On the Up

by Shilo Jones

  More favourably: a womb.

  Yes. I’m blinking, tearing up, awed by the bigness, awakened to life inside the sacred yoni. The divine mother Herself reborn as a luxury electric sports car. That bitch is splitting lanes! A stretch? Hardly. Either way I relax, make a semi-conscious effort to go with the flow. An odd strip of fabric descends tight across my shoulder, securing me into the seat with an ordnance-like click. I scream, flow-going forgotten, while a greasy leather tube, a straight-up proboscis, elongates from the dash, forces my mouth open, stretches my lips back, worms down my throat, flares with universal teleforce. The leather tube’s saltwater-taffy sweet, tastes of Coupland’s free-form future, the next era of techno-organic triumphalism. Suck on that, QUANTUMSQUIRREL.

  The Tesla roars soundlessly to life, continues its transmogrification. It’s like Easter, only more credible. My mind explodes, or rebuilds, hard to tell. Bright light, all of it at once, and then, like it or not, the Tesla’s backing Herself down my driveway and we boys are hittin’ the road.

  “Coming in hot!” Holdout screams, breeze ruffling his bristly eyebrows while I moan and flail around the quivering proboscis, trying to remember if this was in the brochure—

  * * *

  Irritated my cyber-animated Tesla decided not to swing by Michael Zenski’s house so I could show Her off, give the sulking micromanager the finger, claim another conceptual triumph for Green Lead, prove I’m the ideas guy once and for all. Greasy proboscis is lodged in my throat, leaking salty fluid, teasing gag-reflex tolerance points. Eyes watering. Vibrating from my…core? Thinking lube is the new must-have performance-driving accessory. The Tesla’s on autopilot, all systems go, rocketing down Oak Street, scaring the shit out of everyone. Seems the car can sense traffic patterns, see the future in real-time data uploads, perform anticipatory manoeuvres to avoid collisions, which makes driving less interesting than a Timbit. Only the proboscis makes it worthwhile. Still, I fret about the car being more capable than me while waiting for the propulsion thrusters to flare up. Holdout’s fallen behind the times, reverted to chewing on the upholstery, spitting and slobbering, while the ochre-painted boy lolls in the backseat, filthy feet pressed against the ceiling, whining about the data package on his phone; he has to check in, newsfeed, slow connection, this is so not chill.

  We slow for a red light, pull up beside a soccer mom and her fuck-eyed toddler spawnling. Mom’s got the radio cranked, window cracked. CBC. Something smart, upmarket, a panel discussion about the Libyan civil war. Informed and engaged voices. I slurp some drool, try and remember where Libya is. The Middle East, for sure.

  The Tesla taps into the grid, digital superstructure, flashes a glowing green screen in front of my eyes. I watch the spawnling’s life play out in social media images. See his birth at St. Paul’s Hospital. How the family took him to Tofino when he was three months old because his father’s a surfer and his mother wanted him to hear waves crashing against the shore. I see the child cry when he first heard the waves. See his mother dipping tiny toes in the rolling Pacific, how her body curves, holding her infant son over the water, a conflicted gesture, both sheltering and cruel. She wants him to be strong, isn’t certain she has the will to make him so. The ocean’s a big place, Mom. Sink or swim.

  Through the Tesla’s interface I glimpse the child’s first solid meal, fresh carrot purée. His first birthday, at the Granville Island Kids Market. I see his future memories. Collected and curated. A careful process of image creation. And from these images the Tesla predicts the child’s tastes in music and fashion, how he’ll make love to his first partner, what he’ll dream of becoming, how he’ll adapt to failure, how he’ll vote, what he’ll read, who he’ll scorn, who he’ll lionize. This is a life lived in a constant, super-luminous glare, completely exposed, without secrets. A life lived on a barren, shadowless plateau, trapped between unremitting lines of earth and sky, lacking contours, hiding spots, foxholes, shelter. The child will not discover himself. He will have nothing that is his alone. He’s already been discovered, blown up, played out, put to rest. His needs calculated and accounted for. The Tesla runs the numbers, predicts only two possible outcomes for such a life: absolute deviance or conformity. There is no middle ground. The boy will become a cannibal or a paragon. Based on available data, the Tesla predicts the odds of the boy becoming a deviant at a scant .0049 per cent. He’s born lucky: the child will mature into the happiness allotted for him, the life that is his birthright.

  The glowing screen vanishes. Soccer Mom glances over, sees me deep-throating a yonic proboscis while Holdout smears snout-snot across the Tesla’s half-open window. Flinches, spritzes the poor pig with hand sanitizer, no doubt thinking about germs, airborne particles, avian flu, mad cow, holy hell.

  Holdout shrieks as cucumber-melon sanitizer splashes into his eyes. The pig uses his snout to roll down the window, but before he can shout something crude and disruptive the light goes green and the Tesla instantly shoots forward, no lag between idea and action. The G-forces hurl Holdout into the backseat. Painted Boy panics, smacks at him. From the sound of things—grunting, squealing, wailing—Holdout fights back.

  A few seconds later we’re approaching the airport’s domestic terminal. Traffic slows. The Tesla zangs right and left, cutting everyone off, slamming on the brakes, riding hard up the shoulder. Horns wail, Vancouverites lean out windows shouting mild admonishments. I always knew intelligent machines would be adolescent, passive-aggressive assholes. Only consequence, fear of punishment and retaliation, the social contract, keep us lowly humans in line, and the Tesla lacks all those. Then we’re up the final approach ramp and there she is, Hannah, my lovely young daughter waiting for me like she did all through prison, sixteen and already aged in the eyes, smallish, pale-skinned, maybe a bit elven, fae, a bit fantastical, para-something, her straight black hair sitting flat against her broad skull, bangs cut in a sharp horizontal line—

  The Tesla screeches to the curb. Painted Boy flings Holdout out the window, attracting the attention of a security guard and three RCMP. Shit gets real. Holdout, blind and screeching, runs erratic circles in front of the airport’s sliding glass doors. Collides with a luggage cart, knocks over an elderly woman. It’s not looking good for the pig. A cop gives the go-ahead and the security guard brandishes a set of hoofcuffs, leaps at my pet. Hannah staggers backwards, clutches her backpack to her belly like she’s considering bolting. I moan her name through the greasy proboscis, indecipherable, while thinking please stay don’t go I’m sorry. Holdout worms his way out of the rent-a-cop’s grip, runs toward the Tesla, leaps—

  Looks like he’s gonna make it?

  Not a chance.

  Smashes headfirst into the passenger door. I try and scream at the idiot Painted Boy to let Holdout and my daughter into the escape pod so we can cyber-Tesla the fuck outta here but manage only a muffled mmmph! mmmph! because the goddamned proboscis-thing won’t detach from my throat. Language stolen by the machine! Realize I’m living a primordial fear and the panic sets in for real.

  Hannah’s frozen on the spot, shaking her head slightly, eyes even wider than usual, wavering like she’s about to collapse. The twerp Tesla revs Her electric engine, which is evident only by the RPM needle hitting the red. Cops circle, hands on holsters, eyeing the car. I look for the movie cameras and claw at the slimy proboscis, my body quaking. It comes out in painful millimetres, slicked in an opaque milky substance. One of the cops draws his lightsaber. I mean his Taser? My daughter plucks something from her backpack, drops it in the garbage can—

  There! That’s where I’ll find her passwords if the snoops abduct her!

  The proboscis pops from my mouth, sniffs the air, retracts into the dash. Phew! Finally free to be analog me!

  Out the door, man of action, paternal capability, let me sort this nonsense out. Forget to check for traffic. A speeding yellow cab rips the Tesla’s door off, spins me against the hood. Whump! Bang! Whoa! A cop shouts something memorized. My hands are up. I r
ealize I’m naked and proud but the timing’s off so I lean into the car, scramble to wrap myself in the foot carpet, make myself decent, which might take more than a carpet. More authoritarian shouting, easily ignored. I’ve fallen out of love with the Tesla, buyer’s remorse, beginning to wonder why everyone’s so fucking psyched with progress if it doesn’t actually do us any good. Speaking of which, Painted Boy’s snapping cellphone photos like mad, getting all the best angles—

  “But I’m a productive citizen,” I scream, clutching the carpet around my waist. “Almost a baby boomer!”

  Tasers bared. My daughter’s shaking her head in fast increments that could seriously blossom into a full-blown seizure or attack of some teenaged sort. Holdout, sensing opportunity in the form of a public full-frontal, sprints around the Tesla, latches onto the foot carpet, rips side to side like a Rottweiler on a baby. I smack the pig’s head, tell him he’s outgrown his welcome, he’s supposed to fit in my satchel. The pudgy bastard must weigh fifty pounds. I tell him it’s time to start skipping meals. Hannah gasps, clutches her stomach, unwraps a cold lozenge like she’s buttering a porterhouse.

  Holdout holds on, unfazed.

  One of the cops makes a move, a guy with neck rolls who’s really grooving on seeing my potbellied pig try to eat me. I dodge the cop’s grip, spin a three-sixty. Holdout whips in a circle, caught in centrifugal force, clocks the cop in the ballsack, flat-ass bowls the Tool to the ground. I scream at Hannah to get in the goddamned car. She says something about a cleanse, makes me feel self-conscious. The cops hesitate, stunned by my unanticipated show of force, and in that instant the three of us leap inside the getaway.

  The Tesla looses a not-so-welcoming cyborg-bee buzz.

  “Is your car snickering at you?” Holdout asks.

  “Watch this, honey!” Smacking the wheel, stretching my jaws wide, summoning the all-knowing proboscis.

  Nothing happens.

  “Dad my stomach hurts what are you—”

  Rooting under Hannah’s seat. “Uh, just a sec, hun. How’s the flight? Turbulent? Nice weather in Vangroovy, eh? Sorry, pardon me, secret button buried in here somewhere—”

  “The what, Dad? I’m seriously light-headed. Oh god, I ate too many barbecue peanuts, and the police—”

  “Police? Are we in a no-parking? Gosh. Really cracking down—”

  Frantic now, hitting every button, rooting under the seats while cops circle the Tesla, growl into shoulder-mounted radios, seal a perimeter. I ask Holdout if he remembers the mind-clearing code, scatter my rig across the front seat.

  “Oh god Dad I thought I could deal but I can’t deal seriously digestive buildup what are you looking for?”

  “The fucking proboscis, Hannah! Wait for it!”

  Hannah holds her hands to her throat, like she’s physically pulling a breath from her lungs. “Mom was right I knew I shouldn’t have—”

  Where’s the future when I need it? “No big deal hun don’t listen to your mother waaay conservative the yonic proboscis early adopter paradigm changer think like a leather dog bone sprinkled with sea salt, smeared in molasses and insert—”

  “Aargh! Leather? Do not say that word! Dad why are the po—”

  “She’s right,” Holdout says when we lock eyes under my daughter’s seat. “I smell bacon.”

  “Do not say bacon. Hemp seed, Dad!”

  “Yummy fried bacon,” Holdout moans, rubbing his belly and rolling between Hannah’s feet. “Smelling greasy fresh sizzling fried fatty fresh bac—”

  “Driver! Exit the vehicle. This is your last—”

  “—secret inscription goddamn it Hannah trust me fuck you Holdout it was right here don’t move the fucking latch portal button sinkhole legtrap switch icon key it’s the coolest thing since—”

  “Your Dad drove like this, Hannah,” Painted Boy deadpans. “On the road. With me in the car. Wearing zero seatbelt.”

  Hannah glances in the backseat. Covers her mouth. “Oh god Trent is that you? Trent…not photos. Not online. Please?”

  “Trent?” I ask, my fingers closing on the hidden button while the cops close in on me. “You two, uh, know each—”

  “Yeah, Mr. Reed. Blitzo? Hannah and me went to elementary together.”

  “My stomach seriously hurts—”

  “Elementary school? Small world, hey hun? That’s wond—”

  “I was like, three grades ahead of Hannah. So yeah. Hello again.”

  “Three grades? That makes you…phew! Hello to you too, freshly minted but legally adult young ’un—”

  “Bacon! War! Bacon! Blood!”

  “Hands up! Now!”

  “Fuck you! No—I mean the talking pig! No, I mean…give me a second I’m a goddamned engaged parent!”

  Cops. Boring. Socially conventional. Not down with my tech. Fucking dinosaurs before we discovered they had feathers, were basically oversized chickens clucking around the Phanerozoic grasslands, no wonder we triumphed over that backward-looking shit—

  “Elementary school!” Hannah shrieks. “And you’re both naked, Dad? Do you know what that means?”

  A better me just might. “Trent’s an all right kid,” I tell my daughter. “If a bit unbalanced? Prone to…we need to discuss peer groups—”

  “Adults are super hurting,” Trent says, twisting in his seat and snapping a selfie with me and Hannah in the background. “Mega hurting.”

  “Ouch! Dad? The pig bit me! It drew blood!”

  “You have blood?” Whoops, wrong thing to say, wrong time, tsk Holdout instead; he bares his teeth, bastard’s rolling a fresh diamond grill—

  “There!” I yell, hearing the hidden latch click. “Discover all that awaits!”

  Settle into the seat, giddy, thinking coronal discharge, ultra-magnetics, thinking about proving them all wrong, making amends, anticipating my cyber-Tesla’s Supreme Infiltration Upgrade, the one they don’t sell to bitch-asses and yes I got the preferred rate. Instead something cold presses against my neck. A blue-white flash, would be quite pretty minus the urinating-lava feeling. Arms and legs go rigid. Heart balloons. The Tesla rockets forward, my mind stuttering along synaptic roads more blasted than an Iraqi border town until I realize, sweet mothership, I’ve finally been Tased!

  “It wasn’t all that!” I scream as the Tesla ploughs into the back end of a Whistler tour bus, ruining long-awaited holidays, and all I can think is: street cred.

  Jasminder Bansal

  Action, the search. The city peeking from under the covers of an afternoon rain shower, streets cool and wet, clouds opening to the south over the Richmond delta and the sun coming in quiet and mellow. Spiral notebook in hand as I make casual inquiries at a dozen Vancouver language schools. The thrilling sensation of witnessing myself as journalistic sleuth. Trying to get an impression of how I’m coming across from the looks on the faces of the administrative assistants I speak to. A dozen schools, a dozen variations of waiting rooms and reception desks. Office chairs lined against a wall covered in nineties tourism posters. The Grouse Mountain gondola inching its way up a forested hillside. The Capilano Suspension Bridge swaying over a rocky ravine. I’ve never been to either. A glass or laminated-wood coffee table covered with magazines. Plastic plants in colourful pots. Tightly woven beige carpet. Light through half-open vertical blinds, a microwave beeping in the staff lunchroom, a class repeating verb tenses. I introduce myself at another reception desk, say I’m looking for a teacher here, Vincent Peele, does anyone know how I can get a hold of him? A dozen variations on no, sorry.

  Then finally: I think so let me check the name sounds familiar. A few minutes later I’m speaking to the school’s manager, a man named Alister, midthirties, rumpled shirt and fraying ponytail. He says he used to work with Vincent Peele here in Vancouver before Vincent went overseas.

  “Overseas? Where?”

  Alister stirs coffee in a mug that says this might be merlot, says Shanghai. He and Vincent kept in touch because he thought he might want to join hi
m, or at least request a reference. I ask if he remembers the name of the school. Alister sips his coffee, tells a student waiting at the door that he’ll be right out, says, “Yeah, not easy to forget. The school was called Globalized Success College.”

  * * *

  Walking back to Marigold, feeling confident I can do this when a jacked-up truck hops the curb a half-block ahead. Parks like an asshole, forces pedestrians to swerve around the bumper and I’m only half noticing, not really paying attention, thinking about the cash I’ve already earned, plenty to get my brakes fixed, pay the electricity bill. Eric texts, inviting me to dinner at his friend’s house tomorrow night, and it’s the best I’ve felt in a long while, almost normal until a man steps from behind the truck and at first it’s nothing, he’s glaring at me but sure, he’s an asshole, he probably walks around glaring at everyone, it’s his default expression. Resting Asshole Face. I alter my trajectory on the sidewalk, give him space because I can’t be bothered, pretend to window-shop and after a few steps Clint Ward grabs my arm, says see how easy that was, you stupid bitch.

  Mark Ward

  Me and Ryan work on the Alma house all Tuesday. Fuck all happens. I don’t hear from Clint. No one’s around; the homeowners are absent, and the house, a character home from the twenties, is filled with furniture but dark, empty. Feels all right, working in the mist and muck. Peaceful. Lots of time to think, if I choose, but mostly I turn my brain off, sink into the rhythms of work and an Oxy fog, blink and four hours have passed with barely a word spoken. Only the crack, thud, scream of tools, metal on wood, metal on metal: hammers, nail-pullers, Skilsaws, jackhammers. An occasional curse. Ryan, thankfully, is the kind of enthusiastic talker with the rare gift of knowing when to shut up.