entertainment – catch it right now on Deadly Fun ! Playing exclusively on Channel Blue 752.’
More clips raced by: a bear chasing a camper, a jogger bitten by a mountain lion and, faster than Perry could keep track, various surfers being attacked by various sharks. ‘If you love seeing them in the great outdoors, turn to Earthles Feed the Animals , now exclusively on Channel Blue 753!’ Then drunks tumbled down stairs, fell out of windows and vomited on themselves: ‘Their screwed-up brains just won’t let them stop! Earthles Under the Influence , now on Channel Blue 754, 755, 756 and 757!’ The onslaught of frantic images continued – kitchen spills, naked people shaving their body hair, power-tool accidents, a man setting his hair on fire with a Tiki torch – flickering by faster and faster until Perry, his head aching from trying to keep up, was forced to avert his gaze.
‘How many Channel Blues are there?’
‘Between 1000 and 2000, depending on the time of day,’ Amanda said. ‘Our viewers have incredibly sophisticated attention spans. They have hundreds of thousands of channels to choose from and usually watch a dozen at a time. They can switch from one to the other with a mere thought impulse, so we like to give them as many options as we can.’
‘Jesus,’ Perry said. Nicely dressed men and women were being shot in their faces with corks from champagne bottles. The Champagne Show was playing on Channel Blue 769.
‘That’s nothing,’ Amanda said. ‘When ratings were good, we had 3000.’
‘What’s this?’ Perry asked. He pointed at the wall opposite the fast-moving clips, where a man on the side of a highway was trying unsuccessfully to change a tyre on his car, cursing to himself. ‘Looks a little boring.’
‘Oh, that’s a series,’ Amanda said. ‘The guy changing the tyre is Hugh Palmer, the Most Impatient Man in the Galaxy.’
Perry turned his gaze to the floor, where a nun kneeled, praying raptly before a living and breathing Virgin Mary. The Virgin smiled beatifically beneath a halo of blinding light. ‘My God,’ Perry said. ‘That nun is having a vision.’
Amanda briefly raised her eyes from the pyramid. ‘Oh yeah. We did a pretty good job on that one.’
Perry blinked. ‘You give people visions?’
Amanda nodded. ‘It’s a great inciting incident.’ Perry gaped at the glowing Virgin, then became distracted by a screaming teenage boy running across the ceiling as a volleyball hit him in the head. Two groups of boys in matching shirts and shorts flung balls at each other. Perry quickly recognised this as dodge ball, a routine ritual of humiliation in gym classes.
‘Gym class?’ Perry said.
‘A staple of the channel,’ Amanda replied, continuing to push tiles on the pyramid. ‘A producer came up with the idea.’
‘Of broadcasting gym classes?’
‘No. Of gym classes.’
Perry frowned. ‘You invented gym?’
‘Come on,’ Amanda said. ‘What does gym have to do with education? You didn’t think there was any real point to it, did you?’
Perry thought back to his own seventh-grade gym class, in which a squadron of adolescent terrorists-in-training were spurred towards violence by an alcoholic crew-cutted cross between W.C. Fields and Stalin named Coach Rasmussen. ‘Now that you mention it,’ he said, ‘no.’
Amanda threw her hands out as if to say, There you go . Perry shook his head, still trying to understand. ‘In order to watch boys torture each other, you invented gym class.’
‘The girls are also very compelling—’
‘How long have you been spying on us?’
‘You mean, how long have we been producing Earth?’
‘Whatever you want to call it. How long have you been here?’
‘About 150 years.’
‘What?’
‘That’s really not that long. We have planets that have been broadcasting for centuries.’
While Perry tried to fathom this, the shots of gym class suddenly gave way to a middle-aged man in a hospital gown lying
More clips raced by: a bear chasing a camper, a jogger bitten by a mountain lion and, faster than Perry could keep track, various surfers being attacked by various sharks. ‘If you love seeing them in the great outdoors, turn to Earthles Feed the Animals , now exclusively on Channel Blue 753!’ Then drunks tumbled down stairs, fell out of windows and vomited on themselves: ‘Their screwed-up brains just won’t let them stop! Earthles Under the Influence , now on Channel Blue 754, 755, 756 and 757!’ The onslaught of frantic images continued – kitchen spills, naked people shaving their body hair, power-tool accidents, a man setting his hair on fire with a Tiki torch – flickering by faster and faster until Perry, his head aching from trying to keep up, was forced to avert his gaze.
‘How many Channel Blues are there?’
‘Between 1000 and 2000, depending on the time of day,’ Amanda said. ‘Our viewers have incredibly sophisticated attention spans. They have hundreds of thousands of channels to choose from and usually watch a dozen at a time. They can switch from one to the other with a mere thought impulse, so we like to give them as many options as we can.’
‘Jesus,’ Perry said. Nicely dressed men and women were being shot in their faces with corks from champagne bottles. The Champagne Show was playing on Channel Blue 769.
‘That’s nothing,’ Amanda said. ‘When ratings were good, we had 3000.’
‘What’s this?’ Perry asked. He pointed at the wall opposite the fast-moving clips, where a man on the side of a highway was trying unsuccessfully to change a tyre on his car, cursing to himself. ‘Looks a little boring.’
‘Oh, that’s a series,’ Amanda said. ‘The guy changing the tyre is Hugh Palmer, the Most Impatient Man in the Galaxy.’
Perry turned his gaze to the floor, where a nun kneeled, praying raptly before a living and breathing Virgin Mary. The Virgin smiled beatifically beneath a halo of blinding light. ‘My God,’ Perry said. ‘That nun is having a vision.’
Amanda briefly raised her eyes from the pyramid. ‘Oh yeah. We did a pretty good job on that one.’
Perry blinked. ‘You give people visions?’
Amanda nodded. ‘It’s a great inciting incident.’ Perry gaped at the glowing Virgin, then became distracted by a screaming teenage boy running across the ceiling as a volleyball hit him in the head. Two groups of boys in matching shirts and shorts flung balls at each other. Perry quickly recognised this as dodge ball, a routine ritual of humiliation in gym classes.
‘Gym class?’ Perry said.
‘A staple of the channel,’ Amanda replied, continuing to push tiles on the pyramid. ‘A producer came up with the idea.’
‘Of broadcasting gym classes?’
‘No. Of gym classes.’
Perry frowned. ‘You invented gym?’
‘Come on,’ Amanda said. ‘What does gym have to do with education? You didn’t think there was any real point to it, did you?’
Perry thought back to his own seventh-grade gym class, in which a squadron of adolescent terrorists-in-training were spurred towards violence by an alcoholic crew-cutted cross between W.C. Fields and Stalin named Coach Rasmussen. ‘Now that you mention it,’ he said, ‘no.’
Amanda threw her hands out as if to say, There you go . Perry shook his head, still trying to understand. ‘In order to watch boys torture each other, you invented gym class.’
‘The girls are also very compelling—’
‘How long have you been spying on us?’
‘You mean, how long have we been producing Earth?’
‘Whatever you want to call it. How long have you been here?’
‘About 150 years.’
‘What?’
‘That’s really not that long. We have planets that have been broadcasting for centuries.’
While Perry tried to fathom this, the shots of gym class suddenly gave way to a middle-aged man in a hospital gown lying
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