The Cutting Room Floor

[Outfoxd]

SOTF Headquarters
Conference Room
1 hour after the end of SOTF-TV: Season 65


Cameras flash. He's blinded. Vision returns slowly, only to be stolen again by a hundred flashbulbs.

Reporters, bloggers, assholes with Facebook accounts and a modicum of internet fame clamor for his attention, hunting for quotes, for marketable soundbites.

The moderator, a fat little man in a cheaply-tailored suit, points to one of the crowd's outstretched hands.

"Mr. Ross," A woman in a red dress brandishing a notepad says, "What's in store for you now that you're won SOTF-TV Season 65?"

He coughs before answering. "I'm going to Disneyland!"

His smile appears genuine, but on the inside, it's full of barely contained venom. The assembled crowd laughs, delighted at their new star. He's photogenic. He's funny. He's perfect.

And he hates all of them.

Another question, this time from a man with a fedora who looks like he stepped out of The Maltese Falcon.

"Do you regret not being able to get any of your team out?"

"Of course. It'll stay with me for the rest of my days. But it couldn't be helped, I guess." That one Mason reads right from the script the TV execs had handed him. They want him to be diplomatic.

He supposes it's true. Timothy was crazy. Kevin was...Mason don't know what the fuck happened with Kevin, but he'd never forget it.

One more question, from a young guy way in the back who looked like he was just out of high school.

"What are you going to do now that you've won, Mr. Ross?"

He was quiet for awhile. The crowd seemed uncomfortable. Could their star have lost his pep already?

He settles back in his chair, takes a deep breath.

"Whatever I have to."

[Outfoxd]

[[The following is an excerpt from the New York Times Bestseller, SOTF-TV: When the Bullets Stop Flying and the Kids Stop Dying, by Richard Ashton ]]


I met Mason Ross for coffee at a shop near his home in Bryan almost a week and a half after the season had ended.

It was a charming, unassuming shop imbued with the moniker "The Ground Floor." Fitting, as Mason was a charming, unassuming young man. That he had been thrust into the public eye with no small amount of fanfare didn't change that about him.

The staff at the shop knew him; whether it was because of his newfound fame or because he was a regular was something I didn't discover from chatting with him.

You would never have thought him capable of surviving an ordeal just by talking to him. By all accounts he had adjusted well, both to his actions and the consequences.

I decided to open with questions of his co-victor, Karen Ruiz. The opinions of these kids of each other was as important as it was of themselves, if we were to truly understand what TV did for and to them. I had a rare opportunity to hear these accounts firsthand, considering season 65 had been a multi-winner one.


"How do you feel about Karen Ruiz?" I had asked.

"How should I feel?" He had said. His eyes had lit with some untold emotion. I got the feeling he was amused by the question.

"Do you have any sort of enmity for her? Do you stay in contact? You two did go through an ordeal."

He sipped at his cappuccino, as if stalling for time for an answer.

"Ruiz...she's alright, you know. I talked to her for a little while. We had a nice discussion and, you know, we got everything sorted."

He had laughed.

"She did what she felt she had to do, you know? Can't say much more than that."

Perhaps. But I wish he had.

[Outfoxd]

Autograph on a high schooler's basketball two weeks after the end of Season 65.

"To Jason McManus; Sometimes, everything will work out. -Mason Ross."