Figuring all screaming would do is make things worse, I just kept my mouth shut and tried to figure out what Anthony was doing over by the computer. He had turned away from the electronics and was now messing with the bedsheet he took off the podium earlier. I watched him walk around me and spun myself around in the chair to see him pinning the white sheet up onto the wall on top of his self indulgent collage.

“Oh, no, how could you bare to cover up any of those wonderful pictures.”

Anthony didn’t respond, just silently tacked all four corners of the sheet up onto the wall at about eye level. It was a good strategy, the cold, barren silence would make me go mad quicker than sarcastic shots back and forth or even weird, sadomasochistic denials.

Once the sheet was fully tacked up, Anthony walked back around me and started messing with the computer again. I went to spin around, but an angry scream from Anthony stopped me.

“Eyes on the screen.”

I stopped myself in mid-swivel and turned back to the sheet, my back still fully to Anthony.
“Is that dirty sheet the screen? Man, this is the shittiest movie theater I’ve ever been to. I want my money back,” I said.

“Enough,” Anthony muttered.

Maybe I was breaking him.

“Just watch,” Anthony said just before the lights shut out and a large, square beam of light illuminated the sheet.

The beam of light was replaced with the faded image of a baby lying in a crib with a big smile and a soundtrack of morose, British heavy metal from the 70s I recognized from classic rock radio and weight rooms.

“When born, most people are already either fucked or have it made, but don’t realize it,” Anthony started in from behind me.