by Rudy Rucker
Bad idea, bad idea.
As soon as Bea had welcomed in the mind parasite—for this is what it was—she was filled with strange, unaccustomed thoughts. She wanted a second television and a bigger car. She wanted to campaign against taxes on the rich. She wanted to burn the local college. She wanted to saw down all the trees.
She talked this over with Nils—and on every point, they agreed. Really, they didn’t even need to use words. Making noises was enough. Stepping outside into the twilight , prepared to change the world, they found that their neighbors, too, had annihilated their personalities and taken on mind parasites. People were standing around like living statues.
Corky, the big man who lived next door, ambled over to discuss strategies.
“Gabble gabble,” he said.
“Gibble gibble gibble,” responded Bea, shivering a little against the January chill.
“Gabble gibble gubble gore,” said Nils, putting his arm around her.
And thus it was agreed that, on the morrow, they’d set out as a group and kill any people who’d managed to resist conversion.
Bea was okay with the plan—but right now she was more focused on going inside and putting on pants and a sweater. Nils dressed with her, but he seemed uneasy. He went back out and bumbled around the yard in the waning light—first raking the dead plants from the garden, then getting out his beloved tools to try repairing a rotten bench in the yard. Meanwhile Bea built a fire. When it was quite dark, Nils came in and made them some chamomile tea.
Handing Bea her cup, Nils had a goofy smile on his face, his first of the day. “We go way back together,” he said.
“Yes, yes,” said Bea, not knowing what he meant.
Nils tried to talk to her about old times—something about skiing in Montana—but Bea couldn’t focus. She was more interested in staring into the flames, peacefully savoring the emptiness in her head.
“I don’t feel right,” said Nils after a bit. “I feel like I’m coming apart.”
Bea had no response. Finally, irked and unsettled, Nils went to bed alone.
It was past midnight when Bea awoke. The fire was down to a few coals. The kitchen lamp glowed. She’d fallen asleep on the couch. Nils was tugging at her, squeezing her left hand. But why didn’t she see him?
Bea sat up, with Nils still grasping her hand—and now, clearing away the cobwebs of sleep, she saw that it wasn’t really Nils holding her, or not all of him. An arm was lying on the couch beside her, Nils’s right arm, his hand clamped onto hers, and with—how freaky—a pale blue eye in the back of his hand.
She screamed and jumped to her feet. The bumpy, crooked snake of Nils’s arm coiled back and raised its hand like a cobra head.
“It’s me,” the thing hissed, the thumb and fingers moving as if in a shadow play. The voice issued from a little slit in the palm of the hand. “It’s me, your husband Nils. Your memory, Bea—it healed me. I found it in the tea drawer. But the Northern Lights kept trying to crush me. I had to split off. We have power, Bea. More power than we know.”
The totems in Bea’s head drove her to grab the poker. She raised it high, and swung at the skanky arm. But Nils had always been faster and smoother than her. His arm leapt into the air and twisted the poker from her grip. Landing across her shoulders, the arm coiled around her neck and pushed the palm’s slit-mouth against her lips.
Two tiny pairs of skis slid across Bea’s tongue—and everything changed. Once again she was gliding among dawn-gilded trees, with her whole life ahead of her. Once again, she was in love with Nils.
The totems lurking among the trees burst into flame, trying to destroy her vision.
She shook her head, trying to clear her eyes. A heavy thump sounded in the bedroom. The one-armed body that had once been her husband’s was rising from its mindless slumber to attack.
“Come,” hissed the narrow mouth in Nils’s palm. “Come away with me. We can save ourselves. Maybe save the world.”
Staving off the totems in her head, Bea moved her true self down into her left arm. This was as large a volume as she could fully control. Projecting with all the power of her altered mind, she gave the arm an eye, a mouth, an ear, a digestive tract. And then she pinched it free, leaving the parasites behind.
With a thump, Bea’s arm hit the floor beside Nils’s. While Nils yanked the footing under their enslaved old bodies, Bea bucked up onto her shoulder joint and got the front door open.
Moving fast, the couple snaked off into the night.
============
Note on “Bad Ideas”
Written August, 2009.
Flurb #8, Fall, 2009
I publish an issue of Flurb every six months, and I like to have a story in each issue. This means that every now and then, I need to write a story rather quickly. In the case of “Bad Ideas” I wanted to find objective correlatives for my idea that television ads put hostile memes into your mind. I was also interested in dramatizing the idea that your mind might, in principle, live in any part of your body at all—as opposed to only in your brain.
Good Night, Moon
(Written with Bruce Sterling)
“They say the Moon’s gone missing,” said Carlo Morse. He set another fabule on the checkered tablecloth at Schwarz’s Deli.
Jimmy Ganzer examined the growing collection of dream nuggets. The fabules were tightly patterned little pastel spheres, pockmarked and seamed, scattered across the tabletop like wads of gum. “Nobody goes for space travel dreams any more,” said Ganzer. “I don’t want to work on that.”
“I don’t mean the Moon’s supposed to be in our new fabule for Skaken Recurrent Nightmare,” said Morse. “I’m telling you that the Moon has really gone missing. Reports from Shanghai say the Moon faded from the sky a few hours ago. Like a burnt-out firework. Everyone’s waiting to see what happens when night hits Europe and the US.”
Ganzer grunted.
Morse adjusted his augmented-reality necktie, whose dots were in a steady state of undulation. “That’s gotta mean something, don’t ya think?”
“It’s not even sunset yet in L.A.,” said Ganzer carelessly. “So what if there’s no Moon?”
Schwarz’s Deli had fed generations of Hollywood creative talent. The gold-framed celebrity photos on the walls were clustered thick as goldfish scales. The joint’s historic clientele included vaudeville hams, silent film divas, radio crooners, movie studio titans, TV soap-stars, computer-game moguls, and social networkers. The augmented-reality mavens were memorialized by holographic busts on the ceiling. Business was in the air, but it was bypassing Morse and Ganzer. Especially Ganzer.
“We’ve got our own problems,” admitted Morse.
With a practiced gesture, Ganzer formed a vortex in the deli’s all-pervasive bosonic fluxon entertainment field. Then he plucked a lint-covered fabule from the pocket of his baggy sports pants. “Check out my brand-new giant paramecium here.”
Ganzer’s creation oozed from the everting seahorse-valleys that gnarled the fabule’s surface.
Morse rotated the floating dream with his manicured fingertips, admiring it. “I can see every wiggly cilia! This dream is, like, realer than you, man.”
Ganzer nodded, in a superior, craftsmanlike fashion. “Yeah, the blank for this fabule uses high-end Chinese nanogoo. It’s got more sensory affect than the human brain can parse.”
Morse smiled at his collaborator. “Jimmy, you’ve brought in the awesome, once again. I knew that you could pull it off. I can’t wait till Presburg shows up to sample this.”
Ganzer’s plain face wrinkled with a sheepish grin of triumph. With a sweep of both his arms, he corralled the dozen other fabules on the tabletop. “Lemme admit something to you,” he said, stuffing the wrinkly spheres into a logo-bearing plastic storage tube. “I haven’t viewed all these episodes of Skaken Recurrent Nightmare. I did pick up on the basic gimmick, though. Bugs.”
“Yeah, Skaken Recurrent Nightmare conveys a different stark raving insect terror e
very night. The haunting dream you can’t escape.”
“A little corny, though, huh?” said Ganzer.
“I scraped my skull down the rind for those insects,” said Morse, looking haggard and worn. “They’re festering in my unconscious right now. I can see bugs in the daylight sometimes. They’re in my food. They’re in my shower.”
“Your praying-mantis riff in the first episode was pretty classy,” said Ganzer, using his finger to scrape the last glob of cream-cheese off his plate. “Having the woman you love devouring your face, bite by bite, while you’re mating? A primal riff like that one hits home. Kind of a turn-on, too.”
“Can I level with you?” said Morse. “We haven’t had another megahit since that first episode of Skaken. Every night, half the human race falls asleep and boots up a total mental inferno. If this new episode doesn’t strike big and—”
“You were right to call on me,” Ganzer assured him.
“Jimmy, are you sure you’re up for this job? I mean—Skaken isn’t like our old indie scene. I’m working with sponsors. We’re government licensed. We’ve got global distribution.”
“Speaking of global—should I try that Chinese oneirine?” said Ganzer. “You gotta respect the rate at which those Chinese fabbers churn out the dream product.”
“I use that stuff when I’m working,” said Morse with a shrug. “On oneirine, I can start work the instant I close my eyes. I lucid-dream while I sleepwalk around my home office. But you do that anyway, Jimmy. You don’t need oneirine. You can hardly tell dreaming from waking.”
“People make too much of that distinction,” shrugged Ganzer. “Reality is socially constructed.”
“The Moon isn’t socially constructed,” said Morse.
“Then why’s it gone?”
“The Moon’s still up there, Jimmy. The Moon has gotta exist in one form or another. The Moon is a huge physical object. The Moon is like half the size of a planet, even. The Moon has gravity and tides.”
Ganzer smiled indulgently and leaned back in his seat. “I bet you think the dark side of the Moon really existed before we took pictures of the dark side of the Moon.”
“Don’t start on me with the dreamer head games, Jimmy. Presburg is gonna be here any minute. Bitch about the biz, talk about the pastrami, act normal, listen to his rap. Bobby Presburg is easy if you let him talk.”
Under this scolding, Ganzer shifted restlessly in his seat. “The pro dream biz is all about relentless mental focus,” he declared. He wiped his greasy hands on his stained football jersey. “You know what our real problem is? Presburg doesn’t respect our craft! Presburg thinks that us fabbers just idly slumber around, waiting for inspiration! He doesn’t get it about us creatives! We plunge to the red-hot core of the psyche and we seize the deeper reality! That’s how I deliver unique material like my giant, flying paramecium.”
“You’re a good guy,” said Morse, with a short laugh.
“These days, any punk eight-year-old kid can dream up zombies and vampires! No wonder a pimp like Presburg likes to peddle insect paranoia.”
“Look, Presburg is smarter than you know. The insect theme has been good for Skaken Recurrent Nightmare. We’re getting ads from insecticide manufacturers and exterminator services.”
Ganzer pounded at the checkered café table with his pudgy fist. “Carlo, the truth is that guys like Presburg have polluted dreamland—made it dull! You know why I’m dreaming about single-celled monsters now? Because Presburg hasn’t been there. Germs are special. They’re real, but you can’t see them.”
“You’ve always been the go-to guy for lurking invisible menaces,” Morse admitted.
“Deconstructing reality’s physical subtext is the core of my art! Seeing the unseen, naming the unnamable, and dreaming the undreamable—that’s what Mr. Jimmy Ganzer is all about!”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Morse, fondling Ganzer’s new fabule. The dream-recording had a knobby surface, with clefts between the knobs, and the knobs themselves were tight clusters of smaller knobs. “I’ve been around the dance floor with you a few times. You’re the ultimate old-school indy dreamer, Jimmy. You’re the session man. You’re the fixer.”
“Yeah, okay, sure,” Ganzer admitted, mopping his plate with a last scrap of whole wheat bagel. “I’m a cynical outsider artist, curiously endowed with an ability to slip reality’s surly bonds.”
Morse looked up as the deli’s door jangled aloud. The sun was low in the sky outside, gilding the dusty streets. A strikingly handsome pair of youngsters had slipped into the cafe, bribing their way past the gateman—a mocking, weatherbeaten, Ukrainian named Yokl.
“Look at those wannabes,” said Morse. “The kid with the pink tentacles growing out of his neck? And his girl’s got a third eye in the middle of her forehead. They’re here to flash their demos and beg for a deal.”
Ganzer tugged at the elastic waist of his velour track pants. Ganzer always wore sports gear, despite the fact that he never exercised, and spent his creative working life soundly asleep. “She’s hot. Costume-play sure has changed, hasn’t it? We’ve gone from dorky hats to riding the bosonic flux.”
The aspiring fabbers slipped into a nearby empty booth. The boy shoved the dirty plates and cups aside with a busy flurry of his pink tentacles.
“Whoa,” Morse remarked.
“That’s a pretty good augment,” said Ganzer. “For a punk wannabe. Moving real objects with his dreams.”
“A ribbonware plug-in for the bosonic flux medium,” said Morse. “From China.”
Ganzer glanced over his shoulder. “Nice projected glow from the girlfriend’s third eye. It’s sweet to see two noobs yearning to get discovered around Schwartz’s.”
“Presburg would eat those kids like pink-elephant cotton candy,” said Morse.
“That reminds me,” said Ganzer. “If your bossman’s picking up our supper tab, we should order something pricey.”
“We just had supper, man. You went through that lox and bagel like a horde of locusts.”
“On come on, that bagel wasn’t supper! That was just a nutritional restorative to sharpen my oneiric brain chemistry.”
Morse lifted his elegant hand and signaled for Maya, their favorite Schwarz’s waitress. The deli was slowly filling up with the early evening crowd.
“They put dreams on cereal boxes now,” Morse muttered, straightening his tailored sleeves. “Dreams are on bubble-gum cards. Remember when our users had to load dreams off a server the size of a beer keg? And the low fidelity—hell, I look back at my old works now, way back in the 2040s, and they’re like crazy-bum finger paintings made with coffee and ketchup.”
“I don’t like to hear you dismiss your best work,” said Ganzer. “Those low-fi dreams that you used to bash out— they had a bright, childlike gusto! I mean, sure, they bombed in the marketplace. But in those days, there was nothing like a dream marketplace.”
“It’s all the work of Hollywood hustlers,” Morse griped. “The lamestream media for the mundane sheeple… Sure, we always knew we were selling our souls, but how come we couldn’t get better residuals?”
“Because we were artists once,” Ganzer pointed out. “But we’ve matured into hard-ass bosonic pros. We’re like full-tackle rugby players by now, Carlo. We gotta scrum. Scrum, scrum, scrum. That’s such a great mantra, scrum, my unconscious creative mind finds that word really evocative. Oh, hi, Maya. What’ve you got for us in the way of appetizers? I’m starving.”
Maya the waitress struck a pose at the table and twitched her fingers. Gleaming images of diner chow sprang into life, bright as neon in midair. “We gotcha some nice kosher spring rolls, Mr. Ganzer. Filled with tilapia liver.”
“Could you sprinkle on a little brewer’s yeast? And bring me a big ginseng root-beer.”
“Not a problem,” said Maya, steadily chewing her dreamgum. “And how about some unicorn bacon for you, Mr. Morse?”
“Is it real unicorn bacon?”
“Real as unicorn
bacon can get!”
Morse nodded. Maya dismissed the menu images with a flip of her wrist, and sashayed off.
Morse leaned forward, cracking his knuckles. “How exactly do I frame your episode for Presburg? Just in case he actually asks.”
“The dreamer turns into a paramecium,” said Ganzer. “It’s the classic dream-transformation riff. We should keep it sharp and simple.”
Morse narrowed his eyes, with a critical stare. “Does our average dream consumer really want to be a paramecium? Is this, like, the fulfillment of an unconscious urge? An urge to become single-celled?”
“It’s one of those classic dream situations where the central figure is beset by demonic mishaps,” Ganzer explained. “Let’s call our lead Franz Kafka. Skaken Recurrent Nightmare can use the class.”
“But how exactly is Franz turning into a paramecium? I mean, I can totally get it about transforming into your spirit-animal—like a vampire bat, or a werewolf, or a cockroach. But a paramecium? Is that even scary?”
“It’s cellular,” Ganzer explained.
“What’s cellular?”
“All of it,” said Ganzer. “Everything is cellular. Reality is cellular. I really love that word, cellular. Cellular phone, cellular foam, sleeper cell, cellulite, cellular automata… A cell can be anything! For a solid week, I wore augment goggles with a live feed from the microscopic world. I saw cells floating around in mixed-reality, twenty-four seven.”
Morse thought this over. “You’ve got a lot of time on your hands, since the divorce.”
“Last night when I created this fabule, I chanted cellular to myself before I fell asleep. Just a simple creative trick, but I know how to get into a working groove.”
Morse nodded. “I used wool blankets for bedsheets when I was fabbing about the lice with the black plague. Sure, I had to sleep alone, but great dreams can only come from creative suffering. Great dreams come from spiritual suffering. The fabule artist is like Saint Anthony, all alone in the desert, tempted by demons. Weird chimerical beasts, naked demonic chicks, eggs with legs…”