Day 17: Shame based face haste
My companion asked his suit to cloak itself, so that only the inner man would be visible. Grumbling it complied, with a sense of dismal mood at the realization that this meant that its new ruby bracelet would not be observed and appreciated by anyone in this era. It had calculated, it claimed, that it was inevitable that it eventually receive a beautiful ruby bracelet, and ultimately, a matching necklace and two lovely earrings, and perhaps a tiara. Naturally, it brought them into being immediately, along with a mink stall. All of those things were invisible now, and my companion stood proudly, for the first time, visible to me. His skin was green, with a three white striped pattern running down the outer surface of his arms and legs, and with a crest emblazoned on his pectoral muscle of three pointed shapes, underscored with the word “ADIDAS”. Several metal circles on the legs also caught my attention. “What are those?”
“These are my snaps. I can just tear these pants away at any time. These snaps will undo.”
“My god, that’s amazing.”
“I know. For instance, let’s say we’re running from something, say, a galgravolt, and it’s like ‘oh no, we’re running so fast, and I’m sweating too much, what am I going to do’, you know? Probably get eaten by the galgravolt. But me? I just go ‘later, suckers,’ and with a quick tug of my pants, they just tear away. Then I’m running with all sorts of bare legs. Also, check this out.” He reached down towards his feet, which were all leathery and marked with the word REBOK. A flap of skin protruded from the top, out of a patch of lacework which seemed to hold his feet tightly together, and at its apex was a small circular blister. He pinched the blister between his thumb and forefinger, and I cringed. “You just pump this up, right here, and your shoes get all pumped up. And you run way faster. So I’m like ‘oh no!’, tear tear, pump pump, ‘see ya later, ass-holes!’” He began motionining like he was shooting a weapon over his shoulder, and mimed running for a while, then he was struck by a temporal displacement field! Apparently, he was stuck in an eddy in time that ran much slower than the rest of the flow of time around us, as his motions became quite slow, and even though he rolled across the ground and took cover behind a garbage can, shooting his invisible weapon and saying “goosh, goosh, goosh, BRWAAAAAA, oooh nooo, heeee’s gooot a guuuuun,” in a deep pitched and slow voice, he appeared not to notice.
I raced over to him and grasped the arms of his body with my handlers, yanking him out of the current. “YOU ARE EXPERIENCING DANGER!” I tried to alert him with a warning kiss, but my extruder had been replaced by some form of monotreme, a single mouth that I realized I was breathing out of, talking out of, and now, French kissing out of. How did men of this era live like this? With all their functions agglomerated into single holes! I didnt’ even want to GUESS what anus i was meant to sing from! A quick smear of my face with my hands illustrated that, at least, I had two nose holes: one likely for smelling, the other likely for receiving accolades.
My companion now resumed his normal speed of existence, fortunately, and we did a classic “stroll about” in the town. We weren’t certain what we were looking for, but The Suit was still in communication with him, indicating things and then he convayed them to me in turn. “Over on our right is the historic Royal York hotel, first opened on June 11, 1929, Jesus Years, and was for a time the tallest building in the England Global Domination Zone, until replaced by the Canadian Bank of Commerce tower. On our left, is historic Union Station, first opened on August 6, 1927, in a lavish ribbon severing occultation. The royal offspring of the England Global Dominators used a pair of valuable slicers to sever the ribbon. That ribbon was later preserved in memory, and passed down through the ages until the epoch of the Cognators, who revived the ribbon, coaxing it out of memory, and reincarnating it. They later considered that ribbon to be their king, but after a regicidal plague killed all the kings that were ribbons, they swore never to avenge its death, a custom that still persists today.”
I could not have been less interested in this boring, almost dadlike explanation of non-pertinence. Though, fortunately, I was to be spared further pain by my own ingenuity.
“So, what is your name?” I asked.
“Oh. It’s Banks.”
“Just banks?”
“Well. Tyra Banks. What’s yours?”
“Oh, its (name deleted).’
“Huh.”
“What…”
“Nothing, just, that’s a girl’s name,” he said.
“it’s a man’s name in my time,” I retorted. It was a retort I would regret for the rest of my life, as it was, as we say in the biz, the sort of retort that opens a locator array which vast and crucial enemies use to home in on your present location. Before we could continue our witty banter, one of these primitives blustered into our face with a pistol drawn. We weren’t scared, because it was drawn on a piece of paper, but it was a picture of the gun he had in his other hand, which we only then just noticed. What a bunch of guns’n’papers it was!
“Totally fork over all your mondo cash, broseph and broseph! These days of you having your own rad cash are WAY over, dwaynes!” He shoveled that gun into our pugs, and we reacted instinctively. I reached forward, and seized his gun, pressing it against my chest and began shooting, hoping to fire off all his bullets into me so that I could take control of the situation. If I fired all the bullets into myself, then it would rob him of his initiative, and take the wind out of his sails. It was a brilliant plan. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, I shouted, to muffle the sound of the gun firing bullets into my soft body. Triumphantly I collapsed on the ground in a bloody heap, laughing and going into victory shock.
“Now what are you going to do, eh tough guy?” This guy was a total amateur. I showed him how committed I was, now he’s got nothing. What’s he going to do, pull the bullets out and shoot me with them again? He’s got NOTHING. “Yeah, I thought so. Got no more bullets left eh? Ooh, what’s wrong? They’re all in my body, THAT’s whats wrong. Huh? Huh? Yeah, i thought so.” And I really did think so. That, I might later realize, was my greatest strength, the ability to say I thought so, and to actually think so. It was the deftest type of lie, the type that even I was unaware of, because of how much the truth it turned out to be.
Screaming and running away, I watched this total amateur flee from our scene of triumph, as I victoriously coughed up a litre of blood and proudly felt cold and saw the world turning dark. Then, my life flashed before my eyes, froze still, and turned into a synaptic cube, as was our custom in my time to do just before dying. The little white cube of sweet tasting memories tumbled to the ground beside me like a bear rewinding a tape. “Uh oh, “ I thought privately, maintaining my smug facial expression, “that’s not a good sign.”
Tyra Banks shouted to the men and women who walked past, “Like, mega get this man a total ambulance, niggas!” Then such a frenzy did I observe, of circular forming crowds hanging overhead, of shouting and advice giving.
“You have to suck the poison out!” one said, “let me do it!” said a particularly effete man with pursed lips. Another took off his shirt and bewailed the rising tide of violence that modern life was cursed with, and shouted that he would retire to the forest, and no longer participate in a global economic culture that ravaged the individual human spirit and repressed personal expression, which I felt was an appropriate response. If you were retarded.
Ultimately, the amateurs and their medical thoughts were silenced by the arrival of some real pros, these ambulance men, these boys of summer, these sweaty lad lads that so feverishly forced tubes into me. They wanted me, I could smell it in their eyes. “Easy there, big guy, I don’t’ fuck on the first date, “ I said, totally playing hard to get in a major way. I could tell it was working, because he then inserted more tubes into me with some sweet salty vein water. Yeah, I was going to be just fine, and to prove it, I decided to lose consciousness, but really casually and still clearly gloating from my deft handling of the whole gun situation. What a babe I must appear to be, full of pipes and tubes and oozing holes. Just like J-Lo.
to be continued?
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