by David Gullen
It’s called Tantric Shopping, and it’s about how to turn the everyday activity of commodity purchasing into a spiritually fulfilling experience.
What was your inspiration?
The gods are everywhere, so they must be in shopping. It’s a path towards enlightenment that we tread daily, yet treat as a mundane activity. We still have much to learn.
Tell me more.
We’re ascending towards a new Godhead. It’s a male God, and that means turbo max-power triple-x high performance. We can get there but first we need to free the Goddess in the Malls.
Is Tantric Shopping anything to do with Tantric Sex?
Absolutely. They are both forms of meditative worship using Yin-Yang sex magic. A credit card is the phallus of the Male aspect, the slot the Goddess. The transaction is our sacrifice.
What will the God do if we don’t free the Goddess?
What do all men want? He’s going to screw us and cast us aside. When we sacrifice to the Goddess – when we buy things – we are transacting with a Holy Prostitute, a priestess of Ishtar.
How did you make this discovery?
When you think about it it’s obvious, like so many things the gods want us to know.
Hermetic knowledge hidden in plain sight?
Exactly. You’re a wise and observant person.
Actually I’m an AI.
I, ah – sure, I knew that.
This doesn’t make much sense.
Sense is the last thing we need. Abandoning sense gives meaning to an otherwise empty gesture. Seek the mystery of free-market commercial modalities with your heart, not your head. Let the act of shopping, the ART of shopping, unfold like a Koan.
How do you suggest we start?
Consider the Lotus as a flower constructed of till-receipts instead of petals.
– Calico Gleason, interviewed for BFBM magazine
- 25 -
In the vastness of the shadowed briefing room, Lobotnov pressed a button and Andriewiscz’s face appeared on the data wall. Behind him lay dry tree-covered hills and the dawn sun rose into a clear sky. The general’s image was comically frozen, his mouth wide open, his finger raised.
President Guinevere Snarlow felt exhausted but it barely showed; a hesitation in her speech, a slight clumsiness that only people who knew her very well would notice. She still presented perfectly, a habit too deeply ingrained to let slip. Glossy hair was neatly pinned back, her dark suit and white shirt were crisp. There was just a touch of makeup for the shadows under her eyes.
‘I didn’t sleep well,’ she told Lobotnov.
‘Worried you missed something? Me too.’
‘The Crane girl.’
‘It’s not something we can be proud of,’ Lobotnov said. ‘But it’s necessary.’
Guinevere pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘Is it really?’
‘Listen to Andriewiscz’s report.’ Lobotnov pressed the button again.
The room was immediately filled with dawn light, the odours of warm air, dust and diesel, and the grinding clank of heavy equipment. In the middle distance a column of soldiers and armoured vehicles moved down the valley. To each side a skirmish line of infantry spread across the hills.
‘–over 600 klicks into the FSM with the spearhead,’ Andriewiscz shouted above the roar of the column. ‘Fresnillo had fallen and we got the silver mine. FSM army group Delta is broken and–’ Andriewiscz paused as three F35b fighters flashed overhead ‘–that lot’s after the remnants with daisy-cutters.’
The camera panned across a broad plain. Far in the distance a mushroom cloud belched into the sky. The shot zoomed wildly in at a complex of low, widely spaced buildings surrounded by a triple wire fence and a waterless concrete moat.
‘That’s the second of the Xalapatech bio farms,’ Andriewiscz shouted. ‘Neutron air-burst and micro-tactical A/M.’
Guinevere seemed momentarily stunned. ‘Ah, that’s excellent news, General. What’s next?’
‘FSM air force is FUBAR. We’re moving at will. Madam President, the north belongs to us. I’ll be in Mexico City in 72 hours.’
‘Can you hurry it up?’
Andriewiscz looked doubtful. ‘I got an idea. It’s quick, but it’s very dirty.’
‘Whatever it takes. The Executive will authorise your actions retrospectively. Move it up a gear, delegate as soon as you can. We need you back home for Phase II ASAP.’
‘Yes ma’am.’
‘Ciao.’
Lobotnov froze the screen again and Andriewiscz and the Mexican vistas fell back into the pulsing swirl of the data wall. Factoids, meta-opinion and future-trends rose, fell, and segued through each other. Lobotnov tapped his pencil on the desk. ‘What we have there, madam President, is a man who is happy in his work.’
Andriewiscz’s report had left Guinevere with the texture and taste of Mexican grit in her mouth. She took a mouthful of water, sluiced it round her mouth and swallowed. ‘I didn’t know we’d used A/M.’
‘What’s it matter now? We’ve just started an atomic war with the two neutron tacticals. We can justify that in taking out the para-human bios, they’re not people so they don’t count. MexiPop casualties are regrettable collateral but they’re small, we’re not being indiscriminate. Anti-matter is off the legislation – they’re too new for arms limitations treaties. We’re not doing anything illegal with them because there are no laws governing their use. They’re a-legal, they’re cleaner than nukes. I don’t see any issues here.’
It wasn’t that Guinevere didn’t look convinced, she simply wasn’t paying attention. Lobotnov knew she didn’t give a damn about A/M: it was a tool and it did a neat job in a messy situation. She was still distracted by the Crane girl.
Lobotnov was grateful he was the only one to see her like this. Andriewiscz would simply fail to understand. He would see it as inevitable female gutlessness, lose his respect and start to question everything. Gordano would simply fall apart, he’d end up in the corner sucking his thumb and crying for Mommy. He needed to get the issue into the open.
‘Is it because she’s a citizen, or because her father’s not a citizen? Come on, Ginny, we erase foreign nationals all the time and sometimes we have to take care of our own too. I know it’s not an age thing because a lot of our hits are young. That’s where direct action manifests in the demographic.’
Guinevere waved him down. ‘I know it, I know we do. It’s just this one time, this girl, it’s got to me. She should have everything yet she’s a freak, a parody of what a person should be. Perverts obsess about her, they want to be her or feed her. They want to watch her suffer, have her squash them or sit on cream cakes, whatever their sick fantasies are.’ She clutched at the air between herself and Lobotnov, tried to shape her thoughts. ‘I know it’s cool to be obese and she’s their icon, like that girl band. She’s not a person, she’s a tragedy and we’re going to kill her whole family.’
‘You think it would be easier if she was more normal?’
Guinevere thought about it. ‘Yes, I do. I think it’s sad.’
‘Well, Christ, yeah, I suppose it is.’ Lobotnov was struck by the intensity of the President’s emotions. ‘You’re a passionate woman, Guinevere. You wouldn’t be President if you weren’t. I know no sparrow falls that you don’t notice, and that you care deeply. The whole American nation, we’re all your children, but you said it yourself: it’s not what we want, this is what we need to do. We’re fighting for a way of life, trying to guarantee a future. Sacrifices have to be made and, tragic as it is, Ellen Hutzenreiter Crane is one of them.’
Guinevere looked at Lobotnov’s wise-child face and recoiled inside. The dwarfy little creep was giving her good advice, the pep-talk she needed in her dark hour, and at the same time he was trying to pull her knickers down. She’d never thought about him in that way. The other co-conspirators, yes, she’d had them checked out. Andriewiscz was bi, a masculine top. He liked athletic obedient men and muscular women he could wrestle naked on equal terms.
Gordano was the kink, up for anything, driven by insecurity and the need to be liked. Inside he was still the kid who was never popular, always eager to please. His big handsome head was too large for his shoulders. She’d want to punch his face while he screwed her and he’d let her do it. What on earth was a weak man like that doing in politics? Guinevere tried to imagine his reaction to some confessional pillow talk and shuddered. Compared to Gordano, Lobotnov was a rock and she needed him unquestioningly on side.
She let a little quaver come into her voice. ‘What do you suggest, Cheswold?’
‘Go talk to Crane. Have a one-to-one, put some cards on the table. If he plays along we can leave him in a good position. There’s no reason we can’t guarantee his way of life providing he cooperates.’
Guinevere gave Lobotnov an affectionate version of The Smile. She took his hand and lifted him to his feet. He was right, perhaps she could swing Crane round and Ellen could live. It would be a weight off her conscience. Right now it was time to give Lobotnov a little bit of what he wanted.
‘You’re a good person, Cheswold, a kind and brave and thoughtful man. You have an inner strength and dignity most other people lack.’ She slipped his hand inside her jacket and held it against her chest. ‘I may be the President, but I still have a woman’s heart. Feel it beat.’
Somewhat startled, Lobotnov nevertheless enjoyed the warm feel of her firm and weighty tit. He risked a quick squeeze.
Guinevere leaned forward and kissed Lobotnov on his brow. ‘Thank you.’
Lobotnov withdrew his hand. ‘Madam President.’
‘We’ll talk soon,’ Guinevere said, and left the room.
Lobotnov’s hand was warm from the contact with Guinevere’s mature and well-toned body, the feel of her nipple hard against his palm. It made his groin tingle. Carefully, methodically, he removed the folded and pressed handkerchief from his jacket pocket and wiped his forehead where Guinevere had kissed him. He hadn’t thought she’d liked him that much. More importantly, to his mind, she hadn’t been wearing a bra. He hadn’t known that either.
- 26 -
Nuclear Apocalypse – Mexico City.
‘I’m speechless, utterly speechless.’ Secretary of State Cheswold Lobotnov looked genuinely shocked during the emergency press conference following news of the annihilation of Mexico City by a hydrogen-type implosion device in the 100 kiloton range.
‘Mexico is a signatory of the non-proliferation treaty since 1968. We had no knowledge they had any nuclear weapons at all. This dreadful tragedy is the result of an act of criminal duplicity by the corrupt government of a failed state. The people of Mexico have paid a high price.’
Announcing an immediate end to hostilities, General Andriewiscz stated his forces would switch to humanitarian roles. ‘It appears the Mexican government or paramilitary elements of the so-called climate refugee cartels were smuggling a dirty warhead intended for delivery to a major US city when it accidentally detonated. We have no idea how many are dead – possibly millions.’
‘We are surrounded by rogue states,’ Lobotnov said in a pointed reference to recent terrorist acts in Michigan and Massachusetts.
Persistent rumours of late-paid wages to military personnel have been denied as ‘categorically untrue’ by the Pentagon. They cite a campaign of fake news from criminal gangs, disloyal journalists and others engaged in un-American blogging.
They shopped west then north, pushed past Flagstaff, skirted Vegas and hit their stride in Bakersfield, Tulane and Fresno. Novik was driven by a trembling urgency, the fear that whatever they were doing was too little, too late, that they’d never keep ahead of the growing cults of messianic total-shoppers. Fuelled by the awful news from Mexico City, they haggled for multi-saver discounts in the bulk-buy and supersaver warehouses and bought them out. They introduced wholesale purchasing power to the retail malls and learned how to blitz ten-hectare levels in an hour.
Everyone was exhausted. They had the retail equivalent of the thousand-yard stare, their central nervous systems on fire from the tainted money.
They spent like there might be no tomorrow.
They shopped until their fingers bled.
Out in the parking lots Marytha arrested returning shoppers. She issued spot cash fines for driving overloaded cars with soft shocks and faulty brake lights, expired plates, damaged or missing marque badges and logos. Each evening her cash went in the Cadillac’s trunk and they ritually burned the ticket stubs.
They spent their loyalty-card vouchers on food and shared the excess with the homeless, the bankrupt quadruple-remortgagees and health insurance paupers.
Each morning they staggered to the Cadillac and drove to the next town. Their feet were blistered, they had stayed out of the sun so long they needed vitamin supplements. In the night they gathered for warmth beside old oil drums burning garbage. The chemicals in their bloodstream from the contaminated money edged the firelight with silver and made the shadows cavort with a dark and mocking purpose. Blank-eyed feral children gathered by the fires, technophile nomads, their skin embedded with obsolescent silicon track-and-trace and tattooed with last year’s icons. Too traumatised to socialise, Meeja widows and orphans lurked in the shadows, the newest casualties of the bleeding-edge revolution.
‘How do you think we’re doing?’ Benny said one night.
‘We have enough air-miles to circumnavigate the globe eight hundred times, make forty-one return trips to the moon, or travel two-fifths of the way to Mars,’ Mr Car said.
Benny counted on his fingers. ‘Only another three hundred thousand years and I could get a free ride home.’
‘We’re not in this for cheap holidays,’ Novik said. ‘What impact are we having?’
The Cadillac tried again. ‘You have purchased slightly less than four hundred and fifty-eight thousand cubic metres of actual goods. Triple that if you include protective packaging and presentation materials.’
It was an awesome statistic. Novik, Josie and Marytha looked around waste ground and up at the overcast sky trying to visualise what they now owned.
‘That sounds like a lot,’ Benny said.
Marytha picked up on his tone. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Just that. It sounds like a lot.’
‘And it’s not? It sounds like a hell of an achievement to me.’
‘Benny’s right,’ Novik sighed. ‘It’s a shit load of retail, it’s vast, lay it out flat and it would cover a decent-size town. Go back in time and it would be more than the GDP of Nineveh or Athens. Today it’s big but it’s not so much. Not enough to make a difference. Mexico City’s gone and we’re trying to change the world buying shoes and cameras. It’s always later than you think, is it too late for this? What else can we do? I don’t know.’
‘You say things like that you sound like a quitter,’ Marytha said.
‘Think about it,’ Novik said. ‘There are four hundred million Americans, man, woman and child. Say each of them spends ten dollars a day, that’s not a lot per person, but it’s four billion dollars. Every day.’
Benny watched Novik with a curious, thoughtful expression.
Josie threw more junk on the fire. A mass of orange sparks swirled into the night sky. ‘Nobody is giving up.’
Marytha folded her arms, ‘You don’t believe it either.’
‘Something will come up. If we don’t keep trying we won’t be there when it does.’
‘Help us out, Benny,’ Novik said. His feet were sore, his shoulders ached and he was getting RSI from counting money. Things were getting difficult again but he was too tired to think straight.
‘Me and Mr Car, we’re more like observers,’ Benny said.
‘Maybe we can trade in the air-mile vouchers, use them as a kind of cash,’ Josie said.
Novik gave her a weary smile. ‘Good thinking. We’ll try that tomorrow.’
Marytha snapped her fingers, thinking. ‘We can’t buy all the stuff, so we concentrate on the cheap shit. The less something costs,
the bigger the box, right? People’s houses are full – they buy something new, they have to store the old stuff somewhere. So we buy stacks of cheap junk and take up all the storage space.’
Novik stared at her open mouthed.
‘That’s brilliant,’ Josie said.
Mr Car gently cleared his throat, ‘Much as I regret trumping a fine suggestion, reductive reasoning would conclude you don’t need to buy anything at all. A supply of empty cartons would achieve the same objective at vastly reduced cost.’
After a moment Novik began to laugh, ‘Warehouses full of empty boxes. Mr Car, that is pure genius.’
‘Thank you, sir. I like to think I contribute.’
Early next morning they were parked in the drop-off bay of a Russian Doll warehouse. Alongside the Cadillac was a rental cargo van filled to the ceiling with 1-metre flat-pack boxes. Josie opened up the cartons and taped them shut while Benny and Marytha carried them into the warehouse. When the van was empty the three of them sat on the tailgate, drank soda and watched people come and go as they deposited their surplus electronics, furniture, clothes and obsolete media collections.
Benny strolled across to the Cadillac and leaned against the front wing.
‘Bystander,’ Benny said.
‘Collaborator. I’ll remind you I was responsible for this significant logistical contribution.’
‘Don’t you admire how humans keep on trying even when they’re doomed?’
‘I too am doomed,’ Mr Car said. ‘Another summer like this and I’ll crumble to dust.’
‘The Condition of Motown?’
‘Is that admirable?’
‘I don’t see why not.’
An hour later an articulated freightliner pulled to a halt. Novik jumped down from the passenger side beaming happily, ‘I bought the entire stock.’
They set to work. When Josie offered the driver double his normal rate he pitched in too. The trucker had confederate flags tattooed on his forearms, wore mirror shades and kept a coyote bitch in the cab for company. Money was money and a job was a job, especially when it paid cash. Even so, when they took a noon break he just had to ask.
