INT. LIVING ROOM – NIGHT
We are in a hip neighborhood that is like Williamsburg circa 2003. The roommates are a “three-person couple polycule,” although in this case, there is no polyamory, because young people these days never have sex.
TONY enters on his skateboard. He has “’tis” (slang for “magnetism”).
TONY: Hey, “chosen fam.” Have you seen the video that went viral today on TikTok.com?
SAM (ambiguous gender) crochets. NAOMI (ambiguous ethnicity) wears virtual reality glasses to “doomsday scroll.”
SAM: No, because I am not “extremely World Wide Web–logged on” like you two.
Tony boots up his Gateway desktop computer and surfs the ’net to show them.
NAOMI: That is so “afire”!
TONY: I made it with computer software I programmed myself that I am now selling in “The Apple Application Store.”
SAM: You have to turn this into a “side piece hustle.”
TONY: But how? I am already drowning in debt from frivolously purchasing so many slices of toast with avocado thinly spread on them at my local coffee house.
NAOMI: I’ve got an idea…
Instead of huddling and whispering, the three roommates text in “Slacker,” a messaging application named for Richard Linklater’s seminal 1990 independent film.
EXT. BOARDWALK – DAY
The trio stands on a boardwalk as beachgoer youth ignore them in favor of the wind-powered Ferris wheel, self-driving bumper cars, and target-shooting stations (the proprietors wear gun-control buttons).
SAM: (after making a land acknowledgment) Step right up, those of you who can, and be the star of a viral video!
BEACHGOER: My dream is to be an “influential online personality,” much the way Jason Priestley and Luke Perry on Beverly Hills, 90210 once swayed a generation of young men to grow sideburns that many of them continue to sport.
TONY: That is a “slapping action and/or sound”! Just sign here.
The beachgoer skips the terms and conditions and gives his consent, because his literacy skills have declined precipitously from years of not reading forty-something novelists who are still writing books despite a culture that no longer cares.
BEACHGOER’S “PARTNER”: Hold on—did you just sign away your personal information to “the A.I data centers”?
Tony begins sweating. His whole program runs on the A.I. data centers, which his Gen-Z cohort uses constantly, even though it will destroy their future capacity to work, think, and bathe.
TONY: No, this has nothing to do with data centers. It is powered by, uh…
NAOMI: (slowly) “Democratic… socialism.”
SAM: (even more slowly) Yes… democratic socialism.
The beachgoers send Tony all their Bitcoins as they shout catchphrases like “down with the fuzz,” “reduced in-network out-of-pocket maximums,” and “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.”
INT. LIVING ROOM – NIGHT
The roommates celebrate with nonalcoholic beverages and “girlies dinners.”
TONY: Guess who just came “sliding into my Yahoo! Mail inbox”? The world’s richest tech baroness, who is also ethical in her relationship to capitalism. She “Loki the shapeshifting Norse god” wants to buy my application!
SAM: “It is donating” cha-ching! What are you going to do with all that money?
TONY: Run for mayor. My slogan is, “A slice of toast with avocado thinly spread on it in every rent-frozen apartment!”
NAOMI: You as mayor? What are you smoking?
TONY: I think you mean, “What are you eating?”
He produces a legally acquired bag of edible marijuana gelatins.
Freeze frame of them laughing despite the dystopia they’re inheriting and also partially creating. Credits roll over Pavement’s “Summer Babe” covered by The Goose.
Teddy Wayne’s new novel, The Au Pair, is available now. For more information, go to teddywayne.com.
