by Aarti Patel
Somehow even with a bunch of diverse and eclectic doctors working together, the white coat stench of orthodox medical training still hung in the air and made patients’ blood pressures consistently rise in the office. The positions that Misha and Tsai were hired for had been their first jobs out of college and they'd been very enthusiastic and bright-eyed about the place—for about three months. After that, the two friends became frustrated by the lack of challenge at work, the low pay, the workplace drama, and the pushiness of medical professionals. The worse things got at work, the closer the two friends became and the more they tried to find humor in what happened around them. With creatively doctored paperwork, they convinced the research department to pay for their “work-related” education at the Ballard University, including courses on how to make ice cream, draw self-portraits, and do the quick step. They drew caricatures of the doctors they worked for and hung them up behind the office door. They set up elaborate baskets to shoot crumpled paper balls into.
Misha and Tsai only saw each other at work, but they knew everything about each other’s lives. When Misha learned she had to get a root canal treatment, Tsai was the first person she told and Tsai offered to accompany her to the painful appointment for moral support. The two came to take it for granted, but they actually looked forward to going to work at their stuffy jobs in a weird way. Misha stood in front of Minnie’s and wondered what had happened. Fifteen long years had gone by, and she didn’t know why she and Tsai hadn’t talked since the days of Ballard. But the question almost seemed moot considering no one talked anymore.
Misha walked through the café entrance and saw a petite figure sitting at the coffee bar. Tsai looked smaller than she remembered, hunched over in an awkward position. Misha suddenly felt vulnerable and ill, but continued to walk toward the bar and stopped right behind her friend. “Tsai?” As Tsai turned around, welled up tears left her eyes and traveled down her cheeks. Her eyes were red and her whole face looked swollen as if she was allergic and a bee had stung her. Misha sat down on the barstool next to her, alarmed. “Tsai, what is it?” Tsai limply fell forward and her head landed on Misha’s shoulder. The re-introductions had been bypassed for now and Misha patiently waited for Tsai’s sobbing to end. “Tsai, what is it? You can trust me, I won’t tell anyone. What’s wrong?”
Tsai wiped away her tears and began her story as if the two of them were still sitting in their Ballard office uninterrupted from fifteen years ago. “Misha, I have the buzz. I know everyone has the buzz, but mine is getting worse. I’m getting twitches everywhere. My eyes, my knees, my lips…even parts of my body I never knew I had. It’s so painful. It’s really bad, Misha, I’m so scared. And I’ve begun to hear things. I think they’re trying to enter my brain and read what’s there. I feel like I’m going crazy.”
Misha sat across from Tsai, wide-eyed. These were the symptoms that she herself had been experiencing too. She wasn’t alone or crazy. “Tsai—who’s ‘they?'” Tsai gulped back her sobs and answered frantically, “I don’t know! I’m freaked out, Misha. I feel like they’re telling me things and brainwashing me. I’m going to see a doctor, but you have to go with me. Please! I’m too scared to go alone. I can’t handle this on my own.” Tsai’s eyes welled up again and tears plopped like rain into the coffee mug she held in her tiny hands.
“Okay, Tsai,” Misha reassured her, “don’t worry. I’ll come with you. You don’t have to go through this on your own.” Misha gave Tsai a hug and past Tsai’s trembling shoulders, she could see a café patron open up a portable screen on a coffee table with violently twitching hands.
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Three o’clock the next afternoon, Misha sat across from Earl at Morton’s Steakhouse. She felt discombobulated after seeing Tsai the day before and was shocked at how tiring social interaction had become for her. She recalled it being energizing when she was younger. It was okay, she told herself. Reconnecting with Tsai had given her a chance to help an old friend out, one who had helped her years ago.
A waitress dropped off a couple platters of comfort food on the table and left. Misha picked up a napkin and laid it across her lap, then spooned some food onto her plate. Earl did the same and they sat there in silence. The setting of the steakhouse seemed to drop away while a single question rose into the forefront. Misha said it out loud first, “Who is she while she’s in the screen, Earl?”
Earl scooted his chair closer to the table and his usually bellowing voice dropped down to barely above a whisper. “Misha, I want you to be careful, okay?” Misha’s eyebrows rose in disbelief. “Earl—what are you talking about?” Earl lifted his finger up to his lips to gesture Misha have a more hushed tone. “Don’t worry, I’ll tell you everything, but you have to keep this between us and watch your back right now. I’m on your side, so promise me.” Misha’s mind felt dazed and uncertain about everything and everyone. “Yes, I promise,” she assured Earl.
Earl nodded and began, “Before the big screen was invented, people were already entering the screen, so to speak. Different websites existed that were collectively part of what was called ‘social networking’ and people posted their pictures on them, invited friends to join, and chronicled their life experiences. “Real Face” was one of them. People all around the world connected to other people through these sites, both people they knew and those they didn’t. Sure, these pages helped old friends reconnect and made it easier for family members to keep in touch across long distances. They even helped some people find dates.
“There were other effects too, though. An identity page allowed an individual to tell others who he or she was, or wasn’t. In real life, you can try and guess who someone is when you meet them based on your own perception, but identity pages took the guesswork out of the process. The websites encouraged people to visually balance out the traits they didn’t want others to see about them by only highlighting the ones they did. An identity page declared, even demanded, how others should perceive it. If you didn’t want to be seen as a smart nerdy type anymore, you could change all that overnight with your identity page. Or if you wanted to spell out for others how the nerdiness should be seen, you could easily do that too. You could sculpt your identity and your blossoming celebrity all at once. If someone didn’t buy into what was on the screen, well then—too bad for them. Guilt usually set in for those who didn’t believe, because everyone else supposedly did.
“As the big screen entered the world and people grew accustomed to it, identities went beyond Real Face and became larger than life. Hali Seltzer added a yoga studio to the virtual environment, and claimed it was the best yoga she had ever done in her life. She grew even more famous than she was before, and not just for yoga but for anything she wished in the moment to be famous for. It would all magically work out for her overnight: Notoriety for being a bestselling author, acclaim at directing and producing feature films, media attention on her new yoga-inspired cooking show, admiration for her unmatched philanthropy. The dabbling in new areas of work and creation was endless. It was a renaissance—the virtual renaissance. But if you had seen Hali’s feature film, it would have made you question whether that was a good thing.
“Other people followed Hali’s lead and dove into the screen, hiring programmers to create new virtual environments specifically for them that people could join. People wanted to be famous, and it was never easier than in the virtual world. It was like a drug that never wore off. Except that all drugs wear off eventually. Hali was the first to show signs, but it was not widely publicized what had happened to her—only that she had developed an unnamed neurodegenerative disorder. In other words, she had the buzz. As the buzz increasingly grabbed a hold of Hali’s body, her hold on fame both in and out of the virtual world became more tenuous. She and her doctors never attributed the symptoms to living life inside the screen, so she spent more and more time in there. Where once she felt larger than life, she was then at the age of 50 frail and unable to do yoga anymore. She died at age 55.
“Who was she while she was in the screen? I can only speculate, Shorty. I ain’t no scientist or researcher. But I’d say that in the screen, personality wears off as it gets sold out in meager portions to others. At first it seems riveting, but eventually everyone learns to act the same, talk the same. Monotony. They speak a new unified language, one I can’t understand. They do it, ironically, for protection. So they don’t stand out and get in trouble. You can’t tell the difference between anyone anymore. People appear to be all put together, but they’re more self-conscious than ever. They get lost in there and can’t come back here.” Earl pointed to the ground. “I think the buzz is the result of a split. One part of the person is in the screen, but the other part is still out here. And I think the part that's left out here gets mad when it’s neglected.”
Misha’s eyelid twitched in response. She stuck a fork into her mashed potatoes and it froze there pointed toward the ceiling. Earl pointed to her and asked, “Who do you think she is while she’s in the screen?” Misha felt like she had prepared this answer in her mind over many years, but the actual words were escaping her now. She started talking clumsily anyway, “I just don’t trust what I see in the screen. I don’t believe people’s actions or what they’re telling me. Something feels hidden from view, and I can’t put my finger on what that is. It doesn’t feel real, even though they say that it is. But I’ve been told by people that I simply don’t get it.”
“Who told you that?” Earl asked her. Misha rummaged back through her memories. “Well, my mom for starters. Lydia too…” Earl interrupted her thought with, “Lydia? What did she tell you?”
Misha tried to remember how Lydia had put it. “Well, she told me I didn’t get what they did there at Mind Memo. I hadn’t grasped the importance of the big screen in daily life. She isn’t the only one who thinks that about me, though. Others do too, Earl, only they don’t say it out loud. I can still tell they’re thinking it. What is it that I don’t get?”
“Listen, Misha,” Earl explained, “when I first met you, I knew I could talk to you. I mean really talk to you, like a real human being. That’s rare in the virtual environment. Your personality stood out to me because it wasn’t peggable. You can’t melt and become one with the depravity and mush that place has turned into. That’s a good thing. But today, the thing that can’t be pegged makes people scared. I want you to trust no one right now. You need to be your own best friend and look out for yourself and no one else. I think something weird is happening. A few days ago, Lydia asked me for your files, both active and archived. I thought it was just a routine check she was planning to run on all employees, but now I know something’s up with your being fired from the company.”
“Wasn’t Lydia just disappointed with my performance at Mind Memo? That must be why she asked for my files,” Misha reminded Earl. Earl shook his head. “No, this is about something else. Trust me. I looked in the master database yesterday and found that your files had been transferred to an undisclosed location. Nothing should be undisclosed to someone who has access to the database in the first place. Those files went somewhere outside of Mind Memo. And I don’t know where.”
Undisclosed. Misha had seen that word on her call log two days ago. “Earl, I’ve gotten phone calls from an undisclosed number. What should I do?”
Earl thought to himself for a moment and then said, “I’m going to look into this more. I’ve had to be discreet with my searches so far because they can trace what I do at Mind Memo. That’s why you and I had to talk out here. But I’ll find a way, don’t worry. In the meantime, don’t talk to anyone else for the next couple days. Stay off the phone unless you see me calling. Okay?”
Misha nodded. “There is a close friend I have to take to the doctor’s office—she has the buzz. But I’ve known her a long time. I won’t talk to anyone else.” Misha and Earl finally felt relaxed enough to enjoy a delicious dinner at the once famous Morton’s and then got ready to leave. Outside the entrance, Misha turned to Earl with one more question, “Earl, what’s in those blue pills you gave me a couple years ago for the buzz? They’ve really helped me feel more myself.” Earl smiled at her and winked. “Nothing, Shorty.”
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Misha’s walk home seemed to take forever. It was definitely longer than her walk to Morton’s, she could have sworn, if her watch hadn’t told her different. Either the big screen was changing the continuum of time on earth, or her conversation with Earl had slowed down her senses so she could mull over her current predicament. She saw some city birds hanging out under the trees that lined Market Street and wondered if they worried about what each other thought as much as humans did. She was almost positive they did not.
In fact, Misha wondered if she were to administer a survey to everyone on earth asking them what was most important in life, and they had to answer honestly, if the top answer would end up being “what others think about me.” Why was it so important to human beings what others thought of them? Misha had felt a slave to this feeling often in her life, starting with what her very own mom thought of her. Did this steal energy from her? Misha sighed. She supposed it was natural to care what others thought, but people were taking it too far when the presentation became more important than the individual.
She arrived at home close to six in the evening, and was greeted by Poof’s small yelps accosting her for not refilling his food bowl in time. Misha mentally slapped herself on the wrist, because of course Poof was the king of the household. She refilled Poof’s bowl and sauntered lazily to the couch, quite possibly her favorite spot in the world. She flipped on the big screen looking for shows she hated or didn’t understand. These shows, while not enjoyable to watch on a primal level, offered her a bird’s-eye-view into the world that existed around her.
There was the Love Channel, on which aired an educational program diagramming how love operated on a molecular and physiological level. Love was, the show proclaimed, the most pure source of fuel for the human race. The show went on to describe how love reached a new spiritual dimension in the big screen, according to a team of researchers. Virtual love could cure illnesses like the buzz, promote feelings of well-being and happiness, and lead to equality for all. Misha wanted to vomit out what she was witnessing.
The next channel, called ‘Perfect Diet,’ dedicated itself to helping humans transition to a spiritually conscious and optimal diet. Refined sugar was currently on a bill pending in Congress to be banned from the human diet completely. Researchers had shown that sugar lowered the I.Q. of newborn babies, destroyed the digestive tract over time, and led to overly aggressive behavior. Nuts also headed the lengthy food hit-list. The Perfect Diet network was one of the highest rated channels on the screen. Misha listened while Kathie Lee Donner, a leading expert in nutrition, explained the benefits of a recently popularized diet. “The Ballard Research Facility has found a direct correlation between the Veggie Popsicle diet and increased intelligence in certain populations…” Kathie held up a ball of frozen broccoli with a popsicle stick poking out the end of it. “These are super easy to make at home…” she chirped as she periodically nibbled on the frozen broccoli ball.
Misha stopped listening to what the expert was saying as Kathie’s face began to violently twitch from one facial feature to the next. An eye twitch moved to her nose and then to her earlobes. Kathie’s mouth twitched a couple seconds later and quickly spread into a full smile in a hopeless attempt to cover the phenomenon. In response to Kathie’s act of suppression, all her features began to twitch in an orchestra of spasmodic buzzing.
Misha switched off the big screen and re-composed her own body. It took her a few minutes to shake off the feeling of veggie popsicles and messages about eternal love. Enough was enough. Maybe it wasn’t enough for the rest of the world, but it was for Misha.
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A few days later, Tsai asked Misha to meet her at the doctor’s office. Her specialist was called a “neuroendocr
inologist,” a fancy name for a doctor who knew the connections between the nervous system and the hormonal system. The doctor’s office was located on the curvy and steep Lombard Street so Misha decided against driving and instead walked there with Poof who hadn’t been out in a while. The air had a saturated quality that Misha often felt during a full moon, which was slowly revealing its outline in the twilight. Dusk hours, when the sky turned blue and was still lit by a fleeing sun, were Misha’s favorite during the day. Poof seemed to like them a lot too.
Misha tracked street addresses until she arrived at the right one: 411 Lombard. Lombard Street had changed a lot over the years, but staring at the building ahead of her, she was surprised she had never heard of this location before. From the outside, the building hardly looked like a medical establishment and instead resembled a church crossed with a library. The heavy rust-colored bricks suggested there was a lot of universally accepted and important information housed inside. But the stained glass windows held stirring images of spiritual figures and emblems, those long forgotten along with some recent ones. Misha circled the building trying to find some sign that she was at the right place. Other than the number on the curb ‘411,’ there was no professional signage or clinic name displayed.
Misha pulled out her portable screen to call Tsai while Poof urinated on the building’s front step. Tsai answered after five rings and said, “Hello?” Misha felt annoyed, but tried to brush the feeling away for the sake of her sick friend. She needed to be there for Tsai today, but of course Tsai should have known who was calling. The alert “Call From Misha” must have even flashed on Tsai’s screen display. There were more than enough clues. Misha chastised herself for thinking these thoughts and quickly got to her point in as gentle a tone as she could muster. “Tsai, I don’t know if I’m at the right building. I’m at 411 Lombard, but I don’t see a sign and it doesn’t look medical to me. Can you tell me which way to go?”