IGMS Issue 21 by IGMS

Author:IGMS [IGMS]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hatrack River Enterprises
Published: 2011-02-01T05:00:00+00:00

After dark, at a bar down the street, Herb bought Pat a drink.

"I'd love those guys if I didn't hate them so much," Herb said.

"What is this?" Pat said. "You should be wanting to have their executive babies right now. You're set for life, man. You're Captain Kirk. You're Luke Skywalker. Because they picked you."

Herb took a long drink. He wished he could smoke in here. Where could you smoke, if not in a bar?

"Exactly," Herb said. "They were too nice, like give-me-diabetes nice. I'm not used to suits cuddling up to me."

"Get used to it. I could."

Herb ordered a wheat beer. There was a lemon floating in it. Couldn't anyone drink alcohol in this city without citrus?

Herb picked out the lemon and took a sip. "I just miss the hunger, Pat. I lost it somewhere."

"I think that's why you got into the game in the first place," Pat said. "You thrive on instability."

Herb thought about that. Was that why he'd relocated -- then lost -- his family, ditched the radio job, and moved out here without any guarantees?

"No," Herb said. "That isn't why I did it. I got into voice acting because I could act. I didn't have to --" Herb stopped talking. He didn't want to finish that thought, not out loud.

When Herb was doing voice-over work, he could hide his face, hide his voice behind accents and over-enunciation. He could lose himself. And when he lost himself, he could forget how he had, not even dramatically, but slowly and systematically, squeezed himself out of his marriage. By putting all the things he cared about in his office, away from the rest of the house. By being cold and calm in their arguments, not offering anything of himself, not even giving Rebecca -- his ex-wife -- the opportunity to change him with the things she said. The sex died. The love faded. Even civility became out of the question when the contempt crept in. So he and Rebecca did the logical thing. The divorce was finalized on Herb's 35th birthday.

Triela became his whole family after that, and she had been enough, for a while. Until she got old enough to be disappointed in him, to make faces that reminded Herb so much of Rebecca. And Herb began to pull away from her too.

So, yes, it felt good to leave all that behind and pretend you were somebody else, somebody strong, somebody like Mato.

Herb liked Pat, but he didn't trust him. Not enough to share all that.

"Escape," Pat said. "I get it."

"Damn right, it was escape," Herb said. "And when ETTV rolled around, it became more than that. You know the auto-translation technology in the new Google phones? Everybody's talking to each other in whatever language they want, and they're still getting the meaning dead wrong. They're still not communicating. And how about the fact that half the US population has emo-chips in their brains for 4-D TV?"

"I have an emo-chip," Pat said. "It's fantastic. You should get one."

"Never. It's like fast food in the 90s.

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