WAGMI.
Or maybe
we won’t.

Who’s standing there

Barry bought the top. Not this top — an earlier one, that nobody brings up any more. He is still at the same machine in the same dead mall, holding a trophy he bought for himself.

There are 150 of them and they have all got a version of that. Paper Hands Paul, who sold and now has to watch. Margin Call Max, who turns up 78 times because he keeps doing it. A pigeon that smokes. 12 of them are holding a gas fee receipt. 4 are holding an empty wallet — not a joke about being broke, an actual trait, and 4 people are going to own it.

The machines were already in the room. Somebody’s boombox, a payphone, a handheld left in a drawer in 1997, bolted down and wired up and still printing. Nobody maintains them. Nobody turns them off either. That is not the interesting part — the interesting part is who keeps showing up to watch.

373 of these people made it. 756 got rekt. The other 919 are still standing there at 4am, waiting to find out which.