The Ellen Show

The Ellen show is a talk-variety show featuring comic Ellen DeGeneres in the studio performing an opening monologue and interviewing guests who include celebrities, newsmakers and ordinary people with extraordinary talents. Additionally, segments include performances from top music acts, audience participation and man-on-the-street interviews. Music is a key part of the show, with an in-studio DJ – including occasional celebrity guest DJs – spinning tunes and DeGeneres often breaking out into dance moves during the show. It is widely known that, despite her affable frivolity and easygoing demeanor on the show, DeGeneres is a light speed cunt.

The warm-up comedian is telling the studio audience a joke about the death penalty during the commercial break segment. I'm in my chair on the stage next to Ellen, and the studio lights are making me sweat, and I can feel my makeup beginning to run. A girl steps in and touches me up with some powder, whispering, “Please help me,” before she walks away, and I listen to Ellen on her iPhone X telling her assistant to “never make that fucking mistake again, or I will fucking gut you like the worthless pig you are.” I yawn and make eye contact with a man in the audience. He holds eye contact for an uncomfortably long time, and then, very slowly and very intentionally, he draws his index finger across his neck and mouths “It won’t end well,” before looking away from me.

A producer counts us down out of the commercial break as Ellen drops the call and stashes her iPhone under her ass. She looks into the camera lens and grins like a maniac as we bump back into the show.

Ellen begins talking: “We’re back with producer Dorren Daniels, the lone survivor of that terrifying Gulfstream crash in the Santa Susana mountains. Languishing in a coma for years afterward. Dorren, thank you so much for being on the show and bravely sharing your story.”

I look back to the studio audience, and the man from before, the neck-slash guy, is now holding an actual gun against his right temple. A snub-nose .38.  He’s staring directly at me again. He mouths the words, “In your sleep.”

Ellen: “So when did know there was something wrong? How did it feel to know the plane was going down and you were going to crash?”

Me: “Your brain is programmed to be bigoted and confirm stereotypes.”

Ellen: “Was there much gore when you pulled yourself out of the flaming wreckage?”

Me: "It is fooled by anecdotal evidence. Or a pretty face. Or a guy in a uniform.”

Ellen: “Uh-huh. And the dead babies. Were their bodies…intact…or…dismembered?”

Me: “It’s a master of rationalization. It believes what it hears. It overreacts.”

Ellen: “Right. Charred limbs. Eviscerated torsos. Gnarled, gaping bloody holes where the eyes used to be. Fascinating”

Me: “It is hopelessly incompetent at distinguishing fact from fiction.”

Ellen: “Right. Exactly. And I am absent of emotion, and incapable of feeling. I have known this for a very long time. Did you dream while you were comatose?”

When I look back to the studio audience, the man with the .38 is no longer there.