I stood up and analyzed my surroundings, there were trees in the side walk every twenty or so feet that bore scrawny apples, not unlike the kind I saw in the orchard. The sidewalk was in terrible repair. The windows of the buildings were all boarded up and not a soul was seen anywhere, until I turned around. I saw the good side of the tracks. There were just white people, a culture of monotony. It was even sepia over there, compared to the harsh, but dull color of Crackton. I picked up a remote that my head had landed on. Everything over in Cracker Town was moving really slowly, so I pressed the Fast forward button. Green letters appeared in front of me that said:

“Fast Forward >>”

Cars zoomed past, children ran down the street in record times, a guy in an alley netted dozens of pull-ups from a fire escape in the second that it had been running. I pressed pause.

“PAUSE ||”

green lettering down by my feet displayed. The traffic stopped. The children. I was testing the vagrant in the alley extremely as he was midway through a rep. I walked across the street and stepped over the median, instantly turning gray and lifeless. I walked into a market, the shopkeep was resting his head on his palms, listening to the 50’s equivalent of a shock jock. A miniature placard pasted on his apron read:

“Phil, Here to Serve You!”

“What does that mean?”

the little man in the lab coat said, his assistant shrugged, so did I. I played with the remote some more, I pressed the Menu button. A screen popped up in front of me that read:

“MAIN MENU:

CHANNELS: … 1

COLORS: … 2

TIMER: … 3

OTHER: … 4”

I pressed 2. Another screen popped up. This one said:

“COLOR MENU:

STANDARD: … 1

VIVID: … 2

*SEPIA: … 3*

NEGATIVE: … 4

SOLARIZE: … 5”

I was feeling very cautious. Otherwise, I may have pressed two, or even five. I really pressed one. The lab coated men in my head still bicker to this day about the pro’s and cons of my choice. I left the show on pause, and grabbed an apple from the pyramid display, took a bite and tasted a badly synthesized apple. It was tasteless, I barely felt my teeth make contact. I raised it up to get a better look, and saw that the usual moisture of the fruit was replaced by floating little ones and zeros. I pitched the apple at the shopkeep, how dare he try and fool the protagonist with a gift of a binary-modified apple! I waited to see his expression after the apple impounded the entire right side of his face, but it didn’t hit him, I focused my vision closer in and realized that the apple was still in the place from where I had released it. Not even a rotation had happened. I looked over in the corner and remembered why it was like this, I saw large green letters over the wallpaper.

“Pause”

I pulled the remote out from my pocket and pressed play. The tape slowly got up to speed. The apple started to rotate, then move, picking up speed, until it met contact with the salesman’s face. It shattered like a light bulb. Some portions of the neck and chin stayed with the torso, but the rest flew around the room and landed in obscure places. He was still listening to the radio, until an unseen eye noticed me out of it’s corner, he turned his head, but since there was no head to turn, he turned his neck instead. Chords inside of his chest cavity began vibrating, my aural units picked up their signals and sent them to the little men with white lab coats in my head. No squabbling or color commentary, a clean unadulterated message was delivered.

“Can I help you with something?”

I flipped out, looked away and pounded madly on the remote. It continued until my fingers navigated to a button labeled

“Eject”

Everything stopped and went black, I woke up.