Life in a Fishbowl

by Len Vlahos

  As was always the case after such episodes of weakness, the Sister approached her canonical responsibilities with renewed vigor.

  The next morning, she cajoled Jared Stone out of bed and insisted that he get some light exercise. “The mind is nothing without the body, Mr. Stone,” she told him.

  “But, Sister, I’m so tired.” Jared was too weak and befuddled to remind the Sister that his doctors—her doctors—had ordered bed rest. The crew in the truck, who like the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz were watching everything, knew that Jared was supposed to be in bed. But the sight of Jared pleading with the Sister, and ultimately trying to do some light stretching and a few push-ups, made for much better television than just watching the man waste away.

  When Jared was safely back in bed, panting and gasping until he fell asleep, the Sister went through the rest of the house to see how else she could help.

  ***

  Glio explored the entire network of Jared’s outward-facing nervous system. He rode the brachial plexus to the musculocutaneous nerve to the radial nerve to the ulnar nerve to the median nerve in the tips of Jared’s fingers, reveling in the cool cottony touch of Jared’s pillow. He pushed off from the gustatory cortex and traversed the highway of nerves leading to the tightly bunched fungiform papillae on Jared’s tongue, nearly exploding with joy at the sensation that was oatmeal. He came as close to the outside world as he dared in the nerve endings at the very edge of Jared’s nostril—a flirtation with the termination shock of his host’s corporeal being—momentarily repulsed by the smell of disease, not realizing, at first, that he himself was the root cause.

  From the top of Jared’s scalp to the tip of his pinky toe, Glio had explored Jared like Magellan circumnavigating the globe. There was only one place left to go: the optic nerve.

  Glio, having been imbued with emotion from Jared’s memories, was frightened. Hearing the world, touching the world, tasting the world, and smelling the world were not, he was certain, the same as seeing the world. But curiosity was a powerful master.

  Feeling his way from the medulla oblongata to the visual cortex, Glio arrived at the lateral geniculate nucleus, the point of no return. In the way a six-year-old is filled with terror at the top of a large waterslide, so, too, was Glio at the site of the optic nerve; a swirling rope of ganglia spiraling into the brightest light Glio had ever seen. It was too late to chicken out now.

  He jumped in.

  A moment later, Glio was looking at a blinding red light with no definition and no form. He realized he was looking at the inside of Jared’s closed eyelid. The membrane of tissue was thick enough for its host to experience darkness. But to a being like Glio that had never known real light, it was paper-thin.

  Glio desperately wanted to see the outside world, only Jared was resting, and thin though it was, the eyelid was an impenetrable barrier. Glio needed a plan.

  Having spent months inside Jared’s head, he had come to know every twist, turn, and fold of his host’s brain. And Glio had grown large. What the doctors thought were twenty-four distinct tumors was really one large organism, the seemingly individual growths connected by strings of microscopic cells. While Glio’s attention was focused on the optic nerve, his tendrils simultaneously reached everywhere else. He would force the eyelids to open.

  With the flick of his metaphorical wrist, Glio tugged on a packet of neurons that made Jared gag. An instant later, he felt the entire body convulse, and then Jared’s eyes opened.

  The light was too intense, and Glio had to retreat part of the way up the optic nerve. The experience was painful and exhilarating all at once. Slowly, he inched his way forward again until, at last, he could see the world.

  His first vision was shocking: The edges, the shadows, the innate qualities of the image were entirely different and entirely more satisfying than the memories and dreams on which he’d been feasting. Glio found himself looking at the person Jared thought of as “the nun.” Her weathered face had a countenance that was both angry and sad, a kind of fierce expression meant to calm but that could only terrify.

  “Mr. Stone,” she was saying, “are you all right?”

  “I don’t think so. I can’t see.”

  Glio knew that Jared’s impaired sight was a direct result of his own activity on the optic nerve. No matter, he wasn’t going to stay long.

  As he adjusted to the light, Glio could see that he was in the makeshift hospital room that had been Jared’s office. He was sorry he hadn’t seen the room before all the medical equipment had been moved in. Jared’s office was, Glio knew, a focal point in space that was central to the man’s character. And as Glio was subsuming the very essence of Jared’s character, it had become a focal point for him, too.

  “Try shutting your eyes for a little while,” the nun said to Jared.

  Jared tried to shut his eyes, but Glio tweaked the packet of neurons that made them pop back open.

  “I can’t,” Jared said.

  “That’s odd,” the nun answered. “Wait here. I’m going to get the doctor.”

  “Right,” Jared answered. “ ‘Wait here.’ ”

  Glio was no fan of the doctors. Twice they had pumped Jared full of morphine, and twice Glio had drifted off in a daze. The drugs slowed him down, and he didn’t like it. Not wanting another dose, he fled to the center of the brain, occupying himself with a memory of the night Jared won his first election but already scheming and planning for a more meaningful outing.

  ***

  While Megan tried not to show it, she was annoyed with Ethan.

  She’d hoped he had come in his limousine to tell her that she, Megan Stone, was, at least for a little while, going to be the star of Life and Death. She knew that with her dad too sick to do much of anything and her mother and sister on strike, now was her chance to step into the limelight.

  But that wasn’t it at all.

  “I want you to do something for me,” he had said. “I want you to keep an eye on Jackie and let me know if she tries to make any more movies.”

  It left a bad taste in Megan’s mouth.

  For one thing, she and Jackie had grown closer since their father had gotten sick. She knew it was just temporary, that Jackie wasn’t going to suddenly stop being weird, that things would eventually turn back to their natural order, but still, if she was being honest, she liked that she and Jackie were talking. Plus she guessed that what Ethan was asking would go against her mom’s wishes, and that didn’t sit too well.

  Megan paused, looking at Ethan, waiting for the rest of it.

  “I promise, Megan,” Ethan said, sensing her disappointment. “I will personally see to it that you get whatever you want. Better clothes, better makeup, better toys.”

  Better toys? Megan thought.

  “Just tell me what you want.”

  When she didn’t respond, Ethan surged ahead, assuring Megan it was for the good of the show, that in the end, her family would understand.

  “I-I … ,” Megan finally interrupted, feeling stupid saying it out loud, “I thought maybe you would want me to be in the show more.”

  Ethan sat back and smiled. “Is that all? That’s easy, kiddo.” He took a deep, cleansing breath. “You help us, and I promise, you’ll get lots of screen time. This is how Hollywood works.” That was the phrase that sealed the deal for Megan. She was an insider now, in the know. She was Hollywood.

  “Besides,” Ethan added, “the rest of your family is on strike. If you’re the only one talking to us, then you’re the only one we can use.”

  In the end, Megan was able to convince herself—her inner demons drowning out her better instincts—that Jackie kind of deserved it for making that video. At least that’s what Ethan had told her.

  Megan nodded and shook Ethan’s hand when it was offered.

  The next afternoon, just after she had given the most detailed, enthusiastic, and altogether saccharine interview in the history of television interviews (“Oh, Andersona, I was just devastated at
what happened to poor Trebuchet. That dog was a kind of soul mate to all of us.”), Megan put “Operation Nancy Drew” into action. Ethan had come up with the name, and even though Megan didn’t really know who Nancy Drew was, she played along.

  Watching from the kitchen window when Jackie came home from school, Megan took notes on everything her big sister did, and what she did was really strange.

  Jackie, who always came in, said hi to Trebuchet (or used to), and then went to her room to do her homework, went instead to the backyard. She made a beeline for The Wall and started picking up different rocks at the base of the fence and shaking them. She had a very serious look on her face, like she was searching for something important. After a minute, Jackie picked up a large, off-color rock, shook it, and smiled. She looked around, like she wanted to make sure no one was watching, and carried the rock back into the house.

  When Jackie walked through the door from the backyard, hiding the rock under her shirt, she didn’t even notice Megan skulking behind the ficus tree in the dining room. She bounded up the stairs, went right into the bathroom, and closed the door. Megan crept to the door just in time to hear the shower curtain move, like Jackie was taking a shower.

  Recording every last detail in her notebook, Megan retreated to the hallway outside Jackie’s room and waited. It was a full five minutes before Jackie showed up.

  “Hey,” she said to Megan.

  “Hey,” Megan said back. “What are you up to?” She tried to sound casual but could tell by the look on Jackie’s face that it hadn’t worked.

  “Nothing.” With that, Jackie went into her bedroom and shut the door.

  Megan sprang up and ran to the bathroom. There was no sign of the rock anywhere. Just some cut-up cardboard in the garbage can. She added it to her notes and went back to her own room, where she sat on her bed and tried to figure out what her sister was doing. After a while, her attention drifted, and she dozed off, dreaming about how famous she would become. She didn’t think her notes revealed anything terribly clever or insightful, so she never gave them to Ethan.

  Later that night, as the family sat gathered around Jared’s makeshift hospital bed to watch Life and Death, Megan could scarcely contain her anxiety. With the rest of the family on strike, the entire episode revolved around her—her day at school, her wardrobe, and her feelings about her father’s illness. Other than Jared’s momentary and inexplicable bout of blindness, which was teased in every commercial break and held for the end of the show, this was Megan’s hour.

  She had hoped Ethan was right, that her mother would see how good it was for Megan to participate, but those hopes were dashed at the first commercial break when no one in her family so much as looked at her. “Mom?” Megan asked. But Deirdre didn’t respond.

  By the second commercial break, Jared had fallen asleep. During the third commercial break, Jackie had left the room shaking her head.

  By the time it ended, only Megan and her mother were watching.

  When the last of the credits scrolled off the screen and faded into a commercial break, Deirdre used the remote to turn the television off. She choked back a sob, said, “It’s okay, honey, I forgive you,” and left the room, too.

  “Forgive me?” Megan said out loud, her only company her sleeping father. Her voice tried to sound confused, but her heart was thoroughly ashamed. Megan used the TiVo to roll the show back to the beginning and watched it again in its entirety, never moving from her father’s side. By the time it was over, she thought she might throw up.

  ***

  Max couldn’t believe it. The plan had worked perfectly. Deirdre had retrieved Jackie’s confiscated cell phone on the way out of the house—“If she’s not allowed to use it, at least let me try to get my money back,” she had told Andersona—and dropped it off at school per Jackie’s instructions. Jackie gave the phone to Jason Sanderson, who tucked it inside a cardboard rock he “borrowed” from the school’s drama department. That night, while all of America, including everyone in the Stone household, was watching Life and Death, Jason rode his bike to Jackie’s house and threw the rock over the seven-foot-high fence into the backyard. Jackie retrieved it the next day.

  Now Max was looking at fifteen minutes of brand-new footage. He was giddy.

  With the crew on strict orders to stop Jackie from filming, capturing footage had become much more difficult, but the assembled group in Azeroth anticipated this. The guild counted among its members two East Coast television editors—one worked at Lifetime, the other at TLC. Using a floor plan of the Stone household provided by Jackie, the two editors analyzed five episodes of Life and Death, noting camera angles and edits. They used the information to identify what they believed were enough blind spots for Jackie to remain hidden while filming.

  The footage wasn’t as good or explosive as the earlier episodes, and it was all taken in a relatively short window of time, but it was enough for Max to work with. The real magic was in the voice-over.

  Jackie and Max wrote it together, and she recorded it while she was in the computer lab at school. It was a poignant plea from Jackie to the American viewing public to let her father die with dignity:

  It’s not just the cameras and the microphones. If they were capturing the truth, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. In fact, if I’m being honest, my family—well, really, my parents—signed on for all this when they invited ATN into our house. But they didn’t sign on for the lies.

  The network doesn’t want you to know the truth. They want you to see my dad at his worst; they want you to think my mother, sister, and I are helpless; they want you to think we give a shit about Jo Garvin. (Jackie, who was something of a prude, didn’t want to use foul language. Max convinced her that the soliloquy needed it.)

  This isn’t real life. Nothing on TV is real life. It is fiction. The only part of this that’s true is that my dad is dying, and that he is—that we are—being robbed of our privacy and dignity. Think about it. What if your father or mother or sister or brother was dying? What if it was your son? What would you want?

  If you really care what happens to my dad, if you really care what happens to our family—Max cut to an extreme close-up of Jackie talking to the camera—then I beg you, don’t watch the lie that is Life and Death. I promise I will give you updates via YouTube, but please, get these damn cameras out of my house.

  The third installment of The Real Family Stone of Portland, Oregon was posted at three a.m. Pacific standard time, just twelve hours after Jackie had done the principle photography. A team of Azeroth guild members based in London was standing by. The minute the episode was posted, they unleashed a social media campaign announcing its arrival.

  It took each of the first two episodes more than a week to top one million views. The third episode got there in twelve hours. The Real Family Stone of Portland, Oregon had gone from being viral to being a phenomenon.

  ***

  Ethan was back in California, asleep in his Malibu beach house and dreaming about a girl he knew many years ago. For some reason, every time the girl opened her mouth to speak, a loud buzzing sound came from the back of her throat. It was happening in a rhythmic pattern—mouth closed, mouth open, buzzing, mouth closed, mouth open, buzzing. It took on a hypnotic quality, almost like a—

  The cell phone vibrating on the bedside table buzzed Ethan to consciousness. He tapped the answer icon and mumbled a groggy “What is it?”

  “It’s your ass, Overbee, that’s what it is!” The sound of Roger Stern’s voice was enough to bring Ethan into a hyperwakeful state.

  “Roger? What time is it? What’s going on?”

  “Time is immaterial.” This was one of Stern’s favorite sayings, though no one was quite sure what it meant. “As for what’s going on, check your e-mail. I want a full report on how you’ve contained this problem before the end of the day.” He hung up.

  Before the end of the day? Ethan thought, still in a fog. I’m not even sure what day it is.

  Ethan used his
phone to check his e-mail, and he saw it right away. A link to a new installment of The Real Family Stone of Portland, Oregon. He paused a beat, then hurled his cell phone at the nearest wall, cracking its screen and leaving a dent just under a framed Andy Warhol original. It was 4:30 a.m. He landed in Portland five and a half hours later.

  ***

  The entire Stone household was abuzz with the news of the latest YouTube posting. The third-shift director, who received a phone call from Ethan at 4:45 a.m. local time, was instructed to have his team go through the previous three days of outtakes to find out how and when Jackie had managed to record new footage.

  While a growing number of crew members were secretly rooting for Jackie, their first loyalty was to their paychecks. Besides, they were too terrified of the damage Ethan could do to their careers if they failed him, so they did as they were told.

  It didn’t take long to find the image of Jackie picking up the rock in the backyard, bringing it into the house, and cracking it open in the bathroom. After that, they watched her disappear into one blind spot after another, always reappearing twenty seconds later. You didn’t need Sherlock Holmes to piece it all together. You only had to know to look.

  Andersona, also on orders from Ethan, confined the Stone family to the house, not allowing anyone in or out. While Megan, who had become persona non grata with the family, stayed in her room, Jackie took her computer and crawled into bed with her mom. She looked for Max online, but he was still recovering from his all-night editing session and had gone to bed very early.

  When Jackie heard Ethan arrive, she considered hiding but knew it was no use. She looked at the camera in the corner of the ceiling in her parents’ bedroom—an unfathomable invasion of privacy, she realized—and said, “Tell him I’m on my way down.”