Feed

by M. T. Anderson

  … First, in the deserts and veldts arose oral culture, the culture of the spoken word. Then in the cities with their temples and bazaars came the pictographs, and later, symbols that produced sounds as if by magic, and what followed was written culture. Then, in the universities and under the steeples of young nations, print culture. These — oral culture, written culture, the culture of print — these have always been considered the great epochs of man.

  But we have entered a new age. We are a new people. It is now the age of oneiric culture, the culture of dreams.

  And we are the nation of dreams. We are seers. We are wizards. We speak in visions. Our letters are like flocks of doves, released from under our hats. We have only to stretch out our hand and desire, and what we wish for settles like a kerchief in our palm. We are a race of sorcerers, enchanters. We are Atlantis. We are the wizard-isle of Mu.

  What we wish for, is ours.

  It is the age of oneiric culture. And we, America, we are the nation of dreams.

  Later that night, I had nightmares.

  Someone was poking my head with a broom handle. They tried to put it like in my ear. They said, “Whispering makes a narrow place narrower.”

  Then came all these pictures, and I was seeing all over the world, and there were explanations, but I was still asleep, and I couldn’t figure them out. I saw khakis that were really cheap, only $150, but I didn’t like the stitching, and then I saw them torn and there was blood on them. It was a riot on a street, and people were screaming in some other language, they were in khakis or jeans and T-shirts, and they were throwing stones and bottles, and the police were moving forward on horses, and a man in the crowd waved a gun, and then the firing started. They were in front of factories, and clouds of gas drifted through them and the American flags they were burning started to spark big, and the gas got darker and darker, and the people sped up, like a joke, grabbing at their necks and waving and sitting and slapping the ground. They fell down. I saw a sign with a picture of a head with a little devil sitting in the brain, inside the skull, with these like energy bolts coming out of his mouth.

  I saw fields and fields of black, it was this disgusting black shit, spread for miles. I saw walls of concrete fall from the sky and crush little wood houses. I saw a furry animal trying to stand up on its legs but the back ones were broken or not working, and it dragged itself with the front ones, whimpering, through someplace with gray dust, and needles coming out of the sand. Its jaws were open. I saw long cables going through the sea. I saw girls sewing things, little girls in big halls. I saw people praying over missiles. I smelled the summer in this rocky place, and the summer smelled like electrical burns. I saw a kid looking at me, he was a kid from another culture, where they wear dresses, and there were all of these shadows all over his face, these amazing shadows, and I thought it was a really cool picture, to get all of those weird shadows somehow, but with nothing making them, and finally, I realized that they weren’t shadows, they were bruises, and then the end of a gun, it’s called the butt, it came down and hit him in the face and then all the pictures were over.

  Hey, Violet said. Hey. Was that you?

  I was like, What? What’s the thing? With … the … ?

  Did I wake you up?

  Okay, could … is she … ?

  Hey — look lively. Someone was just nosing around my feed, checking out my specs and sending me all these images.

  It was probably a corp. Don’t … Oh, unit, I can’t believe you completely jolted me. I was having this weird-ass dreaming.

  I don’t think it was a corp. They didn’t have a tag.

  Don’t you have a shield?

  They got right wham through the shield.

  Oh, unit. Oh, unit. I’m … Do you know how asleep I was?

  I called FeedTech Customer Assistance. I’m going to report this. Something’s happening.

  Oh, okay. Shit. Okay. So can I go like back to sleep?

  You sure it wasn’t you?

  Unette — it wasn’t me. I was so asleep, it was like … It was like ten asleep factor.

  They can trace who it was, I bet.

  Yeah. Maybe.

  You didn’t see any of this? The images?

  What of?

  There’s someone else here. Can you feel it?

  Who?

  Someone else. They just tapped in, just a second ago.

  A voice said, Hi, this is Nina from FeedTech Customer Assistance.

  Thank god.

  Are you tired of the same old shoulders? Why not try extensions?

  Violet was like, Someone just approached my feed. They were checking the specs and stats.

  And what can I do to help you this morning?

  You need to follow them and see, somehow, see who it was. Quickly … Quickly!

  Violet, I’d love to respond personally to each and every request for assistance, but unfortunately I’m unable to, due to increased customer demand, so I’ve sent this automated intelligence Nina to talk to you instead.

  No, you don’t understand.

  Looking at your recent purchase history, I notice that you’ve expressed interest in a lot of products you haven’t bought. Are you having trouble making up your mind with so much cool stuff to choose from?

  Can you please connect me with a live operator?

  Violet, I think I can help you come up with products that really say, “You.” They’ll shout, “You! You! You!” as if it was always Saturday! Oh, I know! You’re almost a woman, and you want things that are totally big Violet! That’s where I can help!

  All right, chatted Violet. No thanks. Thanks. I’m done.

  Sometimes choices are hard to make.

  Fuck off.

  This automated intelligence Nina can help you throw away the bad — and find the good! I can help you find the great products that are uniquely the woman known as “Ms. Violet Durn”!

  Fuck off!

  Okay, it doesn’t seem like you want to talk right now. So I’m going back to my little hole. There, I’ll be sorting and sifting, and trying to make life as easy and interesting as possible for you and your friend and all of our excellent customers at FeedTech — making your dreams into hard fact™.

  Okay. Thanks. Thanks a big lot.

  And thank you, Violet Durn of 1421 Applebaum Avenue. I’ll look forward to helping you again, whenever you —

  Can I go back to sleep? I asked. I had these really weird dreams.

  Violet seemed kind of without any energy. She was like, Go ahead. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

  We said good night. She was slow. I turned over and curled up, and the pictures playing in my head now were better, not so violent or sucky. They were more of women in turtlenecks petting my hair. I heard some music. I fell asleep. It was a deep sleep, and I didn’t wake up until morning.

  It is an upcar tearing along over the desert. It cuts brag swerves through passes and over gulches.

  Someone once said it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich guy to get into heaven.

  There is a city. A marketplace. Camels. Arabs. The upcar shoots overhead, and they duck.

  Yeah, sure. Now we know that the “eye of the needle” is just another name for a gate in Jerusalem — and with the Swarp XE-11’s mega-lepton lift and electrokinetic gyrostasis, you can flip ninety degrees to the ground and back again in one-point-two seconds — so getting through the gate just won’t be a problem anymore.

  The Swarp XE-11: You can take it with you.

  One Saturday, a few days after we saw the riot from the news in our dreams, there was this promotion, where if you talked about the great taste of Coca-Cola to your friends like a thousand times, you got a free six-pack of it, so we decided to take them for some meg ride by all getting together and being like, Coke, Coke, Coke, Coke for about three hours so we’d get a year’s supply. It was a chance to rip off the corporations, which we all thought was a funny idea.

  I picked up Violet at her house a
nd we drove to Marty’s, where everyone was meeting.

  When we got there, Calista and Loga were getting out of Calista’s car, and it was like, Whoa, because they were wearing all torn-up clothes. They were walking normal, but they looked like they’d been burned up and hit with stuff.

  I ran over to them. I was going, “Holy shit! Are you okay? What happened?” and Violet, too, she was going, “Hey — are you okay?”

  They stood there and looked at us, then looked at each other like, Omigod! Someone is poopiehead!

  “Yuh,” said Loga. “It’s Riot Gear. It’s retro. It’s beat up to look like one of the big twentieth-century riots. It’s been big since earlier this week.”

  I was like, “Oh.”

  Violet was like, “Sorry.”

  “No wrong,” said Calista, flipping her hair.

  When we went inside, Marty and Quendy were also wearing Riot Gear. Everyone was going, Hi! Hey! Hey! Hi! Unit! What’s doing?

  “Hey!” said Loga to Quendy, pointing. “Kent State collection, right? Great skirt!”

  Quendy bowed her legs out. “It’s not a skirt — it’s culottes!”

  “Ohhh, cute!”

  Calista said, “That looks great on you!”

  Quendy didn’t say anything to Calista, because Calista had just put her arm around Link and they were smelling each other’s faces, and Quendy was jealous.

  “Units!” said Marty. “Into the — in here — fuck yeah, man — into the living room. Kay kay kay kay. Right in here.”

  We grabbed some seats.

  “Okay,” said Marty. “O-fuckin’-kay!” He nodded. “Coca-Cola!”

  We waited to start.

  We were like waiting.

  We all sat there for a minute, looking like we were smiling, but in reality, not. Each of us looked at everyone else’s face. Violet chatted me, This is like when I was twelve, and we had this slumber party and agreed to show each other our boobs. I think we finally just gave up and watched America’s Unlikeliest Allergy Attacks.

  “So … ,” said Marty, kind of sneaky. “Anyone up for the great taste of … Coke?”

  Loga said, “I like its refreshing flavor.”

  “It’s really good on a really hot day,” said Link. “There’s nothing like an ice-cold Coke.”

  “I like regular Coke,” said Quendy, “but also the fantastic taste of Diet Coke.”

  Link pinched Calista. She kind of sighed, “Me, too.”

  Marty said, “Coke, its great taste, it’s so good that I would beat up a guy if he had one and I really wanted it.”

  “Anyone?” said Link. “You and Coke?”

  Loga said, “Coke, it’s really good, almost as good as Pepsi.”

  “Unette!” said Marty. “‘Almost’? You just lost us one! The fuckin’ count just went down.”

  I said quickly, “I like Coke because of the energy.”

  Link pinched Calista. She kind of sighed, “Me, too.”

  Violet said, “I love the great feeling of Coke’s carbonation going down my throat, all the pain, like …” She waved her hands in the air and looked at the ceiling, trying to think of something. She said, “It’s like sweet gravel. It’s like a bunch of itsy-bitsy commuters running for a shuttle in my windpipe.” Everyone was looking at her. I could feel them chatting each other, saying that was stupid. I sat nearer to her. I put my hand on her back.

  She was saying, “Sometimes I try to think back to the first time I ever had Coke. Because it must have hurt, but I can’t remember. How could we ever have started to enjoy it? If something’s an acquired taste, like, how do you start to acquire it? For that matter, who gave me Coke the first time? My father? I don’t think so. Who would hand a kid a Coke and think, ‘Her first one. I’m so proud.’ How do we even start?”

  There was a long, silent part.

  Then Marty said, “Yeah. That may have cost us a few. Hey, how about the great foaming capabilities of Coke?”

  And then we were onto this whole thing, about Coke fights, and Coke floats, and Coke promotions, and we went on and on and on, but Violet didn’t say anything else, just sat there silently. The guys kept going. I was laughing extra loud at everything, because I didn’t want people to notice that Violet was all clammy. So I was yelling all these carbonation things and trying to bring her back in, and the other guys were going spastic and throwing pillows at each other. We were like rum and Coke, stadium Coke, flat Coke, bottled Coke, Coke and nachos, Coke and hot dogs, hot Coke, Cherry Coke, Coke on tap, comparative suckiness of, until finally there was another quiet part, and Link said, “Hey, Marty-unit, do you actually have any Coke?”

  Marty was like, “No. But, fuck, aren’t you getting like meg thirsty? With all of this talking about the great taste of Coke?”

  We looked at our feet for a minute. I moved my butt around on the, it’s called an ottoman.

  “Let’s go out and get some,” said Link.

  “Yeah. Let’s go to the store.”

  “Which store?”

  “There’s a Halt ’n’ Buy up on like, near the Sports Giant.”

  We were all standing up. Marty was like announcing, “Okay, we’ll go out and get some of the great beverage of Coke, with its refreshing flavor,” but no one was really rattling that way now.

  Loga and Calista were whispering to each other, with Violet walking behind them. They saw she was near them, and they changed the subject.

  “Oh, and omigod!” said Calista. “Are those the Stonewall Clogs? They’re so brag.”

  “Yeah,” said Loga.

  “Omigod. They look wholly comfy. Are they comfy?”

  “They’re pretty comfy.” Loga picked up her foot and played with her flowery clog, and she was like, “I got a size seven, but it feels more like a man’s size seven.”

  “This top is the Watts Riot top.”

  Violet said, “I can never keep any of the riots straight. Which one was the Watts riot?”

  Calista and Loga stopped and looked at her. I could feel them flashing chat.

  “Like, a riot,” said Calista. “I don’t know, Violet. Like, when people start breaking windows and beating each other up, and they have to call in the cops. A riot. You know. Riot?”

  “Oh, I just thought you might … know… . Maybe … I wondered what incited it.” Violet was playing quickly with her own hands.

  “Yeah,” said Calista.

  “I was just asking,” said Violet.

  “Okay.”

  “I was just …”

  “Yeah. ‘Incited.’”

  “What? It’s not like I was saying something mean or stupid.”

  “No. Okay. Loga, are we going?”

  They kept on walking.

  Loga said, “Put that in your metizabism.”

  Calista said, “What’s a metizabism?”

  “Oh, sorry. I thought it was good to use stupid, long words that no one can understand.”

  Calista laughed and looked backward, going, “Shhh. She’ll hear you and have an alpoduffin … fleatcher.”

  In my head, I was like, Oh shit.

  Violet was chatting me. Did you hear that? I can’t stand this anymore.

  I was like, What do you mean?

  They were just these meg bitches. Will you take me home?

  I was like, Just let it blow. Let it blow. No wrong.

  They hate me.

  No one hates you.

  Your friends hate me. They think I’m stupid.

  No one — fuck! — no one thinks you’re stupid.

  Yeah, I don’t mean dumb stupid.

  We can’t leave them now. It would be like a total rash on their ass if we went.

  They just insulted me.

  Unit, they didn’t.

  They thought what I said during the game was stupid. They think everything I say is weird and stupid. What is your problem? Take me home.

  Link was like, “You coming with?”

  Violet was like, Take me home.

  Fuck! Why? Fuck
.

  I want to leave.

  “No,” I said to Link. “Violet, uh, she has to go home.”

  “Unit,” said Link. “The party’s just begun. We haven’t even filled the bathtub with anything from the kitchen yet.”

  “I’ve really got to go,” said Violet, smiling like she was shaking hands with the members of the frickin’ PTA.

  Everyone was going out to get in their upcars and go get some stuff at the store. Calista was showing off her WTO riot Windbreaker. Violet and me said good-bye. We got in my upcar. We took off.

  Then we started to fight.

  I flew down the main tube in Marty’s community. It was a gated community, and I waited to get out through the neighborhood’s security sphincter. It pulled open, and I flew out into the droptube, going like a million miles an hour so that Violet would jerk back in her seat. Then when I was going up, I had this idea that instead of like throwing her around by going too fast, I would be like quiet angry like my father got, and I’d just do everything exactly right, everything up to the centigram.

  So I flew really good when I got up above the surface, going over the shantytowns that had been built up around the cooling steeples. I flew perfect. I could see the others come out of the droptube behind me, and they were heading off to the strip.

  We went for a while. It was raining. There was all of the lights from the factory towers below us, those really hard lights, those bright white ones. They were shining through all the gases, above the tubing and the tanks and ladders. There were cargo ships anchored in the sky. I flew around them, politely, like a gentleman.

  We were too angry to speak out loud. Our jaws were like grrrrrvvvvv.