“The cylinder will be completed in a matter of days.”
“Congratulations,” I said. “What does it do?”
“Why should it do anything?”
“Ah, art then—”
“Hardly.”
Such late times these are, to produce projects such as these.
A new life. “A new you.” A new me.
No one said it wouldn’t be strange.
God it’s hot.
I rise from the bench, and give a last squint out into the actual. The Irl.
Smooth my uniform, hands ruffling over it, then I turn away from the meatspace, and turn back toward the mindspace and begin the walk back. A couple of steps toward the campus, outermost shoots of grass, mushy underfoot—and I’m already cool as could be.
A little farther on, and, hello: I see my Mysterious Woman once again. She’s heading across the quadrangle, frictionless, reading her device as she walks.
And just as she is about to disappear around a wall, she suddenly lifts her eyes and smiles, nervous and timid as a rodent.
Blammo—contact.
Then she’s gone.
* * *
—
A work period in which no work is done and none of this is worth dwelling on except to chalk it all up as a total loss. Distracted, I play with my device. My device, which continues to glitch. It’s been acting strangely. Finicky. Intermittently unresponsive, then (worst of all) pinging uncontrollably. It’s been doing this since somewhere over the last ocean. It never asked to come along with me—press-ganged through every manner of atmospheric change, new air pressures, radical heat fluctuations, not to mention shifts in time zone. It’s having a tantrum. Ping! Ping! Ping!
“Hush,” I say to it, stroking its hard membrane, “hush,” feeling as though I am, periodically, glitching myself. I look down at the stain on my uniform.
Ping!
“I know,” I say. “Ditto.”
Brb.
* * *
—
So now my room screen. News; weather (outside the dome: scorching); and the football’s on. I count twenty-one games in seven languages. I gather that here is where old players come to die. These athletes, they get a villa, sip drinks, get glad-handed about, visit the souks, camel races, fortresses, maybe train falcons. They have no competition; no yardstick; no audience. It must eat them away inside. Money’s good—but for what? Idk.
The Institute, on the other hand, provides nothing if not competition; a yardstick; an audience. I run my mind over recent events, and feel a sweat begin to rise again. The stain—leave it to me to ruin my uniform so publicly, so soon. I am, it would seem, unavoidably me. I feel the loss of control vertiginously, first as fear, but then as diminishment and as a dissipation of energy. Something has been drained away, as I was afraid it might be. Some critical authority. An authority rendered slightly less potent. Possibilities limited. I have been caught up, already, in a cycle of regression. No longer a cipher, a mystery, a rallying point for a set of new proclivities. I wish, now, that I could hoard my information; save it, or parcel it out according to a thoughtful and prearranged program. I need all the energy I can get. For me. For the project. For the Discourse™. Energy must not be squandered. I must not succumb to the heedless voluntarism of closed social networks.
I walk over by the freshly made bed to the table, grab and open the small bottle lying there, and arc a pill into my mouth—open palm hitting my mouth making a faint whop.
It takes a moment, and then I am slowly disappearing, dispersing. My mind unmoors from my body and the world becomes a place without quality. I disassociate. There is no more feeling-of-what-it-is-like to be here. Here is hardly a “place,” at all. But it is a place of sorts. I pull up a pornographic thought, a scenario, tailor-made, and sync it to the image of Miss Fairfax, which I now have on my device.
As always, I must affix my generalized sexual impulses to the Irl.
Could be anyone. “Might as well be her,” I say to myself, through the gathering mists, as I envision Miss Fairfax disrobing.
And then I wait for the chemicals, and everything else, to really-and-truly kick in.
* * *
—
“Can you pass that? Thanks.”
A row of brown tunics sitting at either side of the long refectory table. Sweating carafes of cool water, porcelain plates, big nickel-plated chafing dishes, tasteful amber lighting from licking candle flames—warm and guttering LEDs; which look pretty bloody real, Imho.
I’m sitting next to Dennis Royal. Seated with us are the two fellows who were arguing so heatedly in the library, during yesterday’s tour. The first of these men is dignified, if a little shabby. He resembles that actor whose name eludes me. The other man a kind of classic “scholarly man” (though Nm; never mind all that, as I instantly think of these two men as “Disputant 1” and “Disputant 2,” respectively). Next to the two men is Mr. Al’Hatif, and on their other side is the Architect (鼎福, or Ting-Fu). 鼎福 the Architect helps himself to the decanter, while Disputant 1 holds forth.
Disputant 1 is speaking on “maps and territories.” Disputant 2 is on the left, and is eating noisily, stagily almost, as if to draw attention from Disputant 1. But Disputant 1, unperturbed, fails to notice.
“My scholarship pertains to the delineation and description of ‘boundaries,’ across various fields of inquiry. Their definitions, and the manners in which these boundaries are policed,” declares Disputant 1.
“Hmph,” says Disputant 2. Everyone ignores this.
“The Freehold must be of particular interest to you then,” I posit.
鼎福 the Architect adds, “Out here on the frontier as we are? On the fringes?”
“Oh certainly,” Disputant 1 concurs. “One does have the feeling of being on the edges of something, here. On several edges in fact. One hardly knows where one zone ends and another begins. It is all gray area, it seems. Which, of course, makes it all (you are correct, sir) quite pertinent indeed to my research.”
Disputant 2 continues ingurgitating for our benefit, raising the volume of his chomping and lip-smacking slightly, tuning it all subtly, ever higher and louder. “Nobody cares. Nobody cares, Lou,” he says.
“Shut it, Leo,” Disputant 1 rejoins, before collecting himself.
Disputant 2 smiles triumphantly at having successfully provoked his adversary, having proven something discernible only to the two of them, locked as they are in perpetual conflict. A small morsel of something clings to Disputant 2’s lip.
Disputant 1, gamely, attempts to continue: “The first boundary we learn is of course the ‘inside/outside’ distinction, gleaned when we are taught, as infants, to understand that selfhood and thought take place in an inside space, that the world, separate from us, transpires outside of this space, and that our bodies mediate the two realms. I am interested in the relative shapes, volumes, and extensions of the putative inner realm. For if it could be said to be a space, in direct contrast to the outer, and unlimited, space, then what kind of a space is it? Is it equally boundless? Does it have limits, walls, ceilings, capacities? Does it have shape or extension? Is this space experienced, or only inferred?”
A cup falls to the floor and clangs loudly. Someone bends down under the table to retrieve it. I only half listen to Disputant 1, occasionally stealing glances at the other fellows relishing the sumptuous courses provided by the Institute chefs. A Daube a la Provencal. Tagines. Apricots and almonds. Fancy, etc. There is a fellow here, a famous chef, and so all the menus are “curated” (as the brochure has it). Everything, delicious. We eat with abandon. Someone is yelling now. It is Disputant 2, though I can’t locate him. Disputant 1 has had enough. He gets up from the table and excuses himself.
Someone in another conversation then says the phrase “rupturing the conventional discourse.
”
Dennis is holding two almost-contradictory expressions on his face: distaste and glee.
I see an administrator lingering over by the door. (Admin14? I mix them up, but one’s always around. And I wonder where Miss Fairfax is.)
Time passing in this way.
Anyway, I think, these meals are strange, certainly, but exciting, and aren’t I just soaking it all in? Inspiration. Convivial warmth. Prompts and challenges. All of it. I’ve been told I’ve been sat at “the good table,” so there’s that. We are each other’s family, for the time being.
Mr. Al’Hatif is talking about his statue now, as is his wont. The Poet (a paradigm case of “thin man”) is stuck on a line in his poem, and canvasses the group for opinions. He recites the problematic portion a couple of times. It’s beautiful, but incomplete. He gives us several variants. In the poem, rather self-referentially, a poet is wrestling with creative confusion.
The Architect, helpfully, provides the poet with a series of prompts, in order to get his colleague unstuck:
“The Poet founders, but in foundering, reveals something about the nature of poetry itself?” he tries.
The Poet considers this.
“The Poet finds a solution to his problem, but is completely out of paper? The Poet never began his poem in the first place, which is to say that the poem is a delusion in the mind of the poet? The Poet is, himself, a species of poem?”
Prompts.
Prompts?
“One of the core techniques,” Mr. Al’H. explains to me in sidebar. “A kind of nudging, or priming. The prompt is an essential tactic used here at the Institute. Anyone can provide a prompt to anyone. We are all supposed to remain receptive to the prompts of others,” he says, spearing a batata harra out of its steaming, silvery coffin.
Someone new comes, and sits themselves down on my left in the spot that Disputant 2, it appears, has vacated. It’s the Puppeteer, or some such. The chair where Disputant 1 once sat is now taken by Miss ☺, the Brand Analyst. (She also resembles a film actress, though a diminished version of one.)
Leaning forward over the table, the Brand Analyst extends a cheerfully manicured hand. She is vivacious, carbonated, and all her bodily tics are flirty and flip. She’s the youngest of the fellows I’ve met thus far, and seems it, bless her. “So nice to meet you?” she blurts on an upward lilt, smiling flirtily, and I immediately have the impression that there must not be too many eligible male fellows about, and think it sad that she would expend such energy on me of all people (it is hopeless, really). I don’t doubt that she would lack for suitors, would there be any proper men present.
The Architect, Mr. 鼎福, leaves off prompting the Poet, and begins chatting with her. She is new here, while he is a fellowship connoisseur; a lifer, trekking from one colony to the next, never setting down roots. The Architect is one of that gypsy band of itinerant thinkers who live permanently upon the charity and mercies of such places.
“What kinds of structures do you build?” she asks him.
“Full-surround. VR environments. Actually.”
“Ah,” she replies, batting more lashes than she probably has. My own eyes are pulled up in stock-wonder, this quickly becoming my favored, most economical response.
I put in: “Nothing real?”
“What do you mean,” the Architect replies.
“I mean, do you actually make anything?”
“Yes, of course, as I’ve said.”
“But, in real li—”
Dennis the moneyman accidently elbows me, and I knock over my fork. As I bend over to retrieve it, I see that Disputant 2 is down under the table, where he’s been since he dropped his own cup earlier—hiding like a child. He looks at me guiltily. I smile reassuringly back at him, and rise again. Dennis Royal is now engaged with the Brand Analyst. He is explaining to her something involving model inputs and stochastic processes. His eyelids are now half-closed, not with drowsiness, but in a subtle species of erotic languor. There’s some sort of ruckus in the kitchen behind us but no one seems perturbed by it.
I turn back to Mr. Al’Hatif, who has more to say on prompts.
“A prompt is provided by a fellow, to a fellow. It can be anything: visual, verbal, choreographic. The idea is to spur creativity.”
“Does it work?”
“It does; often, yes.”
“So I can just proffer a prompt to anyone, and they to me?” I ask.
“Yes,” Miss ☺ the Brand Analyst says. The Architect nods, lazily.
The bedlam is building behind us. Still, no one seems to care. Clank, clank, clank. Yell. Wtf.
“For example,” the Architect weighing in, “if you were stuck on your project, Percy, I could give you a sentence, a phrase, an idea, or a picture or a movement, so on, to catalyze forward momentum.”
“Oh, that seems handy.”
“It is; it is. In fact, I have just given you a prompt.”
Someone is clipping their nails at the table. I can hear the muted snips.
“You did?” I ask, recovering. “What was it?”
“What do you mean?” asks the Architect, growing mildly impatient with my questions.
A couple of admins rush by, and disappear into a hallway.
“I mean, how will I know if I am being offered a prompt?”
Both the Architect and the Brand Analyst open their mouths to respond, but the Brand Analyst gets there first.
“It’s all prompts, silly,” she says as she lurches, now, coltish, out of her chair. The Architect stands up as well.
Dennis, next to me, has pulled out a vaping pen, draws upon it.
“All?” I ask.
“Sure, while you’re here.”
“Even this, now?”
“Yes,” the Brand Analyst says over her shoulder, walking toward the door, “and this as well. And this…”
It is so real, the way she says it. By which I mean that she seems to mean it.
Dennis exhales noisily, releasing his mentholated steam.
Everything is motivation. Here. Everything for the projects.
And I think: Good. Just what the doctor ordered.
Clank, clank!
* * *
—
On my way back to my room, I run into the Enclave’s cleaning lady, who emerges from a shadow behind the Enclave’s convenience desk just as I’m walking by. So I point out the stain on my uniform. She casts an expert eye on the garment, muttering over it like a cleric.
“But what can be done,” I ask, to which she simply shrugs. Nothing, that is. Nothing can be done. (But what was it Mr. Al’Hatif had said? About a shop in town.)
I wish good night to the concierge and head up the stairs and back to my solitude.
Though there is good news: tonight, in the Enclave, it is just as quiet as could be. And after only a few minutes attempting to read my book—the mammoth masterpiece I’ve promised myself I will eventually finish—my lids become scrims, and I fall right asleep just like
6
To work? I’m not sure. Is what I’m doing work? I lie in the middle of my floor, hands crossed behind my head, staring at the ceiling, wondering where creative momentum will come from. It’s work, of a sort (Imo).
Begin with broad strokes, I tell myself. Begin with an outline. Begin with method.
I roll over and grab my device lying on the dusty floor beside me, and then pivot onto my back again. From this position, I whisper up my main schematics, The Fundaments, which contain the entire groundwork for my project, and I see now that, whereas the design of the project is strong, so much depends on how it is realized: the fine-grained particulars of the thing, all of which have yet to be considered.
No time like the present.
It is, unfortunately, just at this moment that my gaze lands upon the chair beside
the bed, over which my uniform has collapsed—dark stain front and center.
Shit. Shit.
So I pop to my feet before the worry truly sets in, think for a moment, find a broom, and begin to sweep, knowing as I do that manual labor is the best antidote for anxiety of every sort, including but not limited to performance anxiety.
And I am just beginning to make some progress, having amassed four small but satisfying piles of dirt in the four corners of my space, when my Tea Boy ghosts up.
A Tea Boy, Zimzim, has been assigned to me by the Encouragement Unit. (“The Menial.”)
There he is, small and silent, with a bowlful of coffee for me.
“Not much of a Tea Boy, are you, Zimzim,” I quip, taking the bowl, but he understands neither me nor the jest.
He is perfectly blank as he humbles his way out of the room. I sip the warm liquid, roll it on my tongue, searching for a bitterness which disappears under scrutiny. Everything, including my coffee, is becoming milder, I think. I run the fabric of my uniform through my hands now, slowly, feeling its synthesized smoothness, and I trace the outlines of the stain with my forefinger. I remember Miss Fairfax’s words concerning decorum.
I’m stumbling, I feel, right off the bat, and I don’t wish to compound my problems by calling more attention to them. I am slovenly. I repeat this word several times, and imagine the word as if it were a projectile, expelled from my mouth with each tongue-catapulting “l.” I see the word’s clear vector as it arcs out and splinters against the opposite wall.
Same Same Page 4