fish heaven — archie, post-pgt s1
Jan 13, 2023 22:53:16 GMT -5
Post by lucius branwen / 10 — fox on Jan 13, 2023 22:53:16 GMT -5
A R C H I E
"So Archie, it's been a year! I'm sure winning PGT has been life changing?" The reporter's got a million dollar smile and a periwinkle tie. He's got the voice that they all have, like he's not really a person but a robot wearing a wig.
Sometimes you write a poem about your fish on a boat, on the set of a slasher film, with a real life killer, and then you become a celebrity.
Sometimes things happen that don't make sense at all and you're left to figure the plot out.
Came off stage and pulled the good old I-have-to-pee trick – sat in the bathroom stall with Archie Jr. for two hours before both my legs fell asleep. There was a line of graffiti carved into the bathroom wall and now there's a memory of it carved into my brain too.
Which seemed kinda profound at the time, you feel? Some kind of an astute observation of life itself.
Then, I cracked open the window, fell two stories, and did a runner.
I'm good at landing on my feet I guess.
My manager puts me on sabbatical, which I think is the HR term for don't come back. They added a new clause in the trainer contracts after I left. Something about termination of employment if you win PGT.
Things keep happening that feel like a low budget movie. I get a lot of phone calls. Different agents, different companies, a million brands. Finally, a man named Jeff calls one morning and I tell him he's hired because I've never met a threatening Jeff in my life, right? Funny because then I learn that it isn't even his real name. It's Augustine Joffrey Beauregard. He just goes by Jeff.
Jeff has me do press. Jeff writes me scripts to mechanically read. Jeff plans my career and suddenly I'm the spokesperson for a luxury brand of fish food. I go on a late night show kinda coked up, forget all my lines, but the crowd loves it. I do a commercial for pizza that has me saying jeez louise im bonkers for cheese!
I'm lactose intolerant by the way.
Jeff unretires me from showbiz.
I perform at the stadium every Saturday for three months as per the contract – which I read because I wanted to know how much I was gonna get paid to lose during the finale but hahaha what do you know? The plot writes itself.
Haha.
One weekend, I half-ass a routine I'd learned by the time I was in middle school, but then the press calls it "mature" and "a subtly reserved performance" and I go back to the fucking pyrotechnics.
There's videos on the internet with high schoolers bigger brained than the Capitol's information bureau, and they're analyzing how Archie Jr's third scale from his left fin looks marginally different between weeks, so I must've replaced him with a more talented fish to secure my win.
Bro, my fish just died when I knocked over his bowl.
It's not that deep.
Jeff has me do a press release saying it's the same fish with a zoologist he paid off anyways.
I go to fan signs. A girl shows me the tattoo she has of a lyric from Archie Jr's rap and I kinda don't know what to say. I wrote it in ten minutes and now she's got it permanently under her boob. Shit, so I just give her a thumbs up.
I have a million dollars now and I have no idea what to do with a million dollars.
So I buy a house with a fireplace to burn all the hate mail I've been getting telling me that Axel Morrisen should've won. Then I decide I hate the house and I spend a while sleeping in a different bed every night. I grow a mustache as a disguise. It looks stupid and also I just kinda look like myself with a mustache. Maybe it's time to try a mullet.
I go back to my house with the fireplace. The hate mail gets more varied now, a lil more creative. It becomes not all that amusing to read anymore. The fireplace was a good call after all.
Half a year in, I get a bouquet of roses on the front doorstep, pinstriped, and I think about throwing it over the fence. But I've got the card in my hands, ripping open the envelope, and the tiny script says
Congratulations,
Costello Circus.
Congratulations you little circus clown it might as well have said – twelve years old and scooped from the gutter water streets of eight! So I go into the house, come out with a fire poker, and just go ham on it on the driveway. Then I go back in and pour myself a glass of wine. Oh yeah, I started drinking wine because it seemed like, I don't know, the vibe?
Alright! Party's over. It's time to quit haha.
But Jeff calls me and says they got a lawyer on the line.
Apparently it's a three year contract and they get seventy percent of my earnings.
Should've read that.
Fuck you Joffrey.
My goldfish keeps dying and I've stopped giving them numbers because it's gotten depressing instead of funny. You hit double digits and realize you can't keep much alive. You hit double digits and you realize a whole year has gone by.
Archie Jr.'s been floating belly up for five days now. I didn't realize he was dead for a long time. I put him in a matchbox and light it on fire. He burns in the toilet. I flush him to heaven.
Jeff calls me in the morning and says there's gonna be another season of PGT. My name starts trending after the first ep. I have to do press at the pre-finale event. They gave me another fish. He swims serenely, blowing bubbles, lazing by the plastic pineapple in his bowl, just a happy little guy. I think I might return him to the store so he's got a chance at life.
I look at the reporter. I give him a thumbs up.
"Yeah."
And I'm gone. They've got snacks in the back.
Sometimes you write a poem about your fish on a boat, on the set of a slasher film, with a real life killer, and then you become a celebrity.
Sometimes things happen that don't make sense at all and you're left to figure the plot out.
Came off stage and pulled the good old I-have-to-pee trick – sat in the bathroom stall with Archie Jr. for two hours before both my legs fell asleep. There was a line of graffiti carved into the bathroom wall and now there's a memory of it carved into my brain too.
Which seemed kinda profound at the time, you feel? Some kind of an astute observation of life itself.
Then, I cracked open the window, fell two stories, and did a runner.
I'm good at landing on my feet I guess.
My manager puts me on sabbatical, which I think is the HR term for don't come back. They added a new clause in the trainer contracts after I left. Something about termination of employment if you win PGT.
Things keep happening that feel like a low budget movie. I get a lot of phone calls. Different agents, different companies, a million brands. Finally, a man named Jeff calls one morning and I tell him he's hired because I've never met a threatening Jeff in my life, right? Funny because then I learn that it isn't even his real name. It's Augustine Joffrey Beauregard. He just goes by Jeff.
Jeff has me do press. Jeff writes me scripts to mechanically read. Jeff plans my career and suddenly I'm the spokesperson for a luxury brand of fish food. I go on a late night show kinda coked up, forget all my lines, but the crowd loves it. I do a commercial for pizza that has me saying jeez louise im bonkers for cheese!
I'm lactose intolerant by the way.
Jeff unretires me from showbiz.
I perform at the stadium every Saturday for three months as per the contract – which I read because I wanted to know how much I was gonna get paid to lose during the finale but hahaha what do you know? The plot writes itself.
Haha.
One weekend, I half-ass a routine I'd learned by the time I was in middle school, but then the press calls it "mature" and "a subtly reserved performance" and I go back to the fucking pyrotechnics.
There's videos on the internet with high schoolers bigger brained than the Capitol's information bureau, and they're analyzing how Archie Jr's third scale from his left fin looks marginally different between weeks, so I must've replaced him with a more talented fish to secure my win.
Bro, my fish just died when I knocked over his bowl.
It's not that deep.
Jeff has me do a press release saying it's the same fish with a zoologist he paid off anyways.
I go to fan signs. A girl shows me the tattoo she has of a lyric from Archie Jr's rap and I kinda don't know what to say. I wrote it in ten minutes and now she's got it permanently under her boob. Shit, so I just give her a thumbs up.
I have a million dollars now and I have no idea what to do with a million dollars.
So I buy a house with a fireplace to burn all the hate mail I've been getting telling me that Axel Morrisen should've won. Then I decide I hate the house and I spend a while sleeping in a different bed every night. I grow a mustache as a disguise. It looks stupid and also I just kinda look like myself with a mustache. Maybe it's time to try a mullet.
I go back to my house with the fireplace. The hate mail gets more varied now, a lil more creative. It becomes not all that amusing to read anymore. The fireplace was a good call after all.
Half a year in, I get a bouquet of roses on the front doorstep, pinstriped, and I think about throwing it over the fence. But I've got the card in my hands, ripping open the envelope, and the tiny script says
Congratulations,
Costello Circus.
Congratulations you little circus clown it might as well have said – twelve years old and scooped from the gutter water streets of eight! So I go into the house, come out with a fire poker, and just go ham on it on the driveway. Then I go back in and pour myself a glass of wine. Oh yeah, I started drinking wine because it seemed like, I don't know, the vibe?
Alright! Party's over. It's time to quit haha.
But Jeff calls me and says they got a lawyer on the line.
Apparently it's a three year contract and they get seventy percent of my earnings.
Should've read that.
Fuck you Joffrey.
My goldfish keeps dying and I've stopped giving them numbers because it's gotten depressing instead of funny. You hit double digits and realize you can't keep much alive. You hit double digits and you realize a whole year has gone by.
Archie Jr.'s been floating belly up for five days now. I didn't realize he was dead for a long time. I put him in a matchbox and light it on fire. He burns in the toilet. I flush him to heaven.
Jeff calls me in the morning and says there's gonna be another season of PGT. My name starts trending after the first ep. I have to do press at the pre-finale event. They gave me another fish. He swims serenely, blowing bubbles, lazing by the plastic pineapple in his bowl, just a happy little guy. I think I might return him to the store so he's got a chance at life.
I look at the reporter. I give him a thumbs up.
"Yeah."
And I'm gone. They've got snacks in the back.
