Another conversion to 40k. I think I liked the original better, as it used contemporary TV programs and so had more impact – but it’s another one that seemed to have disappeared off all the hard drives in this house.

Adapting to the Pict

The kitchen's been a bloody tip since Kuja buggered off: carpet tiles sticky with all sorts of crap, most of it shades of brown; bin overflowing; table dusted with sugar granules and patterned with caffeine rings; cupboards and cooker streaked with fat; sink filled with blackened pans and smeared plates. On a shelf rot the plants Kuja used to look after – desiccated leaves, plastic pots, and dusty saucers, now providing hunting-grounds for the arachnids that get in somewhere under the sink.

And the whole mess stinks of feline piss.

A shout, "Next on EBC1, Famulous Fashion," reminds me of my important task. I open the greasy fridge door —still sporting Kuja's magnetic fruit and elephantines— and grab another six-pack. I shuffle back into the living room to the blare of the lunchtime show’s cheerful signature tune.

Another mess: carpet eternally damp from spilled or puked beer; peeling wallpaper revealing clammy adamantium; heat-bar littered around with burnt-out fosforstiks. The only furniture is an orange, threadbare couch and my armchair, be-spotted with smoke burns, encircled by smoke-ends, empty beer cans, and yet more spent fosforstiks. A saucer doubling as an ashtray and three remote controls teeter on its arm. Almost everything is nicotine stained, giving the room nearly as strong a stench of stale tobacco as the kitchen has of feline piss.

But my pict setup is pristine. The projector itself is top-of-the-range, with a huge display volume. Sound is fully immersive, and the rest of the unit houses more features any pict fanatic could wish for!

The whole system takes most of my Bodily Fluids Credit, but it's worth it. I have so much program choice now. I love the pict, Kuja never understood that. "You'll vegetate in that chair!" was always a favourite phrase of hers.

The pict is my only pleasure. I once wasted time trying for work in the hive employment centres, but I soon realised how much more enjoyable life was at home in front of the TV, with only my weekly donations to the BFC bank to bother me (sadly necessary, as they were my only source of income).

The trauma of living on Leman Russ Street or the colourful adventures of Peter the Penitent consumed my attention. I fell into the routine of rising after Kuja left for work (thus avoiding her nagging), tugging on my exercise leggings and top, and traipsing downstairs to attend to Sanguin the feline. Then it was the pict for the rest of the day, punctuated only by trips to the fridge.

It's so easy — the pict does everything for me – lives, thinks, for me. I just sit, brain empty, and let it fill the space with motion, colour, and sound. I don't need anything else. Real life, unemployment, nagging girlfriends, all come to nothing when the pict's on. They are fiction, the projected volume fact. And when the pict wasn't on, neither was I. Walking to the employment centres, chippy, or alc-dispencer’s, I was in a daze — an empty shell without my innards of Sublevelers, The Imperium Today, Xenos on One, or Childrens’ Confessional.

When Kuja wasn't working, it was hell. Constant nagging as she cleaned and I watched the kid's programs, Emperor’s Stadium, or Ma Gavte le Nata on Lastdays. Luckily, though, she usually visited her friends during the day, going out boozing at night. These absences soon spilled over, and she often didn’t return home for days at a time.

And then, a couple of months ago when I returned from the alc-dispencer’s to find her moving out with the help of her two brothers, I realised I hadn't seen her for three weeks.

She took almost everything, but I wasn't particularly arsed until her brothers lifted the old 2D pict. That I couldn't do without. As I struggled with them, Kuja screamed, "That bloody pict! I bloody hate that pict! You care more for it than anything else! You're not having it! No way!"

"Of course I care more for it," I was about to tell her, but in my fight with her brothers it fell forwards with a whumph! of imploding glass.

I can still hear her laughter at the sight of me staring stupidly at the destroyed set.

For a month after I made do with an even older monochrome, suffering its faulty vertical hold and crap reception until my new setup arrived. How Kuja would have screamed over it. Hundreds of channels! Remote control! Immersive sound! Bloody heaven.

So now I sit, watching celebrities plugging books, theatre shows, or charities; sipping cheap beer — totally unconcerned as my brain fills with emptiness.

-oOo-

I'm watching Unfettered Universitorium — a bespectacled man writes formulae on a board. The letterbox suddenly slams three times.

Simon, next door’s young lad, has brought my shopping.

Not long after Kuja's departure I started paying him to pick up my weekly provisions (the guy at the alc-dispencer’s isn't bothered about serving underage). I can't be arsed going myself any more.

I shuffle to the front door. Blinking in the bright corridor light, I can just make out Simon and his friend, each holding a bulging bag. I take the bags and pay them. Simon says, "Same again next week, mister."

As I close the door his friend comments, "Fat bastard! Bloody stinks!"

I look at the sweat-patches at my armpits, the bulge of my belly. I run my hand over my rounded, unshaven face, wincing as I brush tender pimples. "Sod it," I mumble.

I dump the bags next to my chair and collapse into its comfortable cushioning. I realise Simon has kept the change from my grocery money and consider knocking on my neighbour's door. But I can't be arsed.

-oOo-

The chrono says 02:14, and I'm beginning to feel tired. The pict is showing an old Ash, Vindicare Assassin film, filling the room with the hero’s cries as he bolt-guns kicks in all directions.

I can't be arsed going to bed. I'll sleep in my chair like last night and the night before and... Just one more beer.

I open another. It's flat and tastes strange, but I'm not arsed. I'm not arsed about anything.

-oOo-

I wake as my apartment’s glo-globes switch to lancing daylight mode.

On the pict is some flashy afternoon quiz — circles change from blue to green to red at grinning contestants’ answers. It's 15:06, and I have slept for thirteen hours. But I don't feel rested – I feel awful. My head pounds, my stomach churns, and I'm so weak even moving my eyes from the light takes effort.

Hangover? I didn't drink that much.

Then I remember that final can.

A sudden sharp pain from my bladder, as if I'd been holding back a desperately needed piss for hours. Simultaneously, my anus tightened and realised I wanted a sh*t, too — and just as urgently. Standing to hurry to the toilet, my eyes were blinded by green explosions, and the thumping in my head intensified. My stomach convulsed, and I puked brown and yellow bile until my chest felt it would split. Still heaving, rubbing my sternum with one hand and wiping sick from my chin with the other, I stumbled towards the bathroom.

I made it halfway there before I received another piercing sting from my bladder... and pissed myself. It was long and hot, and I was powerless to stop it. My underclothes and exorcise leggings were rapidly soaked, and the smell was stronger than any of Sanguin's efforts. I hadn’t done that since I was four. I was in a bloody bad state.

I continued for two more steps before my anus, without warning, slackened. "Sh*t no!" I shouted, but it didn't make any difference.

-oOo-

I'm back in my chair again now, and beginning to feel better. I never made it to the toilet.

I'm only wearing my shirt, the fouled leggings and underclothes lie on the stairs. The house stinks of crap. I stink of crap, and if I move my backside I can feel drying crap. But Inauguration Street's on, so I can't be arsed doing anything about it.

Sanguin meows and butts my shins to be fed. He hasn't eaten since yesterday. But I can't be arsed doing anything about that, either.

I still feel weak, but the pain's disappeared. Nothing but a bad beer. Come tomorrow I'll be right as rain.

I settle back and light up, content in the company of Mavis, Ken, and the rest of Inauguration Street's inhabitants.

-oOo-

I wake in time for the Imperium Anthem as EBC19 closes down. A few jabs at the remote controls and I’m watching a dubbed version of The Arbites on RTL. Sanguin is asleep on the couch, and the sh*t reek is still powerful. I'll clean up tomorrow, if I can be arsed.

I suddenly realise that I haven't eaten or drank since last night (or was it the night before that? I'm unsure how much time has passed), and, though I don't feel particularly hungry, I decide a trip to the kitchen is in order. At least for a beer.

I push myself from the chair, but my arms are so weak they buckle and I fall back. I make a second attempt, but with the same results — my arms won't support me. "What is this?" I ask of the foul air. Again, and I succeed in moving my crusty backside slightly forwards to the chair's edge. With my arms straining like they're about to break, I force myself into a standing position. My legs don't feel right. They seem brittle. I'm swaying slightly. I lock my knees to prevent this, and, with a double snap! I should have found sickening, they break outwards, dropping me back into the armchair.

I sit looking at my ruined legs. There's no pain. None. Not much blood, either. Just two ragged gashes of fatty yellow at the ends of my thighs, some thin rosewater liquid, splintered ends of bone, and my kneecaps and the lower halves of my legs hanging from torn purple muscles. It's almost as if they're not really my legs at all, but the brilliant make-up of some gory Chaos Channel horror. For a few moments I just sit, looking at the twin injuries, for some reason thinking back to Kuja's departure and the imploded tube of the old pict. I knew that I should have felt shock, pain, fear. I needed help. I had just broken both my legs simply by fucking standing on them. But there was only total detachment. I was unconcerned with my situation. Not arsed.

My eyes returned to The Arbites.

-oOo-

I wake to the sound of crying. On the pict a baby is bawling at its mother – her milk isn't good enough. The mother drinks a certain beverage and again offers her nipple. The baby sucks with gusto.

The time is 17:58, but I don't know what day it is. On the floor before me, amongst the smoke-ends and fosforstiks, Sanguin, two blue bottles buzzing around his head, is chewing the calves of my detached lower legs. They must have torn free as I slept, or perhaps Sanguin bit them off. I look down at what remains of my thighs to find they're wasting away — the thick layers of fat have gone, leaving the skin draped loosely over bone. I reach out to touch them with my left hand, only to discover that that too, in fact the whole of my left arm, has withered, eaten from the inside. Only a tube of grey, flaking flesh remains, loose bones weighting it at the bottom.

My right arm, though, seems okay. Somewhat emaciated, but still useable. I press the relevant keys on the remote control pads and find that the Six O' Clock Informative has begun.

-oOo-

I'm a little worried. I think I might die.

I've awoken to discover that my whole body now consists of only three parts — a head, a stick-like right arm, and a bloated, rippled white torso so obese it splits my shirt. Other appendages might have gone, too, but it's hard to be certain as deep rolls of fat bury my crotch. I resemble a giant maggot.

Where’s it going to stop? Is it going to stop? What about food? How am I going to feed myself if I can’t get to the bloody kitchen?

But, like I said, these are only little worries, the tiniest voices deep inside me. Easily ignored, easily quelled. I’m watching Inquisitor’s Apprentice.

-oOo-

Something is growing outwards from the side of my belly. It looks a bit like another, boneless, arm, or a strung-out intestine. It’s heading towards the kitchen. Pleasingly, at the end of it, a little three-fingered claw is developing. How else would I be able to open my beers?

My right hand is also mutating. Its outer digits are fusing together into thick clamps, leaving the middle finger —with its two extra knuckles— free. It's much easier to use the remote controls this way.

I've no worries at all now. Kuja was right — I am vegetating. I'm becoming a fully evolved pict fanatic.

The volume snows flickering static.

-oOo-

I seem to have lost the need for sleep. I can watch pict twenty-four hours a day, every day. It's wonderful.

Simon from next door's been knocking, but I didn't bother answering. I couldn't anyway – I no longer have a voice.

Sanguin's dead, I think. I haven't seen him for days (weeks?), and he couldn't have got out. His body will be in the kitchen somewhere — it was always his favourite room. I would imagine the house stinks to high heaven, what with Sanguin's corpse and everything else, but it doesn't make any difference to me — my nose is a tiny lump, a wart for all the purpose it serves. My whole face is now little more than a fleshy slab, my mouth a small, lipless circle, my head bald. Only my eyes and ears remain as they were, though I no longer have to blink very often.

Anyway, once my new proboscis has finished rummaging through the rubbish (for that's where it must be scavenging now — the fridge would have been emptied long ago), Sanguin will provide it with somewhere else to go.

Even as I think this I notice, from the corner of my eye, a bulge being forced along the pink pipe towards me, and I wonder for a moment if it’s already feline for supper.

But only for a moment. I'm watching the pict.

There's some sort of action film on. Lots of gunfire, lots of shouting, and I have the volume close to maximum. Still, I can hear my neighbour pounding angrily on the partition wall, and reason that I had best quieten things a bit.

I don't want any hassle.

I can't be arsed.

-oOo-

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