theme word: etch, title: this land is your land in "the next big thing" flash fiction

In general, humanity’s most prominent landmarks tend to fall into one of three broad categories: marvels of nature, marvels of engineering and marvels intentionally symbolizing a narrative the dominant culture holds dear, regardless of whether that narrative’s true or not.

Impressive bridges, ancient pyramids, towers skyrisen, waterfalls, mountains, old memorials for leaders or wars. Los Angeles, ever the obvious freak even in full-blown freak competitions, has a repurposed ad for the Hollywoodland real-estate company. This was not a great project of God, a great work of man or even artistic tribute to either of these first two categories. Some rich people wanted to get even richer selling land to some slightly-less-rich people, so they made up a sign to advertise. The locals liked this enticement toward commercial transaction so much, they chopped the “land” off to make it slightly less gauche then spent the next hundred years pouring millions both public and private into maintaining an advertisement for a long-ago-defunct land developer. What’s written on shirts, printed into brochures, etched into the very breast of a mountain stolen from tribes with forgotten names. An ad for house-flipping. “Hollywood”, now without the land.

Whether by arcane fiat or by marketing firm, if there’s a difference, that’s how you remember the place and it is apt. Nowhere else in the world is so formed and sustained by succeeding off the failure of others, off convincing someone else that a patch of dirt you can barely even divert fresh water to is worth everything. No pyramids rather pyramid schemes spelt out for all to see, multi-level marketing for an uneven age, Tupperware Parties and Avon Calling but with dreams as currency instead of your friends’ patience with attempts to monetize personal connection.

Stand-up comics who only get five minutes on the stage if they bring ten paying friends. Crew members and gophers working for the minimum wage to help millionaires get paid. Immigrants risking their lives jumping borders to work in the backs of restaurants so as to feed their children, only to be called “illegal” by bigots in air-conditioned radio studios. Young women and younger men laying back on casting couches, pretending it isn’t happening. Everyone “just paying their dues” when all they’re paying for are yachts they’ll never see, other than on television screens, never realizing that money rolls up, not down, or else no one would’ve even started the scheme.

Or even worse, realizing that’s how it works but believing they’re smart or cut-throat or beautiful enough to survive to the point where they can move up the chain and use the next crop of suckers off the bus for their own gain. Buses from Iowa, from Guadalajara, from Little Falls or wherever, of course. “I’m not talking about myself,” I told my friend the sasquatch, “no, my ex and I drove my aunt’s old sedan to Los Angeles, no bus was involved.”

We both laughed, of course, even though it wasn’t funny. Sometimes we laugh just out of reflex.

Last updated April 05, 2019