There was this episode of Twilight Zone called "Time Enough At Last" I find myself thinking about a lot, even though I have seen pretty much all the original episodes of Twilight Zone about a million-billion times. At first I watched them with my dad, then I watched them by myself. The Twilight Zone is one of the many great things he gave to me.
The episode revolves around a guy named Henry Bemis. Henry Bemis is a bank teller with gigantic ass glasses who loves reading books. He reads under the counter at work, he reads on his lunch break, dude loves to read. All that reading doesn't make him a good bank teller though, so his customers don't feel him like that, and his boss gets in his ass on the daily.
His wife isn't about all that reading either, she wants him to give up the dreamland shit and head over to reality where the rest of the mature pods play. She rips any written word she finds in his hands right out, and doesn't feel the least bit salty about doing so. Beamis' life revolves around work, and home, so there is no place for him to read in peace. The only thing he likes to do, he can't do.
This is around the point you ask yourself, "Why didn't this fool become a librarian?" Well, the show never addresses that question, but if it did I would venture to guess the answer would be something along the lines of, "Because that's life, people rarely get what they wan't."
Anyway, one day Henry is reading down in the bank vault when an H-Bomb goes off. He leaves the vault to find that everybody is dead. His boss is dead, the customers are dead, his wife is dead. He walks around for a bit and finds food, so he's gonna be ok on that front, But it sinks in that he is alone, he is comfortable, but so alone. It is in this realization that he finds no hope in life, so Henry is all about offing himself. That is until he stumbles upon the public library. The library stands, and is full of books, Frost, Shakespeare, Shelly, they all there.
Beamis' couldn't be happier. He finally has what he has always long for, which he realizes was not to be alone, but time to do what he really want's to do, which is read, for some goddamn reason. So there he is, all set up, books staged, dat smoke nearby, snacks on deck, about to throw down what might be the last, longest, and greatest chill session the world has ever known. He leans down to pick up a book, and what does this nigga do? Breaks his glasses, can't see shit. Game over, clumsy ass.
Anyway, I don't know why I drift back to this story. My life is almost the polar opposite. I'm a baller, my glasses are normal sized, all I ever want to do is play video games, and I play them all the time. At work, at home, whatever. But there has to be something in there, something in this particular story, out of all of the great first season Twilight Zone stories, that has me walking past it's storefront every few days. I don't know, I'll figure it out.
I was also wondering why no one had ever taken a crack at a Twilight Zone game, turns out Jamar and them are working on one over at Legacy. That's cool. only i0S though? I guess... Whatever, the art style looks legit and the trust is there. It will be fine... only i0S though? Nah, it's cool. Also, There are so many damn reasons to hate me, no need to make any up, but I do respect the hustle. Also September is light, i'm down for shenanigans.
Oh wait I was gonna tie the Twilight Zone episode into how physical books trump digital storage and how that scenario could not play out in this modern age and there is true tragedy in that and goddammit...Also JERBZ.
The Protoculture Mixtape v.X Issue : People : Serling
