Tierney - While The Player Sleeps

There is a far-away city, both within and outside of our own, where the population is content in its purpose: to entertain.

At any given hour of the day, when The One they serve requests it, the citys inhabitants present themselves to the world as though actors before an audience. In an improvised pantomime of everyday normality, the inhabitants routinely shop for groceries, hurry for buses, grumble in line at cash machines, and pre-empt movie plot twists from the front row. Some mingle in crowds, some loiter the corners nefariously; others sit idly on park benches in the rain and pretend to converse on telephones. There are hundreds who drive a predetermined variety of automobiles along predetermined routes at predetermined times at predetermined rates; others, as though living scenery, perform the roles of background labourers and window cleaners and waiters and vendors, serving street food, as the case may be, to those inhabitants who in turn will buy it.

And then there are a privileged few those installed to lead from the front. Whether they feature in the guise of a recurring authority figure, a criminal, a politician or kingpin, these few have been entrusted with a more interactive and pivotal status: At specific intervals they are required to deliver select lines of carefully scripted dialogue. The truly special are even intrinsic to the citys ruling narrative.

The inhabitants numbers are fixed at an optimum the population cannot increase through birth nor decrease through death, for neither is possible. The inhabitants themselves do not age or eat. They mate but cannot breed.

But of the thousands of inhabitants living in the city, not a single one is more important than the next there is no hierarchy, no class system, no pyramid of rank which the population must adhere to, nor enforced structure of governance. The inhabitants task, their ultimate purpose, is what channels the direction of their existence and each and every member of the citys population, as though the individual teeth of a single cog which drives a vast clockwork machine, functions selflessly for their one ultimate master:

The Player.

For, as we would understand it, this is the city of the video game the urban sandbox, an open world simulation, and the inhabitants are merely the actors upon a digitised stage.

Existing solely for the entertainment of Him ...

***

Today is a new day, and as such there is a bristling sense of anticipation in the air. The city is subdued, patient, practically motionless yet it remains as primed as a coiled spring. Rather than banter between themselves as they would do normally during these interludes, the inhabitants wait on their marks like mannequins, running their pre-assigned steps over and over in their heads, should their apprehension foster complacency. The majority of them will not be required for the opening scene; yet, to make certain that the stage is set all the same, the inhabitants busy themselves with last minute tinkering: ensuring that every stop sign on every street corner is pointing in the right direction, that each of the health packs is accounted for, that every ammo crate is fully replenished and visible, and that all the pre-launch bugs have been corrected ahead of time for a new Player will soon make His presence felt.

And when He does, a select group of inhabitants will step to the fore. Such is both their honour and their burden, their initial duty is to greet The Player as though having known Him for years. Over the course of these first crucial hours, they must act as both His cohort and sherpa without ever acknowledging the latter. In an effort to preserve the facade, they must subtly teach Him without lecturing Him, guide Him through the initial tutorial without fatiguing Him; their foremost task is to train Him, groom Him, direct Him, support Him and above all else, when The Player departs into the city to begin His adventure, they must ensure that He understands the fundamentals of the game which is shortly to commence...

As though an intuition, every inhabitant suddenly senses that the moment is at hand. Like wooden villagers emerging from their doorways upon the chime of a cuckoo clock, they take a breath, step from their marks, and begin their performances as though a choir erupting into song mid-verse and through the passenger window of an approaching bus, none the wiser to the incalculable intricacies involved solely for His benefit, The Player gazes out across a city alive with commotion:

Sound-tracked by an 80s remix, a flaming sun bears up from behind the cityscape like a molten glitter ball, basting the skyline in a lush orange hue.

Overhead, two passenger jets skim the high-rises in tandem while another touches down on a landing strip with a squeal of rubber.

The days first overground train departs from a terminal minus several passengers whom have missed it intentionally, each hurling their hats to the platform in pantomime frustration.

Running parallel with the urban canyon, a swarm of overweight pigeons scatter from a phone line, while an equally as globose electrician ascends a ladder breathlessly a moustachioed hot dog vendor on the pavement below begins calling out the prices for with and without guano.

Accompanied by the yelling of a marital spat, clothes and suitcases are thrown from a penthouse window, which in turn a garbage man collects and tosses into the rear of his truck. High heels clicking down central avenue, a business woman recites an off-hand phone conversation regarding her husbands girth, while a slicker in a red convertible wolf-whistles precisely on cue before tearing up the highway in a cloud of cannabis smoke.

The city is now in full swing, practically throbbing, every sidewalk a scene unto itself. Lights switch back and forth from red to green. Car horns blare like musical notes. A tramp drops his whisky and chases a dog with a half-eaten pretzel in its mouth, while a group of truants lark beneath the spray of a gushing fire hydrant.

And at the centre of it all, the all-important bus continues into the city as though a key slipping into a lock...

Leaning beside a bus shelter with a newspaper tucked under his arm, a burly and barrel-chested man waits patiently one of the few. If everything is proceeding as it should, the bus will arrive in exactly eleven seconds: the number 47 Greyhound, eastbound, front-left hub-cap on the wonk and taggings up its side. The man knows that when the bus pulls up to the kerb an old lady with a carpet bag will step off, followed by a pair of rabbis, a punk, three college students

Then lastly, Him .

Out He steps tall, dark, His shabby preordained clothes already mottled with sweat; a more streamlined and youthful version of the man patiently awaiting Him.