He always had that feeling he had missed out on something, not visited the right places, missed some clue, not read the right books, or was it because he lied when he was 17.
But of course he wasn’t, and he hadn’t, he had worked out everything, and had done everything right. It was just that the game was badly written, and being run on dodgy hardware.
He was also worried that all the girls in the game already knew all the rules, the gameplay, the cheat cards, and they were there just to wait for the male players to get it all too, watching them, steering them, and making sure they didn’t do anything dangerous or stupid, that might break the system. They certainly seemed to know a lot more than he did about what was going on.
But he was wrong there too.
Dave was also seeing things differently out of his bubble; and he now had a very odd perspective, seeing reality like this. It was also very tempting to just climb back into his bubble, and hide, or sleep.
He looked at his suit and bubble for a moment - he was a bit worried about just wandering off and leaving it for someone else to just walk into and use and then he remembered the tuna curry he had had the night before, and he suspected it would be a while before anyone would venture in past the firewall he had created.
He decided to go for a walk and explore this new environment - he had never seen all of this before - but instead of going back to the foyer he went through the NO ENTRY door to the side, and straight into the side street, from which there was light shining in from the cold blackness.
It was dark and raining. All along the main street, which was miles long, there were other cinemas everywhere.
Opposite him was an old Victorian cinema that looked to be falling apart, on the doorway it had the word Condemned written on it.
There was a short queue of very pale strange looking birds standing outside and they didn’t have any umbrellas.
Dave looked up and the sign above the entrance had the words ‘Now sh wing - It’s A W nderful L fe’, and above that, in large letters that were built into the building, were the words DODO CINEMA
That was Dave’s favourite film, he had it in his own DVD collection, it was a shame the cinema was closed now though.
Dave wondered why that had happened, and why there was still a queue. His video and DVD collection was not what you might call extensive, he only tended to buy DVDs if they really meant something to him, or if he wanted to watch something over and over again.
Someone once said that his mind was like a book, and you could read it like a book, but Dave thought it was more like a video library, a set of dreams or experiences that were recorded films.
Dave had a very simple video library, and very nice happy films, mostly from the ‘70’s and early ‘80’s. There was nothing in there that was inappropriate, which was probably more to do with the fact that he couldn’t reach the top shelves in the video store.
He didn’t have any horror ones, violent ones, rude ones, or angry ones, or any with bad language in. Mind you he did keep a secret stash of Pingu DVD’s that his wife didn’t know about - he had at least a small amount of rebel left in him.
In Dave’s mind everything had started to go wrong sometime in the 1980’s, almost gone backwards to an older form of world consciousness; flatter, less real, less depth and structure to it. Somehow nothing was real these days; it was all artificial, lacking reality, depth, meaning and feeling.
It was all too controlled, limiting, confining and compressed. It was the same for so many things - films, songs, books, Internet, people, even art. Even though the technology had developed in leaps and bounds.
What was being shown, and the imagination required to see it, were now both sadly limited. Where had it all gone? Where was the bright future, and why had it changed?
Or perhaps it was just him. Whatever it was - he missed it.
He shuddered in the dark rain and then looked left down the street. There were a lot of older cinemas down there, many of which still seemed to be busy, all showing the same old films. Apart from one which was showing Jurassic Park - that particular cinema had been closed down due to something large falling onto its roof, and it partly catching fire. Dave wasn’t that interested though - he didn’t like horror films, they were a bit childish and gave him nightmares.
This street must sure have some memories, he thought to himself.
To the right, and way up the street, there were a lot of much bigger, newer cinemas; one was a giant multiplex complex on many storeys with dozens of screens in it, showing lots of films all at the same time. It was all brightly lit up.
Dave started walking that way up along the pavement, taking care not to get trodden on underfoot.
Now that he was closer, Dave could see that the main multiplex seemed to be showing all the same film story, just in lots of different ways, for different languages, cultures, and genres. It was a very busy and popular cinema with a lot of very tall penguins, or so it seemed from here, going in and out all the time.
As he got closer he recognised them as human beings, and this was their cinema complex. He walked up to the entrance, above which in the air were some very big cables coming in and out.
The foyer was very busy; crowds everywhere, full of people, but all very pale and ghostlike. It looked quite out of place though against the natural nostalgic feel of the rest of the street, and the people coming out looked a lot less happy than the ones going in, which was not a good sign.
Dave looked up into the air and the lights flashing from the street were reflected into the sky, which itself now looked like one giant bubble. However you could still see the stars in the night above shining through, which was quite reassuring somehow.
You could almost make out the shape of the all-powerful great Giant Purple Squirrel, which as everyone knew, we were all a part of and elements of its collective oneness.
It was so obvious; he couldn’t understand why everyone couldn’t see it. But you couldn’t just tell everyone, some people probably thought it was still green, and you didn’t want to offend them - and everyone else, well they may all say it was indigo, and that he was wrong or didn’t have the complete picture, or it was only part of a much larger squirrel somewhere bigger and further out, and more complicated.
He looked at it again, it was almost hypnotic, it made so much sense though, and it was so logically flawless here, in this out-of-bubble world.
He then unprofessionally looked sideways, straight into our camera lens, raised his eyebrows and grinned, as if sharing some private joke or understanding with us, as the audience or viewers. Which kind of fell a bit flat, and made him look a bit of an idiot, which wasn’t difficult.
He shook his head resumed his role, and then stepped into the foyer casually, and ‘mingled’, trying to look like he was meant to be there. Which of course, he was.
There were thousands of people wandering around inside, but they didn’t notice him. It may have been his height, or maybe the fact that he was so odd that they couldn’t see something that was so out of place.
However it was more likely they were more interested in seeing what was being streamed, and getting into queues.
Dave stared around in amazement at all the bright colours, flashing lights, noise and smells. There were just so many bright neon lights, and LEDs everywhere.
Dave had no idea why they needed so much intense lighting, with so many high energy photons being generated, maybe they wanted to be kept awake all night, and eventually becoming blind with irradiated retinas ?
There was a large counter there which seemed to be supplying food, all different colours and shapes and chemical odours, most of which was blue or like salty polystyrene. It was just like the stuff that got washed up on the beach, but people seemed to be eating it.
Dave screwed his face up, it was very unnerving.
The drinks seemed to be all different colours too, they must have run out of water or something, he thought. You wouldn’t get penguins eating and drinki
ng that rubbish - not if they were in their right minds anyway.
At the back there were escalators going up and down in all directions which led to a multitude of cinema rooms. At the ticket office there was a very long queue of human beings lining up to get their skin suits and bubbles.
Dave wasn’t interested in seeing whatever films that had to show here - it all looked very mad and illogical - not to mention violent.
He did though decide to have a quick look in one of the cinema rooms; he walked over to the double doors and took a peek inside.
It was too dark for him to see anything clearly, but it was vast inside with bubbles grouped together inside bigger bubbles all floating around the bubble-shaped room, very similar to the penguins one but vastly more sophisticated and technical.
There must be dozens like this in this cinema Dave thought. The voice coming from inside the room sounded very nice though, sort of smooth and comforting, talking about things for their benefit, joy, comfort and pleasure, while soft gentle music played.
“I say, I say…” came a posh woman’s voice from behind him. Dave jumped. “I say - actually, I think you’ll find there is a queue, you know?” Dave turned round in surprise to find that there was a large, middle-aged woman walking straight towards him, with her hand raised looking at Dave, trying to get his attention.
Dave froze. He wasn’t expecting that.
“I say, I think you will find there is a queue” she said more assertively this time as she approached him, putting more emphasis on the word ‘queue’, and pointing back to where she had come from. Dave leaned sideways, and looked past her to where the queue was now shuffling forward, filling the gap she had just made, oddly just in the same way that penguins did.
She then looked down at him “But you’re a pen…” she said squinting at him in a confused manner. Obviously short-sighted he thought.
Then she turned around to look in the direction that Dave was looking, and at her now non-existent position in the queue. The look of horror came to her face, and she turned and dashed back waving her arms, and shouting forlornly trying to get back her place, gesturing to the totally non-interested queue.
Nature is a funny thing, thought Dave. Evolution and nature was at work everywhere.
The queue was very long indeed, which was strange as there were several open ticket desks. To Dave it just seemed to be mindlessly bureaucratic and illogical, with everyone needlessly queueing in the one line. It was something he couldn’t stand, the mentality, the system of control at work, with the ‘this is how it is’ and ‘red tape’ mind.
There were several other people behind the counters, why weren’t they selling tickets ?
Not their job, he thought, they were the “information”, the “VIP reception” the “complaints” the “moving bits of paper around” people. He had seen this before in many unaccountable ‘state’ run organisations, ‘just doing their job’. All looking busy, but in realty just waiting to politely turn back and belittle anyone brave enough to break ranks from the ticket queue, and then share the ‘can you believe that’ comments with each other afterwards.
They all served no real productive purpose, other than to keep the queue as long and controlled as possible.
Dave hadn’t seen anything as obvious as this since he had visited the tourist sites in Rome.
Dave looked at the people in the queue again, they were all grey, expressionless, the 9 to 5 grinding shuffling masses, all trying to outdo or tread on each other in the queue to get on, but not in a healthy competitive constructive way.
He had a sudden urge to do his management organising thing, he could see so many things that were wrong. There was no need for the queues, and all that confusion. He had a sudden urge to go and hand out VIP passes to all the nice people in the queue, waking them up, solving so many problems at once.
However he knew it would be a waste of time trying to do anything here. Even instigating some sort of rallying battle cry, some instant erupting motivating change event, like bursting through the front doors shouting “The cinema is being attacked by Alien Orcs” would only have a short term effect.
No he had to get to the source of the problem, whoever was in charge, the exec, the board, and tell them or him what was going wrong and why.
He had to go up a level.
He wandered over to the back of the foyer where there was an open lift, and he stepped inside. The doors closed automatically, and it started to go up. There looked to be quite a few floors and Dave was conscious that there were probably many cinemas on each level, with increasing levels of sophistication as you went up, and probably the option of always building more layers on top of the cinema if needed.
It was quite pleasant in here - there was even nice music - it started off with some classical music, and then it changed at each level. The next level was Stranger on the Shore, then The Noveltones playing Left Bank Two - Dave tapped his feet to the tune, and then Genesis.
It got a bit louder, and then it was a girl group singing
“I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want…”,
which was OK for a while, but then it got a bit uncomfortable, louder, more ‘in your face’, and finally it was some horrendous screeching woman with just noise and lots of swearing, and it was all very aggressive.
Dave panicked and pressed the only button he could reach, which was under a safety cap, and the lift dropped like a stone in silence. It hurtled downwards and stopped at the sub-basement after several seconds, and then was still. Dave tried to catch his breath, his heart pounding.
“Doors opening” said the lift helpfully, which Dave thought was fairly obvious, but then seeing the obvious was not always easy.
The doors, when opened, revealed a dark room. Dave had seen this sort of room before, and he looked immediately around for the elephant – but he wasn’t here this time.
He walked in, his head passing just below the alarm triggering laser beams.
All there was, in the middle of the room, was a very large black obelisk or monolith, standing on its end with a few lights blinking on it. It seemed to be giving off some kind of vibration and a humming sound.
It seemed to be very ‘not there’ as if it were covered in some sort of stealth material, like the planes in his book, as if it were trying to avoid being seen.
Clearly, thought Dave, the elephant has changed into a computer now, and has subtly disguised itself as an 8 foot tall black brick.
This must be the thing that was controlling it all, deciding what people saw. There was probably a smaller one was in the Penguin Cinema too, deciding what they saw, or more likely what they thought they wanted to see, and which part of the information they should be shown.
Cool thought Dave, he was going to fix it, sort out the problems, and see how it all worked. That was the kind of penguin he was.
He walked confidently up to it now, yet still feeling very small and insignificant in front of it; it was very imposing and important with its indomitable black metal, and its ‘all-knowing’ flashing LED lights.
“Hello” said Dave.
The box ignored him. It clearly didn’t deem him worthy of bothering with, which Dave thought was a bit rude, condescending. Dave waited a few moments, then politely walked forward.
“Hello” said Dave again. But there was still no reply.
So he started looking around it for buttons.
He found a few and started pressing them. Dave always adhered to the rule that if it wasn’t broken, don’t try and fix it, which in this case didn’t apply, as it was obviously ‘shot to hell’, and, well, it probably wanted to be fixed anyway, and it was part of his nature to ‘help’.
“What are you doing Dave?” came a deep, penetrating male voice from the monolith. He jumped for a second, but then he just carried on, ignoring the voice, and hummed to himself reassuringly as he meddled.
He just wanted to see inside, what it was made from, and how it worked. He kept on pressin
g buttons, and panels, and tried to work out how to open it.
“I’m sorry, Dave.” Came the deep dominating booming voice “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that” it continued, calmly.
Some of its lights changed from blue to red in a threatening manner, and the frequency at which it vibrated changed.
Dave stopped, and backed away, unsure of himself now.
Yet he was also a scientist and that made him curious, and he was trying to decide if he should use the ‘theoretical scientist method’ or the ‘experimental scientist’ approach; the ‘try and guess what is in there’ or ‘smash it apart and see what it was made of’ approach.
He reached into his pocket and took out his new Swiss Army knife that he had been given at Christmas, opened it out, and selected the flat blade screwdriver attachment.
Dave The Penguin Page 12