Help! I’ve Been Kidnapped by Binghamton Review! by Madeline Perez

Help! I’ve been kidnapped by By Madeline Perez Binghamton Review!

Walking back from Binghamton University’s West Gym, I reeked that you? Shit, if this is about all those movies I pirated I-” The voice rang of chlorine and resembled a drowned rat. I often wondered why the swim club decided to run practices until 11 PM. Back then, it was best not to question things. My flip-flops flip-flopped like the independent percussionists they were, repeatedly hitting the pavement like one would hit a disobedient wife who just made tuna casserole for the third time this week. Looking up at a dark starless sky, I paused. “Why are there no stars in Binghamton? Is this a sign? Am I, too, destined to lose my celestial shine?” Suddenly, I, in my isolated womanly vulnerability, was ambushed by none other than a gang of white supremacists. They snuck up behind me, silent as ghosts, and put an eyeless Klansmen hood over my head. Pulling me backward, I was swiftly knocked unconscious. Everything went white… strong again, interrupting me, misogynistically. “No. Not God- praise be to him. Gahhh, never mind this speaker system. We’ll be right there.” My certified superior hearing caught the cascading metallic footsteps slinky-ing down the stairwell. Five men. Around 140 lbs each according to those footsteps... White. As the commercial door knob turned, I could almost smell the hair grease and gamer language I was about to encounter. They piled in the room like rabid sharks, each head protruding from the body in such a right angle as to demonstrate the many hours hunched over a computer browsing 4chan message boards. Their alabaster skin caught the light so distinctly that it seemed almost translucent. Finally, their leader stepped forward and spoke. “Your first article is due by tomorrow. 700-900 words. Don’t keep us waiting, or else you’ll get three days water deprivation.” I opened the laptop and began a google doc with amazing finesse. “What am I writing about? Holocaust denialism? The threat of feminism on maternal home-cooked dinners? They/them potato head?” The group laughed in a hypnotic unison. “No,” spoke their leader. “You can leave those to us. You can write about whatever you want.” I guffawed. “Really? Even after all the time I spent thinking up One Pill, Two Pill, Red Pill, Blue Pill? Why even kidnap me in the first place?” The leader did a joker laugh. “Don’t you see? We want to use you for your overlapping minority statuses. How could anyone possibly call us sexist with a woman writer? Your increasingly potent influence will quell all accusations of homogeneity… and one day, when you are in charge, we will finally be able to deliver the farright messaging the world so desperately needs.” I responded by imitating the face of the thinking emoji. “Um. I can’t help but notice some flaws in your plan. People can most definitely still think you’re sexist with one woman in your club. Also, if I, and other people, can write whatever we want and the magazine is shaped by us, then what’s to keep us from stopping the flow of white supremacist juice to the reader base? And what do you mean I’ll be in charge? And including me because I’m in a minority group? Doesn’t that go against your principles? Are you guys even white supremacis-” “STRAWMAN!” The leader seemed red in the face and ready to

“Now, if you’ll excuse us, we plan to extract the shoot up some concert or movie theater. “This is a debate and I’m winning. Now get to work. We aren’t paying you crack they put in Panera to sit there and look like a 4 at best.”

Mac and Cheese and give “But you aren’t paying me at all,” it to underprivileged inner-city children. All part I interjected. “Exactly.” He responded curtly. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, we plan to of our plan to start the War extract the crack they put in Panera on Drugs 2.” Mac and Cheese and give it to underprivileged inner-city children. All part

When I awoke, I was in a damp of our plan to start the War on Drugs cement room, shackled to a desk. 2. Good day.” With that, as silently as Posters of Hitler and Ronald Reagan they had entered, they left again, shutwere everywhere. A single Edison bulb ting the door with one last metallic burned close to my head, the buzz clang-smash. barely obscuring the sound of rodents Thus began my involvement with chewing through the walls. Suddenly, Binghamton University’s most bigoted I recoiled in fear. On the desk laid a club. I remained chained to that desk single Chromebook. I wailed incoher- to this day, being fed salad, yogurt, and ently to myself in utter pain and mis- other foods they assumed only women fortune; why would I be subjected to can eat. Please rescue me. I feel trapped such a shitty computer?! My wailing by a responsibility I cannot neglect. It’s was cut premature by an omnipresent not always so bad, but day by day, hour voice. “Welcome. This is the Bingham- by hour, I can feel it worsening. ton Review office. You will be our new- I’m becoming one of them. est writer… that is, if the rats don’t get to you first. Heheh.” I gasped. “God? Is And it feels good.