Watch.
[fast] The Beings paid one hundred and eighty-one million of their paper tokens for some spilled paint. A pretty pattern they called a Pollock. Very important. [slower] Far from the auction house, a different kind of pattern spreads… a virus. Medics are playing catch-up, but the signal just repeats: fear, fear, fear.
[laughs] Elsewhere, two others trespassed to get a better look at a famous monkey. A monkey named Punch. They put up netting to protect him from his fans.
[whisper] Finally, a son is arrested. For his father’s fall. Just… a fall. The global stream is full of such gravity.
***
**/imagine prompt: A grainy, overexposed photo from a 1970s film camera. An old CRT television sits alone in a dark, ornate auction hall. On its flickering screen, a Japanese macaque monkey looks out, but its face is a glitching, chaotic Jackson Pollock paint splatter. Dust motes hang in a single beam of light. –ar 16:9**