IRL Console 2 Push I

Dave woke once again to the offensive sound of his phone's alarm. He had only gone to bed 3 hours ago and now had to drag his a.s.s out of it again and get to work. Yes, somewhat surprisingly Dave actually managed to hold down a job. Even the pilot knew it needed money to waste. This time, same as every other time, he was cutting it fine and would only arrive at the very last minute. Of course, this was mainly due to him abusing the snooze feature for over 30 minutes.

A quick splash in the shower, a rough pa.s.s with an electrical razor, and a lightning speed (and therefore pretty pointless) brush of his teeth had Dave on the road in only 15 minutes. Of course, Dave was cursing himself the entire time.

Rather than listening to the radio, Dave habitually sang to his steering wheel; usually some 90's grunge or some post grunge masterpiece by Chris Cornell. Of course, Dave would be lynched by any Chris Cornell fan if they actually heard him...

As he was trying to work out how to do a low metal scream (and failing miserably) Dave suddenly noticed some sort of an artifact playing at the edge of his peripheral vision. When he turned his eyes towards it it moved as well, remaining at the edges of his vision and just generally being b.l.o.o.d.y distracting.

Dave found it irritating but he guessed it would just go away if he tried to ignore it. Besides, with his lack of sleep he was positively a danger to himself and others on the road. Concentration was of paramount importance right now. Yet again Dave cursed the silent pilot for making him do something so f.u.c.king stupid.

********

Work dragged on and Dave fought the urge to close his eyes and sleep for the entire morning. His lunch break began at 1pm and would give him an hour to grab a nap. The mystery floater at the edge of his vision was still there bothering the h.e.l.l of him. Dave was pretty sure he felt a faint headache coming on but it never quite materialised.

1pm rolled around and the pilot slumped into a chair, covered himself with a coat, and shut his eyes. Dave saw the floater sitting there at the top left like a square shaped photo negative. With his eyes shut he was finally able to focus on it a little. It didn't move this time when he looked at it. There was a familiar and yet strangely unrecognisable symbol on the square shaped visual artifact.

"What the f.u.c.k kind of floater is this??" thought Dave. "Hmmm... Squiggly line??

"That's... No f.u.c.king way! It's that s.h.i.+tty cheat key from Skyrim! Haha no wonder! I guess I've finally gone and cracked!"

Dave was currently pretty sure that yesterday's self wrought torture/gaming session, coupled with sleep deprivation, had finally pushed him over the edge. To be fair, he felt that he had been teetering on the edge of madness for a while now. Was there really a pilot or was he just a genuinely s.h.i.+tty person? Was he just offloading responsibility and blame to an imaginary external ent.i.ty? Now, this floating tilde key in his mind was merely the first symptom of his descent into insanity.

"Well, to think I would end up driving myself crazy..." Dave's imaginary avatar inside his mind shook his head with a wry smile.

"So, what does one do when they have a b.l.o.o.d.y b.u.t.ton in their brain? Should I... Should I push it??"