Veracity On!

Facebook is a fascinating creature that seems to be on evolutionary steroids.  I remember when it had first come out and it was only for college students.  We all had a chip on our shoulders back then.  Only certain schools had access originally, and you had to write in with requests to get new schools added.  And you couldn’t actually do much on the site, just put in your interests, get as many friends as possible, and write on everyone else’s wall.  Then before you knew it, anyone in college could have an account, then anyone in high school (of which we all highly disapproved), then anyone at all.  And along the way there were groups, applications, a privacy scandal involving extraordinarily large e-petitions, and about three hundred different layouts, each of which confused me.  I am yet to grasp the most recent layout changes in their entirety. 

As Facebook became larger, security became a more important issue.  At some point, I don’t remember exactly when, Zuckerberg and friends introduced word verification as a way to fight spam.  Most of you are probably aware of this process, but for those who are not, when you post something on your status or on someone else’s wall, you now often must type in two words that are randomly generated for you to copy.  They are displayed in such a way that is supposed to ensure only a human could actually read them.  So you type in the words and then your message is displayed.

Well, I have always been a fan of these often ironic or otherwise comical word pairings.  So I have recorded the last few verifications I have had to enter, and now I offer you a tribute to the irony of random word generation.  The following story is fictional, and the word verifications will be the only dialogue.  This is probably going to be a little random, but indulge me.

Persephone was not easily crushed.  All her life she had been told she had no sense of expression, but she could not abandon her dream of acting.  She wanted more than anything to express ideas on stage, to open up the door to new possibilities, to explore the fuzzy boundary surrounding truth and reality.  Now she had her chance.  She had heard of an independent film that was looking for a few actors and actresses in town, so she drove down one day to a large warehouse near the Perimeter where much of the production was going to occur. 

She found the warehouse, verifying the address on a print-out she had brought with her, though she knew she was in the right place by the eclectic group of people milling around in the parking lot waiting for the doors to open.  They looked like dramatic folk.  It must have been the greasy hair. 

She got out of the car and walked up to join the small crowd.  After standing around for a minute or two, she plucked up her courage and asked the person next to her what this was a movie of.

“Of evacuees,” he replied.  She wondered how he had discovered this, for it not been listed on the ad. She also thought his answer was odd – who puts the word of at the beginning of an answer?  But she was pleased that the topic was substantial, one that could use some exposure in the world.

After a few more minutes, during which Persephone began to grow anxious, unconsciously curling and uncurling her flowing black hair, the doors finally opened, and the crowd flooded into the building to the gratuitous welcome of a young man.  As they piled into a small antechamber, the man receded to the back door of the room, which presumably opened into the larger production area.  The crowd’s murmuring and motion began to die down, and Persephone noticed a short woman discreetly come through the door behind the man.  She was so short that had it not been for the door opening and closing, it would have looked as if she had just appeared out of thin air, so effectively was she hidden in the young man’s shadow before moving next to him.  To the general surprise of the crowd, as soon as she stood next to the young man, she began chiding him for something, and the man’s previously strong demeanor faded into meekness as he tried to apologize through a gushy mixture of sycophancy and touchy gestures (the woman was obviously his girlfriend).  After nearly a minute of this spectacle, which was now being keenly observed by the whole crowd in silence, the woman tersely commanded the man back inside the production area, and he quickly obeyed.

“He whipped,” Persephone heard an indiscreet voice mumble, which brought out a small cascade of snickers and restrained laughter.  The woman, also apparently catching the remark, glared in the general direction of the speaker, though she could not make out who was responsible.  Without a word, she motioned for all of them to follow her through the door behind her.

Inside they found a large room with two small occupied areas.  There was a portion just ahead cordoned off with ribbons where large pieces of electronic equipment still resided unpacked.  To the left and beyond this first station was a stage room, well lit, which looked like a sitcom set from the seventies.  The film crew was going to revamp it soon, but it would serve the purpose of their audition space today. 

The woman was now passing through the ranks handing out pieces of paper, one color for the men, another for the women.  She explained that each scrap had a number on it.  They would be trying out in groups of two, one woman and one man, in some sort of prelude to a love scene.  Apparently the greasy man who suggested the topic of evacuees had been wrong; it was a romantic comedy, and a fairly risqué one at that.  Persephone became all the more nervous when she heard the woman say something about breaking new ground in love scenes. 

Just then she received her scrap of paper and, unfolding it, saw the number one on it.  She would be going first!  Great.  Without wasting any time, the woman called the number ones forward.  Persephone was smitten with fear, and when no woman moved, a few of the actors around Persephone pushed her forward, seeing her piece of paper.  The woman handed her a script and told her to read, pushing her further onto the stage.  The man was waiting.

Persephone glanced down at the script and saw she had the first line.  Gathering herself, she spoke, “Vacuous Mr…” She was immediately cut off by the male role, who launched himself into a passionate monologue about how lovers should never refer to each other as mister or miss.  Apparently he missed the fact that Persephone had just called him vacuous to his face.  And apparently the female roles in this movie were solely focused on providing flesh for the audience to slobber over: she had only one other line, and here it came.

She missed it.  Silence reigned.  She peered confusedly at her script.  Was this really all she was supposed to say?  The woman who wore the pants came stomping into the light looking irritated.  “Remember ‘and!’” she growled.  Persephone had not forgotten.  She just didn’t think and was much of a line worth saying.  But she uttered her single syllable answer to the opposing man’s constant stream of emotion.  And must have been inviting some response from the man, though Persephone was not sure exactly what, as she hadn’t really been listening.

The man got a strange look in his eyes.  To Persephone it looked like he might throw up any second, and she turned her head away in disgust, throwing up her arms for protection.  The man lunged at her, as a lion pouncing on his prey, and the director again came forward, this time throwing her stool into the scene, which quite startled the two on stage.  She yelled and cursed for a moment then told the man to go back to his original position.  The look in his eyes was supposed to be one of deep love, and Persephone had missed it.  But the director had advice for the man this time.  After all, the woman was just there to be pretty.

“Advance steamier,” she said with emotion to the man, making some grotesque motion with her hands about her middle, seeming to indicate that she was being disemboweled.  Persephone didn’t bother to say her one line – she knew it was pointless.  Even were she a terrible actress, she was above this pitiful excuse for a movie.  As the man began to lunge once again, this time looking like he had just crossed a desert and was about to fall on top of the well of Persephone, she dropped her script and walked off the stage toward the exit. 

The man missed his target, crashing into the wall and bringing down a deluge of old lights and props.  Amid the chaos that ensued, Persephone could hear the director shouting hysterically about truth and art and how Persephone clearly did not understand the ideals of artistry, otherwise she would recognize what a great film she had just flouted.  The screams grew more and more intense as Persephone realized the director was truly enraged at her.  She picked up her pace, and finally reached the door to the antechamber.  She turned around briefly and saw the livid director, her boyfriend crouching behind her in panic, pick up a defunct light casing and hurl it towards Persephone, shouting in her rage.

“Veracity on!”

Persephone squeezed through the door and heard the casing crash against the other side.  Maybe it was time she started trying to express truth in another field after all.