The Man With A Million Friends by Hennifer
The Man With A Million Friends by Hennifer
Once upon a time there was a man with a million friends. His name was Kenneth
Spruance. Kenneth was a friend to all he met, greeting high and low alike
with courtesy and an unflappable sense of goodwill to fellow man, hale-
fellow-well-met, et cetera. Compared to other men Kenneth was not the
smartest, nor the best looking, and he possessed no great degree of class or
sophistication. He was, however, the friendliest.
Like most people, Kenneth was oppressed by capitalism and forced to spend
much of his time working in what was known colloquially as a job. Kenneth
was a social media coordinator at a company downtown. When Kenneth took the
train to and from work each day he was compelled by common courtesy and a
strange inner restlessness to walk up and down the cars and exchange
greetings with each person in turn, who of course he was friends with.
Even if they werent friends, the rare stranger -- for example, Jesse
Jackson -- would no doubt observe Kenneths unswerving approach and thereby
develop some reasonable expectation that he, too, would soon be initiated
into Kenneths ever-expanding social circle. If not, Kenneth was happy to
proselytize. He would share a genial remark about the weather, or complain
about current traffic conditions to soften Jesse up. If Kenneth sensed
weakness he might try a companionable gesture. Then Kenneth would seek out
Jesse Jacksons gaze and hold it like a viper rising from a snake charmers
basket as he whipped out his super-smartphone and with blistering speed
struck the FRIEND button beside Jesses name on SocialProfilez.com. Only
then would Kenneth continue on his way.
Many mornings, as the train pulled out of his station downtown, one would
find Kenneth still aboard and heedlessly working the crowded cars as they
sped toward the next stop, ever farther from his workplace. His boss, Sarah
Elizabeth Flinders Jeffries Jones lets call her Flinders for
convenience, drafted several passive aggressive memos about this tendency
to lateness over the years, but every time she would print off the memo only
to crumple it dramatically and throw it in her executive waste paper basket,
because face it -- Kenneth was too friendly for that. And he had invited her
to his birthday party. She felt a familiar stirring down below.
Normally Kenneth didnt celebrate his birthday, because he had been raised
to believe that it was impolite to exclude friends from an invitation, and
he could never accommodate a million friends at his admittedly large one-
bedroom basement apartment. But this year Kenneth was turning 27 or 28 and
he felt this was an important milestone, plus the 2016 Olympics had recently
finished up and all those stadiums were just sitting around gathering dust
and bullet holes. Kenneth found that he could rent a stadium for an
afternoon for approximately 75.00 USD, so he created an Event on
SocialProfilez.com and invited his million friends. He soon received a
number of supportive messages and comments from his friends, and everyone
indicated they would be attending his birthday party. Kenneth was over the
moon.
On the big day, Kenneth stood at center field of the stadium, near the punch
bowl, which was set on a folding table. He was surrounded by his million
closest friends, filling all the seats and even spilling onto the field, but
two people had a special place at the festivities Jesse Jackson, because
he was Kenneths newest friend, and Flinders, because she was his boss, and
Kenneth knew which side his bread was buttered on. Kenneth remarked on the
fine weather to Flinders, and complained to Jesse about the horrid traffic
caused in large part by his birthday party. Then he gave their elbows a
companionable squeeze and excused himself to climb the steps of the nearby
podium, where he walked toward the waiting microphone.
Kenneth planned to make a short speech before playing the host and
circulating to say hi to everyone. He looked fondly out across the sea of
shining faces, and then down toward those dear friends closest at hand --
Jesse and Flinders. The murmur of the crowd quieted as they saw him
preparing to speak, and Kenneth noted a rising crescendo of super-smartphone
camera flashbulbs going off as he cleared his throat. He paused as the
flashbulbs continued to multiply, dazzling his eyes -- something was wrong!
Kenneths social media sense was tingling like crazy, and suddenly his super-
smartphone began heating up like a hot brick in his back pocket. Juggling
the phone, Kenneth saw that his birthday partys Event page on
SocialProfilez.com was a blur of updates, as an avalanche of photos,
comments, and emoticons were posted all at once. The phone started smoking
and Kenneth dropped it with a cry as blue lightning arced at the same
instant from all the myriad super-smartphones around the stadium, coalescing
in a flickering vortex of social energy above Kenneths head.
ITS A SINGULARITY! he tried to shout to Jesse and Flinders, who were
frozen in an attitude of shock nearby, but no-one could hear him above the
stupendous electrical discharge. Kenneth knew he had to stop the chain
reaction, but the strange lights only increased the rate at which everyone
was socially mediating. The lightning increased lockstep as Kenneth
staggered toward the edge of the podium, and he vaguely felt himself being
lifted and then slammed down the stairs by a titanic explosion.
Afterward, for a moment, there was nothing. Then there was Flinders coughing
her guts out and Jesse Jackson exclaiming, Oh my lord! There was also
something in the tenor of the crowd noise that was changed, and unsettling.
Kenneth groaned and rolled his battered body over before cracking open an
eyelid. He found himself still at the center of a stadium with his two
dearest friends, but the other 999,998 friends were nowhere to be seen. The
stadium walls that rose up around them were composed not of ferroconcrete
but of stone colonnades, and the seats were filled with short people in
togas. Kenneth heard a shocked cry arise from the crowd at their sudden
appearance, but the words were not English or Brazilian, but Roman! They had
been transported by the social media singularity back to the Roman
Coliseum!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Kenneth spun in impotent circles, gasping against the weight of cruel fate
as he took in the armoured gladiators and fearsome wild animals that were
close at hand. The crowd was now chanting something that could only be Roman
for Kill them immediately! Kenneth caught Jesse Jacksons eye and shared
a moment of bitter defeat just before a massive armoured figure stepped
forward and crushed Mr. Jacksons head with a spiked mace. From the other
side, a starving and deranged tiger leapt at Sarah Elizabeth Flinders
Jeffries Jones and tore her left arm off at the elbow. Her shrieking brought
two more tigers and a quick end, before the cats began fighting over their
kill. Rebuffed, one of the big cats turned toward Kenneth and began to stalk
him with terrifying langour.
Weather... Traffic... Kenneth panted as the animal closed in, and the
Roman chanting grew more insistent. In the end, with the tigers cold eyes
filling his vision, Kenneth Spruance shed a single tear, for he knew that he
had sinned.