The Living

by Anna Starobinets

Snoring horses, groaning sheep,

  Dreadful dreams disturb their sleep.

  Dreams of waters dark and slow,

  Dreams of bitter, future woe.

  On the shore so cold and high,

  Beasties sleep and time runs by…

  ‘You’re not going to send me to a boarding house are you?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m not,’ Hanna said.

  ‘And we’re going to be together forever?’

  ‘That doesn’t happen, Darling,’ Hanna said.

  She didn’t call me by my name – later I realised why: it frightened her, it forced her to look into the abyss, into that nothingness, into the white emptiness surrounded by the black circle… She didn’t call me Zero. She just called me Darling.

  ‘Why?’ I snivelled. ‘Why can’t we be together forever? We’re immortal, aren’t we? Let’s just agree: when one of us di…’

  ‘Darling!’

  ‘I meant to say, when one of us temporarily ceases to exist, then the other one will just look for them, and everything’ll be like it was before.’

  ‘It doesn’t work like that, Darling,’ Hanna shook her head.

  It doesn’t work like that. She turned out to be right. I didn’t believe she was right until Ef agreed to take me to see her. Turns out I had no need for the fat little girl that she had changed into. And she had absolutely no need for me either.

  No one needs anyone, pal. You don’t mind me calling you ‘pal’? I hope you don’t think it’s over-familiar? At the end of the day I’m talking to myself. Or maybe I’m not talking to anyone at all…

  ‘Tell me you love me,’ I asked Hanna.

  ‘There’s no point, Darling.’ She suddenly went tense all over.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ve already told you. The Living is full of love and every part of him loves every other part equally.’

  ‘So does that mean you love me?’

  And she said:

  ‘Yes.’

  And then she added so quietly I could barely hear her:

  ‘I love you as much as I love any other part of the Living.’

  ‘You love me as much… as much as you love crazy Matthew who goes down the street shouting?’

  She didn’t say anything. I got angry.

  ‘Tell me you love me more than anyone!’

  She didn’t say anything.

  ‘So sing then.’

  And she sang:

  On the shore so cold and high,

  Beasties sleep and time runs by…

  Time runs by and night descends,

  We can’t help our little friends.

  On the day when I saw her for the last time, on the day when Hanna went to her last Festival, she said that I should go to bed on my own. She said that she’d be back too late. And so she’d sing me the song earlier.

  For the cats and for the deer,

  For them all the end is near.

  Only you can slumber there,

  Smile, and know no care,

  For, my Living, little guy,

  You will never, ever die.

  ‘No death!’ she said as she left.

  ‘No death!’ I replied.

  ‘I love you,’ she said. ‘I love you more than anyone.’

  She was thirty-four.

  For a whole year more she had the right to visit the Reproduction Zone at the Festival for Assisting Nature. The reproductive period officially ends at thirty-five.

  It would have been another eleven years before she would start receiving messages from the local Centre for Population Control with the gentle suggestion that she visit the Pause Zone. Messages like that start coming at forty-five.

  It would have been another sixteen years before she would start receiving messages from the local Centre for Population Control with the strict recommendation that she visit the Pause Zone. Messages like that start coming at fifty.

  She could have lived for another twenty-six years until a Compulsory Pause. This measure applies to those who are over sixty and do not want to comply with the suggestions voluntarily.

  For a whole year more she had the right to visit the Reproduction Zone at the Festival for Assisting Nature.

  But she went to the Pause Zone.

  She did it because of me. Because they hadn’t taken me into the boarding house and had left me with her. Because she had sung me songs. Because she loved me more than anyone.

  The Man with No Face

  Nothing extravagant, that’s what he had thought. An SPO officer’s living quarters should be strictly functional.

  ‘Strictly functional,’ that’s what he had said to the decorator, ‘Stylish minimalism.’ He did it all up in socio tones: walls à la inviz and safety furniture in the colours ‘available’ and ‘busy’. There wasn’t a lot of furniture, Ef had insisted on that, just what was absolutely necessary. The only extravagance was in the bathroom – an expansive terrarium for his Pet. But his bedroom was pretty much empty – just a soft aquasleep floor-covering with maximum surface tension. Ef had preferred maximum for a long time now, because, maybe other people don’t like it, but personally he was not a fan of waking up with the feeling that he was stuck up to the waist in his own floor. Not to mention the fact that sleeping on something flat is better for the spine…

  …He sits on the floor, pulls off his mirror mask, realises that he still needs to get up, go and wash in cold water, change the bandages on his hands which had got soaked in the downpour and feed his Pet – but a dream still shackles his arms and legs. It’s not even a dream, but the sort of germ of a dream. He’s dreaming of a river. Or something that was a river once, or is going to become one…

  39:50

  independent connection is not operational

  39:51

  39:52

  …Animals appear at the river, or maybe they’re plants – something alive, but not yet fully formed, he tries to give them all shape…

  39:53

  39:54

  39:55

  independent connection is not operational

  He thinks: his dream should be like a garden where he can grow miraculous herbs…

  39:56

  He thinks: his dream should be like mud and sand which he can make into a castle…

  39:57

  He thinks: someone is watching him. But at that moment he lets the thought go and it floats off downstream…

  39:58

  39:59

  He thinks: he doesn’t have much time and the river is flowing fast…

  He thinks about the weed in the river…

  40:00

  …compulsory connection to socio is underway… we’re back!

  It was like the river, his thoughts, and the weeds, were all clumped together and chucked away. As if a tablecloth had been yanked away, and beneath it there is a mushy termite mound. Hundreds of little oval cells, a porous writhing mass. Ef is inside it. Inside one of the cells.

  It clings tightly to him, like a cocoon; Ef twists and turns, instinctively trying to tear through it.

  ef: help:

  The walls of the box respond to his movements, obedient and moist. They don’t break – they stretch. They give way, freeing up space for him. Now he is inside a ball.

  ef: settings:

  ef: details:

  disconnection from socio led to the automatic deletion of personal settings

  at the current moment standard socio settings are in operation: null interface

  restore saved cell settings ef?

  yes no

  Ef gets up and goes over the soft floor to the bathroom. Seeing him, the mantis stands on its hind legs and scrapes the wall of the terrarium with his front legs… Ef taps his fingers on the glass – the mantis folds his hands together solemnly, as if praying, begging for food. One leg is bent, broken…

  Wash. Wash and drink, drink, drink cold water… He rinses his face and takes a few greedy gulps, but it doesn’t get any better. The water seems warm, horribly warm, imperceptible. Ef lifts h
is head and looks at himself in the mirror: murky drops run down his mirrored mask, which is reflected in the mirror, reflected in the mask, reflected in the mirror… What the hell? Did I not take my mask off?

  He reaches for the soft edge under his chin: the mask doesn’t give. Like it’s stuck to this skin. He pulls at it again.

  invalid request

  He pulls with all his might.

  it looks like you are trying to do something slightly incorrect

  do you want to upload a new userpic for ef?

  yes no

  The front door turns out to be locked from the outside. He shoves it with his shoulder.

  invalid request

  it looks like you are trying to do something slightly incorrect

  ef: i’m trying to leave the house!!!

  …processing request…

  invalid request

  you are currently in sleep mode

  do you want to wake up?

  yes no

  autodoctor: waking up is not recommended at this time of day. for full recuperation of energy you should sleep for another 4.5 hours

  do you want to wake up?

  yes no

  warning: socio continues to operate in sleep mode. you can see your list of contacts in socio, chat in socio, receive information in socio and share it with other socio users. do you want to wake up?

  yes no

  autodoctor: information about unusual interruptions in your sleep will be sent to the SPO medical department

  do you want to wake up?

  yes no

  caution: you are now in sleep mode…

  you have 3 new socio messages…

  ef: open

  1

  while you were away from socio, you missed the daily trailer

  attention: trailer loading…

  …Every day after sunset we watch our favourite series: ‘The Eternal Killer’ and ‘Festival Passions’! in the next episode of ‘The Eternal Killer’: the Butcher’s Son has broken free again! He’s looking for a new victim! Seventeen-year-old Kate has no idea that she’s got an early, painful pause ahead of her! But then, who does… Super-sleuth planetman Pete is already on the trail of the Butcher’s Son. He’ll stop at nothing to catch this correctee! in the next episode of ‘Festival Passions’: socio-designer Don has not appeared in the Reproduction Zone at the appointed time. Disappointed Anne plans to give herself to three strangers. Who knows, maybe one of them will treat her to a world of unforgettable sensations…

  which show would you like to watch today?

  The Eternal Killer Festival Passions Both shows

  2

  while you were away from socio information was collected for you regarding your search request ‘cleo’ what would you like to do with this information? open in viewing mode save in memory

  3

  While you were away from socio, user cleo invited you to meet on socio

  what would you like to do with this invitation?

  accept invitation decline invitation

  do you want to meet cleo right now?

  yes no

  Zero

  From the age of five I visited the local natural development group: Hanna took me to a shining round building, which looked like a ball of natural cheese, with oval holes for windows. Of course, no one did any developing there, that was just a name. But I liked it. I liked the cheese house. I liked the poor kids, who since birth had had neuron chains that didn’t join up right, making it impossible to install SDP, the Standard Development Program, or anything else for that matter. They had ugly faces with big foreheads and tiny chins, they had drooling mouths, they had eyes weeping with sores, but their gaze fascinated me – it was direct and intense, tenacious, not like other people’s.

  They looked at me in amazement. I was absolutely healthy. I could have had SDP installed without any problems, if it weren’t for one ‘but’.

  I was dangerous. So they wouldn’t hook me up to socio. At all. The decision was made at the highest level.

  I was dangerous. I was surplus to requirements. I was unknown. I might violate something somehow… Of course they didn’t mention any of this to Hanna. They just announced that an additional cell would be required for me to be hooked up to socio. ‘Unfortunately, the creation of an additional cell could lead to a malfunction in socio.’ I remember her face when she got the message. Or I think I remember, I was very little – in any case, I’m sure that that’s what her face looked like at that moment. Frozen, grey. Like it always was when one of the departments contacted her about me.

  I liked talking to the other children from the development group – they didn’t know who I was. And if they had known, they would not have understood. I liked lying. I lied and said that I had known my incode for ages, that I knew everything about myself, that I had managed to listen in to the adults talking. And I liked listening to them lie too… We told each other cock-and-bull stories about our lives before the Pause, in which we were all heroes and were all awarded the Order of the Living; we chose the most prestigious ranks and professions for ourselves: we were all secretaries of the Council of Eight, architects, entomologists, or farmers or fruit growers.

  And so I was a farmer. When they gave out the little boxes of natural food (I don’t know how it is now, but at that time children under nine were given a hundred grams of natural animal food produced by a Farmer of Merit in that region, it was part of the Programme for Assisting Nature), I said that the little chunks of meat which were inside, they’re actually from my farm, before the pause I had a farm, and I kept pigs there, yep yep, real pigs, I saw them up close, and they weren’t scared of me at all…

  We all adored these little boxes of happiness with their multi-coloured stamps: ‘Region EA 8_milk’, ‘Region EA8_egg_hen’, ‘Region EA 8_ meat_pig’…

  ‘You’re lyin’!’ said a little boy with envy. He had a crooked face and piercing eyes. ‘You’re lyin’, aw uh a-imals are scaye’ o’ duh Wiving!’

  ‘Gopz,’ I said. ‘They’re not scared of me. They can sense a Farmer of Merit.’

  …I liked our teacher; she was elderly, only two years to go until a compulsory pause. She would close her eyes and tells us about the Living and about what the world was like before His birth, in ancient times. She would put on these programmes from A Living Childhood – non-socio versions, they don’t make them these days – and we’d watch them on an old Crystal X0, like the ones you get in branches of Renaissance, just three times bigger. Most often she’d switch on Baby Bubbles. You know, about those amazing round creatures – if you’re eight, you’ll remember – Monkles, Mousie, Duckles, Fishie, Wolfie and the rest – they stand in a circle and dance round, quicker and quicker all the time, until they all get stuck together into one big multi-coloured ball. His name is Livvles. His pink mouth smiles and says, ‘There is no death.’ And that happens before every episode.

  We knew that all the normal kids, all the ones who had had A Living Childhood installed, took part in the circle dance. I hope that you’ve had better luck than we did. I hope that when you were five you danced around in a circle with Duckles and Mousie, that you merged together with them into a big shining ball… We didn’t. We just looked on from the outside. We were outcasts. We couldn’t feel like we were part of the sphere. Part of Livvles… But our teacher still reckoned that Baby Bubbles was the best material for us. And the most forgiving. Simple. The shape of a sphere: you’d get it even if you didn’t have any neuron chains at all. The shape of a ball. Unity.

  I remember one of the episodes very well. It was called ‘The Pause: It’s Great!’ In it Wolfie accidentally eats a poisonous berry and struggles back to her little house and lies down in bed. Her friends come and sit with her. They’re all really sad, because Wolfie isn’t feeling well. Then Fishie says, ‘Do you want us to help you, Wolfie?’ Wolfie nods and her friends carry her out to the lake and put her right in the water. She sinks down to the bottom. A couple of big bubbles and then you can’t
see her anymore. Her friends stand in a circle and smile and start to clap their hands. But Monkles doesn’t want to clap. He runs round the lake shouting, ‘Where are you, Wolfie?’ His friends explain to him that Wolfie has temporarily ceased to exist. Then Monkles cries, bright blue tears fly all around. His friends look around and stand in a circle. They dance round and round until they form one big bright ball. It’s Livvles. He explains to Monkles that it’s bad to cry at times like this. That it’s ugly and stupid. That there is no death. That it’s just a pause. He promises that Wolfie will come back and that she will be happy. She will be happy, as if there had never been a poisonous green berry… In the end the friends go back to Wolfie’s house, where there is a surprise waiting for them. Wolfie is alive – but she’s absolutely tiny, and not blue, but pink… They all hug and turn into a big bright ball… The Pause: it’s great. At that moment I believed.

  Maybe if they had let me be part of their dance, part of that ball, then I would have kept on believing in it. But I wasn’t a part of it, I watched on from outside. And when Hanna went to her last Festival for Assisting Nature, when she went and never came back, I behaved badly. It was ugly and stupid. When I found out that I would not see her again, I turned into that crazy Monkles, I cried and howled, I refused to eat, I hugged her black dress and started biting whenever anyone tried to take it off me… I covered my ears when they said it was only a pause, that Mia 31 would live forever, that there was no reason for tears… I didn’t want to hear it. I was unnaturally inconsolable. I exhibited a pathological reaction.

  Paradoxical grief. That’s what it’s called.

  At first I liked him. Ef, the man in the mask. He didn’t look at me with the same mixture of squeamishness and surprise as the others. I simply couldn’t see the way he did look at me. And his voice: it was a mystery what he actually sounded like. All I could hear was an even, automatic buzzing, nothing fake about it, in fact no intonation whatsoever.