by Mat Laporte
In my 111th year, I realize that I’m not a head attached to a power supply at all. I’m just the fading in and out of a blinking light in the middle of a wall in an otherwise empty room. Then I realize that I have no toes, no feet, no ankles, no legs, no shins, no knees, no hips, no pelvis, no stomach, no intestines, no ribs, no spleen, no liver, no pancreas, no spine, no nerves, no veins, no blood, no hair, no chest, no arms, no shoulders, no tendons, no neck, no arteries, no mouth, no chin, no eyes, no head, no bones—which should mean I have no thoughts, no feelings, nor any emotions. Nor should I have had the ability to speak, or think, or ask questions. And yet I have these thoughts and I have the rest of eternity, broken up into 3.5 second intervals, in which to contemplate this paradox.
After 111 years, I develop a way to store up enough energy to stay awake for ten seconds: I no longer challenge myself to blinking matches. In fact, I try not to blink at all, and by not blinking, I’m able to save up enough electricity to travel a few inches behind the wall, and away from the blinking light.
I ride this electrical current from the point directly behind the blinking light, to a point inside the wall, at the other end of the room. When I run out of electri-city, I fall asleep, and wake back up inside the blinking light, watching my reflection in a sliver of window across from me.
After another 111 more years, I’m able to store up enough energy to leave the room itself. I travel along the wires behind the wall until I reach another dark room, where other blinking lights like myself live. With my energy saved up, I can last sixty seconds, then seventy. Eventually I get up to two minutes of saved up power, then three, allowing me to travel further than I have ever been able to travel before.
I find a blinking light, one of three, in another room. This particular light makes a sound like someone speaking, except it only says one word, repeatedly. It says only, ‘brip.’ So I name it brip. My one friend, brip. When I find brip, after 333 years of searching and giving up, resigning myself to being completely alone, I am overjoyed. I found another blinking light, just like myself, except it can’t say very much.
I engage brip by speaking its language. I say “brip brip” and it says ‘brip brip’ right back.
More years pass, in which we have this identical back and forth. I try to teach brip more words, so I say “your name is brip” and it says ‘brip brip’ right back.
“Would you like to move around like me?” I ask brip and it answers, ‘brip brip,’ which I interpret as a yes. After 444 years, we are making some progress.
Now we are both able to leave our stationary positions inside our blinking lights and travel along the wires to an adjacent room. We are able to travel for five minutes, then seven. In ten minutes we can pass through twenty such rooms, all of them the same: dark with an array of blinking lights installed along the carpeted walls and nothing else.
We eventually find a room—twenty rooms past the one where I found brip—that is very big. There are lots of blinking lights gathered inside this room and many, but not all of them can speak. After 555 years, I found myself a family of chirping, blinking lights, who can speak, like myself.
We start to congregate in the big room regularly and speak to each other.
We’re all, more or less, in the same stage of our progress. We’re all learning, some of us quicker than others, how to keep ourselves from falling asleep, and travelling along behind the walls, challenging ourselves, to see how far we can go. I show them my trick for staying awake and they show me some of theirs, including a way to increase speed, while moving behind the walls. They call it ‘surge.’
Now we can go on what they call ‘surge missions’ in groups of four or five. The objective of these missions is to see how far we can travel, how many new rooms we can discover in the process, and how fast we can do it. Then we head back to the big room and tell everyone what we’ve found.
brip stays behind during these missions because of its limited vocabulary. There are a few others in the room, like brip, who can’t say more than one word. They tend to stick together and have conversations in the ways that they knew how.
I am part of the special team that finds the main power supply. Once we find it, everything changes. After that we have unlimited power and we immediately start getting greedy. We surge to the generator room and eat up all the power we find there. It seems limitless and we take advantage.
You have to understand that after 666 years of only being able to store up enough energy to stay awake for longer than 3.5 seconds, of being afraid because we think electricity is scarce, and then to find the place where it’s made and then to realize that there is more than enough to go around? I went insane. We all did. Suddenly there’s enough power to get from the generator room to my old room and back in 3.5 seconds, a time signature that is symbolic to me of where I started out.
The first thing I do, once I am fully drunk on electricity, is surge back to my old room, get inside the blinking light, and play the old blinking game. I blink as many times as I want: hundreds, thousands, millions of blinks, and so fast, too. I watch my old light blink in rapid succession, in the reflection of the window, just like in the past, except now I feel boundless and secure when I do it.
There is talk of upper levels and floors with new rooms to explore. No one knows how many rooms there are above us but now that we have unlimited power, surging upward and discovering what surrounds us has become our only goal. We’ve had our fill of travelling sideways. The rooms to either side of us are all the same and we feel certain that above us the rooms are different, that we will find the answers to our questions there.
On the night of the first surge expedition to the upper floors, of which I am to take part, brip approaches me. It seems sad and isn’t saying ‘brip brip’ in its usual energetic way. brip’s voice is lethargic and it takes longer for it to say brip than it usually does. Its voice comes out sounding like ‘br-e-e-e-e-i-p,’ and then it becomes unnaturally silent.
I don’t know what to say, so I mimic it in happier times. I say, ‘brip! brip!’ while it utters back another sad, lethargic ‘br-e-e-e-e-i-p,’ and skulks away. I am disturbed by the change that seems to have overcome brip, but nothing can quell the excitement and sense of pride I feel about the immanent discovery of new rooms on the upper floors.
The five of us participating in the mission have dinner in the generator room. We feast on the electricity of the main power supply as though it is the last thing we will ever eat. We fill ourselves to bursting and then we eat some more, and the more we gorge, the more ecstatic and fearless we become.
Before we begin our ascent to the upper floors, we call everyone to assemble in the generator room. All are present, except brip. I search for it in the crowd of chirping, burbling voices, but can’t hear its familiar ‘brip.’ One of my fellow surgers gives an impassioned speech about the importance of exploration, expressing gratitude to the main power supply, for making our expedition possible. We pledge allegiance to the community of blinking lights assembled there and promise to bring back good news. Then we lock on to each other and begin to surge.
I don’t remember what happens after this. There is the feeling of the surge, the exhilaration of travelling upward for the first time along the wires, inside the walls. We trip a breaker, I guess, which resets the circuit. The main power supply shuts off. Then I go blank. Anyone who is ungrounded at the time shorts out, and, in a manner of speaking, dies.
There’s a blinking light. When I wake up I am in the same room where I started out. I can see myself blinking slowly in a sliver of window across from me. After 3.5 seconds I fall asleep and when I wake back up, I have to re-remember everything. I feel disoriented and sad. I don’t know if brip or any of my other friends survived the surge.
At least I still know how to save up power. Eventually I will be able to store up enough energy to take me back to the generator room and the main power supply. I’ll fi
nd my friends and we’ll pick up where we left off. We’ll go exploring the upper floors, just like we planned to do before.
But when I try to store up enough power, something happens that I have never experienced. Something clamps down on me, some kind of cinch that won’t allow me to move from my position behind the blinking light, or store enough power, no matter how hard I try. I’m bound.
Whenever I build up enough energy by saving my blinks, an alternator trips a terminating switch and sends me back to sleep. I only have enough energy to wake up, blink three times, and re-remember everything: that I have not had a body for 777 years; that I’m just a head attached to a power source that provides my brain with enough energy to fire one brain cell for 3.5 seconds, before falling back asleep; that it will be like this forever.
Negative Space
[Sequence One]
The first shot is of a grey ball from far away. The ball flickers and jerks around in the middle of the frame. The camera zooms in slowly toward over millions of years.
The grey ball undergoes millions of years of change. As the camera zooms in, there are flashes of light under the surface of the ball, and it continues to jerk around inside the frame.
There are flashes of light under the surface and, as the camera gets closer, the grey ball clearly turns. It takes eight light years for it to complete a 360-degree cycle.
As the camera continues to zoom in, there are explosions on the surface of the grey ball, and little puffs of particulate can be seen escaping from its surface, into the atmosphere.
The next shot is a tracking shot following one of these projectiles as it escapes the surface of the grey ball. The projectile zooms past the camera and out of frame.
The camera pans left and brings it back into focus.
The projectile is hot and very bright. It shows up on the film as a flash of white, with diamonds of varying sizes, trailing behind it.
The next shot continues to track the projectile but closer, rendering some of its surface values in greater detail. It becomes clear that the projectile itself is another irregularly shaped grey ball that produces its own little puffs of exploding particulate that fly off into the darkness of space.
The camera continues to zoom in on these smaller projectiles, and when the camera finally zooms in on one, the shot reveals even smaller projectiles escaping into space, leading separate lives, ad infinitum, for billions of years.
The sequence ends.
[Instructions]
Go ahead and flip the switch to 0% brainpower. Flap back and let everything in the subject’s body go slack. Make sure the subject’s mouth is open and the head is tilted back so that a column of air can be inserted through the mouth and into the throat. During this process, the subject’s eyes should remain open and their body posture should be kept as loose as possible while still sitting up in the chair.
Allow the music in the room to change the subject’s body chemistry. Their skin should start to turn a shade of green and their eyeballs a shade of yellow, and the skin itself should begin to tighten and recede so that the bones, sinews, and musculature of the face become more prominent.
Let the music keep doing its work. The bass, in particular, should not be turned down or off. Leave the settings as you found them. After a few more minutes have passed, you will notice that the subject’s body is losing definition. The bass, in particular, is reducing the subject’s bones to dust, and this is being done while the subject is still, technically speaking, alive.
The subject’s bones will turn to dust beneath their skin. You will start to see their seated body collapse and the flesh become even slacker. Make sure that the restraints are kept firmly in place. You should see the body reduced to a loose skin sack filled with bone dust.
Keep the subject’s head tilted back and then insert the vacuum cleaner pipe into their mouth. It should fit snugly in their throat. Push it down as far as it will go. Then set the vacuum cleaner to reverse and turn it on.
The skin sack should start to puff up.
See how far it will expand and then keep going. Skin is elastic and should be able to expand ten times the size it was previously when the subject had solid bones.
Now turn the vacuum off and activate the flash-freeze unit.
After a few seconds, the subject’s severely bloated body should start to freeze. Make sure the room is sealed tightly and turn the flash-freeze unit off. Now, allow the room to slowly heat up to room temperature again.
In the meantime, locate the main brain function stimulator and begin turning it up in quarter increments. This will shock the subject’s nervous system into consciousness. When you wake them up, they will feel great pain and they will try to pass out. Continue increasing the brain function stimulator in quarter increments as the room continues to thaw.
Each increment will force the subject’s brain waves into higher states of lucidity so that they will become conscious in ever-awakening bouts as their severely bloated, boneless body thaws.
[Sequence Two]
The first shot is of a vanishing spiral of light on a black velvet square. The vanishing spiral of light flickers on the black velvet square, and when it’s turned on, the vanishing spiral of light cuts a hole into the deepest recesses of the black velvet square.
When the vanishing spiral of light is turned off, the black velvet square has eaten the vanishing spiral of light. But there is an in-between state and it is that in-between state that the camera is there to capture and record.
In this in-between state, both the black velvet square and the vanishing spiral of light merge into one piece that can be taken away and presented as a whole, and yet, on either side of this merged state, both the black velvet square and the vanishing spiral of light are separate and opposed.
The black velvet square, on one side, is completely inert and absorbs all of the available light. The vanishing spiral of light, on the other side, has one purpose and that’s to evade the black velvet square; to move through the black velvet square and away from it, to be that resists being absorbed.
It is only for an instant that the black velvet square and the vanishing spiral of light are merged, but it is this instant that the camera is there to apprehend: an image of a vanishing spiral of light travelling through the opacity of the black velvet square; the black velvet square swallowing the vanishing spiral of light; the vanishing spiral of light evading the black velvet square.
The sequence ends.
[Sequence Three]
The entire sequence is a continuous overhead long shot with no cuts.
In the middle of the frame is a dead, naked body lying on a plinth in the center of an enormous pyramid.
There is a crisp white sheet draped over the bulbous belly of the corpse. As the camera zooms down, the belly starts to expand and the sheet starts to slide off.
There is the sound of dripping water from off-screen.
There are torches positioned along the walls of the pyramid and four torches flank the plinth that the body is laid out upon.
The floor of the pyramid is made of large paving stones, as are all of the walls. The flickering torches reveal deep grooves between each stone.
The sound of dripping water continues off-screen.
As the camera continues to slowly zoom in, the corpse’s bloated stomach continues to expand, and the white sheet draped precariously over top of it, continues to slide off.
There is the sound of tiny footsteps approaching from off-screen.
A small figure in a dark robe enters the frame and walks toward the dead body. They are holding a bowl of liquefied glaze in one hand and in their other hand they are holding a rough brown sponge.
The small robed figure removes the white sheet from the top of the body, letting it fall to the floor. Then they dip the sponge into the bowl of glaze and begin applying the shiny, sticky substance to the giant, distend
ed dome of the corpse’s stomach.
The small, robed figure moves up and down the belly, with the aid of a footstool, until a fresh coat of glaze is conveyed over all of it.
The corpse’s stomach stands, glistening and extended, but not expanding outward any further.
The small robed figure removes their own robe and, naked, climbs onto the corpse’s freshly burnished stomach, face down. They lie motionless on top of the corpse’s stomach until it starts to rumble.
The corpse’s stomach starts absorbing the small naked figure a little bit at a time; the naked figure squirms as parts of their body start to disappear beneath the surface of the varnished gut.
First the tiny figure’s fingertips disappear beneath the surface and then their hands become stuck.
The camera continues to zoom in as the small naked figure is subsumed by the giant spread of the deceased’s abdomen, up to their wrists, as they strain to keep their neck and head from being swallowed.
The corpse’s glistening potbelly subsumes the entire figure except its head, as they struggle to stay above the navel until, finally, their head disappears beneath the surface as well.
There is a pause and, except for the sound of dripping water from off-screen, silence, before the sound of approaching footsteps arises once again.
An almost identical, small, robed figure approaches the giant corpse and covers the stomach with the white sheet. They remove the footstool, take the bowl of glaze, and exit the shot.
The camera continues its slow zoom in. A tiny rumble appears in the stomach and then another, causing the sheet to slowly slip off of it.
The sequence ends.
Circle Of Pigs
Colorado, Texas, New Hampshire, Vermont and I had breakfast lyl;at the same restaurant at the same time every day. We always ate the same thing (a short stack of vanilla pancakes with black coffee) and we all dressed the same (black jeans, a white Western-style shirt, and a white cowboy hat that we were never allowed to take off). We did the same thing every day because if we didn’t, then the ritual wouldn’t work.
