by Lavie Tidhar
But now this man was swearing at him in public, as though he wanted to say every single shielded sensitive word in a single breath. Arvardan’s eardrums began to throb with pain from the decibel level and the constant beeping from the Listener.
Just then, two police vehicles appeared at the end of the street, and, lights flashing all the way, rushed toward the bus stop.
The man was still swearing when five or six officers in full riot gear rushed over and pushed him to the ground, beating him with their batons. The man kicked with his legs, and words poured out of his mouth even faster, and the curses grew even coarser. One of the officers pulled out a roll of tape, and with a sharp “pa” tore off a piece, which he stuck over the man’s mouth. Immediately before his mouth was taped, the man raised his voice, and heartily yelled at the policeman, “Fuck you, you sonovabitch!” Arvardan watched as his expression turned from madness to a contented smile, as though he were intoxicated with the pleasure and release brought about by the swearing.
The police scrambled to push the man into one of the cars. One of the officers came to Arvardan. “Is, he, your, friend?”
“I, do, not, know, him.” Arvardan responded in the same way.
The policeman stared at him. He took down Arvardan’s Listener and checked its records. There was no record of Arvardan using any sensitive words. He put the Listener back on Arvardan’s ear and warned Arvardan that everything the man had said was extremely reactionary, and he must immediately forget it. Then the officer turned around, and the police left with the arrested man.
Arvardan sighed with relief. Just now he had, for a second, an impulse to scream at the top of his lungs on this empty street, “Fuck you, you sonovabitch!”
The street quickly returned to its customary quiescence. Ten minutes later, a bus slowly arrived at the station. The rusty doors opened with a clang, and an electronic female voice filled the empty space inside the bus: “Passengers, please pay attention and use civilized language. Adhere strictly to the List of Healthy Words as you speak.”
Arvardan wrapped his coat even tighter around himself.
About an hour later, the bus arrived at his destination. The cold wind blew in through the broken windows of the bus, frosting Arvardan’s breath. The coal dust and sand in the wind stabbed at his face. He got up, shook the dust off himself like a wet dog shaking off water, and left the bus.
Arvardan needed to go to the appropriate authorities, the Department of Web Security in this case, responsible for processing BBS permit applications. Located across the street from the bus stop, this was a five–story building, cube–shaped, completely covered in grey concrete. If it weren’t for the few windows, the building would be indistinguishable from a solid block of concrete: hard and dead. Even mosquitoes and bats stayed away.
It was also very difficult to obtain a permit to use the BBS forums. An applicant must go through close to twenty procedures and endure a long investigation process before being granted permission to browse the forums. Only after having had permission to browse the forums for three months could one be granted permission to post in designated forums. As for starting your own BBS, that was impossible.
Despite these obstacles, many used the BBS forums because this was the only place on the Web where one could have some limited conversation. Arvardan had decided to apply for a BBS permit simply out of a vague yet stubborn sense of nostalgia. He didn’t know why he wanted to cause so much trouble for himself. Maybe it was just to bring a sense of excitement to his life. Maybe it was to emphasize the bits of connection between himself and the old times. Maybe it was both.
Arvardan vaguely remembered that when he was a kid, the Web was very different. Not that the technology was different, just the culture. He hoped to remember some of the things from that era through the BBS forums.
Arvardan walked into the building. Inside it was just as cold as outside, and even darker. There were no lights in the hallways. The walls, painted in a bluish white, were pasted over with Web–related regulations, policies, and slogans. Sucking the cold air into his lungs, Arvardan shuddered. Only the crack around the door at the end of the hall let in a sliver of light. On the door was a sign: “Department of Web Security, BBS Section.”
Arvardan did not dwell on the irony that in order to use some virtual functionality of the Web, one had to physically come here to apply.
Once he was behind the door, Arvardan immediately felt a blast of hot air. The heat in this room was turned way up, and Arvardan’s hands, feet, and face, all frozen numb, now tingled and began to itch. He wanted to reach out and scratch himself.
An electronic female voice suddenly burst out of the speakers in the ceiling: “Citizen, please remain still as you wait in line.”
Arvardan put down his hand as though he had been given an electric shock, and respectfully waited where he was. He observed the room he was in: a long and narrow lobby, divided in half by a marble counter that rose in the middle like the Great Wall. A fence made of silver–white poles connected the top of the counter to the ceiling.
“Please proceed to window number eight.”
The counter was so tall that Arvardan could not even look over it to see what was on the other side. But he could hear the sound of someone approaching on the other side, then sitting down.
“Please place your application documents in the tray.”
The speaker on top of the counter issued the order. Unexpectedly, the voice this time was different. Even though it was still dry and cold, Arvardan could tell that the voice did not belong to a computer — this was the voice of a real woman. He tried to lift his head even higher, but he could see nothing. The counter was just too tall.
“Please put the documents in the tray.”
The voice repeated the order. There was some impatience in the tone.
Yes, this is the voice of a real woman...Arvardan thought. The electronic female voice was always polite and never had any emotion in it. He put his Personal Identification Card, Web Access Permit, Web Access Serial Card, the record of sensitive word violations, and other similar documentation into a small metallic tray, slid the tray into a slot in the side of the counter, and closed the flap over the slot. Immediately he heard a faint whoosh. He guessed that the person on the other side of the counter — perhaps a woman — had pulled the tray out on her side.
“What is the purpose for your application for BBS service?”
The woman’s voice from the speaker was business–like and professional.
“To, increase, Web, related, work, efficiency; to, create, a, healthy, and, stable, Web, environment; to, better, contribute, to, the, motherland.”
Arvardan paused between each word, knowing that this was only a formality. All he had to do was to give the standard answer.
The other side sank into silence. After about two minutes, the speaker came on again.
“The final procedure has been completed. You now have permission to use the BBS forums.”
“Thank, you.”
With a bang, the metallic tray bounced back out of the slot. In it, a few more pieces of paper had been added to the documents that Arvardan had provided.
“The appropriate authorities have issued you a user name and password for the BBS service, an index of available forums, a user guide, a copy of the applicable regulations, and the latest List of Healthy Words. Please also check your e–mail inbox.”
Arvardan stepped forward, took out everything in the tray, and examined them. He was disappointed to see that his BBS user name was identical to his Web Access Serial. He remembered that when he was little, it was possible to pick your own BBS forum user name.
Memories of childhood were often mingled with fairy tales and fantasies, however, and might not match reality. The reality now was that you could only use the user name and password issued by the appropriate authorities. The reason was simple: user names and passwords also could contain sensitive words.
He shoved the papers into his coat po
cket. The pieces of paper were actually meaningless, as the electronic copies had been sent to his e–mail already. But the appropriate authorities felt that formal documents on paper were helpful in inducing in users the proper feelings of fear and respect.
He hoped the speaker in the counter would speak a bit more. But he was disappointed by the sound of someone getting up and leaving. Based on the rhythm of the steps, Arvardan was even more certain that the person on the other side was a woman.
The empty electronic female voice again came from the ceiling: “You have completed the necessary procedures. Please leave the Department of Web Security and return to your work.”
Arvardan wrinkled his nose in disgust, and turned to leave the warm lobby and return to the freezing cold hallway.
On the way home, Arvardan curled up in his seat on the bus without moving. The success of obtaining permission to use the BBS service gave him an illusory sense of excitement. His right hand fingered the documents in his pocket as he tried to remember the sound of that mysterious woman’s voice.
It would be so nice to hear that voice again. At the same time, he rubbed his thumb lightly over the piece of paper on top of the stack in his pocket, imagining that this document had been touched also by her slender, graceful, ivory like fingers. He was so excited that he wanted to yell, “Fuck you, you sonovabitch!” The sound of that man cursing was stuck in his mind, and again and again the curse rose to the tip of his tongue.
Suddenly, his finger felt something out of place on the back of the document. Arvardan looked around him, ascertained that there were no other passengers, and carefully took the document out and flipped it over. He examined it carefully in the light from the bus window.
Arvardan realized that the top right corner of the document had been lightly creased by a fingernail. The crease was so light that if Arvardan hadn’t been fingering it so closely he would never have noticed it. The crease was unusual: it was a straight line, but at the end of the line, not far from it, was another very short crease, as though the person had meant to make a dot. The whole thing looked like an exclamation point, or, if you looked at it from the opposite direction, the letter “i.”
He looked through the other papers, and soon discovered that the other four documents also had similar creases. They were shaped differently, but all seemed to be symbols of some sort. Arvardan recalled the order in which the woman from the speaker had mentioned the documents, and began to write the symbols found on each document in order on the steamed–up bus window:
t–i–t–l–e
Title?
The bus stopped, and a few passengers got on. Arvardan moved his body to cover the writing on the window. Then, pretending to yawn, he lifted his sleeve and erased the letters.
Arriving home, Arvardan took off his coat and filtering mask, and threw the Listener on the cot. Then he fell onto the cot and buried his head in the pillows. Every time he left home to go outside, he felt exhausted afterward, in part because his weakened physique was no longer used to being outside and in part due to the stress of being with the Listener.
When he woke up, he checked his e–mail. His inbox contained two work–related e–mails from colleagues and five e–mails containing the electronic copies of the BBS documents from the Department of Web Security.
Arvardan opened the index of BBS forums. All the forums were officially sanctioned. The forums had different subjects, but all basically revolved around how to better cooperate and respond to State directives and how to build a healthy Web. For example, on one of the computer technology forums, the main topic was how to improve the technology for shielding sensitive words.
Amazingly, one of the forums was about games. In it, the main topic of discussion was an online game about how to help others use healthy words. The player could control a little boy to patrol the streets and see if anyone was using sensitive words. If so, the little boy could choose to go up and criticize the offender or report the offender to the police. The more offenders the little boy caught, the higher the score and the better the rewards.
Arvardan opened a few other random forums. Everyone in them was polite, and spoke very healthy language, just like people outside on the streets. No, it was even worse than on the streets. People on the streets at least had opportunities to perform a few private gestures, like the way Arvardan had written “title” on the bus window in secret. But on the BBS forums, even the last bits of privacy of the individual were stripped away. The appropriate authorities could examine every mouse movement, every keystroke, every bit that passed through your computer, and there was nowhere to hide.
Disappointment and a sense of loss overwhelmed Arvardan. He closed his eyes and lay back. He had been so naive to think that the BBS forums might be a little more open, but now it was clear that it was even more suffocating than real life. He was stuck in an electronic quagmire, and he couldn’t breathe. “Fuck you, you sonovabitch” once again rose to the tip of his tongue. The urge to shout was so strong that he struggled to contain himself.
Suddenly, he thought of the mysterious “title.” What did that really mean? Five documents, five e–mails. Maybe the e–mails had something hidden in them? Perhaps they had something to do with “title?”
Arvardan turned back to the screen and carefully examined the five e–mails from the Department of Web Security. He opened the e–mails and saw that each one had a title in larger font at the top. He arranged the titles in the order indicated by the letters in the word “title,” taking each creased letter as indicating the position its corresponding e–mail’s title should be in.
“Navigate/With/Care:/Your/User/Name/And/Password”
“To/Our/Users:/Newest/Index/Of/Available/Forums”
“User/Basics:/Guide/For/New/BBS/Users”
“Education/In/Health/And/Responsibility:/Applicable/BBS/Regulations”
“Forum/Etiquette:/List/Of/Healthy/Words/For/The/Web”
The first word from each title, when put together, formed a sentence: “Navigate To User Education Forum.”
Arvardan remembered that just now he had indeed seen a forum with the name “User Education Forum.” He clicked the link for that forum, hoping that this was not just some coincidence.
The User Education Forum was an administrative forum. All the posts in it were suggestions or complaints about BBS management. The forum moderator was someone named MICHEAL19387465LLKQ. There were few posts and responses, and the forum had little traffic. Arvardan opened the index of all posts in the forum and clicked open each one. The posts seemed completely random, and he could see no pattern.
Arvardan was disappointed. He seemed to have hit another dead end. But he had not been this excited for so long. He stubbornly kept on staring at the screen, trying to hold onto the sense of discovery and excitement, even if illusory, for just a little while longer.
Suddenly, his eyes focused on the user name of the forum administrator. MICHEAL was not the usual spelling for MICHAEL.
He clicked through the posts in the forum again, and noticed that some of the posts were also posted by user names containing unusual spellings for common names.
Following the pattern from before, he took the initial words from the titles of posts by users with unusually spelled names and arranged them in the order of the number portion of the authors’ user names to form a new sentence:
“Every Sunday at the Simpson Tower, fifth floor, suite B.”
There must be some meaning in this. The documents, the e–mails, and now the forum posts: three times in a row he had put clues together that led to more clues. This was no mere coincidence. Who had hidden these messages in the official documents from the appropriate authorities? What happened every Sunday at the Simpson Tower, fifth floor, suite B?
Arvardan had finally found the excitement long absent from his life. The novelty of the unknown stimulated his long–numbed nerves. More important, these word games, planted in the middle of official documents from the appropriate authoritie
s, gave him the satisfaction of breathing freely, as though a solid iron mask had been punched through with a few air holes.
Let us build a healthy and stable Web!
Fuck you, you sonovabitch!
Arvardan stared at the desktop background on the computer screen, mouthed the curse silently, and lifted his middle finger to the screen.
For the next few days, Arvardan lived in a state of constant, barely subdued excitement. He was like a kid who was trying to hide a mouthful of candy with an innocent smile, and who, after the adults had turned away, broke into a sly grin, enjoying the feeling of having a secret.
Day after day passed; the List of Healthy Words continued to shrink; the air outside the window grew even murkier. This was the way life was. Arvardan had begun to use the List of Healthy Words as a calendar. If three words had been deleted, that meant three days had passed. When seven words had been deleted, Arvardan knew it was Sunday.
Arvardan arrived at the Simpson Tower at noon. The clue that had brought him there did not mention a specific time. Arvardan thought it probably made sense to show up around noon. As he arrived wearing his dark green army coat, the filtering mask, and the Listener, his heart began to beat irregularly. He had imagined all kinds of possibilities for this moment, and now that the secret to the mystery was about to be revealed, he was nervous. No matter what happens here, it can’t be worse than my life now, Arvardan thought.
He walked into the building, and noticed that there were very few people here as well. The empty halls were filled only with his steps and their echo. An old elevator car had advertisements for “Let’s build a beautiful home on the Web,” and a poster with a man whose face was imbued with truth and justice. The background of the poster was the Flag, and the man pointed at the viewer with his right index finger. Above him was the slogan: “Citizen, I need you to use healthy language.” Arvardan turned away, and saw that the other wall of the elevator car had the exact same poster. There was nowhere to hide.