Dramatization

“Lynne Cheney held a horse whip. She was silhouetted against a static-y TV screen. Maybe it was the stress, but I swear my skull shook when she screamed. I tried to get up. I was scared enough to forget they“d chained me to the wet table.”

“What was she screaming?” I asked.

Ryan Real, an Ohio State sophomore, lay in his hospital bed, bandaged and deeply wounded. He looked away from me and said with a shaky voice, “She said, “Do you know the names of other downloaders? Say them. Give them up.“ ” He quietly repeated the statement to himself for a couple moments.

He looked at me, “The second lady will feed me to her dogs for telling you all this.” Real moaned at the ceiling, “I already gave them to you!” Real grabbed his scalp and screeched, “My skull!”

The interview had taken an unexpected turn. I thought Real had received minor discipline by the university. Never did I expect to uncover a secret executive-level water-torture interrogation.

Real was in pain. I decided the best course of action was to press forward with the interview. The music industry had to be exposed.

In November, Real“s life was typical: lollipops, posies, sunshine and class four days a week. In his free time, he killed people in the blood-lust-satisfying video game, “Grand Theft Auto.” Unfortunately, he hijacked the game via the Inter-web.

I“d been tipped to Real“s story by a CNN.com article. My brain scrambled when I read these statements, “The music industry is sending thousands more copyright complaints to universities this school year than last. In some cases, students are targeted for allegedly sharing a single MP3 file online.”

Real“s willy-nilly downloading cost him his internet connection. The university“s demands were clear: Delete the game and they return his Internet connection.

CNN.com quoted Real as saying, “Everybody does it. The odds that you are going to get caught, it's not something you think about.” Classmates who also have been caught “still download illegally.”

I asked Real, during his throes of pain, “Do still think people who“ve been caught should continue to download?”

He turned, grabbed my wrist and wheezed, “They should be afraid.”

“What if they“re not,” I asked.

His grip on my wrist tightened as he leaned closer, “They will be. They will be.”

Then, something that looked like “80s special effect happened. Real crossed his arms and faded out of existence.

I needed answers. What happened to Real, the man who once threw chance into the wind, and sailed the pirated seas of cyberspace? Real“s former Han Solo-like persona had been crushed out of him. In its stead was ET “ the sickly ET Elliot found on the rocks in a river by an underpass.

Clearly, Ohio State University had been compromised by the music industry“s goons. I needed to go straight to the top for the answers. That meant Lynne Cheney.

Lynne Cheney follows the footsteps of former second lady, “Tipper” [Defender of Freedom] Gore. Tipper helped shelter America“s innocent ears against terrorist sound waves by co-founding the Parents Music Resource Center. Perhaps, Cheney was up to Tipper“s old tricks.

I smashed the glass of my red, government-issued Lynne Cheney phone. After a few agonizing rings, she answered. We exchanged pleasantries and I got down to it.

“Lynne, or should I say, sugar,” we both giggled, “I need to know why you tied down a college sophomore to a table and demanded he rat out his fellow cyber pirates.”

I heard the phone drop on to a hard surface followed by the background sounds of second lady Cheney exploding. Most of her following statements were indecipherable, aside from a slew of expletives. After a long silence, she returned to the phone with what seemed to be a hastily thought out justification.

“Look,” she said, “there are too many weird bands, movies and video games out there provoking children“s thoughts. These mini counter-culture manifestos are being disseminated freely via the Inter-web. Our children are freely, and willingly, absorbing these everyday. The government needs to gain a stronger presence on the Internets, and in the homes of its citizens, like the music industry has. This is our best chance to combat the nameless enemies of traditional thoughts. If we can round up these dangerous sounds and images, and stick to the controlled corporate entertainment assembly line, we ensure the safety of the nuclear family and tradition.”

The phone hung up. I need to transcribe everything she said quickly, before I forgot it. I turned on my computer and realized it didn“t have Microsoft Office. I calmed down and quickly downloaded the software package.

Tyler Gaskill, 1983 “ 2007

Sources: http://www.cnn.com/2007/EDUCATION/02/21/downloading.music.ap/index.html

Star Wars

> Comments