Fuzzy Horizontal Lines

[The Honeless Beard]

((Italicized words are from Rattlesnake's really awesome SC1 Prologue Preface, which you can read here))

You just wanna know what to think of me, don’t you?

Baxter clicked on the screen, causing a big pause button to bloom across Nick Reid's face before fading back out. He hovered his mouse over one of the dude's nostrils, circled it slowly with the cursor, then put it in and out of his nose, making small, amused, "ern neern neern" sounds.

He let out a huff of breath, bored again, and re-clicked the screen.

Maybe you don’t. People watching do. That’s what they came for. And it’s like, well, good for you. Now figure it out yourself.

"Hmm," Baxter said, drumming his fingers on the desk. He leaned back - the wooden kitchen chair beneath him, the only computer chair he'd ever had, creaked beneath his weight. He ran a hand along his buzzed head, the drumming relocating to his skull.

"Did we come for that?" he wondered aloud, clicked play again.

You want good guys and bad guys to root for? Like, you really think the world is divided into good and bad people, don’t you? There are people who do bad things, oh yeah. Like camp outside the houses of dead children and ask their moms if they’ve got anything to comment.

This time, Baxter hit the space bar, dragged the cursor over to 1:33 in the video tracking, clicked again.

You want good guys and bad guys to root for? Like, you really think the world is divided into good and bad people, don’t you?

Space bar. Click.

You want good guys and bad guys to root for? Like, you really think the world is divided into good and bad people, don’t you?

Baxter hit the space bar again, frowning at the screen, and opened up a word document, typed "World divided into good and bad people."

Highlighted it, made it bold, made it pink, underlined it, then deleted it.

He hit the space bar again, let the rest of the quote play, but he could still picture the way Reid had said it, the shapes his mouth had made, that ridiculous sweater he wore.

You want good guys and bad guys to root for? Like, you really think the world is divided into good and bad people, don’t you?

Don't you?