Solitaire

It starts in school. You ask each other what five things you'd bring if you were stuck on a desert island. Then you grow up a little and the question transforms to hit closer to home, like it's real: what would you grab if your house was on fire? I wonder if the world was always been slowly preparing us for these moments. How many times has this scenario happened in human history? How many diasporas, house fires, evictions, what-have-you, have humans faced all told? Is this just part of our thing, like newborn sea turtles heading towards the reflection of the moon on the ocean?

The gameshow is called Solitaire.

I'll never meet another contestant, but I will be competing against them. It's my chance. My chance at something more than working multiple jobs to make ends meet so that I can eke out a miserable existence. How many ways can you dress up ramen? How long can a bottle of sriracha last, and by the end, will you by so sick of it that you are happy its gone?

That's a real question, by the way.

I pack ramen and sriracha into the small suitcase in front of me. The suitcase is carry-on size and despite being small it is nicer than anything I own. The case, emblazoned with the gameshow logo, is made of a high-durability, high-performance, high-class, high-what-have-you, polycarbonate. It's the kind with wheels on the bottom and the telescopic handle on top. The outside is furnished with a combination lock and the inside has adjustable dividers so you can customize the size of the storage compartments to fit your needs.

Filling the suitcase, that's gotta be good for at least an episode worth of television, maybe two depending on how they edit and spend time on the different contestants. Later, I'll surely do a little direct to camera interview-slash-confessional-slash-strategy brief-slash-fill-in-the-blank. I'll talk about what I brought and why, how I think things will go. I'll need to make myself a character. Someone that the crew, the executive producers want to keep. Someone for whom they'll tip the scales, just to keep me around. Someone that will make people watch. It's not truly about the game, it's about ratings. They can't interfere directly, I don't think, but I know that there are subtle things that can slightly benefit one confinement over another: a slightly warmer room, total silence or some white noise, water pressure. Tiny things that make all the difference in something like this.

This is where my calculations come in. Yes, I will need food to survive, but I also need something to keep me interesting. I need screen time. I need it so that if I lose I can at least try to parlay this experience into some kind of lingering fame that I can drag out and survive on outside. The competition will be hard, but not as hard as life. I wasn't born into riches, I'm not a CEO. I'm of the wrong generation to have real honest-to-goodness opportunities at social advancement. I've got to do battle with my body, my sanity, for the entertainment of the masses. The reality television industry, it is the modern colosseum. The joke is that I applied to get into the arena. I filled out a form and made a tape. Back in the colosseum, it was a punishment and there was no winning, not really. But now, they dangle a chance, a glimmer of hope at pulling your life out of the muck and every damn fool is clamoring to taint their soul, wreck their body, lose their freedom, and do damage to the psyche for a chance at a slightly better life.

I toss in a set of pencils, a notebook, some tape, and a sharpener. With these, I can decorate the room, I can create something out of nothing, give me something to talk about to the cameras I assume will be filming me non-stop. I can create my own storylines and subplots to play out for the audience at home: manic episodes, mental therapy sessions in which I air out all my dirty laundry, a day where I don't move at all with no explanation. It's a show after all.

I don't know a ton about the show, as it's new. I do know the premise and a few vitals that were in the acceptance pack I got after the call letting me know I made the cut. We get locked up in a room, like a prison cell, only a sink and a toilet, not even a bed. No food, at least not for a while. They reserve the right to bring food in later to keep the show going, I guess if they think they are getting good enough footage to make something out of it. And after we are locked in, we live. The door is unlocked, but we stay in the room and see who can stay in the longest. Part of the catch is that you don't ever get any communication. You never know how many contestants there are or how many are left and even if you are the last one, they might just let it play out to see how long you'll last. The production is cheap, I imagine: stationary cameras, water and electric, and a bare bones crew for post-production. The show wouldn't even need to be wildly successful to turn a profit.

Food or sanity or entertainment? I throw in another packet of ramen and a pack of cards. I can play solitaire, ha ha. Or is that too cute? Damn, this suitcase is small. It's two-thirds ramen and that plus the bits and bobs I've added leaves barely any space. I chuck in a pair of dice. I can always make up games to entertain myself, keep myself sane, and hopefully entertain. I have to win. If I have to keep going to a dead end job to afford the rent on skid row, I'll wind up on the news instead of a gameshow. Local man drives off bridge in apparent drunk driving incident. But it wouldn't be an accident.

But now, I'm hopeful. Everyone has brains, everyone can work hard, but I'm about to get a chance at one of the few real commodities left in the world: the halo of c-list fame.

I realize that I haven't packed clothes. I realize that the world is going to see me poop.

I wonder how thin they'll let us get. I wonder if they have emergency medical staff around in case someone goes bonkers and hurts themselves. I wonder if they have psychiatrists watching for warning signals. That all sounds a trifle too responsible for reality television, especially when they have the defense of the unlocked door.

"They could have left at any time, no one forced them to stay." That's all they'd need to say and no one would convict them of any wrong doing. But it isn't a lock that keeps you in the room, it's what is waiting outside when you leave.

The kicker is the prize. If you win, you get the building that you were all held in. You can turn it into an apartment so that other people can pay you to stay where you were tortured, as seen on TV. There is a metaphor in there for someone smarter than me, but I know enough to know it is funny.

I have a brainstorm and pack razors. I can mark the days on my skin. Well, no, I won't know the time, but I can mark something. I go out to a sex emporium and buy a flog to self-flagellate with. I pack needles and pens so I can self tattoo. I throw in a tweezer so I can pull out my hairs one by one, from all over my body. I'll stay sane, I'll stay interesting, I'll be the talk of the water coolers, I'll have interviews with late night bobble heads afterwards whether I win or lose. I pack a bobble head of a former president so that I can have something weird to talk to and people will wonder why I brought it. I'll do anything, anything. Anything.

I look down at the suitcase and its contents. Bleak food, tools of creation, tools of destruction, and a bobble head. This is the rest of my life.

The van picks me up for the show and I climb in back and set my suitcase on my lap. I beat my hands on the suitcase in my lap like a drum. It'll be fine, it's the best money can buy. They blindfold and deafen me so that it is dark and the only sounds are the white noise of my own body and the rustle of the headphones on the seat, which sounds like the surf.

I think of baby sea turtles. I'd seen on a program that society and all its lights and progress is killing the sea turtles. They hatch at night on the beach and hastily try to make their way to sea while predators have an all-you-can-eat buffet of little Leonardos, Donatellos, Raphaels, and other never-to-bes. But the problem is that they used to be guided by the light of the moon, glinting off the water and waves. Now, the light of nearby cities has broken down an instinct that has held true for tens of thousands of years as the babies run away from the surf towards certain death. There is probably a metaphor in there too somewhere.