,” Ruthie slurred, wrapping up her story, her head now resting on the bar.

  “I’m sorry, Ruthie.”

  Ruthie lifted her head up straight and looked at Manny. “Shots?” she asked. Not waiting to hear Manny’s answer, she started punching buttons on the screen in front of her.

  Manny touched his finger to the screen to turn it off. Moments later, Manny’s fingerprint information, collected for the 451st time at HR McChugNstuff, was transmitted from the screen to the DCS, updating them on his whereabouts.

  When the bar closed at a DCS mandated 10 p.m., Manny made his way to the exit. Ruthie, passed out on the cold metallic HR McChugNStuff floor, was awakened by the robot security guard, which she proceeded to ROF all over. The security guard lifted Ruthie like a newborn and rolled to the exit with her in tow. Outside the bar, the guard dispassionately dropped her on the ground and instructed her, “This is your third and final alcohol infringement, and by the order of the Department of Cultural Security I am withdrawing your alcohol related privileges for 12 months.” The security guard then initiated its self-cleaning function, rolled back inside, and closed the door.

  Ruthie sat up slowly and looked at Manny. “Ain’t that a bitch?” she said. “Buy me a drink? I know a good secret spot.”

  “I’m gonna call it an evening.”

  “Fine. Lightweight,” Ruthie said, as she lay down on the concrete, resting her head on the bottom step of the entrance stairs.

  “How you getting home?” Manny asked. Ruthie’s drunken state and furtl story had sobered Manny up and he now felt somewhat responsible for Ruthie’s well-being.

  “This is my home for tonight.”

  “C’mon. You can stay with me in my motel room.”

  “Does it have a mini-bar?”

  5.5

  In the dark shadows of the motel parking lot, Ruthie perked up when she heard one of the dealers offer up a DVD for “Erotic DILF Tales 12.”

  “Can we watch that tonight, pretty please?” she pleaded like an entitled 10-year-old. “Pretty, pretty pleeeeaassse.”

  Manny gave the salesman a $20 bill and took the DVD from him after he removed it from its Velcroed perch inside the lower bottom end of his dark brown leather trench coat.

  “You are too good to me, Manny,” Ruthie said, clutching his arm for both support and companionship as they walked into the motel together. He didn’t let on, but a small part of Manny was happy to have Ruthie sleep over and break the monotony of another night of musty, solitary motel slumber.

  Ruthie passed out on the squeaky bed on top of the sandpaper sheets within minutes of the opening scene. Erotic female-focused films had become very popular in the 2020s, but when KRRAMMO came into force – Erotic DILF Tales 12 starring Josef Jonas was already in production when it passed — their content was deemed inappropriate. In an effort to skirt CRADs and KRRAMMO, the producers hastily reshot some scenes to play up the Christian themes of the movie. To their chagrin, it was still banned, and the movie failed to recoup its $125 million budget, even with healthy overseas sales and the film’s cult status amongst female-focused erotic cinema connoisseurs. Manny found the power button on the remote control and tried to shut the DVD player off. Because the remote had long since parted with its battery cover on the back, Manny needed to hold the double A batteries firmly while pressing the off button before the movie shut off.

  With the DVD player off, the TV switched to its default channel, the furtl Entertainment Network (fEN). Manny had managed to avoid the fEN since his return to the United States, but he left it on this time. He then went to the mini-bar and fixed himself a rumonut – rum and coconut water. He covered Ruthie with a blanket, then plopped his inebriated body down on the other side of a bed that likely hadn’t been washed since the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

  The fEN was a conglomerate of 25,000 different furtl channels, or fchans, and 96% of these fchans fell into seven discreet categories: competitive eating, non-eating sports, celebrity news, current events, live plastic surgery cams, religious sitcoms, and cat highlight reels.

  Non-furtl channels were not available on the fEN. Public broadcasting was also terminated after 2029’s Ban Big Bird Act (BBBA). The BBBA was spearheaded by the furtl mega PAC and budget hawks and fiscal libertarians celebrated this landmark event, praising the furtl PAC’s grand vision and the .0014% reduction in government spending.

  Using the remote that was welded to a thick metal chain that was welded to the peeling wall behind him, Manny turned on the first Current Events channel he saw. The DVD player was too old to be run with this remote and had little to no resale value, thus was not affixed to any structure. The screen flickered, and Manny came face to face with two old bulbous white men, both red-faced and sweating from the harsh studio lighting.

  “The Mexicans won’t even come here anymore!” the man on the left, Congressman Forrest Pines, shouted. “More Mexicans flew to China last year for work than snuck into the United States. Who cares about the wall when nobody is trying to jump it! We need the labor!”

  “Completely and utterly out of touch,” Congressman Trip McGraw, on the right, yelled back. “The wall is all that is standing between us and the complete Mexicanization of this country.”

  Congressman Pines, a Democrat from the 2nd District in Delaware, was a real estate billionaire turned politician. He had heard that argument before. “But nobody wants the Mexicans’ jobs!”

  “We need to keep the Mexicans out and keep the unpatriotic Americans who are buying Chexican in,” said McGraw, Republican from the 4th District in Idaho. McGraw’s constituency consisted
primarily of conservatives who felt that Mexico and China were the main reason the United States was in decline. His political star was on the rise in the Republican Party.

  “We need Mexi-labor,” Pines barked. Although his position was increasingly unpopular, Pines managed to maintain his seat for the Democrats for six terms with the help of the furtl mega PAC. Years ago, at Harvard Business School, Forrest and Kurt Sturdoch would often forgo class for days at a time to go dolphin spearing, or “chasing the D train,” as they called it.

  “Burritos are un-American. That’s what I say,” Congressman McGraw said, just as Manny was passing out in his clothes, rumonut in hand.

  At three in the morning Manny woke up with a splitting headache and rumonut all over his pants. As he got under the covers, he listened with one ear on the TV: “Transportation experts are advising motorists to only drive over Maryland area bridges for essential business, and they warn, do not keep those life jackets in the trunk. In other news, Vice President Field continues to lead in our national furtl presidential poll. Field has chosen to run using his own money, allowing him to forego campaign finance limitations.”

  Listening to the campaign news about the Vice President’s presidential bid was not making Manny’s head feel any better. He was aware of Vice President Reade Field, primarily from the “cash out your gold and silver” infomercials he used to post all over furtl websites in the teens. Field had deep pockets and built a large following by decrying loose morals and loose spending, two themes he framed as one singular viewpoint. On his many radio and TV appearances, he often touted his proposed flat tax and Social Security and Medicare overhaul as an answer to the country’s fiscal woes. This played well with the younger generation, who were convinced that the cause of all their problems was their elders, and won him a growing following over the years. This message also landed him in the VP’s seat, which solidified President Corcoran’s social conservative bona fides and election prospects eight years prior.

  Just when Manny was about to turn off the TV, something caught his eye. The “3 A.M. Talk-Time” host introduced the woman sitting to his left: “In a new segment we call WTF POLITICS, our guest this evening is third party presidential candidate Fiona Mathis.”