NHL Stanley Cup

POSTCARDS FROM HELL

From the diary of Richard Ashcroft, circa July 19, 1993:

Dear Diary,

It’s been seven weeks since I entered the Dome.  I think. I haven’t seen the sun in so long.  Seven weeks without food.  I’ll be dead in eight, doctors say.  I’ve been licking ice off the floor for sustenance.  I don’t even know if it’s real ice.  I can’t tell what’s real and what’s not anymore.  I keep seeing things.  People playing hockey, mostly.  Except I’m like this camera, floating and zooming around the rink.  Oh, it’s so fast, pulling in and out like an elastic band.  I feel like throwing up.  I always feel like throwing up, but I can’t.  There’s nothing left to chuck, just stomach acid bubbling and burning against the back of my throat.  It’s like, every fibre of your being wants to scream, and then you realise: you have no tongue.

OmigodomigodomigodomigodomiguuuUUURRRGGGH-gllluuUUKK-GLLKK--

Are the others still in here, alive? I’m convinced I’ve gone quite mad.  I can see me down there, shuffling and tripping on the ice, but I’m not in there, I’m not!  I’m still here and all I can do is watch.  Watch them thresh about with sticks in their fruity colours.

What am I even doing here?  Is this some kind of sick practical joke?  What if everyone else has already gone home and forgotten about me?  When I signed up for the Mode 7 program they told me it would be a simulation, just a bit of a lark.  They never told me it would be like this.  All I wanted was the hundred quid they promised in the advert.  Oh well.  Just one more week and it’ll all be over, one way or another.

I wrote a pop song yesterday.  I might record it if I ever make it out of here:

No change I can't change I can't change I can't change / But I'm here in my Mode / I am here in my Mode / But I'm a million different people / From one day to the next / I can't change my Mode, no, no, no, no, no-oo-oooo...

The Devil has a new number.  It’s my number: 7.

Mode 7.

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