Black Matter

by G D Parker

  He sat back on his sofa and went through his phone to find the IPEA app recently installed. The screen loaded to various options, including: Brain Health, Internal Organs, Blood Levels etc... He clicked on “Brain Health”, which was highlighted in red to notify that there was an issue.

  High Cortisol levels detected: Learn to minimize your physical reaction to stress by consciously breathing from your diaphragm. A few minutes of diaphragmatic breathing will lower levels of cortisol and stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system to induce a state of calm.

  Tommy read this and thought, it was a bit extreme, as he didn’t feel that bad. Then he remembered something that was said during the “intense pre-interrogation”:

  “A lot goes on inside your body you are unaware of. The idea of the IPEA is to highlight things that are unknown to you and to assist in you living a longer, healthier life by taking action when required.”

  Tommy followed the guidance and could see after a few minutes that his Cortisol levels were slowly decreasing along with his blood pressure. This is some pretty clever stuff! he thought to himself and continued to relax for a few more moments.

  He then checked other features. The app stated that he was over-tired and that he needed to drink at least 1.3 litres of water to avoid dehydration after he’s had an eight-hour sleep.

  Feeling tired, he went into the kitchen, downed a pint of slightly warm tap water and filled another glass to take to bed. He got undressed to his pants and looked at himself in the mirror, flexing his biceps, abs, shoulders and chest all at the same time in a crab-like pose. He felt a little weak, but still admired his hard-earned physique.

  He laid in bed in the dark. The light from outside shone through the small gaps in the blinds to his bedroom with dust flickering in the beams. He could hear the sound of a few cars passing by. He felt somewhat blessed to be home in his own bed, but still held onto a little anger towards Taylor, although he felt calmer. He thought about how this IPEA was going to assist him in a healthy lifestyle; how it was going to tell him when he was over-tired, eating enough of the right foods, drinking enough and doing everything possible to enhance his health and wellbeing, especially reducing stress. He had saved for a long time to have this done and was hoping to see a vast improvement in looks, health and mental soundness.

  It’s easy to be led at times and to fall into a “change your life” sales pitch; be happier, slimmer, richer... live forever, there must be ramifications for interfering with nature. The effects of technology in this world will have a negative impact on us some day, the terrifying thing is… the future is now!

  2

  There was a sudden cold, wet, intense feeling as ice cold water was splashed into Tommy's face, that awoke him from a sound sleep. He opened his eyes to find Taylor had come home, still pissed off and still convinced Tommy had been away with that girl from the gym - Emily. When Taylor had an idea or a scenario in her head, she convinced herself it was real, it had happened, was happening or was going to happen. She was insanely insecure and so quick to react on emotions rather than think things through logically.

  ‘Fuck sake, babe!’ shouted Tommy, holding his t-shirt over his face to wipe off the water.

  ‘Go on, tell me the truth for once in your life?’ There was a visibly blue pulsating vein throbbing in Taylor’s temple as the insecurity raged inside her body, convinced that Tommy had cheated on her. It was then that he could clearly see he had to be honest with her, so he went for it.

  ‘Okay, okay, I went for minor surgery; had that new diagnostic thing we saw on TV installed! I’m sorry I lied to you. I knew you’d be against it, but I wanted it done for me!’ His honesty came with a self-refreshing feeling – a slight exhilaration.

  ‘What?’ she frowned so hard her eyebrows met in the middle, but that frown quickly faded, displaying an immediate sense of calm.

  ‘You know, babe? Remember, that thing we saw the other week on TV? Where you have a smart injection that reads your insides and tells you what’s going on inside your body.’

  ‘Oh, so you haven’t been with that Emily?’ she took a step back. Once again her assumptions were wrong and she looked confused.

  ‘No babe, I’ve been to the place where they carry out the medical procedure.’ He showed her some bruising that had formed where the drip line had been inserted.

  ‘Wait!’ there was a pause whilst the cogs in her brain turned and worked out what he was talking about. ‘That thing that cost a shit load of money?’ she asked, her face slowly turning a purplish red.

  ‘Yes, but what I spend my money on is up to me.’ This was something Tommy always felt defensive about, the subject of money. He’d always felt he should never need to ask if he could spend his hard-earned cash.

  ‘T, we could have gone on a nice holiday or something?’ Taylor moaned.

  ‘We will babe, I just wanted to invest in my health.’

  ‘You mean use it for vanity reasons, to get the attention of other girls?’

  ‘No babe, for fuck sake, get that shit out of your head.’ He stood up from the bed pressing both hands on his chest. ‘For me, to make me feel better,’ there was a pause, ‘about me.’

  Taylor sighed and jumped onto the bed giving another sigh of relief that this Emily wasn’t in the picture. She felt silly for spending the last four days obsessing and stressing over nothing. She couldn’t help or control these feelings; it was something she just needed to try to deal with.

  ‘Well, if you can afford 5k, I’m sure you have some money to treat me tonight! Why don’t we go out?’ Taylor kissed Tommy’s cheek and slowly tickled his chest in an attempt to seduce him into agreement.

  ‘I think you need to apologise first for pouring water over me!’ Tommy pushed her hand away. ‘You need to stop all this nonsense, all this jumping to conclusions, the paranoia, and start trusting me. I love you and only want you. This has to stop for fuck sake, you are pushing me away!’ Tommy tried to keep his tone sympathetic, but Taylor’s brain didn’t work that way, and she went straight on the defensive.

  ‘What?’ exclaimed Taylor, her face changing once again. ‘So, you’re going off me because I love you so much?’

  ‘Eh? No babe, I’m not saying that, but this behaviour is too much. I don’t want to argue with you every single day. I don’t want to have to watch what I’m saying or be on edge every time my phone beeps, because you think it’s a girl!’

  ‘I know, T! God!’ she said through her teeth, displaying an element of frustration. ‘I’m sorry, I do try, and I promise I’ll try harder. You know I’ve had a tough history with boys.’ Her eyes started to fill with tears. Tommy couldn’t help but fall for her tears; it broke his heart seeing her upset.

  ‘I know you have sweetheart, but just remember, I’m not those boys, I’m me,’ he held up two thumbs and gave a big cheesy grin in an attempt to lighten the mood.

  ‘I know, T. You do treat me right. You really are the best boyfriend I’ve ever had!’ They cuddled with a slight awkwardness, so Taylor pulled herself right into him to make it feel real. ‘And... sorry for throwing water over you. I’ll make it up to you tonight!’ She gave Tommy a wink as a cheeky gesture and kissed him passionately.

  They both laid there for a few moments and absorbed the conversation and the lightened mood. Tommy noticed a little blue notification light flickering on his phone. He looked at the preview and saw that it was just the IPEA telling him his stress levels were elevated once again, so he carried out the breathing technique.

  After an hour of chatting and cuddling, Tommy left the room to take a shower. With Taylor being the hyper-insecure girl she was, she took this as an opportunity to install a ghost app she had been working on “unofficially” at work onto Tommy’s phone, which would enable her to mirror everything on his phone on to her own phone, so she would be able to monitor what he was up to. The app took a while to install. She heard the shower shut off. Knowing Tommy wouldn’t take long to dry himself off, she only had a few se
conds to spare, and the app was only fifty percent installed.

  She became impatient. ‘Come on,’ she shouted quietly through her teeth, her heart rate beating hard in her chest followed by a hot flush that cursed her body momentarily – sixty percent complete. ‘Come on!’ the words seethed through her teeth.

  The bathroom door opened, she panicked and tossed his phone under the bed in the hope that he wouldn’t try to look for it straight away.

  She had designed the application, so it would work in the background and was completely undetectable to the user. Tommy would be completely oblivious to its presence and would just continue to use his phone as he always had.

  ‘Who you talking to?’ Tommy asked. There was a white towel wrapped around his waist showing his well-defined physique.

  ‘No one, T. Just gonna make a coffee. Want one?’

  ‘Please!’

  Taylor went to make the coffee, opened her phone and could see that the ghost app had installed properly. Now she could access Tommy’s phone from hers. She took a quick look through his messages. This was to firstly check that the app was working, but also to see what activity had been taking place on his phone.

  Tommy walked into the kitchen as Taylor was snooping. She quickly locked her phone, which looked highly suspicious to Tommy – something Taylor would have gone ballistic over.

  ‘What you up to?’ He gave a partial frown.

  ‘Nothing! I was on my phone, and now I’m not. Problem?’ Her attitude had started once again.

  ‘Not a problem you being on your phone, but a problem that you quickly locked it as I walked in. You know what they say?’ he smiled and turned, walking back out of the kitchen.

  Taylor made chase, confused by Tommy’s comment. ‘And... what is that supposed to mean?’

  ‘You know,’ he smiled at her sarcastically, ‘those that are paranoid about their partner cheating are the ones who normally have something to hide.’ He smiled again, feeling as though he had the upper hand.

  He walked into the bedroom and started to get dressed. Taylor stomped after him. ‘What the fuck is that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Just saying, babe. You are constantly on at me, assuming, accusing, making sly little comments that I’m cheating, when I don’t do anything to give you that impression.’ He sat on the bed. ‘I’m literally sick to my back teeth of all this bullshit hassle from you, and the moment you actually look a little bit suspicious by quickly locking your phone as I walk into a room, YOU start to lose your head! Feeling a little defensive are we?’

  Taylor became frantic, waving her arms around, screaming at Tommy and getting up into his face. She was in a state of rage; a side of her that Tommy hated. Looking at her, you wouldn’t even guess she had the temper she did.

  This was now his time to leave the apartment and give the girl some space to cool off. Tommy wondered what state the place would be in when he returned, knowing there was a nine out of ten chance she would trash it.

  He got into his seventeen-plate silver five series, turned the engine over and sat there thinking about how everything was and how this girl was causing so much stress and aggravation in his life. ‘Bitch!’ he shouted, punching the steering wheel of the car.

  He put the car into reverse, abruptly drove out of his parking bay and sped off down the road, tyres screeching as they tried to grip the tarmac.

  Taylor, on the other hand, was on the bed, tears streaming down her pretty cheeks. She actually felt a lot calmer than expected, but was annoyed with herself.

  She knew where her issues lay, but she just couldn’t come to terms with her past.

  It went back to about four years ago, when she had been around seventeen years old. There was this man she had met online and she had been massively attracted to him. His name was Mick. Taylor had fallen crazy in-love with this man. He was twenty years her senior, well put together and carried himself well. He was well-off and made his money as a car dealer, which meant he always drove around in nice cars. This had been impressive to Taylor, and was something to show off to her friends about.

  He did look after her for a while, but she had found out he was already married and had a daughter of a similar age to her, so had been living a double life, which had caused big concerns. Taylor hadn’t been able to bring herself to do anything about it. She was so in love with him, she couldn’t leave, so had continued with their relationship as they had been.

  After a while, Taylor had found it increasingly difficult to accept that he was still sleeping with his wife and her at the same time, so she had tried to call it off with threats of telling his wife. Mick wasn’t the kind of person to piss off and didn’t take to the threats very well, so this had caused things to become nasty.

  Shortly after the threats, came a night from hell for Taylor. She had refused to have sex with him until he left his wife. His male ego couldn’t accept the rejection, and he had become aggressive and had repeatedly raped her, humiliated her and beat her unconscious.

  He had kept her locked in his “secretly rented flat” – his little love nest - for two days. When she was finally able to leave, she was scared to death of him. As soon as she got home, her mother had taken one look at her and had burst into tears. Taylor had confessed all, so her mum had taken her to hospital and had called the police. Mick had been arrested for that incident and charged with a prison sentence of a measly thirty-two months. This did, however, have a catastrophic effect on his wife and teenage daughter, which had caused Mick to hang himself in his prison cell one night. Taylor had never been the same again.

  Tommy, with the greatest respect, didn’t know this. All Taylor had told him was that Mick had cheated on her, so now she found it hard to trust anyone. There’s always a reason why someone acts the way they do. Taylor couldn’t stop herself falling for Tommy, had let her guard down, and now she felt ridiculously vulnerable. She knew he’d never beat her or physically harm her, but she had this dreaded gut-wrenching feeling in the pit of her stomach that all blokes were the same and that he would cheat on her. This had turned into a crazy obsession that had progressively got worse over time, and she couldn’t let go. Her insecurities controlled her life, which had put tremendous strain on hers and Tommy’s relationship.

  So, she had designed and installed the ghost app onto Tommy’s phone to reassure herself that he wasn’t cheating and that she could trust him. By keeping tabs on him, it meant her mind was at ease. This was her way of dealing with her mental health issues.

  Tommy pulled up in his car on a cliff edge near a beach on the south coast of Wales. He sat there staring out over the Bristol Channel. He’d been driving around for most of the day and had ended up here watching the darkness engulf the sea in front of him. As the sun set, the oranges and pinks collided, creating a beautiful scene that words couldn’t describe. He sat there in a daze thinking about how his future would look if he was to stay with Taylor. Will it always be this way? Or is there someone else out there for me? he wondered. She’s a good girl, but is deeply insecure and damaged, and it’s pushing me away.

  Tommy had had a good life so far, and now, at the age of 30, he was ready to get married and settle down, start a family, enjoy life and watch his future “non-existent” children grow. He knew Taylor loved him and he knew she would marry him in a heartbeat, but he had serious doubts as to whether she was right for him or if she was ready for such a commitment.

  Tommy had grown up in the country with his mum, dad and sister. He had been well looked after, was well-educated, had worked his way up the ladder in the corporate world to management and was now earning a fairly decent income. He was proud of himself and his achievements. He had never been in trouble with the police and had always had steady girlfriends, who were always younger, always cute, petite, and overall just nice girls. Most of his previous relationships had just fizzled out to nothing with pleasant memories and no real dramas. However, Taylor was pushing him, testing him and driving him to the point of no return, and when he
was done he was done.

  He reached into his pocket to grab his phone, expecting thousands of missed calls, but it wasn’t there. He must have left it back at the apartment. He’d been gone for hours. He then panicked, knowing Taylor would be going out of her mind, and he became worried about how she would be feeling. He started to stress himself and drove home erratically.

  On the drive back home, he said out loud, ‘This isn’t normal; relationships shouldn’t be like this. I need to end it, and I need to do it tonight!’ He repeated those words over and over out loud, as if he had to convince himself that this was it and he had to leave her.

  When Tommy pulled up outside the apartment, he briefly looked around and noticed all the lights were off and the area was dead silent. There was a light breeze in the air and the smell of the summer night flowed into his nostrils. He had a moment of calm, then a sudden surge of adrenaline pulsed deep in his stomach at the thought of ending it with Taylor. He was worried and anxious about how she would take it. Part of him hoped she wouldn’t be home, just so the whole process could be prolonged, just for a little bit longer.

  ‘Deep breaths,’ he said out loud. He looked up and could see a figure staring down at him from the apartment above his. All the lights were off, which generated a spooky silhouette. He waved at his neighbour and gave a little smile, but his neighbour

  simply turned and disappeared back into the darkness of his flat.

  ‘Freak!’ said Tommy. That guy always gave him the creeps. He would always stare, would never say much, but strangely always tried to intercept his post. He would then knock on Tommy’s door and say that the postman had left it for him. He would hand the post to Tommy and then strangely walk away.

  Tommy shook himself in preparation and entered the apartment block. He slowly made his way up the stairs to his first-floor apartment and pressed his ear to the door to try and sense any movement - there was nothing.