Five Gold Rings

INTERIOR. A SHABBY LIVING ROOM. A WOMAN, LAYLA, WATCHES THE TV SHOPPING CHANNEL.

TV: ... this burnished set of five rings, not available in any high street retailer...

THE DOOR SLAMS AS HER HUSBAND, NICK, ENTERS.

Nick: Turn that thing off.

Layla: ‘That thing’ has a name

Nick: Of course it does, like a smoothie has a personality and a games console has deep concern about your feelings. And, of course, I must use its name. How else could I tell the Hitachi Horizon Power Pro X from the Samsung Universe Megatron Seven? I might make the mistake of assuming that they were functionally indistinguishable!

TV: ... every home should have one...

Layla: It’s not that bad.

Nick: No, you’re right. You shouldn’t want to waddle as fast as your short, fat legs will take your butter-bloated body, until you reach the edge of what we’re told to call ‘civilisation’. You shouldn’t want to throw a match behind you, imagining the whole thing alight, vowing that you’d destroy the world for real if only petrol weren’t so damn expensive.

TV: ... only $49.99...

Layla: Oh, Nick –

Nick: Don’t you ‘Oh, Nick’ me.

TV: ... buy it for your loved ones this Christmas? Show them that you care...

Nick: Show them that you care about them thinking that you care about them thinking that you care. It can join the pile of scented candles and bookends, that shrine to the god of habitat™ that you’re building in the cupboard under the stairs. Let it fester with letters and efforts of old friends, the gaudy tat that you hate and makes you suspect that despite the decades that you killed together they hardly know you at all. (Or they know you well, and hate you).

TV: ...Buy now to get a free upgrade!...

Nick: Upgrade, update, upload. Constantly. These things elevate us above animals. We must be above them, after all it’s an insult to say that someone ‘doesn’t deserve to call themselves a human being’. Humanity’s an exclusive club, so refined with their deodorants and mortgages and democracy and semi-automatic weapons.

Layla: You’re just saying these things because you’re tired.

Nick: Everyone’s tired, they just won’t admit it. They’re tired of working nine-to-fives that bleed into eight-to-sixes, sink tendrils into the soft part of their brains and take root in their dreams. They’re tired of the commute, of forty minutes standing next to a stranger in a pool of their musical leakage before they arrive at the office and start it over again, but this time with an ergonomic chair. They’re tired of being told that they’re tired.

TV: ...24/7...

Layla: If you’re just going to be like this, I’m going for a walk.

TV: ... hurry, we’ve only got a few left ...

Nick: Be my guest. Feed the reindeer while you’re at it.