Orwell is a game about everyday life in the first century of the third millennium.
People love to call me crazy the moment I tell them the distance I commute to work every day. They cock their eyes and clutch imaginary pearls. I've been looped into the same conversation for years so nowadays I skip the dialogue tree to the point where they decide to feel sorry for me because that yields the highest chance for the conversation to end.
When a rationalization script reaches pity seventy percent of people end the conversation. For these folks there is simply no reason to jump into another person's ostensible hole when that person seems fine down there. Twenty percent of people won't jump in the hole, but they will throw notes down. The notes will say, "Well you could move closer!" or, "Is it your credit?"or, "Yeah, I wouldn't either, the town you work in is a strip mall with a zip code."
The second group is easy enough to deal with. I use old jazz standards like, "Gotta do what I gotta do. This economy, amirite?" or, "Craft beer and beaches, amirite?" It's super important to add "Nawmean?" "Feel me?" or "Amirite?" to the end of these statements because it's peaceful punctuation. It implies you understand what the person is saying but you don't intend to ever give a straight answer. So let it go.
An old friend outlier'd me on this strat last night while paying the bill for a favor. We go way back; both Nor-Cal expats, alternating current junkies and card carrying survivors of the Home Base era. My buddy had picked up a command center gig for the 2016 Game Awards then had the Capcom cup to work the next day but no way to get to Anaheim. I figured I could pick them up in LA and drop them in Anaheim, it's only like, four hours out of my way. And it's my fault cause I answered the phone.
When the show starts, his shift ends, so I'm sitting backstage watching the shows blood begin to flow, the intestines begin to pump, the arms move. A gaming award show streams on about one thousand platforms concurrently so in one area you will see purple bars with emotes that look like eyes, you will see big station cameras swinging around to people that swear they are famous, you never know what is on or off, I think it all may be on.
While sitting next to me during curtain he asks the question. "Dude, why are you still in San Diego?" I know the only reason he asked me that specific question is because he knew the specific answer. He wasn't a percent in my head. He knew by asking my mind would get in that old blue Civic and leave San Diego, take the five over the grapevine, through Bakersfield, stop around Button Willow to gas up and get them sauce rolled tacos, slide off the 580 around Pill Hill and park in front of that ramshackle hovel he calls a memory.
I would walk inside of that memory and the person there would say "I'm good, it's time to go." and we would get in the car, and we would go. I never thought he would leave, but even though the set change had happened, nothing could truly leave if he didn't. He figured that out on his own and decided to go. Least I could do was give him a ride out of town.
So he asks me why I'm still in San Diego. I cock my eyes, clutch imaginary pearls and say, "N!@@a it's not that serious!" My aim was to imply that my situation held no equivalence to his previous and how dare he invoke a "You ok?" I have reasons to still be in San Diego, business interests, favorite Taco shops, he knew that.
He nodded in what must be sign language for "whatever" and said, "Yeah, well, give me a call when it's time to go." I told him I have a car, he replied, "I know." Later that night we were both on the catwalk of the Anaheim convention center watching a group of dummies throw cat five cables over a rigging bar for sport when he received a text that said, "The ghost ship is burning."
I dropped him off at the coaster a while back. Hope he makes it safe.
I hope information understands there are no words in me for how terrible I feel for you and yours. I'm so sorry. Holy shit can it not be 2016 anymore?! Also Jobs.
The Protoculture Mixtape Issue : People : Sequestered
