TITLE: 600 Megabytes of the Carebear Experience
RATING: T
SUMMARY: I, once again focus on another minor character of the Matrix series; Choi! Choi's disk from Tommy is not what he quite expected, and just viewing it sends Choi on a rage-fuelled trip down memory lane and the Lafayette Hotel. Any feedback welcome, constructive critique the most welcome.
-
Choi hissed. How dare Tommy give him a fucked up file? He paid good money for this sort of software. Instead the damn prick decided to spite him once again and gave him 600MB of the Carebear experience. Choi slapped the screen again and his meth-sniffing girlfriend DuJour piped up,
"You know, anytime now that machine's gonna fall apart," she slurred and giggled, sounding like some sort of bird.
"Whatever. I'm going out," Choi swore at the machine again for good measure and left his trashy, rundown apartment. It was just like Tommy too, to run off the moment the shit hit the fan. Choi clambered down the stairs, bumped into some fellow inhabitants but didn't feel bothered to apologize and mentally cursed whoever was supposed to fix the elevator. It had been broken for almost a month and Choi detested taking the stairs. He wondered where was the prick was now? He had heard some rumours that the feds were on his trail.
Hah, serve him right. He had also heard something about Tom being involved with that terrorist, Morpheus. That almost made Choi burst out laughing. In his opinion, Morpheus was an urban legend in these parts and to think someone so snitchy and lowly like Thomas A. Anderson could have access to a man like him was crazy thinking. If anything, Tom had been busted for his pirated copies of the Carebear experience. It was fairly sad, you know, to be sent to jail for downloading illegal Carebear episodes. Tommy would most definitely be a prison bitch when he got caught.
Choi wasn't sure where he was going. But he was going somewhere. Maybe he should dump DuJour? Not that she was terribly annoying or anything, she just took up a bit of space and slept a lot. When they first met... five years ago, Christ, that's a long time. She was young and experimental, very middle class and ordinary. Well, she had migrated with Choi to the BDSM scene and she was still very ordinary. Some people just couldn't get a shine on them.
He didn't feel like attending any of his usual haunts or even visiting his friends. Hailing a taxi, he jumped in, blurted out some instructions to the driver and they were off. Arriving at their destination, Choi stepped out.
"Keep the change."
The driver nodded and sped off. In front of Choi was the Lafayette Hotel, the behemoth of a building shot up to the sky. Dark, craggy even on a sunny day like this. Choi shook his head, some things never change. He lit up a cigarette and entered the old ruins. It was like stepping into an ancient palace, almost, Choi had spent many childhood years there. Always a top apartment, his mother unlike most people adored heights and would stretch her arms out over the balcony as if to beckon the sky into their apartment. It frightened Choi then, it still made him shudder now.
"Look at me, Charlie! I'm a bird!" she would cry out, collapse and giggle. It was all some weird, grand joke to her. Choi never found it funny. He hated heights, he hated how she'd dangle herself over the edge as if to dare fate to kill her and he especially hated her jokes. She wasn't a funny woman- she was weird and possibly unstable, but hardly funny.
Choi debated taking the stairs, it meant he would have to look down at some point and vertigo would catch up with him. He decided to risk it, he would never dangle himself over balconies foolishly and then scream out stupidly when he started falling. Each step on the staircase puffed up dust and though he coughed, he never sneezed. He was glad he had never developed hay fever unlike his mother. She was always sneezing, teary-eyed. It was kind of disgusting, and surprisingly even she had hated it.
He had arrived at the hallway; the hallway where he would walk down to room 10E, push open the door, lug his suitcase over to the bed closest to the wall and settle in for another 'fun-filled' week. But to satiate his curiosity instead, Choi pushed open the door to 10A.
It was disappointing, it was almost exactly like 10E, just more moth-eaten and dusty. Not once new and luxurious. The beds were positioned differently though, and the windows overlooked another part of the city but it was really not that different to 10E. Exiting the room, he entered the hallway and crumpled to the floor.
"Mommy, I don't wanna watch Carebears!"
"But that's all I can afford, it's either that or eat play-dough for a week!"
Her face would crunch up like some ugly gnome and she would wave a big blob of blue play-dough in front of him. She would take a bite out of it, chew on it and then spit it out. Choi was horrified. He would retreat further under his blankets.
"Yes, Charlie you're making Mommy eat play-dough. You greedy, horrible boy!"
She would pace the carpet, squeezing the play-dough with such force. Her knuckles would go white and with a great scream she would launch the blob straight for her son.
"Eat it!" she shrieked. Choi burst into tears.
"Mommy! I'll watch Carebears, please!" he sobbed. She would stop pacing and stare hard at him. Choi would wander what his mother was thinking; his immaculate mother, dressed to the nines but looking awfully scary too.
"Have you ever eaten play-dough before, boy?" her voice went all low, like the calm before a storm- the real storm. Choi would hug the sheets to his body at this point.
"No, Mommy," he said, looking down and not daring to see her eye for eye.
"Do you know what it tastes like?" she asked, "Soft, tangy, gummy- all at the same time?"
He shook his head furiously. Where was she going with all of this?
"Then eat it," she ordered, voice still terribly low and eyes now boiling with the madness Choi had always suspected she had, "Eat it. You don't know a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes."
"Mommy!" he wailed. He didn't want to eat play-dough!
"Mommy!" she yelled out in mockery, "You made Mommy eat play-dough, and you've got know what that tastes like, what it feels like, Charlie."
Charlie shook his head. Mommy frowned.
"Go on," she produced another piece of blue play-dough; blue like the sky, the sky she was so revoltingly in love with, "Go on," she prodded his mouth gently with it, "Just a little bite. That's all, Charlie."
Charlie squeezed his eyes shut and opened his mouth. Mommy shoved the play-dough in and it just sat there on his tongue, cold and disgusting. He could gulp it now and it would be all gone, but Mommy was thorough.
"Chew," now her voice was a feather-light whisper. Charlie opened his eyes and her face was dark and expectant, madness still swirling in his eyes. So he chewed. Soft, cold and gummy. He hoped he wouldn't have to eat it, but he wouldn't bet on it. It was excruciating, it stuck between his gums, made his whole mouth feel oily. But he persevered or God only knows what else his mother would devise for him.
She nodded and was smiling. The facial change was unbelievable, she looked as gentle and as proud as any normal mother out there, as if her son had won a class award instead of successfully chewing up play-dough.
"Now eat," she stroked his face so gently, it made Charlie want to scream. The worst bit, the play-dough was all through his mouth but he would have to do it. Finally, with some effort he collected the foul substance into one lump and with the greatest strength swallowed it.
"Mommy..."
Choi's eyes snapped opened, had he fallen asleep or let his memories take over his mind for a good part of his time? He had been clean for a while, so it couldn't be that but it didn't matter really. Point was, he had let his mother again feed him play-dough, had let his mother get carried away with the Carebears and the play-dough. Standing up, he gingerly made his way down the stairs and ignored the leering heights. At last, he stumbled out of the Lafayette Hotel to confront both an obnoxiously bright sun and the remainder of his doldrum day.