Broadcast

by Liam Brown

  Incidentally, I’ve noticed most people prefer to leave the app on mute.

  Taken together, this bizarre collage of sound and video and images lend MindCast the anarchic, hallucinatory quality of an acid trip. It’s quite unlike anything I’ve seen before. Not that I spend much time sitting in front of it. In fact, I actually find it pretty uncomfortable to watch for any length of time at all. Just as with the coloured orb, I’ve noticed that seeing my thoughts playing out on the screen has the same annoying habit of drawing to my attention things I wasn’t really aware of, again creating a sort of psychic feedback loop. More than once, I’ve glanced down at the open app to see the outline of something that until that moment had been hovering on the very outer periphery of my consciousness, something I wasn’t even really aware was on my mind – an ex-girlfriend, or a lost t-shirt for example – only for it to immediately crystallise in both my head and on the screen. The act of seeing then seems to reaffirm it, to make it solid, until finally the image becomes unstable and begins to shudder and shake and my eye begins to twitch and my temples ache and I have to stuff my phone into my pocket and walk away to calm down.

  Yet as messy and difficult to watch as it is, the show is still undeniably popular. To my amazement, the view counter was registering a million views within a day or two of the first images appearing, and has continued to tick on ever since, now hovering at just below thirty million.

  ‘In what way is it complicated?’ the journalist asks. She is excited now. She senses her exclusive. Some tasty morsel she can use to bait her article.

  Beside me, Sarah shifts pointedly in her chair. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t need to.

  ‘Sorry, I misspoke,’ I shrug, reverting to the official copy I’ve already regurgitated half a dozen times this morning. ‘It’s all just so new to me, you know? What I meant to say was that everything you see on the screen is exactly how it appears in my head. It’s spookily accurate.’

  ‘Which is what has made the show such a hit with a global audience,’ Sarah chimes in. ‘In fact I’ve just heard that Portugal are the latest country in which David has gone viral.’

  The journalist sags.

  After fielding another two or three well-trodden questions, I bid my interviewer goodbye and Sarah leads me out of the hotel room and down to the lobby. When we get outside, I see a small group of MindCast fans are huddled by the doors along with the paparazzi, a number of them wearing cheap t-shirts emblazoned with my face. When they catch sight of me, a squeal goes up – they are mostly teenagers – and they swarm around me. While Sarah looks perturbed, I make an effort to stand there and talk to them for a few minutes, giving hugs and posing for selfies. While I’m mingling, I notice that every single one of them keeps their phone out, the MindCast app open. They seem torn, their eyes flickering between their screens and me until Sarah finally drags me away, steering me towards the waiting minivan. As I scramble into the back seat, I hear a scream go up from one of the girls. ‘Oh my God, did you see that? He was thinking about me. I was right there on the screen …’

  Seconds later the door slams shut behind me. The van pulls off and I peer through the tinted glass of the back window, slightly disappointed that none of the girls have chased after me. In truth, they all seem too absorbed in their phones to even notice I’ve gone.

  ‘We could really do with nailing down where we’re at with image rights,’ Sarah sniffs. ‘We’re losing a fortune in merchandising opportunities. Have you heard from Xan lately? I’ve tried calling his office but his people aren’t exactly forthcoming.’

  She looks even more tired than usual, her eyes red, her skin deathly pale. I wonder if she’s coming down with something. ‘Nope,’ I shrug. ‘I haven’t heard a thing.’

  It’s true. Despite Katya’s frequent reassurances that he’s loving the show and is planning to catch up with me just as soon as he’s back in the UK, I still haven’t spoken to Xan since our first meeting last month. It’s not only my life he’s disappeared from though. He seems to have dropped out of the public eye altogether. Not that you’d notice by scanning the media. MindCast’s sudden popularity has brought a surge of interest in Xan. Yet not one of the hundreds of articles that have appeared online over the last few days contain anything new from the man himself. What few quotes there are have been culled from old interviews, the same old story recycled, over and over again. Stranger still is the fact his various social media accounts have fallen quiet lately. Sure, they’re still there. Indeed they’re still technically active. But reading through his posts, he doesn’t seem to have personally written anything for months. Rather, his timeline is simply a series of bland reposted links and shares that look either automated or sent by a member of his team. Unlike Katya’s accounts – which I’ve also found myself returning to, especially late at night – there are no videos, no comments. What few images are there are simply old publicity shots. There’s nothing personal or candid or insightful. It’s confusing. You’d think he’d want to take advantage of the spotlight, yet it seems the opposite is true. Like a spider scurrying away from a lifted rock, Xan prefers the shadows to the hot glare of publicity.

  As the car weaves through the traffic, the city outside appears to fold in on itself, the buildings stacking ever higher, squeezing out the sky. In my jacket pocket, my phone starts to snarl. I slide it out. It’s Alice, more than likely trying to schedule another interview. My thumb hovers over the screen for a moment, before I select the red cross. Call rejected.

  ‘That reminds me,’ Sarah says. ‘How is the book going? On schedule?’

  I turn to her, momentarily confused before I spot she has MindCast open on her phone, a faint impression of Alice’s face still visible on the screen, like a watermark, a ghost.

  ‘It’s all good. Alice promises we’ve got one last interview to do and that should wrap it up. Mind you, she’s said that the last three times we’ve met.’

  Sarah doesn’t look up. ‘Well, see you do what she says. I know you don’t attach much importance to this book, but until we get a handle on this licensing thing, a book is as good a product as any. With the numbers you’re pulling at the moment, there’s potential for huge sales.’

  I nod. ‘I know, I know. I’ll meet her soon. It’s just been such a crazy few weeks and … Hey, why are we stopping here?’

  Sarah sighs. ‘We’re doing a one-thirty profile piece with Grazia over lunch. Honestly David, this is all in your diary. I sometimes wonder if you even look at the damn thing.’

  ‘Of course I don’t. That’s what I pay you for.’ I grin, unbuckle my seatbelt. ‘Besides, you should take it as a compliment. It shows how much I trust you.’

  Sarah doesn’t answer.

  As it happens, I recognise the restaurant from a video review Nadeem posted a few months back. Eddie Lee’s is a Cockney-Thai fusion place whose strapline runs ‘East Asia meets East End’. My heart sinks. Still, the waitress seems delighted to greet us at the door, casually dropping in that she’s a huge fan of MindCast as she leads us to our table, which is positioned in the very middle of the bustling restaurant.

  The journalist is already waiting for us and we immediately get down to business, the interview unfolding in much the same manner as the dozen or so others I’ve done so far this week. The questions aren’t exactly probing – I suspect that most of her article is already written, a copy-and-paste job from Wikipedia – and the only vaguely prickly moment comes when she asks whether I feel traditional videos are still a relevant format in the light of MindCast. The question catches me off guard. It’s been almost a fortnight since I last uploaded anything of my own, ever since I was asked – or rather ordered – by Katya to stop making videos. Apparently they represent a ‘conflict of interest’, something which Sarah has since sheepishly admitted to noticing in my contract.

  Conflict or not, there is also the more practical security issue to consider. Ever since MindCast started streaming more accurately, anything that requires a password
has become instantly off limits. That includes not only my video channel, but my email and social media accounts – all of which are now being managed by Xan’s army of public relations executives. I’ve even had my bank cards taken from me, having been told it’s now only safe for me to use cash.

  All of these thoughts evidently cause some ripples on the MindCast app, as the Grazia lady seems to get very excited for a moment while staring at her phone, before Sarah jumps in with a tedious spiel about consolidating my output and eventually the woman loses interest and lets it go.

  The food, when it finally arrives, is more traumatic than I’d feared. I’ve opted for the innocuous-sounding Knees Up Tom Yum Soup, but when it arrives I find the shrimp has been swapped for rollmops, the grey lumps of herring floating like bloated corpses in a puddle of blood. I don’t manage more than a few mouthfuls, though I wave the waitress away when she comes over looking concerned.

  ‘Big breakfast,’ I say, smiling as I pat my empty stomach.

  At last the interview stutters to a stop. Plates are cleared, desserts are declined. A bill appears. The journalist brandishes an expense card, punches in her PIN. Mints are sucked. Just as we are standing to leave however, a man in gleaming chef’s whites thunders towards us, his face redder than my inedible Tom Yum soup.

  ‘Is there a problem here?’ he asks, his jaw clenched with the effort of not screaming at me.

  I glance at Sarah, bewildered. ‘Umm …?’

  ‘I spoke to Suzie,’ the chef says, taking a step towards me. ‘Your waitress. She told me you said everything was fine.’

  ‘Sorry, I’m still not following?’

  ‘Cut the crap.’

  Around us I can sense diners looking over, evidently sensing a drama unfolding. Beside me the Grazia lady licks her lips.

  ‘If you had a problem with the food, why not be a man and come and talk to me about it?’ he continues. ‘Why act like a coward and just sit there thinking all this negative crap about my establishment?’

  It’s at this moment I notice the mobile phone clenched in the chef’s enormous fist. I can’t see the screen, but I already know what’s on there.

  ‘Listen …’ I begin, but he cuts me off.

  ‘No, you listen. I’ve worked incredibly hard to get this business off the ground. I’ve made sacrifices. Destroyed relationships. I haven’t read my kid a bedtime story in two years. I’ve put my fucking soul into this place. And then you turn up and start throwing your vile, hateful opinions around …’

  ‘Now hang on. I was perfectly polite to your waitress.’

  ‘That’s the whole point. Rather than telling her you didn’t like the food, you let the million or so people watching your stupid show know how crummy you thought it was. Have you got any kind of idea the damage that kind of exposure does? Or the lives that will be wrecked if this place goes under? Well, do you?’

  ‘I didn’t mean to … I’m sorry.’

  ‘Okay, that’s enough,’ Sarah says, gripping my shoulder and steering me away.

  ‘You can expect to hear from my lawyer,’ the chef yells. ‘Oh, and consider yourself banned for life, asshole. Don’t ever come back, you hear me?’

  As we pick our way between the crowded tables, I glance at the other diners. To my surprise I see they aren’t craning their necks to look at us. Rather, every single person there is staring at their phone. Again, I don’t need to see the screens to know what they’re watching.

  Outside the restaurant we say an awkward goodbye to the journalist, apologising profusely, though in truth she seems delighted to have been there to witness the fiasco. After she’s gone, Sarah reaches into her bag and produces a cigarette. It strikes me that I’ve never seen her smoke before.

  ‘Well that was a fucking shit show,’ she says, exhaling a lungful of smoke.

  I nod dolefully. ‘I just can’t believe how upset that guy was. I feel terrible. If I’d known he was watching the show I would never have … I mean, I just don’t like having jellied eel in my pad thai. Is that such a crime?’

  Sarah shrugs. ‘Who knows? It could be, in the hands of the right lawyer. I hate to say it, but you’re going to have to try and rein yourself in. I mean it, David. Otherwise someone really is going to end up suing for libel.’

  ‘Hang on a minute. So you’re saying it’s illegal to have an opinion now? But that’s my whole thing. Even Xan said so. I’m a commentator. A critic. If I can’t express my opinion then … then what’s the point of me?’

  ‘All I’m saying is that you need to be more responsible with your thoughts or you’re going to find yourself in a whole heap of trouble.’

  ‘But …’ I begin to argue, before I catch the look on Sarah’s face. She takes a final drag of her cigarette, drops it to the floor, and crushes it precisely under her Louboutin heel. It seems the conversation is over.

  ‘Come on,’ she says through a haze of smoke. ‘We’re late for your two o’clock.’

  Days pass. Months.

  Welcome to the voicemail of …

  I hang up. Nadeem isn’t answering his phone. Nadeem hasn’t been answering his phone for days. Nadeem isn’t talking to me.

  This in itself isn’t that unusual. Considering we’re supposed to be best friends, Nadeem can be both jealous and paranoid. We have a long and rich history of petty squabbles. This time feels different somehow. More permanent. It started a week ago, when he sent me a link to his latest video. Ostensibly he was looking for feedback, although obviously I knew the real reason. Ever since MindCast exploded, people haven’t stopped sending me things. Petitions. Show reels. Demos. Everyone’s looking for free publicity, for their moment in the sun. I’m just the latest platform, beaming live to an audience of millions. Lately it’s got so bad that I’ve had to get Sarah to start vetting my mail.

  Still, I guess that’s better than people asking me not to think about them. That’s happened a surprising number of times too. From film distributors, keen for me not to give away the twist in the movie I’ve just watched, to my own father. Though I note he didn’t have the guts to talk to me himself. Rather, my mum called to explain that, while they’re both pleased to see me doing so well, Dad would prefer it if I didn’t keep dwelling on my own childhood beatings whenever I see a kid misbehaving in public. I put it to her that if Dad was so embarrassed about people finding out he spanked me as a child, then perhaps he should have thought twice before he did it?

  ‘It’s not that, love,’ she simpered. ‘It’s just in our day these things used to be, well …’

  ‘Private?’ I finished for her. ‘Yeah well, in your day you also only had three television channels and you could buy a house for a hundred quid, so I think we can both agree things have moved on somewhat since then.’

  Anyway, I was disappointed when Nadeem asked me to look at his video. My parents are one thing, but this is my best friend. He’s not supposed to be so transparent. Besides, it’s not like he’s ever shown the slightest bit of interest in what I think before.

  Still, he nagged me so much that against my better judgement I gave in and clicked his stupid link. And I watched his stupid video. And even though I remembered what happened at the Thai restaurant, and Sarah’s advice to hold back, in the end I couldn’t help myself. I thought the video sucked. Or at least, I thought it could be better. Still, I wasn’t worried. I was sure Nadeem would value my honest critical input above empty platitudes. Surely, that would be more valuable to him in the long run?

  About five minutes after I finished watching the video, my phone started exploding with messages. I was jealous. I was a backstabber. I was trying to sabotage his career. Since then I’ve heard nothing. He won’t answer my calls. He won’t return my messages. Three years of friendship. Over. Just like that.

  After listening to Nadeem’s voicemail another few times I give up and go to find some breakfast. Not that I’m especially hungry. Days and weeks tend to bleed into each other so much lately that I feel obliged to respect arbitrary meal times
, if only as a way to ensure some vague semblance of structure in my life. It’s as if my twelve o’clock avocado and crayfish wrap is a tent pole, without which everything else would simply collapse. When I get to the kitchen though, there’s no food. I’ve still not really adjusted to being properly famous yet, and so haven’t come to terms with the fact I can no longer pop to the supermarket without being crushed by the mob of MindCast fans who swarm around my apartment night and day, clutching their homemade banners and their fake t-shirts and their selfie sticks. It’s just insane.

  Giving up on searching my cupboards, I instead take a couple of seconds to visualise a hot pepperoni pizza, in as much detail as I can muster. A crisp crust. Molten mozzarella. A dark circle of grease beginning to show through the thin cardboard delivery box. This is something I’ve started to do a fair bit over the last few weeks, with a surprising degree of success. Knowing that companies are desperate to promote their brand, I simply imagine something I need or want – a new pair of trainers, a Chinese takeaway – and more often than not it’ll arrive at my door within an hour. I used to do something similar when I was working on my videos, accepting freebies in return for review. This is just a scaled-up version. I guess it’s the closest thing I have to a superpower.

  While I wait for the pizza to appear, I wander around my apartment. The treadmill of interviews has ground to a halt recently, and though I am loath to admit it, I have increasingly found myself at a loose end, struggling to fill my days. It’s strange. I always thought that fame – genuine, restaurant-reservation-bumping, crazed-fans-chasing-me-down-the-street fame I am experiencing now – would be an end in itself. That I would be so involved with the day-to-day machinations of maintaining my spot at the top of the pile that I’d literally be begging for a day off. The truth is that lately I spend most of my time wondering what the hell I’m supposed to be doing. It’s gotten so bad I brought up the issue with Sarah.

  ‘What do you mean do? You don’t need to do anything. Just think. That’s what MindCast are paying you for. That’s the reason you’re on the front page of half the world’s magazines. All you have to do is think.’