"An Argument for How Watching Sitcoms is a Brain-Numbing Activity Allowing Others to Do Your Thinking for You; or, Opie Hires The Consumer to Save The Incinerators"

The Consumer finishes reading and closes the dossier, then places it on the ashen ground beside him. He is sitting on the ground, legs crossed, back leaning against an incinerator. He presses one hand onto the ash and rolls onto his side, then over onto his knees. He slips twice as he forces himself into a standing position. He slips again as he bends over to retrieve the dossier from the ground. It takes The Consumer as long to stand up as it did to consume (read) the script. After he catches his breath, The Consumer walks back to the center of the intersection. “I read your script.”

The incinerators, both patient and anxious, just outright ask T.C. for their thoughts. 

“The whole point of my consumption method is to not feel any need to share thoughts.” The Consumer presses a thumb and ring finger to his temples and rubs in circles, a motion he had seen many characters enact on Television to demonstrate visually that they are physically pained through their being annoyed. 

The incinerators explain that they totally get that but that this is actually not about T.C. It’s more about them and they want to know what T.C. thinks so it’s like not even weird for T.C. to give an opinion. Unless what T.C. just said was his way of subtly saying that the script was awful and the incinerators should like just burn it or something. 

“No, don’t burn it.” The Consumer recognizes the sensitivity of his audience and closes his eyes for five seconds to collect his thoughts. He decides to let the fire in his brain release a cloud of metaphorical ash. “Your script is objectively very funny. But I come from a background of consumption so I’m mostly laughing at the patterns you’re perpetuating being stripped of anything but their beats. The fact that absolutely nothing is said but I can still recognize how and why an audience would laugh when indicated is emblematic of your ability to note the flaws of a perpetuated system of storytelling. This script is funny, it’s hilarious, because you accept the fact that most people aren’t original. Then to do something so original through an analysis of the unoriginal? Great stuff. I don’t know who would ever make it, like what network would you—”

The incinerators interrupt to say that they were thinking CW.

The Consumer feels a pain in his forehead, near his frontal lobe. He involuntarily rubs his temples. “CW doesn’t tend to push comedies, but do what you think is best.”

The uncomfortable incinerators explain that the show was not meant to be a comedy.

“Oh shit that sucks. Um. Do you, uh, okay should I still be honest with you or try to sugarcoat this?” The Consumer tries to maintain a face of nonplussed attentiveness but feels uncomfortable and fails to notice that he’s gritting his teeth and that his eyes are wide and horrified. 

The incinerators take a while to think, knowing that the next bit of information they will receive will sting no matter how it is delivered. After a beat, the incinerators ask T.C. to throw the script into their nearest feed. 

“I don’t think you need to do that.” The Consumer coos. He shifts his high-pitched voice higher and speaks with a tone he intends to be kindness. “There’s great stuff in your script. Maybe just hold onto it.”

The incinerators totally agree and they actually are going to hold onto it. They have a file folder in that one specific incinerator’s feed.

“I got this thing out of one of your ash traps though.” The Consumer holds the script to his chest, protecting the art. “Couldn’t I just put it back in there?”

The incinerators explain that finding the script in an ash trap was a great observation that T.C. just made and that yeah like the script will go through the feed and end up in the ash trap after they make a few edits so it all goes to the same place anyway so just like throw it into the feed and then T.C. and the incinerators can talk about something else like the end of the world or drowning in ash or whatever. 

“Are you sure?” The Consumer walks to the nearest incinerator feed, an open port in the side of the incinerator that leads directly to a destruction chamber. He holds the dossier over the feed. “Like just in the feed port here like I don’t need to slide it down a specific side or anything?”

The incinerators, getting a little annoyed but hiding it well by rubbing their metaphorical temples with their metaphysical thumb and pointer fingers, tell T.C. to just throw it in there and to not worry at all.

The Consumer throws the script into the incinerator’s feed. The feed immediately glows bright red and hot as the script is obviously destroyed with fire. Only ash and smoke remain. 

“It looks like you burned it—”

The incinerators interrupt to say that it actually looks like you burned it but if we deal with semantics then there’s no point in playing cards so how about we just get back to that stuff you were talking about with the pure destruction or whatever. The ash thing right? Earth’s new layer? Yeah that’s gonna happen and we can’t stop it so maybe you can just help us with that and then you can get back to your own stuff but honestly if you don’t even want to help us then we’d understand.  

“Okay. Uh. Yeah. Okay. Um.” The Consumer collects himself then hobbles to his bag still in the intersection. “I’ve got some lessons to work through. I tried to figure out the hardest things for me to learn and then worked on ways of teaching those skills quickly.” The Consumer bends over and digs through his bag for teaching supplies. He looks over his shoulder to finish his thought. “Stuff like eradicating personal opinions while maintaining personal affects or differentiating empathy from action. I’ll get to it all eventually, but first I want to talk a bit more about this idea of ash and smoke, the stuff that you create through the act of destroying.” The Consumer withdraws a lesson plan from his bag and stands upright.

The incinerators ask what T.C. would like to know.

The incinerators appear distracted, based on their tone, but The Consumer does not want to do anything about it and so instead focuses on his lesson plan. He reads a question from his held document. “In your opinion, what is the value of ash?”

The incinerators answer by saying that ash has no purpose, which is why Opie invited T.C. to help them stop producing ash. 

“No purpose is an interesting way of describing the phenomenon because, to me, ash is exclusively purpose without any value.” The Consumer drops the document into his bag and bends to retrieve a small, clear jar. “The existence of ash is so that objects which take up unnecessary space can be condensed to take up less space.” He shakes the jar and the pile of ash inside becomes a thick cloud. “So ash is actually, to me at least, valuable only in how little space it takes up.” 

The incinerators laugh. 

“Why are you laughing?” The Consumer lets his arm holding the jar fall to his hip. 

The incinerators claim that they are laughing because they thought it was a joke how T.C. wrapped around the idea of ash having value back to—. The incinerators stop and admit that they were just laughing to demonstrate to T.C. how it feels to have a serious idea laughed at.

“This is fucking nuts. This is so stupid.” The Consumer throws the jar back into his bag. “I could be watching TV right now.” The Consumer looks around frantically then shouts at the sky. “Opie! Opie! Send me home, fuck. Send me fucking home and grab me ten minutes before this shit happens so that when I help these fucking machines I don’t have to deal with their petty bullshit and inability to write drama—”

The incinerators interrupt to say that the script was actually a romance.

An incredulous The Consumer is aghast, he stares slack-jawed at the nearest incinerator then asks, “Then why the fuck were there so many moments in the script that just read ‘audience laughter’?”

The incinerators explain that laughter is a sign of romance and that, statistically speaking, incinerators always prefer a funny incinerator over one with a higher temperature or larger ash trap. 

“Opie!”