by Novo Dé
She begins to eat, silently, acting as if nothing happened. I can’t help but stare.
Eventually, I can stare no longer.
“Hey, Juliet, I’m sorry…” but she places a hand out halting the sentence before I can finish. A short pause ensues.
“Honey, I hope you don’t mind, but I decided on…” and her faces grows cold, mid-sentence.
An update. Now. What fuckin’ timing.
“…mushrooms again as a side…” she says, finishing the sentence, smiling, gleefully, again as if nothing happened.
I stare at her again before I answer. She just smiles back, mouth closed, patiently awaiting a reply.
“Umm, no, I don’t mind, its ah, fine, it’s fine,” I say robotically, not knowing what to say really.
“Great,” she says back, and then simply continues to eat.
We don’t speak again for the rest of the meal. We just eat, accompanied only by the smacking sounds of ours mouths as we chew through our food.
When we’re both finished, the rest of our nightly rituals are played out as usual.
But still no words.
The ordinary behavior combined with the silence makes for a strange dissonance in the air. There’s tension between us but no tension at the same time. The feeling is just…something I’ve never really felt before.
We even decide to go to bed together at the same time.
But the silence…there’s no break in the silence. I think, ‘maybe I should try again.’ ‘Finish my apology before the night’s over.’ I backtrack on those thoughts however, thinking, ‘she’ll probably just stop me again.’ So I say the only thing I think I can say.
“Well. Goodnight.”
But, as I’m about to turn over to my side, Juliet greets me with a new surprise. A true surprise. A surprise that I would have never seen coming given the events of the night – A kiss.
Not a peck, but a kiss.
A real kiss. A long, held kiss.
I’m immediately caught off guard. But I quickly embrace the moment, and begin to kiss her back. Our hands then circle one another, with each of our fingertips gliding over our partner’s skin, caressing the most subtle of areas.
Our kissing quickly escalates as the passion of the moment deepens, driven by this animalistic ‘id’ we’ve almost forgotten about. Without warning, Juliet pushes me onto my back and jumps on, straddling me between her legs, continuing to caress, and kiss, and lick.
The passion of the moment, our intimacy, deepens. Juliet is pinning me down now, kissing my neck, my body. She tears my boxers off without a thought. I become hard immediately. We don’t have a care in the world about taking our time. She doesn’t even take her clothes off, just tears her panties off to the side to engulf me. She rides hard. Lost in the moment. Embracing the animal inside.
Grabbing her neck, I throw her to the opposite side of the bed to have my turn, my way. Our breaths heavy. The panting, quick. I’m thrusting hard, my hand cradling the back of her head, my fingers resting snuggly in her hair. Her moans become sharp as she begins to come, driving my thrusts harder.
And then I feel it, I’m almost there myself. My eyelids shut hard as the wave comes over me, crashing – Fuck!
And as soon it came, it went.
While lying on top of her for a moment during the refractory phase, I close my eyes again and swallow. God. As I slowly come down from my high, I begin opening my eyes again, ever so slowly. Clarity lingers in and a picture develops.
My eyes first see my wife’s big beautiful blues.
But.
Something doesn’t seem right. Something’s off. Something about her look.
The blueness of her eyes quickly becomes overshadowed by the color of crimson in the room. Everywhere I begin to look, red. Streaked across her face. Streaked across her body. Red. The sheets now damp with scarlet. I look over to my right hand to find a knife, just now finishing a gash as I watch myself pulling the blade from my wife’s side. I look back to my other hand, now covering her mouth, holding it shut, as her moans of ecstasy turn into moans of anguish. I tell her to ‘shut the fuck up’ and that she’s ‘only gonna make it worse,’ as I penetrate her again with the blade, slowly making my way up to her pretty little face. My strikes becoming quicker. Swifter. Her hands are jostling about now, trying to push me away as I stab, stab, stab. The blood intermittently sprays onto my face as I cut into her body over and over again. As I strike into her face she begins to make incomprehensible gurgling sounds, but it’s her neck that paralyzes her core, her being, the slit perfect. There are no other colors in the room now but red. Everywhere I look. Red. My body, hers, the room, now painted in her blood. Everywhere. Red.
Except…for the blue in her eyes.
You can still see the blue.
Now empty. Lifeless.
I wipe away the blood from my face, and smile.
The act was so surprising today.
Fun.
November 13th, 2051
“…ne really does this anymore. No one. I mean, fuck, you’re the only person I really talk to anymore. Have a conversation with. But, ah, you kinda don’t count doc, I mean, you are just my fuckin’ shrink,” I say with a light laugh. “No offense.”
“None taken.” Cohen says back.
“But ah yeah. I saw the birth of it, the beginning."
“Do you feel like you have a hard time relating to people Tybalt? Maybe, coping with modern communicative, cultural dynamics? Because a lot people would argue that the technology we have today, NCLs, everything, has actually brought a lot people together, more so than ever before. More than any of the platforms of the past. Now with a single thought and an eye movement, you can be talking to your best friend that might be living on the other side of the world, or if you so desire, hundreds of thousands of people at the same time. And those moments, I imagine, can make for pretty good conversation.”
“Sure. Maybe. I can see the other side of it I guess. But isn’t that what we had with social media? Cell phones? Computers? I mean, are NCLs really anything new doc?
Plus, communication isn’t just the words you speak, or the words you type on a screen, it’s everything. Down to the rhythm, the tone in your voice, the gestures you make with your hands. A slight movement of the brow. A smile. A frown. Everything—”
“You’ve done your homework,” Cohen chimes, impressed. “Where did you learn—”
“Just took the time doc. Research. Actual research this time around. Didn’t need to be high to use a search engine. Thought I could write about it, from a psychological or psychiatric perspective. And it’s such a simple thing, but a grand thing at the same time – how we communicate – it’s uniquely human…”
Pausing, I think of Juliet.
“And to see it change, so dramatically, in such a direction, in such a short time, is fuckin’…I dunno…Sad. Bewildering. Something. Thought I could write about it. What I saw in people. The change.”
“What do you think you saw?”
“Just, the same thing we’ve talked about in other sessions, I mean, it’s this, I mean most people don’t even do this anymore – just talk.
Talk to talk. Converse. Get to know one another. The simplicity of it all. It’s just two people in a room, with two chairs, facing one another – interacting – And for nothing else.
Now everyone is so…inward, introverted…isolated. Obsessed with their universe of “one.” Themselves. Only to interact when they want something, or need something from someone. Not to learn, not to engage, not to grow. I mean fuck, we’ve reduced ourselves to the most superficial form of what a human relationship can be – beneficial reciprocity – now in its truest form.”
“I see,” Cohen says with a wryness in his voice. “Isn’t that a little cynical Tybalt?”
And I smirk.
“Maybe,” I say at a whisper.
“And you still think the culprit is—”
“Technology. Definitely. Of the digital age in particula
r.”
And Cohen smirks.
“Such an exponential entity,” I continue. “I mean, just look at the technology we have today as compared to what we had fifty, twenty, hell, even ten years ago. It’s growing faster than we could have ever imagined. And from where I’m sittin,’ it’s only gettin’ faster. And as it grows, so shuts the door to any kind of normal human interaction,” I pause, shaking my head. “Just another fading world.”
“I don’t see that kind of future happening Tybalt,” Cohen calmly counters.
“We just gotta keep on, keepin’ on, doc. Communicating. To the world, to others, to ourselves, even to our CHARLIEs. Use the technology to our benefit rather than letting it use us. Because, I’m afraid that if we don’t, the world we know will slowly become nothing more than a memory.”
“Oh c’mon, now you’re just being dramatic,” Cohen acknowledges with a dry wit.
“Tell me I’m wrong.”
“I wouldn’t say you’re wrong per se. But you are…stretching.”
He’s always so diplomatic with his words, but I know what he’s really thinking.
“Alright, alright, allow me to, ah, give you an olive branch here. Now if there was anywhere close to some sort of balance between the tech world and the natural, wouldn’t we see a dramatically different set of interactions amongst people? Wouldn’t it be more-or-less what we saw back in the twenty-tens?
Now this is purely observation, but all I see these days is a bunch of isolationists walking around in public talking to themselves. And when they actually interact with one another – fuck – it just falls apart.”
“Tybalt – you’re stretching again – it’s not—”
“Sure, sure, not everyone’s doin’ this, no I get it, but I’m astounded at how many people I see on a daily basis that do. You walk into any public domain, like a coffee shop or somethin,’ observe two people having an exchange with one another that lasts more than five minutes, and it’ll likely fall apart.
The way I see it, people have gotten so deep in the use of their fuckin’ machines for conversation that they don’t even know how to do it in the real world anymore.
But like I’ve said, it’s become such a part of the norm, that, no one really sees it that way, no one notices the strangeness in it anymore. No one sees it as dehumanizing. All that shit I say. But it’s still headed in only one direction doc. I think we can agree on that. And my fear is, if it keeps going down that road, that one day it will get there, when they always fall apart, when people quit trying, when people actually begin to abstain from any interaction at all, only to go back to their fucking machines.”
“Again, you’re not wrong per se Tybalt. There is a lot of truth there. And this just so happens to be one of the areas of Sociology I’m drawn to, that I’ve researched for quite some time actually. It’s not exactly the focus of my research, but the information surrounding it definitely helps. So I keep an open ear. And the research does suggest that we are, in a way, moving away from each other, but not exactly in the way you see it.
We’re not drifting away; we’re all actually moving towards something – dependency actually, is what we like to call it. And what you’re seeing is the observational by-product of that. It just simply appears like people are drifting apart.”
“I’m not sure I’m following doc; could you—?”
“Let me explain what you’re seeing, with ah, um, an example,” and Cohen looks up and bites his lower lip. “Um ok: think of two cars parked right next to each other. You’re in the driver seat of one, while the other, slowly begins to back up, and what your mind immediately tells you is that…you’re the one that is moving forward, when in reality, you’re standing still.”
“Ok,” I say, trying to picture the moment in my mind.
“And that same thing is happening with your perception of people interacting with one another – it’s an illusion – people aren’t drifting away from each other. They’re mostly gravitating toward the use of their NCLs, or other similar devices, more and more.”
“So I was, kind of, right. Kind of…”
“In a matter of speaking yes. But not exactly. It’s really the stimuli produced by the software of the devices. The chimes, the sound effects, the inbox notifications, the text messages, social media, it’s everything; people receiving these constant stimuli telling them to come back. All meticulously placed, when and why it interacts with the individual, for one singular purpose, so the organizations behind them, their products, applications, and so forth, can continue to benefit; profit from the—”
“Fuck I definitely know that part of it. Been sayin’ that shit for years. Jesus, nice to hear someone else say it for once.”
“Well it’s really nothing new. Every business, at the end of the day, has one singular purpose. And we’ve seen this in marketing before. It helps to create the addiction. The more they come back, the more they use, and the more they use, the more they buy, the more they see an advertisement, etc.
But aside from all that, we know that the stimuli is the culprit, because in our tests, where we have full control over a participant’s NCL, we would randomly turn subject’s units to complete silence when we had two or more engaging in any sort of interaction, and when the two, or sometimes more, participant’s NCLs were completely silent, all at the same time, we would see them interact as we’re interacting right now. The conversation, the interaction, effortless in fact. Perfect really. At least back to a normalcy you’d recognize.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, really?”
“ Indeed. And there is, in fact, another area you’ve observed quite nicely: the cultural acceptance phenomenon. How it’s ‘become normal,’ as you like to articulate it. That ‘no one sees the strangeness in it.’ All interesting ways to put it, but it’s just a lack of self-awareness really. The stimuli places them in a constant state of preoccupation, shutting down awareness centers in the brain, i.e., they don’t even realize what they’re doing most the time, the stimuli constantly shifting…that’s why it looks like people’s conversations are always falling apart as you observe them. Thus, the heart of the problem isn’t really in people…,” and Cohen pauses with a smile before continuing. “This is some timing; I’m actually assisting in some research right now that may lead to a revelation on how to counter this particular phenomenon. Things could be so very different in the future if we allow it to be.”
“Oh yeah doc. How so?” I say with a light laugh, to say ‘I may be a bit skeptical.’
“What if I told you that my research may help to mold a future, well, more to your liking, a future where people were actually more self-aware and found balance in their use of technology, and other life interests, a future where we were drawn to each other again, to become, maybe one day, a universal society, no longer divided by arbitrary lines, or race, disjointed creeds, but equal, prosperous, happy?”
“I’d first ask…what kind of drugs have you been takin’ doc.”
And we laugh together for the first time since we started our sessions.
“But seriously Tybalt?” Cohen refocuses the moment.
“I’d say, ‘where do I sign up.’”
And Cohen smirks and lets out a light laugh through his nose.
“Well we’re still in the research phase, obviously, so I’m not actually at liberty to disclose any information right now. But, ah, we do believe we’re on to something. And when we have enough research, when we have enough information, we do plan to go public with our discoveries, and hopefully, at that point, will have a complementary form of treatment, if you will, that will, in theory, bring us together again.”
“Jesus. Sounds kind of, I dunno,” I say back with a pause. “I mean, whatever this thing is, and I don’t mean to be rude, just kind of sounds like a ‘big dream’ that may seem unlikely in practice. I can’t think of anything that could literally bring us all together.”
“We’re aware of the scope of the vision. But we’re keeping our finger
s crossed. And I should clarify: we hope to bring people together again in the confines of a ‘strong magnitude,’ and not necessarily in a literal context. And we won’t release anything until we’re absolutely ready. So there’s a chance we may never release it.”
“And you can’t tell me anything more than that?”
“Unfortunately no.”
“Can you at least tell me what you’re studying?”
“Social and Cultural consciousness, the idea of choice and the concept of self.”
“Whoa, ok. Say no more. But god, what I wouldn’t give for your resources. I mean, when I wasn’t looking up shit on the internet, research, to write about, I had to resort to using my classroom. Like social experiments. Nothing inhumane or illegal, just a little unethical I suppose.”
“What exactly did you do?” he says with a tone alluding to guilt.
“The drug use, it just, made me feel like I could do anything and get away with it y’know; and when I couldn’t find anything to write about, I got desperate. It was slow at first. I mean at the time, I didn’t see it as desperation, I saw it only as….creativity.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Simple test really – almost every kid in my collection of classes has an NCL so I thought I’d take advantage of that. Like for a week or two, I’d separate the class in half in terms of where they sat, and since they all sat in the same place every day, they really took care of who’d be in the experimental group and the control, I mean, it was all really by default. Then I just told the kids on the left of the room to turn their NCLs off before coming into class, where the other side was allowed to keep them on, on ‘school’ mode – Simple.”
“Go on.”
“Now this inevitably created a bit of an uproar with some of my, more, disruptive kids. They’d say shit like, ‘Well why does that side get to keep theirs on but we can’t?’ and I’d just say something like ‘Because’ or ‘Because I said so,’ like, ‘do what you’re told little Timmy.’ What a fuck up that was, because, guess who was in the experimental group – the kid – probably the beginning of his disdain for me if I had to guess.”