Once upon a time there was a man with a million friends. His name was Kenneth Spruance. Kenneth was a friend to all he met, greeting high and low alike with courtesy and an unflappable sense of goodwill to fellow man, hale- fellow-well-met, et cetera. Compared to other men Kenneth was not the smartest, nor the best looking, and he possessed no great degree of class or sophistication. He was, however, the friendliest. Like most people, Kenneth was oppressed by capitalism and forced to spend much of his time working in what was known colloquially as a "job." Kenneth was a social media coordinator at a company downtown. When Kenneth took the train to and from work each day he was compelled by common courtesy and a strange inner restlessness to walk up and down the cars and exchange greetings with each person in turn, who of course he was friends with. Even if they weren't friends, the rare stranger -- for example, Jesse Jackson -- would no doubt observe Kenneth's unswerving approach and thereby develop some reasonable expectation that he, too, would soon be initiated into Kenneth's ever-expanding social circle. If not, Kenneth was happy to proselytize. He would share a genial remark about the weather, or complain about current traffic conditions to soften Jesse up. If Kenneth sensed weakness he might try a companionable gesture. Then Kenneth would seek out Jesse Jackson's gaze and hold it like a viper rising from a snake charmer's basket as he whipped out his super-smartphone and with blistering speed struck the "FRIEND" button beside Jesse's name on SocialProfilez.com. Only then would Kenneth continue on his way. Many mornings, as the train pulled out of his station downtown, one would find Kenneth still aboard and heedlessly working the crowded cars as they sped toward the next stop, ever farther from his workplace. His boss, Sarah Elizabeth Flinders Jeffries Jones (let's call her "Flinders" for convenience), drafted several passive aggressive memos about this tendency to lateness over the years, but every time she would print off the memo only to crumple it dramatically and throw it in her executive waste paper basket, because face it -- Kenneth was too friendly for that. And he had invited her to his birthday party. She felt a familiar stirring down below. Normally Kenneth didn't celebrate his birthday, because he had been raised to believe that it was impolite to exclude friends from an invitation, and he could never accommodate a million friends at his admittedly large one- bedroom (basement) apartment. But this year Kenneth was turning 27 or 28 and he felt this was an important milestone, plus the 2016 Olympics had recently finished up and all those stadiums were just sitting around gathering dust and bullet holes. Kenneth found that he could rent a stadium for an afternoon for approximately $75.00 USD, so he created an Event on SocialProfilez.com and invited his million friends. He soon received a number of supportive messages and comments from his friends, and everyone indicated they would be attending his birthday party. Kenneth was over the moon. On the big day, Kenneth stood at center field of the stadium, near the punch bowl, which was set on a folding table. He was surrounded by his million closest friends, filling all the seats and even spilling onto the field, but two people had a special place at the festivities – Jesse Jackson, because he was Kenneth's newest friend, and Flinders, because she was his boss, and Kenneth knew which side his bread was buttered on. Kenneth remarked on the fine weather to Flinders, and complained to Jesse about the horrid traffic caused in large part by his birthday party. Then he gave their elbows a companionable squeeze and excused himself to climb the steps of the nearby podium, where he walked toward the waiting microphone. Kenneth planned to make a short speech before playing the host and circulating to say hi to everyone. He looked fondly out across the sea of shining faces, and then down toward those dear friends closest at hand -- Jesse and Flinders. The murmur of the crowd quieted as they saw him preparing to speak, and Kenneth noted a rising crescendo of super-smartphone camera flashbulbs going off as he cleared his throat. He paused as the flashbulbs continued to multiply, dazzling his eyes -- something was wrong! Kenneth's social media sense was tingling like crazy, and suddenly his super- smartphone began heating up like a hot brick in his back pocket. Juggling the phone, Kenneth saw that his birthday party's Event page on SocialProfilez.com was a blur of updates, as an avalanche of photos, comments, and emoticons were posted all at once. The phone started smoking and Kenneth dropped it with a cry as blue lightning arced at the same instant from all the myriad super-smartphones around the stadium, coalescing in a flickering vortex of social energy above Kenneth's head. <> he tried to shout to Jesse and Flinders, who were frozen in an attitude of shock nearby, but no-one could hear him above the stupendous electrical discharge. Kenneth knew he had to stop the chain reaction, but the strange lights only increased the rate at which everyone was socially mediating. The lightning increased lockstep as Kenneth staggered toward the edge of the podium, and he vaguely felt himself being lifted and then slammed down the stairs by a titanic explosion. Afterward, for a moment, there was nothing. Then there was Flinders coughing her guts out and Jesse Jackson exclaiming, "Oh my lord!" There was also something in the tenor of the crowd noise that was changed, and unsettling. Kenneth groaned and rolled his battered body over before cracking open an eyelid. He found himself still at the center of a stadium with his two dearest friends, but the other 999,998 friends were nowhere to be seen. The stadium walls that rose up around them were composed not of ferroconcrete but of stone colonnades, and the seats were filled with short people in togas. Kenneth heard a shocked cry arise from the crowd at their sudden appearance, but the words were not English or Brazilian, but Roman! They had been transported by the social media singularity back to the Roman Coliseum!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Kenneth spun in impotent circles, gasping against the weight of cruel fate as he took in the armoured gladiators and fearsome wild animals that were close at hand. The crowd was now chanting something that could only be Roman for <> Kenneth caught Jesse Jackson's eye and shared a moment of bitter defeat just before a massive armoured figure stepped forward and crushed Mr. Jackson's head with a spiked mace. From the other side, a starving and deranged tiger leapt at Sarah Elizabeth Flinders Jeffries Jones and tore her left arm off at the elbow. Her shrieking brought two more tigers and a quick end, before the cats began fighting over their kill. Rebuffed, one of the big cats turned toward Kenneth and began to stalk him with terrifying langour. <> Kenneth panted as the animal closed in, and the Roman chanting grew more insistent. In the end, with the tiger's cold eyes filling his vision, Kenneth Spruance shed a single tear, for he knew that he had sinned. THE END.SAUCE00The Man With A Million Friends Hennifer Lazarus 20150412