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This is a fantasy driven mainly by its comedic element. It’s about inanimate objects coming to life. The focus is on a set of nuts and bolts who is gelled into one body and whose name is Rusty Screws. Rusty, throughout his existence, has been plagued with bad luck. Nothing seems to go his way and, in terms of life and relationships, he’s particularly naive. We are introduced to Rusty in Chapter One (which I will include below). He appears at a gameshow called, Trade Off.
Chapter One
Three, two, one and go.
‘Welcome to Trade Off, 121 straight weeks now the number one show in America. This has been one incredible ride, folks. Danielle McPherson of course, our lovely co-host……Stunning as always, Danielle.’
‘I thank you, Connelly. Do I owe you for that?’
‘How ‘bout a pastrami on white, one dill pickle, hold the mayo…..’
The audience chuckle light blinked on and off. The Diamond Studios were a hardy mix of privilege and wealth with winners of the special free give-a-way sprinkled in. It was THE place to be under a star-filled autumn sky or otherwise.
Master of ceremony and sandwich aficionado, Connelly Meyers, was his usual giddy self. They paid him to act this way. Giddy equates to a wider viewership. Although Trade Off’s premise was reason enough for the weekly audience of over half a billion to tune in.
Here’s how it goes.
A long list of challenges pooled from the demented minds of Trade Off’s script writers –not everything is impromptu –is harbored inside a data base. Creators of the game assign each randomly selected contestant one of those challenges. When Connelly reveals the challenge by opening the secret envelope, the contestant gets what they get. There’s no partisanship regarding age, sex or religion. However, contestants have to be at least 21, the age in which a person has the constitutional right to screw himself.
Before it’s unveiling, the contestant can either refuse the challenge, opting instead for an undisclosed sum of money anywhere between one and one million dollars or elect the chance for a billion. Ok, let’s say they choose the latter. There’s relevance in then passing the challenge, anything less and all said earnings, real or potential would be immediately forfeited, including the bus fare home.
But there are deeper concerns. To fail means to be subjected to the condition that results from the attempt – and that, in 35 percent of the cases, has been death. The other 65 percent has included loss of limbs, permanent brain damage and one very major disfiguration.
Oh yes, and it is plausible to win the grand prize without really winning. Case in point, Jaime Xu after barely surviving a date with an untrained sea lion has to have hospice staff on call daily for the rest of his life. All the medical expenses are being paid by his billion-dollar earnings; the joy of having won certainly not worth the labor.
Sometimes contestants luck into a chore tailor made for their abilities. Six episodes ago Johnny Ace, a professional skier, drew a 20-foot ski jump between two parallel cliffs in the Swiss Alps, level with a narrow strip of cirrus clouds. ‘Piece of cake, Johnny Ace,’ was the last encouraging line transmitted through Johnny’s headset before beginning his descent….. He’s at home now sipping on some chilled Bardolino, straight from the bottle. In addition, his home is no longer in Hamilton, Vermont, it’s somewhere along the French Riviera.
It’s the ultimate risk for the ultimate reward- thus the name Trade Off. Some people think that wealth and health have an intrinsic connection and are not just two words that tie together a bad rap song. Having the former will statistically, make for a comfortable, sickness-free existence. But to some hypotheses, there are pitfalls. Ask Mr. Xu whose common activity is to be pushed around the fourth floor of Spring Valley Regional in a wheelchair. Only don’t expect him to answer; his trachea was removed to alleviate the constriction in his throat. He drinks slurpy for a living; from seven in the morning ‘til eleven at night.
Connelly positioned himself for job of the century back in 2021, shortly after they’d come up with the show’s concept. There hadn’t been anything like Trade Off in the modern era. We don’t know what sort of shenanigans took place back in the Dark Ages, but you can be fairly confident it wasn’t televised. A show in which a third of its participants would be set out to pasture invariably got lots of flak from the FCC, no matter how liberal our society had become. But somehow it was approved. Who knows who signed that contract- I imagine whoever it was got intimidated by the horns and the pitchfork.
‘So, if you tuned in last week you saw…. let’s roll the tape from last week’s highlights Mr. Director…..Thank you, much. Love ‘ya.’ Connelly was being giddy again, and a smartass. ‘OK. Sheiluct Ought. How did she pronounce that name again, Danielle? It’s Indian right?’
‘Out like O-U-T.’ Danielle answered and knew exactly where Connelly was going with this.
‘OK well Sheiluct Ought, I guess, lucked out; I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried folks. There’s Sheiluct Ought, stepping to our executive producer, Adam Pearson and collecting a check for a billion dollars clear money. I call that lucking out, alright.’
‘Amazing.’ Danielle, sweet Danielle was always playing second fiddle to Connelly. Nonetheless she was an admirable straight person; the sensible one who roped him in yet was used to legitimizing every unorthodox thing he did- like F with the people who were paying his salary.
They’d told him specifically, ‘Under no circumstances play around with things, like ethnicity, nationality, a person’s culture. Those are taboo for the purpose of our HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL show. 223 nations are tuning in every week. We don’t give a damn if they worship little men from space. Is that clear, Connelly?’
‘Did she say she was Indian or Asian, Danielle? Connelly continued, unfazed by his backlog of instructions and genuinely believing he was irreplaceable.
‘Connelly sweetie, India is technically a part of Asia. But the answer to your question, she’s from Haduit, India.’
‘Anyway, there are two billion people over there. Somebody could have set her mother down and told her not to name the child Sheiluct. Don’t ‘ya think?’
‘Well, she’s a billionaire, now. I’m pretty sure she can afford to get her name changed. Sheiluct, if you’re tuning in right now, I’m so sorry for this fool.’ Danielle was talking about Connelly and winking at him at the same time. ‘You would think he’d get out a bit more often- being the host of a world-famous show and all.’
‘OK enough of that. Congratulations Miss Ought. You survived the jungle for four hours wearing nothing but shorts and a tank top. We placed you purposely in an area known for having tigers and other vicious animals running around. They just weren’t hungry. And that’s sometimes just how it is…. they’re lazy, just chased some wild pigs that day, some deer… and they just don’t feel like eating any contestants. So, you won the billion dollars. Now we have to move on to the next challenge and someone brand new.’
Connelly was drawn to the prompter, above and behind the audience.
‘Welcome to the show Rusty Screws, Rusty Screws.
OK our next contestant….’ He was forced to talk over an anticipatory buzz in the audience- ‘Our next contestant? Rusty?’ Connelly was having difficulty navigating the dead spot, unable to pull from his mental listing of one-liners. ‘Well, the way we do it here at Trade Off is, our next contestant is pooled from the audience, of course. So we’ve chosen in advance, of course, from the scroll of people in attendance, the person who shall become our newest contestant.’
Connelly twiddled his thumb before breathing a sigh of relief. Alas, the victim rose from his seat and extended out and towards the stage like a wayward bouncing ball.
‘And……..there he is. Rusty Screws is coming up now. Finally! Guess it took a while to get over the shock of being called. That’s right, come on up Rusty. Everything will be just fine.
Why did it take you so long to get out of your seat, buddy? Ok, firstly- we have to move this thing along; there are literarily billions of people watching.’
A legitimate comparison could be made betwixt the new and awestruck competitor, Rusty Screws and let’s say, a flat of sheet metal. In fact, should he accept the challenge that he will shortly be presented with, and later fail, he would be immediately sent to a junk yard for re-evaluation. He could quite possibly be worth something as a section of welding material or heated into a liquid mold of some sort.
‘My goodness- Rusty. No wonder you took so long to get up on-stage. You have no legs or feet, do you?’
‘Well.’ Rusty began carefully, knowing Connelly’s reputation as a relentless jokester who liked to stick it to those lame brains summoned from the audience.
‘I do, I mean I can actually move around as you can see. I was just shocked that I was called. Didn’t really expect to be here.’
‘Ok then. Rusty, from the looks of things you are what?’ Connelly started counting and pointing to the various sections in which Rusty was made of……’Five, six, seven -You look to be seven nuts and a couple of bolts. That’s what you’re composed of, correct?’
‘Yes sir.’
‘Interesting. Danielle, have you ever seen anything exactly like him? I mean we did have Sheiluct Ought last week, which was crazy. But she did appear to be made of human parts.’
‘No Connelly, I have not. He is a little different, darling. There’s nothing wrong with different.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with different but it can be taken to the extreme, wouldn’t you say?’
Danielle kept quiet this time, noticing Rusty had become overtaken by the idea of becoming the brunt of the joke, with a multitude more in the works. And he’d yet to be properly introduced.
‘Now tell us a little about yourself, Rusty. Where are you from? How did you get like this? Come on Rusty, liven up- you may be our focus the next three weeks. You could become a star.’
‘I started in Ohio. I don’t know, I’ve been like this all my life. Hadn’t really thought about it.’
‘Ok, fair enough. Now what kind of work do you do?’
‘Well for a few years I’d been doing side jobs, pretty much. But just last summer I was offered a position at General Motors as a spare part on its newest line of Hybrid Pontiac Vixens. I accepted the job and afterwards moved out to Kalamazoo, Michigan.’
Connelly couldn’t resist the temptation. ‘So you bolted for Michigan. You’d have to be nuts not to take that job right?’ A well-paid drummer from the orchestra accented the jive with a ceremonial Ba Bap Bap. Connelly then gave him a stern look as if to say, ‘I don’t need any help with the humor.’
‘Alright. Let’s skip the dilly-dally, hoci poci, turn yourself around BS. Wasn’t that a song back in the 60’s Danielle? You’re older than I am.’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, Connelly. And I’m certainly not older than you are. But nice try.’
‘Rusty, I’m going to ask you the question everybody wants to know since you came up on stage. I’m not going to screw…. sorry, mess with you any longer. DO YOU PLAN TO ACCEPT THE ONE BILLION DOLLAR CHALLENGE?
No. Don’t answer yet. Just think about it and we’re going to pause for a word from our sponsors. We’ll resume shortly. This is the world-renowned gameshow, Trade Off. Be back in five.’
The following format was agreed upon by a 70 percent majority amongst the program’s overall staff. Trade Off would be comprised of three, one-hour length shows per contestant. Episode one, tapped in advance and aired the next day, would show the contestant being called to the planet’s most intimidating stage- leading him or her to a life altering decision. This is where Mr. Screws now finds himself. This week he’ll be asked to explain the manner in which a psychopath’s mind operates. At what point in his life did the prospect of one billion dollars start dwindling his common sense down to a nub. Wouldn’t he be just as likely to hit the jackpot by safely scratching off a lottery ticket?
For the next episode airing Tuesday Night, Rusty will declare 100 percent whether or not he’ll make the plunge, so to speak.
Connelly will say……So Mr. Screws, do you accept the billion-dollar challenge, the details of which we have locked in this envelope? You won’t know what you have to do unless you choose to accept? From that point forward, you’ll have no legal recourse for refusing to move forward. Our viewership depends on you moving forward and if you do NOT move forward, we WILL take action. I know, it sounds harsh.
Mr. Screws will either say, yes, I accept or no, I do not. It’s too risky.
It’s too risky means the following. Screws can theoretically still win a million dollars. Connelly will spin the wheel. Then our unassuming TV star, believing there to be an equal chance of the spin landing on any number, one to one million, would ponder if he’d made the right decision. On 80% of the occasions, by the way, the wheel is designed to land on a lower 25-percentile number because the contestant just wasted the bloodthirsty audience’s time.
Now considering an episode three, Rusty would, at that point, share with the audience, his form of preparation- knowing the last and only hurdle to clear is a towering monolith whose defense of the finish line often leads to solemn hymnals and artificial flowers. Mostly, the preparation is psychological and sometimes nothing can be done to influence the outcome – as was the case of Miss Ought landing in the friendliest jungle in Bangladesh. The challenge comes during a fourth and final live five-hour player sacrifice…..I mean show.