The Potential of Zeroes

by Eric Mattys

  Terese raises an eyebrow. “Sure… but they wouldn’t be secret if I showed them to you.”

  Mew smirks. “It’s okay. I don’t think I really want to know.”

  Max cocks his head. “I think I do. What kind of access does a secret lady handshake grant you?”

  “Um. Tons. Seventy cents on every dollar earned, a bottomless urge to nurture, and free admission to any strip club.”

  Max sucks his back teeth. “No way. You don’t know any secret handshakes.”

  Terese frowns. “You’re right. If I actually knew any secret lady handshakes, you think I’d be living here with you two? My mom didn’t teach me or I wasn’t paying attention or something. Maybe there’s a class I can take at Front Range. Secret Lady Handshakes for Beginners.” Terese pulls out three over-sized tupperware containers and begins loading up the brownies.

  Max shrugs. “I would take that class.”

  Mew hears Terese opening the tupperware containers and asks, “So, why are we going to take all these perfectly good brownies to the people at the homeless shelter?”

  Terese squints. “That seems like a question laden with avarice and gluttony, Mew.”

  “Whatever. I don’t need your bible words. There’s enough brownies there for, like, the next two months… or weeks… or a few days depending on things. Why can’t we just,” he shrugs and makes a duckface, “enjoy them ourselves?”

  Max stands up from the couch. “You forget so easily who we are. We are not the slack-jawed, selfie-obsessed, simpletons of our generation. We are different. Us three, we actually care about other people besides ourselves in ways beyond Facebook-liking a celebrity’s non-profit organization with cute puppies or starving children or whatever it is that gets a rise out of the masses. When asked why we don’t have smartphones, we say because we refuse to be tethered to an electronic device.”

  Mew pauses the VCR. “We also can’t afford them plus rent at the same time.”

  “True. We also can’t afford them and we’re capable people choosing to live simpler lives, like monks existing on the edge of a technological society, celebrating moments instead of documenting every micro detail of existence. We don’t need to be self-involved with fancy laptops or high-definition televisions or the latest cell phones.”

  Mew protests, “What about the whole singularity thing? If you want to live forever, you have to document your life today. I mean, I’m interested in having my consciousness live forever.”

  Max raises his eyebrows. “Really? Consciousness can be pretty painful. I’m not sure I want that for, uh, forever.”

  “That’s the beauty of social media, though. People only share their good shit or the shit that makes them look like they care about things. No one likes a whiny post. The result is that only the best parts of you live forever.”

  Max asks, “Who are you living forever for?”

  Terese from the kitchen, “I think you mean for whom are you living forever.”

  Max continues, “What good is sacrificing today to invest in a tomorrow that’s just as banal and tedious because you have to stop and report everything to your social network? Our investments are immediate and with each other in the form of friendship and laughter at our own goofy bullshit.”

  “Yeah. So is Facebook, and it lets you share all that with friends in other parts of the country. I think it’s nice to have things and share thoughts across the interwebs for all of time. I’d like to have more money to have that. Maybe we could sell the brownies instead of just giving them away?”

  Max shakes his head slowly in disbelief. “You capitalist. You wanna go back to your nine-to-five lifestyle dreaming for retirement like an indentured servant dreaming about heaven?”

  “Whoa. All I said was maybe we can sell brownies instead of giving them to homeless people. Or maybe we could do, like, a kickstarter thing.”

  Max squints. “How would that even work?”

  Mew frowns. “We get people to donate for the brownies we’re giving to the homeless. That way they can feel good about helping the homeless without the hassle of doing anything.”

  “And we profit off of it?” Terese shrugs her shoulders in discomfort.

  Mew throws his hands in the air. “Where do you think all that money for pink ribbons goes? If you say cancer research, you’re being naive.”

  Terese shakes her head. “That’s super gross, Mew. These brownies are not about that.”

  “The point is that we are different.” Max straightens his posture and bumps his head on the low ceiling. “Damn it.” He rubs his head, then switches off the TV. “We don’t have to live like all the zombies binge watching their lives away.”

  Mew sighs. “I’m not a zombie, Max. I know I’m different. For me, it’s a matter of logic and how I can overcome it. I’ve seen the logical choice. It’s logical to run corporate. It’s logical to think of profit and self-advancement, to think selfishly. The world can change so quickly that it makes sense to lock-in as much security as possible. I’ve been trained my whole life to operate from self-interest and that that’s a good thing. It’s an unspoken part of our social contract which boils down to a single statement: work or starve. But I don’t think anybody should starve.”

  Max looks up in calculation. “What about the zombies?”

  Mew continues, “Even the zombies shouldn’t starve. Who needs to eat six dozen brownies by themselves? I can tell you I don’t. I mean, I could, but I don’t want that. Just because I signed on for that stupid working-or-starving contract doesn’t mean that I should get all greedy when other people decide against it. If free brownies are the way to protest the logic of self-interest, then I’m in.”

  Terese walks in with three brownies balanced on her hand and offers one to Max and Mew, then proclaims, “Brownies for the people!”

  3

  A .38 and a 44

  Gustave Tyner glances through the floor-to-ceiling window of his twelfth-story apartment to see the Denver high-rises dwarfing distant mountains. Sprawling on his Italian couch he admires his green silk robe and matching silk underwear. It’s uncommon this shade of green that shifts from the darkness of marijuana leaves to the pale green of United States currency. Stunning are the rewards of success. Currency begets the freedom to shoot someone in an imaginary world linked through a gaming system while the rest of the population toils away for that unreal, green paper exchanged in unseen, digital vaults.

  No one should come today, but even if they did, it wouldn’t be quiet. Just say no to prison. What says no louder than the .38 in the robe pocket and the shotgun under the couch. The game controller rests idle in his hands as he waits for the next game to start. Cue the aimless shit-talking of the other players in the virtual lobby.

  “So this guy has this shirt on that says, ‘I hate hippies’ and then he pulls out this gun and he shoots one bullet. The bullet grazed one guy, and then hit another guy in his hand, and then the bullet went through his hand and hit his girlfriend in the leg. I think they tackled him after that or something. Now, I mean, I hate hippies too, but, like… one bullet and three people. It’s that kind of efficiency I admire and that Halo 3 lacks.” The speaker’s screen name, WiseGuy6969, lights up as he jabbers. “If three people are lined up just right, and I pull the trigger, I want credit for all the destruction of my one bullet. I swear I’ve done it before, but the game only gave me credit for a double kill.”

  The screen name for KingofWeed420 lights up, “Kind of like how I lined up your mom, your sister, and your girlfriend with my cock last night.” Multiple “Ooooohs” cause the speakers from the sound system to crackle. They really should find a way to improve the sound for people talking on their headsets. “No. No. Listen. Listen. I just want them to pay the way they said they would.” More “Ooooooohs” ensue.

  Gustave rolls his eyes. If God existed, it would put an end to these verbal ejaculations
. A prepubescent voice screeches as the screen name, PinkWarrior19 lights up. “You didn’t line up shit because your cock is too tiny, you assbag of weed.”

  The synthetic sound of laughter and breathing noises echoes through the loft apartment as the screen name SoldierofFortune99 lights up. “If you don’t have something to say that’s on topic, shut the fuck up.”

  KingofWeed420’s screen name lights up. “I got a topic: my balls in your mom’s mouth… She sounds like, ‘mrai mrove ma maste ov mralls.’”

  Gustave sucks his molar, wraps his lips under his teeth, and taps his foot on the floor before muting all the people in the room. Then he turns up the volume all the way on his headset as his screen name, JustGustave, lights up. “If I ruled the world, this would all be real, every death, final. I would end all of your weaknesses, forever. In case you noobs can’t read, I am a 44. The ranking system only goes up to fifty.” His gelled, black hair doesn’t move as he speaks. His eyes narrow and eyebrows furrow. “For you slow ones, that means I’m better than nearly ninety percent of you fuck-ups getting fatter on your mom’s couch, smoking your second-rate weed. If you’re unskilled, your opinion doesn’t matter. Just because you have a headset does not mean you should broadcast every useless thought you have.” Gustave unmutes everyone in the room again.

  As soon as he unmutes, he hears PinkWarrior19’s high-pitched voice repeating, “Your mom. Your mom. Your mom. Your mom. Your mom. Are you finished?”

  KingofWeed420’s screen name lights up, “Dude. Just say no to drugs.”

  The digitized breathing vibrates the loft apartment through the subwoofer. Fucking mouth-breathers. The game starts and Gustave pushes buttons and mechanically clicks the mini-joysticks as he scans the sixty-inch, LCD, 1080p, hi-def television for the opposing team’s combatants. He scrunches his artificially-tanned toes into the white carpet. The illumination from the TV casts lights of blue and green behind his couch, but it leaves the sun-tanned tint of Gustave unaltered.

  What actions differentiate him from others? The flex of a finger behind a shotgun, the shift of body weight behind a blade, the steadiness of a hand pouring poison into a coffee cup. In isolation, they seem so insignificant. Anyone could do it. It’s just the number of steps preceding the last that makes the dealing of death difficult.

  Moral restraints are for the weak minded. Anyone interested in attaining freedom naturally becomes a killer of one form or another. A salesman kills doubts with linguistic cunning. A farmer kills his crops with each harvest. A chef kills appetites with culinary prowess. A doctor kills symptoms or, if truly skilled, illness. An architect kills structural flaws. A soldier kills enemies. And Gustave Tyner kills whatever tries to stop him from getting free.

  “KILLING SPREE!” booms the voice from the television.

  “Goddamnit!” He clicks the button on the controller that lets him speak through the headset to the other players on his team mid-game. “Hey! I just received a memo from God, and He said that you should not play this game anymore! Maybe you did not get that memo. This is a ranked game. There is absolutely no reason for you to be playing ranked because your skill is insufficient! Do you understand this? Are you playing under someone else’s screen name? Are you intoxicated? Are your brain cells faltering due to the presence of THC? Everybody knows the boomshot is not intended for long distance combat... Damnit! And you just killed one of our guys with your complete lack of competency. You are bringing down the rest of the team, which is why I am going to CLUB YOU in the back of the HEAD.”

  “BETRAYAL!” booms the video game voice.

  “Just do everybody a favor and quit out!” he screams into his headpiece.

  He sees his cell phone light up and turns off the TV and the surround sound. He clicks the button on his Bluetooth. “Hello. Moe, good to hear from you. Our plants are finally ready? … Yeah… You never know who is listening. I will have the money wired to you in the next five minutes. Thank you so much for your efforts. I value your work… No. They say it is entering the final stages… No. Those fuck ups at the VA, along with the majority of the country, act like he does not even exist. It is as if everybody forgets there is a war on… Exactly… Exactly… It is a fucking shame is what it is. This should make him feel a little better. Thank you again, Moe. I will have one of my guys pick it up later today… Yes. … Always get paid. Goodbye.” He clicks the button on his headset and scrolls through the names on his phone until he gets to Zeke. “Z. How are you this morning… Good. That is good. Have you been over to see Corbin? … Yes… I have been busy, too. What can you do… I have two jobs for you today. I need you to make a pickup at the florist’s and then get security money from Armand… Yes. The plants. Armand should not be a problem for you. I need both by tomorrow afternoon… That is what I like to hear. Let’s go see Corbin after that… Yep. Bye.”

  4

  Confrontation with Silence

  Doobie paces, contemplating but not the stitches in his neck nor the polka-dotted medical gown in which he finds himself. Are words fire that will rain on anyone with ears? Do promises to protect the planet from fiery destruction have expiration dates? Does the promise exist if it’s never said out loud? When is it okay to let it all go? The words must be fire. They were there in the future bringing the end times. What if it’s going to happen anyway? What if it happens because no else knows? Maybe it happens because of a lack of words. What if silence is all wrong, and it’s just laziness or cowardice that brings the end times? Years of silence are long enough. “Am I being reborn or am I giving birth to a calamity?” So sorry. So sorry. So sorry to all people if fire destroys this shared reality.

  He flashes to the nearest barred window with unexampled speed for such a dilapidated body and sees no fire falling from above. He wrinkles his face with a glee not yet full-blown, incredulous of his ears. He considers the sound of trees falling with no listeners. Perhaps someone has to hear the words in order for it to all be real. Perhaps we are in dreams, perhaps in madness, perhaps in well-deserved hospital stays, perhaps this is only talking in the mind. Shouting might be a better test. “I’M A RAZOR BLADE CUTTING--” He screeches against silence before he throws his hands over his mouth. What a terrible sound. He checks the window to be sure and, with no fire, removes the self-imposed finger bars to continue. “--A FUSE TOO SHORT FOR AN EXPLOSION SO BIG!”

  A few heads in the psychiatric ward gaze, careless and semi-drugged.

  “No fire. No scorched Earth. No ashes.” He giggles softly, gently pumping old-man arms and legs in a jig. “My pupils are getting deeper, like tiny black holes. And now the future has somewhere to go.” He paces, still afraid to bring harm to the ears around him but ecstatic to not cause the end times. “Why? Why does the world come to me before everybody else? Whose whisperings are these and who’s responsible for their amplification in my brain?”

  No person listens, but every object does. The bricks, the tiles, the fluorescent light fixtures all acknowledge him as he paces, staring at his feet fitting in tile square after tile square. Assignments might be the truest form of love. He assigns reasons for existence to all the inanimate objects around him so that they might feel love the same way he does. Bricks unify their dull souls to block out external pressures. Floor tiles hold his feet in place. Fluorescent lights show him his path. And they all listen. Perhaps now his words might offer a reason for existence to people, too.

  “It’s more than a simple cranial amplification. I know what’s coming. Maybe I was wrong about the fire, but I know what’s coming. No one but me sees this massive potential energy, which I both cherish and despise all at once: cherish because my inner words are all I have—the only thing that no one can take away from me—and despise because I cannot share all the words and details with anyone entirely. And if you cannot share it, does it exist? I don’t know.”

  Glancing up from the tiles, he sees his reflection in one of the internal windows. The skin cr
eases around his eyebrows like thrown-away scrap paper. Flash-frozen blue ice oceans are his eyes, harboring whole ecosystems underneath. His hands look like confused geographic maps with bulging rivers for veins and spackled cities overgrown into each other. Suburbs of scars and little mountain ranges nearly disappearing as he closes his hands into fists, quaking constant due to impure nerves. His gray facial hair, uncontrollable and who knows how many years thick, hides his smile.

  No nurses shave him; no visitors to impress. No one knows the weight of his years. The slow grind of cartilageless joints, the reliable ache of the morning, the endless schedule of wishes ungranted for so long they may lay dormant for all time. Doesn’t matter; everyone is dormant in their own way. After his vocalization, though, doubt stings.

  He returns his gaze to the tiles, which have enough shine to reflect faintly his image. The difference between the image reflecting off the tile floor and the other image reflecting off the window bothers him. Does any reflection show the truth?

  With his newfound voice, he booms grandiose for no one in particular, “THREE! That’s the number of human catalysts that will push the pendulum and hammer down the gears into place. She is lilacs against an azure dusk in midsummer, veiling herself with stars pointing in her truest direction, guiding or misguiding her every action. He is a cyclone arguing from multiple tangents extempore, incomplete in physical form, but steadfast in his whirling revolutions and revelations. The other is a brittle container, disapproving of what he can’t contain, but happy to bust and put everything back together. Their reason for existence and my reason for existence will mingle,” he bats his eyelashes, “eye each other from across the room, ask each other to dance and…” The old man waltzes with an imagined partner, “... do what it is people do to create something new.” He stops his rhythmic tiptoeing for a moment. “If I were a gambler, how much would I put on all of these images coming to fruition?” He thinks for a moment. “Have I placed my bet by speaking?”