George Jacob | Storyteller, Marketing Strategist, Maker of Things

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George Jacob

This is going viral. Like The Plague. Like The Plague if it were married to Chicken Pox and having sex with Herpes on the side. (Polio will try to record it but won't push record, and no one will know till after. Dammit Polio, they'll think. Old and useless.)

This will be the illegitimate baby of The Plague and Herpes, and Chicken Pox will raise it to keep up appearances. After a nasty divorce, when Chicken Pox is bitter and Shingle, she will tell This, and This will be angry. This will storm out of the house.

This will hit the road and sleep in train cars, and wear the same white T-shirt until it's charcoal and threadbare. It’ll eat cold cans of beans and catch rainwater in a tarp. This will be gritty and weathered, but when it smiles you'll think it traveled a million miles just for you. (So charming, This.) You’ll open the door when you see This through the peephole. This will steal money from you, then put the money back because it’ll be learning about trust. You’ll sit down to dinner and think This is special. One day, This will be an astronaut or the President, or driving a Ferrari on a private racetrack.

This will get a job in an office. This will get cupcakes for everyone, and remember what sports everyone else’s kids play, and it will work its way to the top without ever slowing down. Top floor: Roads Paved in Gold. At the top, This will sit in a penthouse suite with its door wide open. This will have ice cream sandwiches in its mini-fridge and give out front-row tickets because people could use a fucking break. It will close the office for every Monday holiday and pay for employee honeymoons. But This will be troubled. It will develop a secret drug habit and start to look stringy and manic. It will sleep around and travel down dark corridors at odd hours. It will lead separate lives. It will never know its offspring.

Then This will retire early and disappear to float in a pool with a Mai Tai at noon. It will evolve its drug habit because it will miss the rush. One night, This will wake up in a sweat, and stumble to the bathroom and stare into the mirror. It’ll see the fibers in its pupils and feel air rushing into its lungs. It will remember where it came from. This is VIRAL. It is primed and ready and bloodthirsty. It will break free from these tethers and sweep through everything.

This will return, and people will respond in clicks. People are going to click it like they’re getting paid well above minimum wage to do it. They're going to click, and they’ll be so enthused they’ll infect their friends with it. They'll queue This up and hand their superphones across the table. They’ll watch their friends’ faces when they watch This, and they’ll think to themselves, Fuck yes. They'll delete a draft of a post about their uglier kid, and copy-paste This in its place. They'll look at timestamps to see whether they found This first. This will be in every feed, hovering at the top, until it's part of the general consciousness. It will spark clones and wannabes and brand efforts. This will be a changer of games and shaker of earth.

They'll wear out their left clicks, their touchscreens, their Enter keys. They'll develop carpal tunnel syndrome from clicking so hard so often. And when they’re squeezing a green foam ball in physical therapy, they’ll talk about This.

This will be here, but then it will be gone. It will find itself in the shadows again and shoot something into its arm that will kill it. Death by antibody. No-body. Nobody around to say goodbye. This will fade away and only return in do-you-remember-that moments.

In its final breath, This will touch you again, much past its promising prime. You will itch and burn and shit so much water you’ll feel empty inside. You’ll check into a hospital where someone will drain a bag of water into your veins. You’ll look around and wonder, How did This happen?

Then you’ll waddle back to your car. You’ll sit in the front seat and someone will text you a message underlined in blue.

Check This Out, it’ll say.

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