…
She doesn’t have
the will to sign the parking slip with a halo as she usually does. It’s been
three nervous days. The fabric of the skin underneath, she imagines, her is
raw. Her jaw aches as if from the strain of holding all her cartilage in place.
And he just stares
at her. This security man. She defensively kept her ear plugs in. Not wanting
to be rude. Of course. But men of little station and smaller talk bore her. He.
Yes him. She can see him watch her walk through the public control access
doors. Those eyes. His eyes fixed on her rotund bottom. She is disgusted. She
walks into the lift barely intact.
Alone in the people size pneumatic tube pill
she just lets go for a while. She lets her mind wonder. Just to ease the
cranial pressure. Even for the split second it takes for the security protocol
to do a full body scan of her. The soft
metal voice in two designer octaves, chimes “Destination
please”.
She has been around long enough. This is
another test. With just enough hesitation in her voice she starts with an Uhm she
implies it she lets the voice lead
her through prompts designed to reassure her of the safety of quantum elevator
travel. The lift is already in motion when she is asked again to state her
destination. “Human Futures”
…
She sees the full
stop in the name but does not pronounce it. She reels back her mind. The music
being played is from the old pre-second millennial library. The system gleaned
from the various information networks that it would be suitable to play. It’s a
song her alternate ego would like.
Stepping onto the
hologram floor. Having brought her mind back into her body. Using her
physicality to rig the ill-fitting suspension suit almost entirely by instinct
she exhales for two reasons: One. To
let the temperature control protocol compensate for her presence. Two. To let the thought that this might
not be a good idea escape her.
She makes light
steps as sensors read the balls of her. Block letters “Interview Room One”. The
human condition is analogous fault finding and over correction. A cipher
constantly breaking and encrypting the enigma. Systems are limited creations,
they are beaten. Other Humans are harder to beat.
Her and the man who
is playing blind. K something. Recognition is not faulted. They are thankful
they are both here. It’s Calyx his alternym.
Hers is Lipuo. Her cranial tongue tastes the mustiness of it. The hint of auld
time book. Savour it. Musky. Her alternym is called. She goes up to the control
desk and places the book she pretended to read in front of the interviewer. He
glances at it then her and objects.
“Honest mistake” She lies. He goes over her paperwork. She makes
as if she is admiring the paper thin translucent displays. HumanFutures: The
Latest in Physiological Networking AND Data Bus Solutions. Twinkle goes the
display as it pages through article after article of company promotion.
She is stepping
down. Bringing her higher consciousness into her solar plexus. She coats her
frayed nerves in a sticky balm of controlled signalling. The tingling in her
crown moves to her left then right lobe. It’s brought into the centre of her
forehead now down to her throat. Downward. Cycling the sensation throughout her
body.
For a millionth of
a second she lusts to connect with his mind. Calyx. Override. The elasticity of
the temporal lobe stretches the carnal moment. But it’s fleeting. She crosses
her legs. The interviewer glances at her then at her paper work. He has an
up-skirt camera he thinks she doesn’t know is there.
Cough. He says for the first time. She
looks at him. Drawing her eyes down from the screens. She uncrosses her legs to
expedite things. The lenses of his bifocals are two way glass. Fogged. He
stammers over her filings trying to divide his attention between her as she
looks at him and the visual feed from under his desk. He wasn’t expecting…
Cough. He starts again. “ It is unusual for us to receive female volunteers for our service this cycle
of the year”. Population Control. Breeding Taxes. Pregnancy is big business.
The economy of over and under population globally. He doesn’t have to say it.
“I still have
choice over my body”. She plays on his chauvinism. It’s an old confidence
trick. “Of course “. He hates her
in an incomplete way. “…” he manages. “Do you have anything to declare our scans may have missed: Pregnancy,
drug dependency, clairvoyance, disease…?” Alert. Why does he start by saying
pregnancy? The standard form starts with dependency.
Her sneeze is
telling. She stifles it. It’s a corporeal flinch in her upper mind. Lodged in
the corpus callosum like a virulent spectre. She’s come thus far. Her composure
is worn in. Her concern is not betrayed from the outside. “That you know of.” Him. “ Not that I know of”. Equably
…
“Interview Room
Two” another room with all the personality of a lab coat and anonymous
intentions. Her name tag: X!Rrra. Dead language names. Dead languages made a
comeback once upon a time. “Jeera
this is… Deep Poo Oh” he pronounces with his fat flat white tongue. “X!, X!,
X!” she clucks. Over friendly. Sisterly.
Conspiratorial. “Dipuo” Correct.
“Have a seat. Do you like this song?”
Psychosomatic
overtures of undying love. Too radio. The cold press of the stethoscope against
her sternum. Small talk. Small hands against the spine. A diversion at the
synaptic nerve. There’s a horrible painting on the wall of an extinct species
of dog. Pterodactyl. No. Terrier. In daubs of nauseating green.
“You are a fine
physical specimen of health, like a Philly” like
she’s glad. People like her. People who talk like her. People with pictures of
dead dogs on their wall. Like her. Must like animals or have a latent stammer.
Or. Nothing more. The mind wanders out loud “Is
that real leather?”
After interview
small talk. With a woman. Humans are... You can’t beat their instincts. You can
only overcome them with sentiment “I
had a miscarriage” lie “but,
but… I need the money” truth. Imply stammer get
“Ah skat” with a pat on the knee.
…
This she can
handle. The procedure. Finally. The attendant is impressed with her reflexes.
He apologizes for the cold instruments. It’s a mind trick. There’s local
anaesthetic around where her vertebrae discs are being separated by clamps.
The sedative hits
and she shoulders the blackout. She lets the ghost of the freight train they
threw at her pass. And leaves the load at the front of her mind. Nyctophilia.
The Abyss_inian accent of that black out beckons. It always almost gets her every
time. It is ritual. Rite. She uses the eighth arm of her subconscious to work
her cowry shell prayer bead amulet. She turns away from the withheld night.
She summons up
soothing. That pinkish peach the colour of sunset. The shade of beauty that
ways the tongue heavy on the tongue. The heft of anguish. She splinters. Her
many parts going in a myriad of directions. When her grandmother shimmers into
the plain of her sight she knows she is transient.
“ Otla[you come] mo[to] nna[me] so[so
– this way] ” first communion.
Guilt. She lets her guard down. Gone is her alternate ego. She has no need for
it. She falls to her knees in front of the expanse of the aether is desert. She
grabs at the tatters of her grandmother and curses motherhood. The incarnation
record starts to play through the earbuds her body is wearing
She talks to her
grandmother. A hundred embodiments old… of memories she’s found. Her
grandmother. Idiomatic. Says she brought rain into the house
She is talking
simultaneously to every mother that has begat her. They are all of the same
about-face. She is choosing the drug over the child. Omens. Frogs with the
orange rind under belly. Gruesome plants eschewing cremation smoke. All of
creation. Howling. It’s her choice to do what best she can.
AfricanaPurpleFlux.
She fucks with it! Meaningless death. Her choice. What will child do but get
chewed up by the finite machine. She just needs to get by and by, by she means high.
Her thinking narrowed. “
Before them she can
only explain herself like a child. They are awash in the afterbirth of aetheral
seniority. Stuck in their place as mothers. There’s no placating them. No
plastic explosive. Excuse. Could move them. The little finger on the third hand
of her subconscious keeps in touch with in utero condition. The
silicon-nanoplast-plasma she applied to shield the pregnancy is compromised.
It’s time
Up. Till then she
hadn’t thought how easy it was to confess to smoking contraband. The side eyes
she got. She was allowed to go to the bathroom to fix. They probably thought a
heroin alloy or other dirty drug. She was in the vacuum sealed stall.
Indecently. Fixing. Yes. But implanting the silicon paste.
Here and now. She
lifts a cairn. Deposits memories. Hates she must go so soon. Calyx is knocking.
Loudly like somebody might_hear. That loud and someone just might. She is
loading her tongue with newspeak because she sees an Orwellian mythos in a lost
parity byte. She peers over the black out and senses the attendant pumping
himself to her lifted coverall. No alert. Yet
HumanFutures does
not recommend you rent out your body to the procedure if you are with child.
Results may vary. As per the parlance. She needs a go-to. Needs to get her
physical hands on some fresh AfricanaPurpleFlux. She didn’t want the baby.
Afterthought.
True to form. The
earworm. “…deep breath. I
manage to breathe. After all there is air in disrepair…” a lyric. Or. A tombstone. Her near consciousness is
too close to conceiving. Little man empowering himself. Rattling his pen and
puling at his pubic strands. She lets slip her guard to her cerebral
antechamber. Showing him she knows and can dispose of him.
The fates wish
death on no one even this little man. They would rather have his humiliation.
There’s nothing he can do once he knows she can see him. Men of little
consequence. She. A clairvoyant. The dangerous sort. The realized.
He signs her
release. Irony. He orders the machines recalibrated. He reproofs the
safeguards. She is free. Never too soon. The credits are safe in the purse she
stole. Green dog painting. Cluck. The kitchen cosy nausea. The barbs of her
tongue can taste it. Water down. She eats a dry heave cake. Anything to shock
her body into place. The dyschromia of moving without moving and no horizon to fix on.
...
She is in bed with
Calyx. She is without guilt. The purple will consume her as it does all people.
She is resigned. The bastions of morals repel her. As do the tides of nausea.
It’s morning. It’s not as the pamphlets say. The child in no way is dying.
Still. She is shaping. Soon she will show.
She is eating
fruit. When all else fails she caramelizes mango. She has cream and watermelon.
Water down. She is here again. And she will take it her AfricanaPurpleFlux. It
will be her last one. The concentrate is gratuitous. This synthetic that its
own creator died from, accordingly. The High. The High is called Oblivion. The
very shade of god. The White death that sears the seers.
Something is wrong.
The upheavals. She’d never suffered so. Every part of her body wants to
jettison the child within. Save him. Six weeks too soon. Or too late. The
patrons have thrown her to the mulch. She’s on the pavement. People stepping
over her. Ladders in her stockings. “ I’m
with child! “ she
labours.
The child will live
some disinterested attendant says. Her eyes are shut. She is incapable. She
cannot move. It’s the machines they say. That are keeping her alive. What of
the baby? The credit found on her will only buy her another thirty minutes on
the machine. She won’t know. She can’t. Abyss
