by Nick Salomon
“Sure,” I say. “I probably saw that pothead alien in a movie or a cartoon when I was little. What did you see?”
“Shit I didn’t want to remember,” he says.
Not good, it dug up some traumatic shit. What could be so traumatic for such a specimen of alpha maleness though?
“At least not this… vividly,” he adds, looking down at the floor.
I sit there, letting him take his time to process. Not only will these dioramas be raw, vivid, lucid dreams on demand but, if they can force you to relive traumatic events, maybe there will be some use in psychiatry. Fuck, if these can fix people’s inner fucked-up-ness, we could make so much more money on medical insurance claims alone. Got to figure out a way to get them endorsed by whatever scammy psychiatry association is out there.
“I can see what you mean,” the Straya eventually says, looking me in the eyes. “New platform, new class of diorama. Whoever gets their name out there first will monopolize the market at least for a few months.”
“Exactly,” I say, big grin on my face.
“Yeah,” he relaxes and returns the smile. “Let’s do it.”
“Alright!” exclaims Lucy from her nerd throne.
“So how does it work?” asks ToBogan.
“Here,” I say and pick up the catcher, which Lucy by now has installed in new bicycle helmet-looking casing.
“This is it?” asks ToBogan skeptically. “This is your dreamcatcher?”
“Yep,” I say smugly. “Compact design, super-fast catch, wireless and relatively painless. Not to mention it catches lucid dioramas.”
The Maximum Straya picks up the ‘catcher from my hand and observes it for a moment, and before he gets second thoughts I say “well, shall we catch a lucid diorama from that croc bitten head of yours?”
“I’ll give it a shot,” he says, looking at us. “But I won’t be signing any papers until I see it again in action, with my own diorama. I still have exclusivity with Dreamax, you know.”
“Well, you know,” says Lucy. “You have contractual exclusivity to not distribute dioramas with other companies but I’m sure your contract says nothing about you distributing from your own company.”
“Yeah,” I add, seeing where she’s going. “A company you’re founding with two fellow Dreamax ex-employees.”
Without comment, ToBogan nods in acknowledgement then says, “I still want to test it before I commit to anything.”
“Totally understandable,” I say, then motion for him to recline again on the couch. “Shall we?”
ToBogan nods and lies down, while Lucy turns her throne to type in my laptop, which still has the custom catch software on its screen. I sit in the sofa next to him and they go at it. Lucy asks him for a memory to use as entry point then does her dramatic countdown again. ToBogan again goes limp and lies there. For a moment, I recall the hobo going berserk during the catch and wonder if the same thing happens to him, he’ll probably trash the place before we can stop him. He’s a big guy after all. For me.
But the catch goes on uneventfully. ToBogan doesn’t suffer the way he’d do with a traditional Dreamax catch. Not even five minutes pass when I see on my laptop’s screen the process is completed and he wakes up as if from a nap. Maybe the hobo’s mental state caused berserker mode. Maybe his brain was unique for lucid diorama catch and ToBogan’s is only going to give us a regular old rama. Fuck.
“All good,” says Lucy and I look at her to see she’s pointing at her screen. Apparently she’s already copied over the catch to her renderer and on it, we see the same mess of seemingly random brainwaves characteristic of lucid diorama. It worked. I smile and let out a sigh in relief.
“Alright, well, I got to go to a photo shoot,” ToBogan says as he gets up.
“Hey, mastering takes like an hour, you don’t want to wait?” I ask.
“Nah, give me a ride back to the beach mate,” he says. Maybe important celebrities such as himself only have a short tolerance for being around the nobodies for short periods of time. “Text me when it’s ready and I’ll come take a look.”
“Alright then,” I say and give Lucy a thumbs-up as I follow ToBogan out the door.
We walk the couple blocks to my car and check on our new business partner. I fail to figure out how his demeanor went from his usual bogan frat boy persona to being completely quiet. Could be he’s trying to deal with the fact he’s going to be the next Chad Mars. Or maybe he’s annoyed because he thinks this whole evening was a waste of time. I’m driving down the 10 East and to test the waters, I ask him “well, what do you think?”
ToBogan seems lost in thought for a moment, then looks at me and says “I don’t know, we’ll see when it’s ready for dreaming.”
“You saw in the sample rama,” I try to reassure him. “This is going to be huge, and you’re going to be huge with it.”
“Look, you don’t get it,” he says. “Some things buried in the back of your head are better left there.”
Man’s got a point. “Was it that bad?”
“It’s not so much my personal temporary discomfort. How is this going to change people in general, I wonder. Suddenly, people are going to be able to look at each other’s inner demons.”
Damn. I didn’t even think of it. If anything, raw, uncensored inner demon shit would probably be obscenely profitable. “How bad can it be?” I ask. “People used to listen to violent hip-hop and watch disgusting things online all the time and we’re not in some post-apocalyptic hellhole.
“Who knows? We’ll find out.”
Yeah. We will. Worse comes to worse, we’ll be too high up our ivory towers by the time there’s riots in the streets. Kind of surprising for a veteran frat boy to care about society and its ills.
We make it back to Santa Monica eventually and I drop off ToBogan with the promise he’ll come by tomorrow or the next day once the diorama is ready for dreaming. On my way back I stop by a car wash where they remove the plastic covering from the driver’s seat and they attempt to detail out the increasingly disgusting smell of shit water. They take an hour going at it and eventually return it. The manager is embarrassed, there’s still a faint whiff lingering inside, despite the generous amounts of lavender scent sprayed. Whatever, I’ll buy a new car next week. A better one. One of those self-driving pure hydrogen with the gullwing doors. With leather seats, yeah. I pay the man for doing his best and drive off.
It’s dark when I make it back to my neighborhood. Downtown LA. Homeless Central. The hobos begin forming lines along the streets leading up to the Pershing Square tent city for their free dinner. I make a right to get near my building, but I’m stopped by a police road block. I thought cops were not supposed to touch the hobos. Not that they’d want to. The three lanes of the one-way street are squeezed into one by traffic cones. Police interceptor red and blue lights illuminate the otherwise neglected street. Then I see it.
Yellow police tape blocks access to an alley. I know this alley. I slow down and continue driving past the roadblock. Police officers point flashlights by an orange trash container and the white blankets covering a mass, obviously shaped like a body.
Fuck me. I’m sure it’s the same alley. Is it the same hobo? Is that our former business partner there? Did we kill him?
I continue past the scene trying to not look suspicious. Like any of the cops is going to see my face through tinted windows at that hour anyway. If that’s him, I don’t recall if I touched him or the trash container or any other place where my prints might be. Maybe some hair fell off my head. Maybe the hobo scratched me and kept some DNA samples under his fingernails. Then again this is a random hobo out of thousands in Downtown LA. I don’t think they’re going to go full CSI and waste money on someone with enough alcohol in their blood to die twice.
Past the cop cars, traffic goes back to normal and it doesn’t take me long to drive into my building. I’m in a dazed state as I walk out of it and into the elevator and into my apartment and into my living room and sit
in my nerd throne. Mine doesn’t have speakers. I’ll buy one with huge fucking ones when we start making money. When our full catch dioramas go viral. Yeah. We have two now, the hobo’s as well as ToBogan. But the hobo is dead now. We’ll find out soon if from alcohol poisoning or the catch job.
Virality
Woken up to the text message alert chime. What’s the point of being let go from work if I can’t sleep until my eyes hurt? I check the phone. It’s Lucy.
From Lucy:
T’s rama is ready
From Me:
Have you dreamt it?
From Lucy:
No. Come. You do first
From Me:
I’ll get breakfast first.
See you in a couple hours.
More like lunch. I check the clock. It’s 11:49 AM. Should check on ToBogan. A text message should do it.
From Me:
Heyo
I wait 10 minutes. Nothing.
From Me:
Meet at Lucy’s?
Another 10 minutes. Nothing. It bugs me to be ignored but it’s also worrying, after seeing the police crime scene yesterday. Yeah, looked like a crime scene. Not just some random wino’s body giving out to the excess alcohol, but an actual murder scene. Maybe it was a different hobo in the same alley. There’s one way to find out.
I get out of bed. Slept naked. Hate air conditioning. Will have to wash bedcovers soon. Quick shower. Get dressed. I walk out of my building and make for the alley, five blocks away. It’s noon in Downtown LA, and it’s summer too. Rising temperatures and the god damn sunlight evaporate the trails of piss and shit and vomit from the sidewalks. The scents wafting in the air must be what hell smells like. At least the hobos keep to themselves. Mentally ill or not, as long as one ignores them, they’re mostly harmless.
Five blocks away, into the former jewelry district, I arrive at the alley. It is still cordoned out with yellow police tape. But I don’t see anyone guarding it. I take a glance down the street towards the Pershing Square tent city. Nothing. Then back in the other direction. Nothing. Police mostly keep away from homeless concentrations. Too much of a legal liability if they bump into a hobo by accident and the department gets hit with yet another abuse lawsuit. I gently lift the yellow tape above my head and walk into the alley.
There’s nothing in here, besides the trash container where our former business partner indulged in his self-pleasuring activities. I look around for anything incriminating, like the cops wouldn’t have found it when they canvassed the scene. Nothing. Other than the yellow tape by the sidewalk, nothing in here gives the impression someone died last night.
“Hey!” I hear a shout from the sidewalk. I turn and see a cop car. I just smile and wave the two police inside as I walk towards them.
“Hey officers,” I say with a big smile.
“Lost something?” the uniformed guy riding shotgun asks.
I squint and bend a little so I can see his face and answer “nah, I live down the street and was just wondering what happened here.”
“Guy died,” says the cop at the wheel. I bend I little further and I can see it’s some young guy, probably just out of academy.
“That sucks,” I say. “Was he mugged or something? I have to walk around here at night you know.”
The cop at the window scoffs. Older guy, maybe the supervisor of the kid at the wheel. Then he says “I wouldn’t come out for a stroll at night. In fact, I’d move the hell out of here if I lived anywhere in a 5-mile radius.”
“Nah, no mugging,” says the kid at the wheel. I can’t see his name badge. “Weird thing, probably one of those drugs people cook up.”
“Really?” I ask.
“Yeah, the guy’s brain pretty much melted to a pulp,” the supervisor-type adds. “Not a pretty sight. At least he probably didn’t suffer.”
Fuck. Me.
“That sucks,” I say, doing my best to hide distress.
“Yeah, but nothing to worry about,” supervisor cop says. “I still wouldn’t walk out here at night by myself.”
“Thanks, officer,” I say. Big smile. Must look like random guy. “Will keep that in mind.”
Supervisor cop nods and tells young cop to keep driving. The car rides to the corner then makes a right and disappears from sight. I pull my phone out and try again.
From Me:
Yo, straya. Ping me when you
can, will you?
I wait 10 minutes. Nothing. Fuck. Me. Don’t die on me, ToBogan. We have ramas to catch.
*
Back in Lucy’s neighborhood. Regardless of the day of the week I drive in here, it always feels the same. Makes no difference when most people living in here don’t have typical 9-to-5s. Makes me wonder what the regular schedule and job benefits are for a cartel lieutenant. I make it to her door and knock.
She opens the door. Looks like this time was able to take a shower. A mix of smells of running electronics and a lavender candle or two reaches my nostrils. Lucy sees me, smiles and bites her lower lip. “Come in, come in,” she says.
I return the smile and walk inside as I say “alright, alright I’m coming.” She closes the door behind me and directs me her sofa and grabs the Oneiros visor to show to me.
“Do it,” she says, barely containing her excitement. “We have to know what’s in there.”
I sigh, for a moment considering if I should mention our former business partner, recently deceased and now probably rotting away in a common grave outside of town. Or reduced to dust. Who knows what they do with unclaimed corpses? Medical testing probably. Now’s not the time for sad news. I’m just as curious and excited to see what we caught from the Straya’s head.
“Alright, let’s do it,” I say with a shrug then lie down on the sofa. Lucy is uncharacteristically cheerful as she gently places the Oneiros on my face. “Remember, keep your hands off me,” I add.
I hear Lucy let out a giggle then sit in her nerd throne. A few seconds later, everything goes dark and I begin dreaming the diorama of the Maximum Straya.
Extracurricular Activities
It’s dark and I’m crouching by a tall shrub. I’m… hiding? I look around and see someone else hiding next to me. We’re outside, in the woods. Or maybe the Australian outback. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere. The moon and the stars shine brightly in the absence of artificial lighting. Next to our hiding place, there is a dirt trail. I follow it to the left and see it disappear deeper into the woods, then I follow it to the right, beyond the tree line to a clearing far away with several cabins by the edge of a lake. Looks like a typical summer camp.
“Shhh,” the guy next to me whispers. “They’re almost here.” I look at him to see what appears to be a teenager. Probably 15 or 16. He nods towards the distance and I see a couple. A boy and a girl, about the same age. Looks like ToBogan chose the memory of a high school prank to be captured in full catch diorama.
I play along with the scene. I know I’m hiding for some reason, but I don’t want to fuck with ToBogan’s memory of his younger years. I want to know how it unfolds. I’m also still disturbed by my reaction inside the hobo’s diorama. At the time I thought it was his murderous rage driving the scene but later realized that it had all been me. I have to make sure there is no latent asshole murderer inside of my head so this time I figure, I’ll just let the diorama unfold to whatever happened here, during the teenager years of the Maximum Straya.
My unnamed partner in crime giggles then whispers “that bitch won’t know what hit her. You’ll see Topher, you’ll see.”
Oh shit. This is more than a prank. The couple continues walking towards us and now they’re almost on the other side of the shrub. Are we about to mug someone?
The couple eventually walks down the dirt trail toward us, and I see their faces clearly. I know the guy. ToBogan knows him, more like. He’s my mate, Todd. We grew up together. I recognize the girl too, her name is Chloe. I asked her out… last week? I remember this place from ToBogan’s memory, l
ike if it was my own. This is a Christian retreat in the woods somewhere. It’s the Australian Outback alright, but not too far away from civilization. No, just outside town. Just isolated enough for good, upstanding members of the Christian youth group to talk about Jesus. I asked Chloe out and she rejected me. Not only that, she talked to her friends about it. They posted some stupid teenage girl story on the sosh nets. I remember now. It was humiliating. It was infuriating.
Before I realize what’s going on, Ollie, who was hiding next to me, jumps out of the shrub and grabs Chloe by the left arm. Todd knows what’s going on and now he grabs her by the other. Chloe looks at them and giggles and asks “what the fuck, guys?”
“Come on, dude,” Todd says, looking in my general direction. Memories come to me as the scene unfolds.
I follow the memory and stand up, walking out into the clearing so Chloe can see me. She’s still giggling, apparently drugged or drunk or both. Chloe recognizes me and asks “Topher?”
I don’t say anything, it’s what’s in the memory. Ollie and Todd grin like idiots. I take a couple steps forward and reach for Chloe’s right breast. I give it a good squeeze. Must have been painful, as she looks down then back up at me. Her smile is gone. Through the haze of whatever substance she was given, appears to realize what’s going on.
“Topher?” she asks. “What the fuck? Let me go, assholes,” she exclaims. Panicking. Her attempts at pulling herself free are vain. After all, she’s being held in place by members of the high school rugby team.
I smile, just like ToBogan did in his own memory. I feel like I’m supposed to ask her something, but nothing comes to mind. Maybe way in the back of his mind, before animal instincts took hold, ToBogan wanted to ask why the rejection. No, more like, why the humiliation? Why couldn’t she just say no and walk away? Why make him look like a creep online? Topher Bass, captain of the rugby team might have asked these questions and maybe some others but at that point, the animal had taken over. Fascinated, I let the memory unfold. Lucid or not, I let the diorama happen, unaltered, just as things unfolded that warm summer evening when Topher Bass raped his crush.