PC Game

October 15th, 2082, Jerusalem, 57th State of the United States of the Democratic West


"Please sit down, sir."

"Okay."

"Do you admit that today at exactly 2:35 pm you verbally sexually assaulted Ms. Rita Steinman?"

"What are you talking about? I just called her a foxy lady."

"Kindly explain what you meant by that, sir."

"I told the girl she was sexy. She likes it, by the way."

"Do you have a liaison of a sexual nature with Ms. Steinman, sir?"

"That's none of your business! And no, not yet."

"Addressing a person with whom you do not have a sexual liaison in a sexually suggestive way is classified as verbal sexual assault, sir."

"Listen. I was telling a girl she was sexy. She liked that. What's your fucking problem?!"

"Sir, may I further refer to an incident that occurred two days prior to that?"

"What incident?"

"You ethnically discriminated Mr. Abdullah Olafssohn-Mizuyama".

"How's that? I called him 'spaghetti master'. He's Italian, you know".

"May I inquire about the precise usage of the aforementioned expression, sir?"

"What, spaghetti? They are those thin Italian noodles..."

"Excuse me, sir, but by degrading a person's identity to a status of an edible product you ethnically discriminate him as opposed to persons whose ethnical identity is valued higher on the scale of your culinary preferences".

"Man, that's total bullshit!"

"Sir, the word 'bullshit', while referring to a by-product of a certain species of animals..."

"Cow crap! Bovine feces!! Excrements of Primigenius Taurus!!!"

"Please calm down, sir".

"Calm down?! You basically said I was a sexual offender and a racist, for Chrissake!"

"Sir, did you just say 'for Chrissake'?"

"Yeah, so?"

"'For Chrissake' as in 'for the sake of a person historically known as Jesus Christ'?"

"So?"

"Sir, I'm obliged to remind you that my great-grandmother was of Satanist faith."

"And?"

"She would have found the expression 'for Chrissake' offensive, sir."

"Are you completely out of your mind?!!"

"Sir, may I remind you that my uncle's wife is of a mixed Zulu and Inuit heritage."

"..."

"Implying that her relative is not in a sane condition is considered a grave offense among people of her culture, sir."

"Can I have your gun?"

"Sir?"

"I wanna shoot myself."

"Sir, mentioning a suicide might be considered offensive to a person who is alive."


***

I went home. I turned on my computer. Video games were officially forbidden in USDW. It started slowly. I mean, in most video games you kill people. As soon as a video game was released, representatives of the ethnic/religious/whatever group whose virtual members were virtually shot in that game started a scandal bound to end in that game’s retraction from all the shops. The Society for Protection of Non-Existent Fantasy Creatures demanded an investigation when they learned that in the game Elder Scrolls VIII: We Ran Out Of Bland Names the hero was required to kill cat-like creatures called "khajiit". The Society for Mutual Understanding With The Caliphate further protested by saying that the word "khajiit" sounds Arabic, therefore offending citizens of the Caliphate by equating them with felines. In year 2037, President Jack Thompson Jr. outlawed video games completely. "Violent video games are offensive to those who prefer violence in real life", the President explained.

Still, plenty of games were developed and distributed illegally. I popped in my copy of GTA Online: Do Whatever The Fuck You Want. It just took me a couple of seconds to connect to the server. I proudly drove through the virtual Jerusalem with a sub-machine gun sticking out of the car window. My fingers ached when I activated the chat feature and began typing feverishly:
"BITCHES! FAGGOTS! NIGGERS! KIKES! I WANT MY FREEDOM OF SPEECH BAAAAAAACK!!!!.."

(written in 2009)