by Aarti Patel
Screen
by R.T. Patel
Copyright © 2014 R.T. Patel
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission from the copyright owner.
Misha sat cross-legged on the floor and examined her fingers as she always did when she returned. One of her fingernails was longer than the rest, and this was the first time she had noticed but otherwise all was fine. Misha’s fluffy white dog, Poof, sniffed her fingers as he enjoyed partaking in any shared activity. His floppy ears flew up and down as he yipped excitedly in circles around her. The amount of time that had passed was still mysterious to her, so Misha wandered to the small adjoining kitchen, her joints a little stiff and unyielding to her weight as if they had taken time off from supporting her body. It was one o’ clock, not a second too early or too late. Sometimes she wished the clock would develop a mind of its own and fool everyone.
Here at home, the skies were clear and blended easily with the sunshine for a perfect San Francisco afternoon. You could stick your hand out and imagine it on a two-dimensional plane with the rest of the world around you, like a postcard. Not real enough. Misha sighed and flipped on the big screen, bypassing her inbox, task lists, and everything else so she could catch some entertaining shows for a change. A re-run of Trivia Time aired on channel 7, three digital contestants mounted on podiums and ready to buzz in the correct answer. India was currently in the lead, but Japan was a close second as the dapper host flashed the next question on the Trivia screen. “Who was the first celebrity actor to fly to the moon during the year 2013?”
Misha stared at the digital contestants as each screen tallied the corresponding country’s correct answers. “How boring,” thought Misha. She turned off the big screen and sat on the couch for a second. Her nerves were tingling a little too much these days and were keeping her up at night. A buzz ran from her neck to her shoulder blades, and would shoot off to unexpected places from there. Rummaging through her purse, she picked up a small bottle and ran her finger around the cap. This bottle was illegal, but it had helped her get through the past two years of her life. The body buzz was getting worse, and she didn’t know what it was ultimately progressing toward. Some people fried slowly, others short-circuited abruptly. She knew her buzz was a warning from her body, but she was scared to attend to it and didn’t know what to do anyway. As these thoughts lingered on her nerve endings, they seemed to fry the synapses even more. After all, the buzz had taken the place of cancer as the leading cause of death in the world. Almost everyone had it to some extent. She couldn’t handle too much more today, Misha thought, as she heard her phone ring on the big screen.
Misha followed the sound of the incessantly beeping phone toward the living room and hovered her finger above the phone application icon on the big screen. “Hello?” Misha’s face scrunched up with the question. It had been close to ten years since she enjoyed interacting with other human beings, but she had not uttered this to anyone except Poof. Misha paused in silence as the person on the other end seemed to be communicating something with returned silence. “Hello?” Misha quickly tired of these games. She had noticed a trend starting when she was in college and it had gotten worse ever since: People would call you and have nothing to say when you answered the phone. The telephone seemed obsolete, electronic mail had turned into drifted smoke never to be read or answered, and mailed letters had died off decades ago, at least from what Misha had learned at the city’s Technological History Museum.
It had been months since anyone had called her, and certainly cancelling the phone app would save her a little money; in this world, a little was a lot. Misha rolled her eyes and made one more attempt. “Hello? Hello?” Someone cleared her throat delicately on the other end. “Can you hear me?” Misha asked. “Yes...,” the response trailed from the caller. Misha felt a little relief and continued, “How can I help you?”
“Misha,” the caller attempted, “this is Tsai.” Misha felt a softening of all her nerve endings, as if a perfect breeze had picked up from underneath some window and had stripped her of all rigid defenses with its ease of lightness. The name ‘Tsai’ catapulted her years back to a time she could hardly recall, it had been so long. Tsai had been the Taiwanese last name of her close friend, Ann. Misha had rarely called her friend "Ann," preferring instead to call her "Tee-sai," a mispronunciation of Ann's last name. Tsai used to think it was funny. Misha's brain tapped at her urgently to close the memory back up. Family members had reconnected with her in years past, and friends had unexpectedly been in touch, each time bringing back that familiar yet historical feeling of interaction. Yet the communications that had been set in motion each time had somehow been foiled, muddled and confused like a trail or a scent never to be traced again. After all this time, Misha could not grasp who destroyed the evidence or thwarted it after its very inception.
“Misha, it’s really me—Tsai. Please don’t hang up.” Misha had no intention of hanging up. She was just too paralyzed to know what action to take next. The history between her and Tsai was not easy to sum up, and after the movement of the world in its own direction, it was hard to know what turn the friendship had taken. While plenty of people still immersed themselves in social activity through the big screen, Misha’s social life was virtually empty.
“Hi Tsai…how’ve you been?” Misha was nervous and her heart began to beat unwittingly as if clear and imminent danger were present. Tsai was obviously nervous too, and she strung together a bunch of ums and uhs as she began to explain her reason for calling. Misha interrupted her abruptly, “Tsai, it’s okay. It’s been a long time.” Tsai sighed and continued, “Misha, I’ve thought about you so often and I wanted to call you so many times. You’re one of the only people who still has a phone, it would have been so easy. I’m sorry, I chickened out. You’ve been on my mind. Can we meet?”
Misha’s mind blasted to what she imagined for their proposed meeting. Out of anyone she could see right now, she most welcomed a meeting with Tsai. “Sure, how about one o’ clock tomorrow at Minnie’s, where Chestnut meets the Embarcadero? It’s a real coffee shop, not one in the big screen. Do you still live around here?”
“I do—I can meet you then.” Their conversation ended and both girls hung up, sitting respectively in expectant silence wondering what tomorrow’s meeting was going to lead to. For Misha, there was no need to eke out a phone conversation that was fifteen years too late in its ability to be casual. As a young girl, Misha would have described a lot of her human interactions as both awkward and natural all at once. These days, she didn’t know how to describe them and felt inept for it. Her family no longer contacted her, as she seemed to make their lives scarier and more precarious somehow. Not that she meant to.
Poof turned up at Misha’s knee as she knelt on the carpet, rubbing against it like a cat. Poof had always been more like a cat than a dog. He also had a keen sense for significant human moments when they broke the monotony of days strung together, much like a cat. Poof looked at Misha inquisitively, asking for some sign of what it was all about. Misha reached into a bag of dog treats instead as the dog would be unable to process any human answer. She had managed to skip her own lunch as usual, and it was already time to head back to work.
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The big screen loomed in the distance in her living room, never quite fitting into or setting décor for the space. Its dimensions almost reached the proportions of the wall it stood against, yet some homes had e
ven larger ones or those that covered multiple walls. A circular blue “zoom” mat stood arm’s distance from the screen and had been calibrated by some high-tech company exactly for Misha’s weight and build. It was to send her into the screen, where her job was located. Misha snuggled her dog affectionately before leaving -- it was never easy for her to tear herself away from the natural feel of four real walls, a sensitive canine, and smells. Beyond the screen, the world was devoid of scent, leaving the body absent of one of its important sensory skills.
As Misha stepped onto the zoom mat, the mat calibrated to standardized dimensions and accepted her weight and build as unique identification. After the screen performed a quick dental scan, the horizon of the virtual world melted with that of reality in less than a second, without Misha having to press a single button. The clock was set to zoom her into the screen environment at the exact appointed second, and if she was not present—well, she knew from experience what would take place in that event. Her nerve endings vibrated and she developed a poignant eye twitch in her right eye. The eye twitch spread like wildfire through her whole body as the two environments married into one.
Misha examined her fingers, and noticed the same fingernail that needed clipping. She liked to check in with her body after each zooming to make sure she was all there. There were days she forgot to self-calibrate in this way, but on the days she did so, she felt healthier and needed less medication for her buzz. Misha worked for a company called Mind Memo. She could hardly remember what she'd been working on before leaving for lunch break. Seated up on her desk to the right was Carol Myer, her legs crossed and a report hanging off her fingertips like a snotty tissue. It would have been refreshing if one day at two o’clock, Carol wasn’t seated in that position. “Hey!” Carol chirped.
Carol was a step above Misha in Mind Memo’s elaborate company hierarchy, but that step was impediment enough to Misha performing her job freely. As Misha reached for the report, Carol jerked it a few inches away. “What?” Misha snapped. Carol’s eyes pierced into her knowingly and smiled. “Oh—it’s just that Lydia wants to see you in her office about this report.” Carol batted her eyes playfully and Misha knew that Carol had a hand in whatever issue Lydia wanted to discuss. Misha’s stomach tried to turn, but real anxiety was hard to feel in the screen.
Misha snatched the report and walked over to Lydia’s office door. The screen on the door scanned her face and offered her a waiting time of two minutes. Waiting in the hallway in front of Lydia’s door produced some of the most loathed moments in Misha’s week. A short Asian man named Alex scurried past her with some files, giving her a quick salute. Though not in a smiling mood, Misha smiled at him. It felt good sometimes, to stretch the mouth into that facial expression. As Alex passed and she released it, her jaw felt sore.
Lydia’s door silently glided open and Misha caught the first hints of Lydia’s silver hair, her pitted face, her sleek business suit, her cluttered desk, and finally her blue eyes. Misha entered the office and turned around to shut the door so she could avoid the ugly gaze that had met hers, forgetting that the doors in this building were automatic. She slowly turned back around and sat down in the seat in front of Lydia’s desk. At times, Misha pictured there were invisible physical restraints built into this chair, as it somehow sucked the breath out of her and allowed no free movement.
Lydia’s face got uglier by the day, and the act of zooming into this world didn’t seem to help matters. Her uneven black eyeliner shifted up and down as she blinked and her mouth twitched into absurd expressions when the buzz got a hold of her too suddenly. The promise of the tense discussion ahead was locked in her eyes, and she seemed to have all the accusations and rebuttals planned out in advance. Lydia waited and watched Misha squirm just long enough before she started speaking.
“Misha—do you know what we do here?” The question hung in the air like an insult instead of a question. Misha churned the question over in her mind and realized that she had no idea what they did there—at least not what it amounted to. But she knew the expected reply and gave it without pretense. “We clean computer databases for companies that have been lazy over the years in doing so. We organize the information in new ways for easier storage and retrieval. We set up Mind Memos that will remind employees from those companies how to maintain these databases on their own. Mind Memos are a big screen application, so we have to tailor the app to fit each company.” How tedious, thought Misha to herself.
Lydia looked displeased. “Take a look at your report,” she commanded. Misha looked at the report in her lap. It had taken her two weeks to finish it. She looked back up at Lydia and waited some more. She often wondered if people knew how much time they could save by just saying what they wanted to say. “Misha—you have worked here for two years. There is still no reflection in your work that you have grasped the significance of the screen in daily life and business. Carol pointed this out to me in your quarterly evaluation. As we taught you extensively during training, the screen is essential to our business model. It’s the platform upon which the whole world runs. That should be self-evident, even to you.”
Misha said nothing. Lydia was right; she didn’t understand what was important about the screen. She knew she was currently inside of it, and it helped her earn a living. “Is there something I can change in the report?” asked Misha earnestly. Lydia shook her head. “Misha—it’s disappointing. You’re one of our best writers and programmers. There’s nothing technically wrong with your report. However, it just doesn’t reflect current trends in screen industry. You haven’t grown at Mind Memo and you haven’t grown with the times. You also haven’t kept up with technological advances. I still have to contact you using a telephone app. That’s so 2008. Can you tell me what’s going on?”
Misha blinked, she felt helpless in this environment, truly without answers. “Lydia, this is my best work. I’ll go for more training if you need me to.” She really was trying. Lydia shook her head again. “I’m sorry, Misha, we have to let you go. There are more qualified applicants at the moment who are able to keep up with the screen. You don’t belong here.” And just like that, Misha was handed her last paycheck and the automatic door slid open for her exit. The tiny glimmer of Lydia’s humanity slammed shut as she went back to her work and the black eyeliner resumed its skimming of screen reports.
Misha’s report slid off her lap and onto the floor as she got up to go. “Misha?” Lydia called to her as she was almost out the door. “Yes?” Misha replied, hopeful. “Please meet with security to disable your screen access codes before you leave.” Her thin cracked lips pressed together in a final impatient smile.
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Carol Myer stood by the water cooler outside Lydia’s office, self-consciously sipping water from a paper cup. “How’d the meeting go?” she asked Misha nonchalantly. Misha walked past her and rounded the maze of cubicles to her own desk, with Carol following a few steps behind. “Maybe we can re-work that report together. I have some ideas. Do you wanna grab some lunch?” Misha emptied out the contents of her desk. Carol was oozing loneliness all over the place. People chose strange times to be friendly or vulnerable, even more so in the screen. “Carol—you know I just lost my job. You helped make it happen.” Misha wanted to get out of there as fast as she could. “What? No!” As Carol’s face was rounded into an incredulous O shape, Misha walked to the elevators and caught the next one going down to the security department.
The security department was situated in the back of the basement and was so dimly lit that it was hard for Misha to see her hand in front of her face. Mind Memo saved money by cutting corners in bizarre ways. Some floors were so brightly illuminated that it was like staring into the sun, and others were treated like dungeons. “Earl?” Misha called out the head security guard’s name so she could follow his voice to the correct office. “Yes?” A voice came bellowing out of room B11. Earl was a tall elderly black man with a shiny head and huge hands. As he shook Misha
’s hand, his body heat emanated to warm the air all around her. In the screen environment, where so much stood stagnant and cold, anything comforting felt accentuated a hundred fold. Earl smiled, experiencing a similar effect from Misha’s presence.
Misha was a rare Mind Memo employee in being privy to Earl’s secret wisdom down there in the basement. Earl shared his pearls of real conversation, depth, and history with her alone. When Misha first started working at the company, she had visited the security department intending to leave in ten minutes with a name tag and had ended up staying for a full lunch hour. During her repeated visits, Earl told her of his days growing up in a world without the screen. His stories described people who truly enjoyed each other’s company, or truly detested it—but they showed it either way. Earl explained the big screen’s timeline, how in its nascent phase it was just a television for entertainment purposes. Its versatility grew with the advent of computers and advanced programming. The internet gave the screen extra meaning in people’s lives as a way to access information, spread new or regurgitated information in an instant, and most importantly—connect with one another around the world. People began to carry around tablets of miniature screens that allowed them to use these features wherever they went. For many, if a friend wasn’t around, well…technically a tablet offered enough entertainment and activities to fill an entire weekend.
Technology began to blend, morph, and borrow, such that devices like phones and cameras were no longer useful as just single purchases and were being bundled into more advanced gadgets by manufacturers. Once the technology age’s momentum started, its growth skyrocketed faster than anyone thought it would. What was new on the market would become outdated two months later, or even less. Technology began to “sense” things increasingly, with built-in programming to enable screens to detect the push of a finger or the wave of a hand. Scientists and engineers together dreamt of the day they could breathe enough life into technology to create a truly virtual reality.