by Liam Brown
‘Well, as I said, I don’t think it’s working very well at the moment,’ I mumble before seizing my chance. ‘Actually, if it’s okay with you I’m going to go and change into something marginally less disgusting. Make yourself comfortable here and I’ll be back out in a minute or two.’
When I come back through, I’m slightly taken aback to see the lights are off, the room lit by the flicker of candlelight. When I turn the corner, however, I find that it’s not candles that are casting shadows on the walls, but the MindCast app, which for some reason is now filling my TV screen.
‘I hope you don’t mind?’ Alice says, handing me a glass of wine. ‘I thought we could leave it on in the background while we chat. It’s just easier than having to keep glancing at my phone.’
‘Er, sure. That’s fine.’ I take a seat opposite her, positioning myself strategically so that my back is to the screen.
I watch as she proceeds to dip into her handbag to retrieve the familiar dictaphone, notepad and pen, lining them up neatly beside her glass, like a surgeon arranging her scalpels. Content, she looks up, her finger hovering above the Record button. ‘Are you ready?’ she asks.
As the evening rolls on, I do my best to be helpful. Even though we’ve covered a fair bit of this ground before – my family, my early career – I find myself attempting to be expansive in response to her questions, rather than simply moaning. As the interrogation goes on, I must admit that I’m slightly disconcerted that she keeps glancing at the screen behind me, as if checking my answers tally with the app before scrawling her notes in that illegible shorthand of hers. Still, after a while I relax into the rhythm of the interview. Perhaps it’s down to her persistent enthusiasm for MindCast, or maybe it is simply that she looks so much more approachable than usual, curled up on my sofa in her short party dress. Almost pretty. Either way, with the room bathed in a pale yellow light, I have to admit that I’m actually beginning to enjoy myself.
At some point I reach for my glass and find it empty. When I suggest a second bottle, Alice doesn’t protest. Coming back through from the kitchen, I suddenly remember something.
‘Hey. What happened to our deal?’
Alice stares at me blankly.
‘You know. For every question you ask me, I get to ask one back? All I’ve done is talk about myself for the last hour. You must owe me about ten by now.’
She laughs, shaking her head as she sets her notebook down on the coffee table. ‘Sure. So what do you want to know?’
I shrug. ‘Um. I’m not really sure. How about … Okay, what did you get up to last weekend? It was your brother’s wedding, right?’
‘Wow, I’m impressed. I wasn’t sure you were capable of retaining anything that isn’t directly related to you.’
‘Ouch. That hurts.’
‘No it doesn’t,’ she says, pointing to the TV, where the orb is flushed an indifferent shade of mauve. ‘But either way, the wedding. It was … fine.’
‘Just fine?’
‘Yeah. I mean, I suppose I should be glad my brother even made it after what those idiots put him through. He lost so much weight while he was in hospital. It’s just, I’m not sure weddings are really my sort of thing.’
‘You never fancied it yourself? The monster dress? The giant cake?’
‘Spare me. If by some miracle I did ever meet a guy – or girl – that I wanted to spend my life with, I certainly wouldn’t choose to cement our relationship by throwing some cliché-ridden debt-fest.’
‘So hold the roses and doves?’
‘Hold all of it. If I was going to do it, I’d much rather just elope somewhere quiet, with no fuss. Just the two of us.’
‘You and every other wannabe hipster, right? Don’t tell me, you’d pull a couple of witnesses off the street, wear a plain black dress and head to some crummy local pub afterwards for sausage rolls and pints of mild.’
‘Screw you,’ she laughs. ‘But yeah. Basically that. Or at least, more like that than the abomination my brother threw.’
‘That bad, huh?’
‘I’m not sure if bad is the right word. If anything it was perfect. I mean there was a bloody colour scheme for guests. Nothing was out of place.’
‘It was their special day. They wanted it to look nice. What’s so wrong about that?’
‘It’s just the whole thing just felt so disingenuous. More like a social media campaign than a celebration of their love. They had their own hashtag for Christ’s sake.’
‘And the problem is?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe nothing. I guess I just resent pivotal moments in our lives being reduced to nothing more than a photo opportunity. To fucking content. Something to like and share and then move on from, everything filtered and framed with the same bland conformity of a fashion spread, an endless popularity contest designed to distract us from the fact that our lives are pretty much totally bereft of any deeper meaning. It’s all just so depressing.’
‘Bereft of deeper meaning? Jesus, how old are you? Fifty? Because you sound like one of those middle-aged people from the Eighties who used to moan that rap music would be the downfall of an entire generation. So, your brother and his wife spent months planning an event and they decided to use technology to ensure that they can efficiently capture the day for posterity – maybe so they can share it with their children one day – and you somehow manage to equate this with the fall of Western civilisation? What’s next on your hit list? Video nasties? Threshing machines?’
‘All I was saying was …’
‘I know what you were saying. You think you’re so superior to everyone else because you still read books, listen to music on vinyl and use a shitty little tape recorder. But you’re a hypocrite. I’ve seen you online. Facebook. Twitter. Instagram. If it’s all so terrible and fake, how come you don’t just close your accounts? Walk away and live in the real world, ma-an?’
‘That’s not fair. I’m self-employed. I have to use those platforms so that I can work. But I don’t like them. They’re too … sticky. Addictive, even. I can lose hours if I’m not careful. It can’t be a coincidence that the words “web” and “net” are just another word for a trap.’
‘Oh please. I’ve seen your pictures. You don’t look particularly trapped to me.’
‘But that’s the point. None of it’s real. It’s nothing more than a projection of my professional self. A sanitised, idealised, two-dimensional cartoon. It’s got nothing to do with the real me. I’m not one of those people who have to share every aspect of their lives with strangers in order to validate their existence.’
‘Oh really? And so you’re working on a novel because what? You don’t need the validation of strangers?’
‘That’s different.’
‘Is it?’
For a moment we stare at each other in silence, the walls blazing molten red. The surface of the sun. The inside of a volcano.
Alice takes a breath. ‘Look, I’m sorry if I offended you. I’m not trying to make this a personal attack. It’s not about you or MindCast. All I was saying is that I, personally, am uncomfortable with turning my life into a public spectacle for the consumption of strangers. I just think it’s weird. Some things in life should be private … if that’s not a dirty word these days.’
I sniff. The room has cooled towards a pale pink – merely aggrieved rather than apoplectic – but I’m not quite willing to let it go yet. ‘So you think we should all go back to the pre-Internet – no, wait, pre-photography – era? Our experiences should be solely for our benefit alone lest we sully them through the act of capturing and sharing? Get real. Privacy’s a myth anyway. What, you think the government aren’t listening in on every phone call you make? Snooping on every message you send? I was reading the other day that there are something like six million CCTV cameras in the UK alone. Six million! There are no secrets anymore. All of our lives are public property now, whether we like it or not. At least I’ve got the guts to admit it. And more importantly, the sense to
take advantage of it. To profit from it. Take my friend Nadeem for example …’
Suddenly, Alice cuts in. ‘David, wait …’
I swat her away. I’m on a roll, and irritated by the interruption. ‘No, you wait.’
‘I’m serious David.’
This time, something in her voice makes me glance up at her. Even in the dim light, I can make out how pale she is, her expression stuck somewhere between horror and amazement.
‘The screen,’ she croaks, extending a finger towards the television. ‘It changed.’
I spin around, only to see the usual orb, this time throbbing a confused blue. ‘What, the colour thing? It always does that?’
She shakes her head. ‘No. The whole thing. It moved. A picture appeared. A face. When you mentioned Nadeem.’
At the mention of his name, the image on the screen gives a jolt, the orb fizzing and sputtering, as if electrified.
‘There, look. Did you see that?’
I nod, shuffling closer to the screen.
‘Try thinking about him again,’ she suggests.
I close my eyes and picture Nadeem. Almost immediately I hear Alice gasp, followed by murmurs of excitement. ‘It’s happening David. It’s doing it again.’
I open my eyes. This time there’s no mistaking it. The orb has vanished, replaced instead by the same flickering mist of pixels I’d seen when Xan had first demonstrated MindCast to me.
‘Don’t stop now,’ Alice says. ‘Keep focusing.’
Without taking my eyes from the television, I picture Nadeem again, tracing the contours of his face in my mind’s eye while the storm whips and swirls across the screen. Faster, faster, faster.
And then, just like that, he appears, staring straight back at us, his goofy grin perfectly reimagined. A frozen image. A photograph.
‘But this … this is impossible,’ Alice says. ‘Quick. Think of something else. Think about, I don’t know, kittens. Think about kittens.’
Almost the second she says it, Nadeem disappears, replaced instantly by a new image, a huge pair of eyes peeking out from a mass of white fur. As I stare at it, part of me feels like I half remember this cat from somewhere. Maybe one of my friend’s pets? Or …’
Before the thought has even formed a picture of my dad swims onto the screen. At least I think it’s my dad. He looks different. His hair thicker, his eyes brighter. Far younger than I can ever remember him being. Cradled in his arms is a large box.
And then I remember.
I can’t have been older than six or seven when Dad came home with it. Mum was furious that he hadn’t spoken to her first, but I was in love at first sight. What was its name again? Fluffy?
Even as I scramble to remember the details, the image shudders slightly. And then something incredible happens. The picture comes to life. Dad turns towards us. He smiles. Then he stoops down so we can see the tiny kitten curled up inside the box.
Scruffy. My first pet.
As I watch my childhood memory unfold on the screen, I feel a sudden warmth on my arm. Though I hadn’t noticed her get up, Alice is now standing behind me, her hand resting gently on my bicep. She is looking at me very seriously.
‘Incredible,’ she says, her voice so quiet it’s almost a whisper. ‘It’s just incredible.’
I grin. ‘I know, right?’
She shakes her head, her expression is impossible to read. Excited? Scared? I realise I have no idea what colour she would read. ‘What’s the matter?’ I ask.
‘Nothing,’ she says, finally letting go of my arm. ‘Listen, I’ve got to go. I’ve taken up far too much of your evening as it is.’
‘Alice, come on. This is awesome. What’s wrong?’
My father has disappeared from the TV screen now, replaced instead by the familiar glowing ball, which is once again emitting a pale blue light.
Confusion. Incomprehension.
‘Nothing,’ she says. ‘Really. It’s amazing. All of it. It’s a bloody miracle. And it’s going to change everything for you.’
She smiles, though it’s not really a smile.
‘I just hope you’re ready.’
‘You’re trending in Portugal.’
I’m sitting in a plush Mayfair hotel suite opposite a journalist from The Guardian when Sarah leans over to whisper in my ear. Today is Thursday, two weeks since the image of Nadeem first fizzed onto my television screen. In that time, events have unfurled at an astonishing pace, global interest in MindCast arriving with the sudden ferocity of a tsunami, comprehensively flattening my former routines and sweeping me out into the hitherto uncharted waters of the mainstream media.
Just as Alice had predicted, within a couple of hours of those first pictures appearing, a steady trickle of coverage began to ripple its way across message boards and blogs and social media channels. Even though MindCast had quickly reverted to its former, colour-splattered abstractions, it seems a handful of devout acolytes were conveniently online to capture the footage of Nadeem, and were soon busy sharing it. Once Alice had left – making me promise I’d meet her again soon for a follow-up interview – I slumped in front of my laptop in disbelief. Already the views were off the chart, my phone propelling itself across the coffee table with the sheer force of the alerts and comments and new followers that rasped constantly from its innards. It was unbelievable.
I followed the action for as long as I could, watching with a growing sense of excitement, until I at last dozed off at around three in the morning. I awoke a few hours later to forty missed calls from Sarah and as many texts again. While I’d been sleeping, it appeared the MindCast PR department had cranked into life, pushing out a series of statements to the media, who it turned out were now very interested in the show.
Later that day I conducted my very first television interview.
‘Sorry about that,’ I say, turning back to the journalist. ‘Would you mind repeating the question?’
She smiles. They always smile. I’m a big story. Perhaps the biggest right now. An exclusive comment from me will guarantee her a happy boss.
‘I was just trying to get a sense of how accurate, in your opinion, MindCast is?’ She holds up her phone. ‘I mean, what we see on the screen – is that really what you’re thinking?’
I nod. Laugh. This question again. ‘Well it’s complicated.’
That first day after Nadeem had appeared, the app began spitting out images and video with increasing regularity, until it’s reached the point where it now pretty much displays an uninterrupted feed around the clock. The footage it shows, however, is not necessarily what I’d imagined when Xan had originally pitched the show to me. Admittedly, some of the pictures are uncannily accurate, almost as if they’d literally been plucked from my brain and pasted up for the world to see. For example, if I consciously try and think about something – my dad, for instance, or a doughnut, or a dachshund puppy – the picture pops up almost instantly, highly detailed and in sharp focus, exactly as I’d imagined it. Other content, however, is far less straightforward. Memories, for example, are often displayed as little more than vague shadows, often out of sequence and filled with yawning gaps of pixelated blackness so that it’s impossible to understand what’s going on. It’s funny – until MindCast I’d always assumed that I was more or less like a walking CCTV camera, recording everything in my path before storing it away on some biological hard drive, ready for me to play back whenever I like. The memories that appear on MindCast are nothing like that though. I’ve noticed the older they are, the more distorted they tend to be, the picture stuttering like a bad stream, or a pirate DVD. Even when you can grasp the thread of a narrative, the details are often fluid, faces flickering, the colour of clothes or cars constantly changing as I struggle to fill the blanks in events that took place years, or even decades ago.
Other types of thought are even more confusing. Feelings are still categorised by colour, though instead of the dull reliability of the orb, my emotions are now integrated into the feed, colou
ring the pictures themselves. A sad memory involving my mother might turn her face bright blue, for example, whereas last year’s holiday in Tenerife tints the beach a fond shade of ochre, adding yet another layer of surrealism to the feed. This is especially apparent when a memory or thought triggers simultaneous feelings, meaning the corresponding picture on MindCast ends up looking like an image reflected in a puddle of oil. A petrochemical rainbow.
In addition to these psychedelic nightmares, words have recently begun appearing on the screen, rising from the digital mist without warning. Normally these take the form of a single noun or adjective, which may or may not directly relate to whatever is consciously on my mind. So, I might think about my bed and the word ‘comfortable’ might appear. Equally I might spot a pigeon and for no conceivable reason the word ‘refrigerator’ might materialise. Sometimes longer sentences turn up too, my internal narrative spelled out in faltering subtitles at the bottom of the screen. I say sentences, though more often than not they don’t make any sense. Rather they’re just strings of gibberish, as if tapped out by a gin-addled stenographer. This can be particularly amusing when these subtitles are audible. For just as I heard Katya’s mother speaking to her across the years, there is also a soundtrack to my thoughts, though one that is strange and often difficult to understand. The nonsense subtitles are pronounced phonetically, delivered with the same deadpan intonation as a sat nav. Garbled snatches of conversations also emerge, the words warped and warbling, as if recorded underwater, competing with misremembered melodies from Top Forty hits and phrases from childhood nursery rhymes and jingles from radio adverts, as well as a whole other host of indecipherable clangs and chimes and crashes that make up the alphabet soup of my subconscious.
