The Studio Magician
The broadcast again cut back to the main studio. The lazy anchor had finally managed to sit up, though he was leaning heavily on his elbow, looking like he actively wanted to dissolve into the floor tiles.
"So, yeah... that is exactly why you should never have a dedicated hater in your life," the reporter deadpanned, staring blankly into the camera to deliver some utterly useless, profoundly unhelpful life advice. "If a wild animal is literally willing to die on a surgical ventilator just to stick its tongue out at your face, you definitely fucked up somewhere in your karmic cycle. Anyway, profound life advice over. Let's move on."
He lazily shuffled a completely blank piece of paper on his desk for absolutely no reason.
"So, naturally, now let's hear the man's point of view on the sandwich tragedy. Normally, we would have to send a camera crew to the federal police station to interview him through the iron bars of a maximum-security holding cell. But then, we realized something."
The reporter slowly reached under his desk, his joints practically creaking with the effort, and pulled out a cheap, dusty piece of cloth. He lazily tossed the cloth over a completely empty folding chair sitting right next to his news desk.
"We realized we are a massive news corporation, and we can just do whatever we want," the reporter sighed.
He lazily yanked the cloth away.
With absolutely zero logical explanation, the enraged, dirt-covered sandwich guy was instantly sitting in the chair. He had magically appeared in the studio out of thin air.
He looked like he had just survived a literal war zone. His polo shirt was violently ripped to shreds, his face was smeared with mud and tiger blood, and he was panting heavily, his chest heaving up and down as if he were still actively trying to push away a barricade of federal soldiers. He was completely exhausted, vibrating with an unhinged, rage-baiting intensity.
"But yeah, we got this man released," the reporter stated flatly, completely ignoring the blatant violation of physics. "And somehow, he directly reached our TV station to give us the interview."
The man didn't even blink at the magic trick. He violently snatched the microphone right off the reporter's desk, gripping it so hard the plastic cracked. His eyes burned with a psychopathic, exhausted fury.
"I WILL BEAT THE ABSOLUTE SHIT OUT OF THAT FUCKING ANIMAL!" the guy screamed directly into the camera lens, gasping for air between every word, completely drained but fueled entirely by hatred. "That striped bastard has to get discharged from the hospital sometime! And the exact second he rolls out of those ICU doors... I will be waiting! I will take my revenge! I was having a peaceful afternoon! And that giant fucking rug completely ruined my food!"
The lazy reporter slowly blinked, completely unfazed by the screaming lunatic sitting two feet away from him.
"You assaulted a protected apex predator and physically fought off a barricade of elite special forces," the reporter noted in a bored, monotonous drone, resting his chin in his hand. "So how exactly did you end up in my studio, giving us the most exclusive, personal interview you have given to anyone?"
The raging man instantly stopped screaming. He just sat there, panting heavily, glaring at the reporter with absolute, exhausted disgust. He didn't give a speech. He didn't explain his destiny.
He just aggressively reached into his torn, muddy pocket, pulled out a massive, cartoonishly thick bundle of high-denomination cash, and violently slammed the brick of money onto the news desk.
THWACK.
The guy sat back, his chest heaving, staring at the money with pure, tired rage.
"This," the man wheezed, pointing a dirty, bruised finger at the bundle of notes. "This is the fucking reason, you idiot. You think I am here because I like your channel?"
The reporter stared at the massive stack of bribe money. He didn't look shocked. He didn't look embarrassed. He just looked directly back at the camera with entirely dead eyes.
"Yeah. So what?" the reporter mumbled unapologetically. "We gave him a bribe. We all know that in this country, a bribe is critically important. In fact, it is basically the only functioning infrastructure we have left. We paid him a highly ungodly amount of money under the table so that he could sit in that chair and give us this premium interview. Honestly, it was a solid return on investment."
The reporter let out another heavy, rattling sigh, aggressively rubbing his forehead as if simply speaking had drained the last of his life force.
"Anyway, that's the news," the reporter concluded, entirely devoid of energy. "A guy fought a tiger over a sandwich, the tiger is a professional hater, and we are a highly corrupt news organization. Now back to whatever the hell you were doing. I am going to sleep under my desk."
The Unwilling Interview
The lazy anchor aggressively slid his squeaky chair backward, preparing to completely disappear under his news desk for a highly illegal, broadcast-interrupting nap.
SMACK!
A heavy, solid brass analog microphone flew out from the shadowy depths behind the camera and hit the reporter directly in the side of the head with a sickening thud.
"Ow! What the actual, biological fuck?!" the reporter groaned, aggressively massaging his bruised temple.
Off-camera, the angry studio producer could be heard aggressively screaming, threatening to permanently liquidate the reporter's pension if he didn't keep the broadcast rolling. The reporter let out a long, agonizing sigh that sounded like his soul was physically packing its bags and leaving his body. He lazily dragged his upper half back onto the desk, slumping heavily against the cheap wood like a melted candle.
"Okay, so... yeah. My producer just threw a heavy piece of brass audio equipment directly at my skull," the reporter deadpanned, staring at the camera with hollow, dead eyes. "So now we are going to continue with the interview. Journalism is truly a beautiful, magical thing. I love my life."
The sandwich guy sitting next to him was still vibrating with pure, unhinged exhaustion, violently tapping his muddy boot against the studio floor like a jackhammer.
"Can we please do this fast?!" the guy snapped, frantically wiping a streak of tiger blood off his forehead with a torn piece of his polo shirt. "I have a lot of highly aggressive things to do today! I need to ice my knuckles, I need to buy a new lunchbox, and I absolutely do not have the time to sit here for your boring shit!"
The reporter slowly turned his head to look at the raging man with half-closed eyes.
"Fine. Let's do the journalism thing," the reporter droned, resting his cheek on his fist. "Why did you beat the absolute shit out of the tiger? Was it a personal vendetta, or do you just hate striped animals? Keep it short."
The man's eyes flared with volcanic, world-ending fury. He aggressively grabbed the cracked microphone again, pulling it so violently close to his mouth that the audio peaked with harsh, eardrum-shattering static.
"Because of a fucking reason, you idiot!" the man roared, practically spitting on the desk. "It completely destroyed my food! I was having a peaceful, highly spiritual connection with my roasted sandwich, and that giant fucking rug turned it into a biological crime scene! And on top of all that, it made me punch it so bad that I got tackled into the mud by the military! I had to physically discipline an endangered species with a rusted pocket knife! What the fuck did you expect me to do?!"
The guy threw his free hand into the air in sheer, capitalistic exasperation.
"Think about it logically!" the guy continued, his face turning red as he delivered an unhinged economic breakdown of the animal kingdom. "Do you think that tiger is going to pay for my ruined food?! Do you think it carries a little leather wallet in its fur?! Does a tiger have a good credit score?! Can a tiger walk into a bank and write me a certified check for the emotional damage it caused?! No! There is zero financial compensation in the wild! That animal is a biological freeloader!"
The man slammed his fist on the desk.
"That was the main point of my beating! I was literally furious because my personal property was obliterated, and I was absolutely not getting compensated for my massive economic loss by a fucking cat!"
The lazy reporter blinked slowly, staring at the man with absolute, bottomless apathy.
"Right," the reporter droned into the desk mic. "So to recap our top story: an apex predator commits grand theft lunch, gets stabbed thirty times with a pocket knife, and you expect local wildlife to carry checkbooks. Truly inspiring civic awareness."
"Damn right!" the guy yelled back, furiously jabbing a finger at the camera lens. "If that striped bastard wants to eat a premium roasted sandwich, it needs to get a job and pay sales tax like the rest of us!"
The reporter let out a heavy, rattling groan, letting his head slowly sink back down flat against the desk. "I am actively praying for the sweet release of death."