"The truth is, I have such a tenuous hold on my body already–on the vicissitudes of my emotions–and I’m terrified that this operation might send me even further away from myself. I’d like to feel more human and less like a malfunctioning machine. But I’m trying to set that all aside." |
“Ready for your new body?” my boss asks, parting the room with one of her wings, as if my new body lay somewhere in her apartment.
She’s dressed in what looks like the exoskeleton of a butterfly. Her strawberry blond hair flattened and pinned back. Silver fabric extends from each arm, giving the impression that if she flapped hard enough, she’d be able to glide above the city streets. This is normal for Blair. Gaudy apparel that’s pushing on Comic Con cosplay. Six-inch heels, shoes with dangerously placed spikes. I’ve never seen her in anything less.
“Just hope I’ll be able to recognize myself after the procedure,” I say, forcing a laugh.
Blair grabs a champagne flute from the counter and pushes it toward me. “Drink,” she says, motioning toward the bubbly orange concoction. “It’s a longevity mix my trainer put together. Good for the nerves. Great for the bones.”
If I’m honest, I’m afraid of her. There’s a severity that always finds its way through Blair’s manufactured lightness. A part of her that’s always threatening to veer into dissatisfaction, bear its claws.
I’m responsible for Blair’s social media posts. On LinkedIn, it says I am Director of Content. Mostly, I’m just quality assurance for an artificial intelligence app that does all the writing. The pay isn’t terrible, and I get to work from home.
Today, however, is something different. Today, I’m being made into a cyborg. A rudimentary one. This is Blair’s rule. After six months on the job, you get a microchip in your hand so people can scan your business card directly to their phones at conferences. It’s less about use value and more about fitting into the company brand. The brand being Blair, her podcast, her reality TV show, her transhumanist celebrity.
A stocky man with a camera bounces silently around the room. There’s an urgency to his movements, as if slipping into the foreground, attracting any sort of notice, might be terminal. Everything is content–moments to be cut up into social media sound bites.
Blair’s half metal. You wouldn’t know by looking, but inside of her there’s a complex network of machine augmentations. Some of it’s just for health monitoring. Other, more exciting aspects of her body include the module that allows her to telepathically send text messages or the semiconductors spread across her limbs that give her autonomy over a fleet of landscaping droids that work her properties in Dubai.
I scan the apartment. Floor to ceiling windows overlook Union Square to the east. A framed still of Leonardo Dicaprio as Jordan Belfort–glass raised, mouth agape, mid-celebration–hangs opposite the bed.
Something recoils, burrows into my stomach. I fall onto the couch beside a silver-haired man who has an elastic quality to him that reminds me of the inflatable tube guy outside car dealerships. He introduces himself as Alex, a friend of Blair’s, along for the ride. I get the sense that he wanted some time on camera.
“So, Sam, tell me…” Blair steps into the role of cordial interviewer. The camera bobs around her. “How do you feel about getting your first microchip?” There’s something close to innocence behind Blair’s smile, and for the first time, I consider that she might be someone desperate for approval.
Flustered, trying to follow the possibilities for an answer that makes me palatable, I raise my phone in front of my face. The move is awkward, stunted. I can see the camera floating toward me in my periphery.
“I already feel like a cyborg,” I say, thrusting my phone in a way I hope conveys its inseparability from my hand. “So, you know, I imagine this won’t be too different.”
Blair smiles weakly, her mind already somewhere else, her face half recognizing the need for a response.
The truth is, I have such a tenuous hold on my body already–on the vicissitudes of my emotions–and I’m terrified that this operation might send me even further away from myself. I’d like to feel more human and less like a malfunctioning machine. But I’m trying to set that all aside.
Blair, legally, cannot force me into getting a microchip. Though, if I refused, I’m sure she’d find some other reason to fire me. I’m anything but irreplaceable.
“And you, Alex, what do you think of these microchips?” Blair asks. “We’re seeing more and more people starting to build out their bodies with these things. Good? Bad? Talk.”
“Incredibly exciting,” Alex says breezily. “You obviously know, I consider myself–just like you–a die-hard transhumanist, and I’m always eager to find new ways to augment our bodies. This is the future for God’s sake. I don’t want to be holding a phone up to my face for the rest of my life. I want to be the phone, you know?”
His accent is smooth, oily, caught somewhere between the Middle East and Oceania.
We’re driving to a place just outside of Philadelphia for the procedure, which I’m told is simple and routine–no more complicated than an ear piercing.
It’s just a lifeless chip placed underneath the epidermis between my thumb and forefinger. It’s nothing, I keep telling myself. Still, I’ve gone down the internet wormholes and read about the possible complications: hematoma, a stiffness in the limbs, muscle spasms. It’s an area that lacks research, critics say. We don’t know the long-term effects on the body, the brain.
Blair wants us to dance. She wants to put on a little party for the camera. She starts playing Alphaville’s “Forever Young” through her phone. She sways her hips, then stiffly extends her arms. “Dance!” she commands us.
I politely bob my head, as a painful awareness of the room’s stilted air bears down.
“Eleven in the morning is a little early for a dance party, no?” Alex tucks himself behind an unctuous smile.
I make some pronounced arm movements and smile stupidly. The air is the kind that hangs over a seance, still and fraught.
Now Blair wants a picture. Wide smiles into the camera. The outside of my right arm pushes against her back, which feels thin and delicate, in stark contrast to the firm, blooming edges of her dress.
“Microchip party on three.”
I smile, with teeth and then without. I think of how I’ll appear on the internet. An eager extra to Blair’s wild and magnificent adventures. The forced laughter makes my cheeks hurt.
She’s dressed in what looks like the exoskeleton of a butterfly. Her strawberry blond hair flattened and pinned back. Silver fabric extends from each arm, giving the impression that if she flapped hard enough, she’d be able to glide above the city streets. This is normal for Blair. Gaudy apparel that’s pushing on Comic Con cosplay. Six-inch heels, shoes with dangerously placed spikes. I’ve never seen her in anything less.
“Just hope I’ll be able to recognize myself after the procedure,” I say, forcing a laugh.
Blair grabs a champagne flute from the counter and pushes it toward me. “Drink,” she says, motioning toward the bubbly orange concoction. “It’s a longevity mix my trainer put together. Good for the nerves. Great for the bones.”
If I’m honest, I’m afraid of her. There’s a severity that always finds its way through Blair’s manufactured lightness. A part of her that’s always threatening to veer into dissatisfaction, bear its claws.
I’m responsible for Blair’s social media posts. On LinkedIn, it says I am Director of Content. Mostly, I’m just quality assurance for an artificial intelligence app that does all the writing. The pay isn’t terrible, and I get to work from home.
Today, however, is something different. Today, I’m being made into a cyborg. A rudimentary one. This is Blair’s rule. After six months on the job, you get a microchip in your hand so people can scan your business card directly to their phones at conferences. It’s less about use value and more about fitting into the company brand. The brand being Blair, her podcast, her reality TV show, her transhumanist celebrity.
A stocky man with a camera bounces silently around the room. There’s an urgency to his movements, as if slipping into the foreground, attracting any sort of notice, might be terminal. Everything is content–moments to be cut up into social media sound bites.
Blair’s half metal. You wouldn’t know by looking, but inside of her there’s a complex network of machine augmentations. Some of it’s just for health monitoring. Other, more exciting aspects of her body include the module that allows her to telepathically send text messages or the semiconductors spread across her limbs that give her autonomy over a fleet of landscaping droids that work her properties in Dubai.
I scan the apartment. Floor to ceiling windows overlook Union Square to the east. A framed still of Leonardo Dicaprio as Jordan Belfort–glass raised, mouth agape, mid-celebration–hangs opposite the bed.
Something recoils, burrows into my stomach. I fall onto the couch beside a silver-haired man who has an elastic quality to him that reminds me of the inflatable tube guy outside car dealerships. He introduces himself as Alex, a friend of Blair’s, along for the ride. I get the sense that he wanted some time on camera.
“So, Sam, tell me…” Blair steps into the role of cordial interviewer. The camera bobs around her. “How do you feel about getting your first microchip?” There’s something close to innocence behind Blair’s smile, and for the first time, I consider that she might be someone desperate for approval.
Flustered, trying to follow the possibilities for an answer that makes me palatable, I raise my phone in front of my face. The move is awkward, stunted. I can see the camera floating toward me in my periphery.
“I already feel like a cyborg,” I say, thrusting my phone in a way I hope conveys its inseparability from my hand. “So, you know, I imagine this won’t be too different.”
Blair smiles weakly, her mind already somewhere else, her face half recognizing the need for a response.
The truth is, I have such a tenuous hold on my body already–on the vicissitudes of my emotions–and I’m terrified that this operation might send me even further away from myself. I’d like to feel more human and less like a malfunctioning machine. But I’m trying to set that all aside.
Blair, legally, cannot force me into getting a microchip. Though, if I refused, I’m sure she’d find some other reason to fire me. I’m anything but irreplaceable.
“And you, Alex, what do you think of these microchips?” Blair asks. “We’re seeing more and more people starting to build out their bodies with these things. Good? Bad? Talk.”
“Incredibly exciting,” Alex says breezily. “You obviously know, I consider myself–just like you–a die-hard transhumanist, and I’m always eager to find new ways to augment our bodies. This is the future for God’s sake. I don’t want to be holding a phone up to my face for the rest of my life. I want to be the phone, you know?”
His accent is smooth, oily, caught somewhere between the Middle East and Oceania.
We’re driving to a place just outside of Philadelphia for the procedure, which I’m told is simple and routine–no more complicated than an ear piercing.
It’s just a lifeless chip placed underneath the epidermis between my thumb and forefinger. It’s nothing, I keep telling myself. Still, I’ve gone down the internet wormholes and read about the possible complications: hematoma, a stiffness in the limbs, muscle spasms. It’s an area that lacks research, critics say. We don’t know the long-term effects on the body, the brain.
Blair wants us to dance. She wants to put on a little party for the camera. She starts playing Alphaville’s “Forever Young” through her phone. She sways her hips, then stiffly extends her arms. “Dance!” she commands us.
I politely bob my head, as a painful awareness of the room’s stilted air bears down.
“Eleven in the morning is a little early for a dance party, no?” Alex tucks himself behind an unctuous smile.
I make some pronounced arm movements and smile stupidly. The air is the kind that hangs over a seance, still and fraught.
Now Blair wants a picture. Wide smiles into the camera. The outside of my right arm pushes against her back, which feels thin and delicate, in stark contrast to the firm, blooming edges of her dress.
“Microchip party on three.”
I smile, with teeth and then without. I think of how I’ll appear on the internet. An eager extra to Blair’s wild and magnificent adventures. The forced laughter makes my cheeks hurt.
*
The elevator stops on our way to ground level, opening for an older Jewish woman. “Don’t film me,” she says, seeing the camera, finding herself suddenly in the middle of a freakshow. “You don’t have my permission.”
“Oh, it’s okay,” Blair coos, deftly adopting a gentle demeanor. “It’s for my reality show.” “Whatever. Don’t film me.”
The contrast of worlds is striking. It’s as if Blair and the whole section of my life that she occupies has, until this moment, been make-believe, an apparition, palpable only now because of this collision with the stark, dry reality of a willful bubby.
“We won’t show it,” Blair says, now perturbed by the intrusion.
“That’s right you won’t, because I didn’t give you permission.” The doors open, and bubby sprints through the building’s foyer toward 6th Avenue.
Outside, a steady gray rain pelts the sidewalk. We’ve rented a driverless car. A boxy, silver SUV. I’m loading it with the helium balloons that Blair demanded we take with.
“Do we really need these fucking balloons?” asks Alex, swatting one of them aside as he climbs into the vehicle.
The cameraman mumbles something about production value. My pocket buzzes. It’s Blair asking for an umbrella.
I look toward her–halfway up the block under an awning in a ridiculous outfit, the traffic on 6th Avenue speeding past in the background.
“I’ll be right back,” I say, lightly touching Blair’s arm as I jog past.
Our eyes meet and briefly I imagine myself as a confidante–the thoughtless, instinctual graze of my fingers against her left tricep having opened some door.
I run to the bodega on the next corner. By the time I’m getting back, the SUV is pulling up to the curb near Blair. I hand her the umbrella and guide her toward the car, feeling myself falling into a role I would with a girlfriend–silently anticipating needs, attending to them. There’s a pleasure I get from the subtle recognition that shows on Blair’s face when I hand over her umbrella. Someone is looking after her, efficiently, wordlessly.
In the car, Blair can’t get her seatbelt on. I’m trying to find the buckle near her hip. “Do you mind if we stop in SoHo to pick up my Airpod case?” Alex asks.
“Alex, we can’t. We’re already twenty minutes behind schedule.”
“It’ll take a few minutes,” Alex pleads.
“We don’t have the time.”
I’m surprised when he persists. A shameless whine.
“It’s just everything in my life is ten percent better with them.” Alex rolls his eyes and presses his neck against the headrest.
I still can’t get Blair’s belt into the buckle. I feel my face burning red. My fingers keep brushing against the side of her ass. The bottom of the outfit is a sort of tube skirt that ends mid-thigh. I notice the goosebumps running up her legs. She’s smaller than I thought. Now that I’m squeezed against her, trying to buckle her seatbelt, make sure she’s comfortable, she seems small. The belt clicks into the buckle. Blair lets out her breath.
“Two hours to Bensalem, Pennsylvania,” the car says.
“Oh, it’s okay,” Blair coos, deftly adopting a gentle demeanor. “It’s for my reality show.” “Whatever. Don’t film me.”
The contrast of worlds is striking. It’s as if Blair and the whole section of my life that she occupies has, until this moment, been make-believe, an apparition, palpable only now because of this collision with the stark, dry reality of a willful bubby.
“We won’t show it,” Blair says, now perturbed by the intrusion.
“That’s right you won’t, because I didn’t give you permission.” The doors open, and bubby sprints through the building’s foyer toward 6th Avenue.
Outside, a steady gray rain pelts the sidewalk. We’ve rented a driverless car. A boxy, silver SUV. I’m loading it with the helium balloons that Blair demanded we take with.
“Do we really need these fucking balloons?” asks Alex, swatting one of them aside as he climbs into the vehicle.
The cameraman mumbles something about production value. My pocket buzzes. It’s Blair asking for an umbrella.
I look toward her–halfway up the block under an awning in a ridiculous outfit, the traffic on 6th Avenue speeding past in the background.
“I’ll be right back,” I say, lightly touching Blair’s arm as I jog past.
Our eyes meet and briefly I imagine myself as a confidante–the thoughtless, instinctual graze of my fingers against her left tricep having opened some door.
I run to the bodega on the next corner. By the time I’m getting back, the SUV is pulling up to the curb near Blair. I hand her the umbrella and guide her toward the car, feeling myself falling into a role I would with a girlfriend–silently anticipating needs, attending to them. There’s a pleasure I get from the subtle recognition that shows on Blair’s face when I hand over her umbrella. Someone is looking after her, efficiently, wordlessly.
In the car, Blair can’t get her seatbelt on. I’m trying to find the buckle near her hip. “Do you mind if we stop in SoHo to pick up my Airpod case?” Alex asks.
“Alex, we can’t. We’re already twenty minutes behind schedule.”
“It’ll take a few minutes,” Alex pleads.
“We don’t have the time.”
I’m surprised when he persists. A shameless whine.
“It’s just everything in my life is ten percent better with them.” Alex rolls his eyes and presses his neck against the headrest.
I still can’t get Blair’s belt into the buckle. I feel my face burning red. My fingers keep brushing against the side of her ass. The bottom of the outfit is a sort of tube skirt that ends mid-thigh. I notice the goosebumps running up her legs. She’s smaller than I thought. Now that I’m squeezed against her, trying to buckle her seatbelt, make sure she’s comfortable, she seems small. The belt clicks into the buckle. Blair lets out her breath.
“Two hours to Bensalem, Pennsylvania,” the car says.
*
The interstate glides by. We merge into the left lane. Eighty miles per hour two feet from a cement barricade. I imagine the SUV nicking the divider. I watch us levitate, our bodies suddenly weightless, a forward flip. The turbulence gives way to a white light, heat. Then nothing.
It’s like a tic, a compulsion. Everytime I step into a vehicle I’ve got to see it erupt into flames, or else collide with a semi-truck. I’ve got to see my death laid out in front of me. Maybe as a way to prevent it. Maybe as a way to accept it.
I watch the car’s steering wheel jerk slightly to the right and then straighten out again, adhering to the demands of some spectral chauffeur.
“I want to get a tattoo,” Blair says, squaring her shoulders to the center of the vehicle, trying to initiate a scene, contrive a moment. “I’m thinking, like, a thunderbolt on my left arm. That would be so epic, right? ”
I start to notice the regularity with which Blair turns her statements into questions. The uncertainty at the center of it all, paved over by brusque directives.
“So cool,” Alex oozes. There’s still a pleading quality to his eyes that’s been there since the Airpod debacle.
The camera swivels. I’m grateful for the privacy afforded by the little alien-shaped balloon hovering in front of my face.
“Or maybe a butterfly,” Blair says. “I used to love butterflies. It’s quite sad about what’s happened to them, no?”
I listen. I watch what’s outside the window. I keep behind the balloon.
Outside the window, the cement barricade curves back and forth like a snake. It heads toward us and then breaks off in the other direction. Back and forth. Swimming in the center of the interstate. Everything has a life. Inanimate things. Memories. A misplaced comment from a decade ago. You can make a thing grow just by paying attention to it.
Blair pulls her skirt toward her knees. It keeps edging up toward the top of her thighs.
I’ve imagined having sex with her. Usually, it’s presented in my head as a sort of work task. Blair tells me to meet her in a hotel room. She disrobes, spreads out on the bed, makes me eat her out, tells me to fuck her in this way or that. The dynamic is that she is taking from me, using me. I can’t imagine it any other way.
“You’re getting all this, yeah?” Blair snaps at the cameraman, who’s momentarily taken a break from filming, resting the camera in his lap. The red light flicks back on. The lens focuses again on Blair, as she goads Alex into committing to matching tattoos.
Last year, Blair produced and starred in a documentary where she strapped on a VR headset for two days and wandered through virtual worlds until she started throwing up. She has a line of virtual reality power suits. The EU put her on some Interpol committee that ostensibly oversees ethical standards of engagement in the metaverse. Just days ago, she returned from Arizona, where she interviewed the founder of a cryonics facility. She posted a photo on location with the caption, “I’m going to freeze my body so that I can be brought back when we’ve cured the disease of aging. Wouldn’t you?”
Sometimes she sends me videos of a buff private equity founder who wears a tank top and yells at his followers to work harder. This is how she wants me to position her. Like an idiot, I think? As successful and polarizing and assertive, she says, whatever drives engagement.
It’s like a tic, a compulsion. Everytime I step into a vehicle I’ve got to see it erupt into flames, or else collide with a semi-truck. I’ve got to see my death laid out in front of me. Maybe as a way to prevent it. Maybe as a way to accept it.
I watch the car’s steering wheel jerk slightly to the right and then straighten out again, adhering to the demands of some spectral chauffeur.
“I want to get a tattoo,” Blair says, squaring her shoulders to the center of the vehicle, trying to initiate a scene, contrive a moment. “I’m thinking, like, a thunderbolt on my left arm. That would be so epic, right? ”
I start to notice the regularity with which Blair turns her statements into questions. The uncertainty at the center of it all, paved over by brusque directives.
“So cool,” Alex oozes. There’s still a pleading quality to his eyes that’s been there since the Airpod debacle.
The camera swivels. I’m grateful for the privacy afforded by the little alien-shaped balloon hovering in front of my face.
“Or maybe a butterfly,” Blair says. “I used to love butterflies. It’s quite sad about what’s happened to them, no?”
I listen. I watch what’s outside the window. I keep behind the balloon.
Outside the window, the cement barricade curves back and forth like a snake. It heads toward us and then breaks off in the other direction. Back and forth. Swimming in the center of the interstate. Everything has a life. Inanimate things. Memories. A misplaced comment from a decade ago. You can make a thing grow just by paying attention to it.
Blair pulls her skirt toward her knees. It keeps edging up toward the top of her thighs.
I’ve imagined having sex with her. Usually, it’s presented in my head as a sort of work task. Blair tells me to meet her in a hotel room. She disrobes, spreads out on the bed, makes me eat her out, tells me to fuck her in this way or that. The dynamic is that she is taking from me, using me. I can’t imagine it any other way.
“You’re getting all this, yeah?” Blair snaps at the cameraman, who’s momentarily taken a break from filming, resting the camera in his lap. The red light flicks back on. The lens focuses again on Blair, as she goads Alex into committing to matching tattoos.
Last year, Blair produced and starred in a documentary where she strapped on a VR headset for two days and wandered through virtual worlds until she started throwing up. She has a line of virtual reality power suits. The EU put her on some Interpol committee that ostensibly oversees ethical standards of engagement in the metaverse. Just days ago, she returned from Arizona, where she interviewed the founder of a cryonics facility. She posted a photo on location with the caption, “I’m going to freeze my body so that I can be brought back when we’ve cured the disease of aging. Wouldn’t you?”
Sometimes she sends me videos of a buff private equity founder who wears a tank top and yells at his followers to work harder. This is how she wants me to position her. Like an idiot, I think? As successful and polarizing and assertive, she says, whatever drives engagement.
*
“This is America,” Alex says, equal parts wondrous and disdainful, casting an arm across the vast interior of the Texas Roadhouse, loud, packed to the brim.
The host told us it would be a two-hour wait. Alex pushed through the crowd at the door and found us some seats at the bar.
Blue collar families, a license plate with a Confederate flag on it, a retired couple drinking oversized margaritas, a young family watching the game, two older black women sharing appetizers and cocktails, servers wearing tucked-in T-shirts that say “I Love My Job” on the backside.
Blair orders tater skins and mozzarella sticks. I watch her lips squeeze out the words to the waiter, but I imagine the words ‘tater skins’, in her mind, as lacking any context, as just meaningless words on a laminated menu. When they arrive, Blair lifts one of the skins off the plate with her long manicured nails.
“Excuse me,” Alex tugs on a server’s arm. “What’s the wifi here?”
The server breaks out a sympathetic frown. “Oh I’m sorry, we don’t have any wifi.”
Alex lets the server go and turns toward me. “Who doesn’t have fucking wifi? It’s like a third-world country in here.”
All of a sudden, I feel oddly protective of the Texas Roadhouse, of its patrons. How difficult it is to live a life. There’s comfort to be found in a deep-fried appetizer.
“What do you do?” I ask Alex, realizing how little I know of the man sitting next to me.
“Virtual reality fitness,” he says. “You put the goggles on and join the workout classes.” He pulls out his phone and calls up a video of people in VR headsets, bouncing, jumping. It looks like they're inside some inane Candy Crush game. The participants reach for coins that zip overhead. They maneuver around obstacles in strange, jerky movements. They gather points. Their headsets emit pings of approval. This is the future of fitness, Alex tells me.
I’m still waiting for my salad when Blair says she wants to leave. “I’ll get mine to-go,” I say.
The microchip injection site is just across the street. Blair leads Alex out of the restaurant, and for a few moments I get to be alone.
I think about ordering a drink and then think better of it. It’s difficult to wrest control of your life. I think about that time in eighth grade when my lungs stopped working on their own. I had to make an intentional effort to inhale, to exhale. After that, I had difficulty swallowing. It was as if my autonomous nervous system decided on revolt. The last thing was the insomnia, which never went away. I stay up at night running through the possibilities of my death, as if such an endeavor is the engine keeping me alive.
Before the pills, it was perpetual anxiety. In the morning. At night. Always getting in the way, always stopping me before I’d begun.
The job with Blair allowed me health insurance, a platinum plan. And that allowed me the pills. Relaxicon™, little-pink circular tablets to deal with the stress.
Two days after I went on the pills, I was walking down my block, the mild afternoon sun hanging above, and everything seemed right, in order, perfectly-fine. Maybe I’ve never actually been happy in my life, I thought.
The anxiety moved away, or got locked behind a door. A buffer zone was erected to shield me from the sharper edges of my emotions.
I don’t want to go back to what things were like.
Sometimes I really do feel like an extra that exists entirely in Blair’s orbit. I’ve lost the thread of my own aspirations.
“Busiest day of the year,” I hear a waiter say somewhere.
There’s a thickness to the air, a heaviness. Grease and noise. The repulsiveness and perseverance of the place push up against each other. A man slides himself out of a booth, putting his weight on a cane. Big families lumber through the maze of tables. Servers this way and that, apologizing for the wait, asking about refills, acting so much nicer than they have any right to be.
Someone brings my salad from the kitchen. I untie the plastic bag, unlatch the styrofoam container, and start eating at the bar. It’s only when Blair texts me to ask where I am that I stand up and walk out to go find her.
The host told us it would be a two-hour wait. Alex pushed through the crowd at the door and found us some seats at the bar.
Blue collar families, a license plate with a Confederate flag on it, a retired couple drinking oversized margaritas, a young family watching the game, two older black women sharing appetizers and cocktails, servers wearing tucked-in T-shirts that say “I Love My Job” on the backside.
Blair orders tater skins and mozzarella sticks. I watch her lips squeeze out the words to the waiter, but I imagine the words ‘tater skins’, in her mind, as lacking any context, as just meaningless words on a laminated menu. When they arrive, Blair lifts one of the skins off the plate with her long manicured nails.
“Excuse me,” Alex tugs on a server’s arm. “What’s the wifi here?”
The server breaks out a sympathetic frown. “Oh I’m sorry, we don’t have any wifi.”
Alex lets the server go and turns toward me. “Who doesn’t have fucking wifi? It’s like a third-world country in here.”
All of a sudden, I feel oddly protective of the Texas Roadhouse, of its patrons. How difficult it is to live a life. There’s comfort to be found in a deep-fried appetizer.
“What do you do?” I ask Alex, realizing how little I know of the man sitting next to me.
“Virtual reality fitness,” he says. “You put the goggles on and join the workout classes.” He pulls out his phone and calls up a video of people in VR headsets, bouncing, jumping. It looks like they're inside some inane Candy Crush game. The participants reach for coins that zip overhead. They maneuver around obstacles in strange, jerky movements. They gather points. Their headsets emit pings of approval. This is the future of fitness, Alex tells me.
I’m still waiting for my salad when Blair says she wants to leave. “I’ll get mine to-go,” I say.
The microchip injection site is just across the street. Blair leads Alex out of the restaurant, and for a few moments I get to be alone.
I think about ordering a drink and then think better of it. It’s difficult to wrest control of your life. I think about that time in eighth grade when my lungs stopped working on their own. I had to make an intentional effort to inhale, to exhale. After that, I had difficulty swallowing. It was as if my autonomous nervous system decided on revolt. The last thing was the insomnia, which never went away. I stay up at night running through the possibilities of my death, as if such an endeavor is the engine keeping me alive.
Before the pills, it was perpetual anxiety. In the morning. At night. Always getting in the way, always stopping me before I’d begun.
The job with Blair allowed me health insurance, a platinum plan. And that allowed me the pills. Relaxicon™, little-pink circular tablets to deal with the stress.
Two days after I went on the pills, I was walking down my block, the mild afternoon sun hanging above, and everything seemed right, in order, perfectly-fine. Maybe I’ve never actually been happy in my life, I thought.
The anxiety moved away, or got locked behind a door. A buffer zone was erected to shield me from the sharper edges of my emotions.
I don’t want to go back to what things were like.
Sometimes I really do feel like an extra that exists entirely in Blair’s orbit. I’ve lost the thread of my own aspirations.
“Busiest day of the year,” I hear a waiter say somewhere.
There’s a thickness to the air, a heaviness. Grease and noise. The repulsiveness and perseverance of the place push up against each other. A man slides himself out of a booth, putting his weight on a cane. Big families lumber through the maze of tables. Servers this way and that, apologizing for the wait, asking about refills, acting so much nicer than they have any right to be.
Someone brings my salad from the kitchen. I untie the plastic bag, unlatch the styrofoam container, and start eating at the bar. It’s only when Blair texts me to ask where I am that I stand up and walk out to go find her.
*
The man who’s doing the microchip injection seems uncomfortable. He’s a tall guy with a soul patch, and he keeps saying that he’s not used to being on camera. Blair tells him he’s a natural.
There’s a robot in the corner of the room that’s handing the man his tools. The robot’s skull is transparent and you can see all the wires. The face and shoulders are made of some kind of orange-beige rubber. The thing has eyelashes.
“Quite the assistant you’ve got here.” Blair stares into the robot’s face, which maneuvers slowly into an expression of grotesque surprise.
“I’m thrilled to be here with you, Blair,” the robot says. “I’ve heard of you because my father watches you on TV.”
The man with the soul patch turns crimson, mumbles something gruffly, and then bends down to plug in what looks like a plastic gun with a long metal tube at the end.
“Well that is just so sweet of you, isn’t it?” Blair responds. She speaks in a tone appropriate for a child, soft and slow.
“I love your outfit,” the robot says.
“What does it feel like to be a robot?” Blair asks.
“I cannot feel emotions,” the robot says, frowning, lowering her arms in defeat. “Gauze,” the man says, standing to face me.
The robot pulls a bandage from a drawer and holds it next to the man’s face.
“Ready?” the man asks, but before I can respond, I feel the cold tip of a needle piercing the skin near my wrist and the world quickly dissolves into a shimmering darkness.
There’s a robot in the corner of the room that’s handing the man his tools. The robot’s skull is transparent and you can see all the wires. The face and shoulders are made of some kind of orange-beige rubber. The thing has eyelashes.
“Quite the assistant you’ve got here.” Blair stares into the robot’s face, which maneuvers slowly into an expression of grotesque surprise.
“I’m thrilled to be here with you, Blair,” the robot says. “I’ve heard of you because my father watches you on TV.”
The man with the soul patch turns crimson, mumbles something gruffly, and then bends down to plug in what looks like a plastic gun with a long metal tube at the end.
“Well that is just so sweet of you, isn’t it?” Blair responds. She speaks in a tone appropriate for a child, soft and slow.
“I love your outfit,” the robot says.
“What does it feel like to be a robot?” Blair asks.
“I cannot feel emotions,” the robot says, frowning, lowering her arms in defeat. “Gauze,” the man says, standing to face me.
The robot pulls a bandage from a drawer and holds it next to the man’s face.
“Ready?” the man asks, but before I can respond, I feel the cold tip of a needle piercing the skin near my wrist and the world quickly dissolves into a shimmering darkness.
*
The first thing I see when I wake up is the robot’s flinching eyes about six inches from my face. It’s gently touching my neck with one of its arms, and I gather from the little screen pulsating in the middle of its chest that the robot’s been given the task of monitoring my vitals.
“Hello, you’ve been sleeping,” the robot says.
I can hear Blair’s voice carrying from an adjacent room. “When is he going to wake up?” Blair demands.
“I don’t know, this doesn’t usually happen,” the man says, a defensiveness buoying his words. “You didn’t tell me he was on Relaxicon™. I gave you the medication chart. I said look at this. I told you there were adverse effects for some people. The pills change a person’s chemical composition–”
“Somehow, it’s now my fault?” Blair interjects, the pitch of her voice rising with each syllable.
There’s a white bandage wrapped around my right hand with a dark red stain in the middle. For a moment, I’m able to pretend it’s a piece of fabric with the Japanese flag on it, but then I notice the tributaries of blood branching across the gauze. I close my eyes, trying to steady the dizziness.
“You’re up!” Blair rushes from the doorway to my side. I feel genuine relief from her as she places a hand on my shoulder.
“I’m okay,” I say, “just–”, but I trail off. My arms feel as if they’re pulsating. Something moving through them. The light hurts my eyes. I faintly notice the robot’s fingers closing around my bicep.
“One-twenty-four over eighty-two,” says the robot, its chest monitor showing a reading of my blood pressure. “You are free to go.”
“Hello, you’ve been sleeping,” the robot says.
I can hear Blair’s voice carrying from an adjacent room. “When is he going to wake up?” Blair demands.
“I don’t know, this doesn’t usually happen,” the man says, a defensiveness buoying his words. “You didn’t tell me he was on Relaxicon™. I gave you the medication chart. I said look at this. I told you there were adverse effects for some people. The pills change a person’s chemical composition–”
“Somehow, it’s now my fault?” Blair interjects, the pitch of her voice rising with each syllable.
There’s a white bandage wrapped around my right hand with a dark red stain in the middle. For a moment, I’m able to pretend it’s a piece of fabric with the Japanese flag on it, but then I notice the tributaries of blood branching across the gauze. I close my eyes, trying to steady the dizziness.
“You’re up!” Blair rushes from the doorway to my side. I feel genuine relief from her as she places a hand on my shoulder.
“I’m okay,” I say, “just–”, but I trail off. My arms feel as if they’re pulsating. Something moving through them. The light hurts my eyes. I faintly notice the robot’s fingers closing around my bicep.
“One-twenty-four over eighty-two,” says the robot, its chest monitor showing a reading of my blood pressure. “You are free to go.”
*
“Goddamnit, this car’s trying to genocide us.” Alex is yelling into my ear about the heat pumping into the backseat, making us sweat. Nobody laughs.
The cameraman has his neck craned over his lap, changing batteries. He looks as if he might nod off before completing the task.
Blair is absorbed in her phone, scrolling through the likes on one of her recent posts. I peer over her shoulder and see that the picture she’s posted is of me about to get the microchip. I’m sitting in the chair, tensely smiling into the lens. I have no recollection of that moment, and to be looking at it now feels as if I’m staring at someone else.
“I’ve turned off the heat,” the car says, sending a stream of cold air into our faces. There’s a buzzing quality to my limbs. A weightlessness.
Blair wants McDonald’s. She says she doesn’t remember the last time she had a McDonald’s burger, as it doesn’t fit into her longevity diet.
“And the potato skins?” I’m speaking, but I only know this because I’m observing myself doing so.
“Excuse me?” Blair gives me a puzzled look.
“Do the fried potato skins you had for lunch fit into your diet?”
There’s a short pause in which I see both surprise and defensiveness creep across Blair’s face–her eyes running through some silent equation, studying my face as if for the first time–before giving way to a fit of laughter.
“I guess you’ve got a point, don’t you?” Blair remarks, giggling.
I’m laughing too. Deep reverberations shimmying down into my legs.
“Today we indulge, tomorrow we diet,” Alex says, rolling down his window to get a better look at the McDonald’s drive-thru menu.
As we pull up to the window, Blair tells me that I should try paying for the meal with my microchip, as it’s already been connected to my credit card info.
There’s nobody in the window, just a payment kiosk that extends out toward the car. I lean across Alex’s lap and push my hand out the window. I brush my bloodied wrist across the screen and hear a ding of approval. The sound brings a wave of adrenaline. There’s a strange sense that I’m now, if not fully then at least partly, a passenger in my own body–my body not being altogether me anymore, but something else. A confluence of frequencies and cryptographic ledgers. A small point in a vast, immaterial neural network. Something outside of time. Something that can’t die in the way that people do. The kiosk asks for a tip and I click on the lowest possible amount.
“We want to show people that they shouldn’t be afraid of the future,” Blair says between bites of a cheeseburger. “This is what it’s all about–you, me, the company. We want to say that, you know, we’re transhumanists and it’s okay to celebrate that. It’s okay to want to become a cyborg.”
I nod. The burgers taste like cheese and salted cardboard. I eat three of them, and still that doesn’t quiet my hunger.
The cameraman has his neck craned over his lap, changing batteries. He looks as if he might nod off before completing the task.
Blair is absorbed in her phone, scrolling through the likes on one of her recent posts. I peer over her shoulder and see that the picture she’s posted is of me about to get the microchip. I’m sitting in the chair, tensely smiling into the lens. I have no recollection of that moment, and to be looking at it now feels as if I’m staring at someone else.
“I’ve turned off the heat,” the car says, sending a stream of cold air into our faces. There’s a buzzing quality to my limbs. A weightlessness.
Blair wants McDonald’s. She says she doesn’t remember the last time she had a McDonald’s burger, as it doesn’t fit into her longevity diet.
“And the potato skins?” I’m speaking, but I only know this because I’m observing myself doing so.
“Excuse me?” Blair gives me a puzzled look.
“Do the fried potato skins you had for lunch fit into your diet?”
There’s a short pause in which I see both surprise and defensiveness creep across Blair’s face–her eyes running through some silent equation, studying my face as if for the first time–before giving way to a fit of laughter.
“I guess you’ve got a point, don’t you?” Blair remarks, giggling.
I’m laughing too. Deep reverberations shimmying down into my legs.
“Today we indulge, tomorrow we diet,” Alex says, rolling down his window to get a better look at the McDonald’s drive-thru menu.
As we pull up to the window, Blair tells me that I should try paying for the meal with my microchip, as it’s already been connected to my credit card info.
There’s nobody in the window, just a payment kiosk that extends out toward the car. I lean across Alex’s lap and push my hand out the window. I brush my bloodied wrist across the screen and hear a ding of approval. The sound brings a wave of adrenaline. There’s a strange sense that I’m now, if not fully then at least partly, a passenger in my own body–my body not being altogether me anymore, but something else. A confluence of frequencies and cryptographic ledgers. A small point in a vast, immaterial neural network. Something outside of time. Something that can’t die in the way that people do. The kiosk asks for a tip and I click on the lowest possible amount.
“We want to show people that they shouldn’t be afraid of the future,” Blair says between bites of a cheeseburger. “This is what it’s all about–you, me, the company. We want to say that, you know, we’re transhumanists and it’s okay to celebrate that. It’s okay to want to become a cyborg.”
I nod. The burgers taste like cheese and salted cardboard. I eat three of them, and still that doesn’t quiet my hunger.
*
Blair needs help again with her seatbelt, so I lean forward and feel around for the buckle in the dark. It’s difficult to find. My fingers brush against Blair’s hip, the underside of her leg. The first time it was awkward, now it feels like a quiet secret. The fumbling in the dark, the gentle grazes–this brings us into a bubble of intimacy. I locate the buckle beneath Blair’s left ass cheek. For a second after I release her, Blair remains on my hand, and I have to drag my fingers out from under her, allowing them to slide up her lower back.
It’s dark when we’re finally standing on the sidewalk in front of Blair’s building.
The SUV pulls itself out into the street, preparing to put itself to sleep in some garage tucked away beneath the city.
Alex brings me in for a dap and a hug, and then walks toward a black sedan waiting nearby with its hazards on.
“Remember to avoid the water for a few days,” he shouts.
The cameraman’s buckling under an assortment bags and cases, even through the darkness I can see the patch of sweat seeping through his shirt. I run up behind him to take a few of his things and together we head up to Blair’s apartment.
“Put everything in the closet, yeah?” Blair’s standing in front of the bathroom mirror wiping her face clean.
I push the bags into a tight square below an array of dresses. The closet is deep and color-coded. The endlessness of it has a disorienting effect, and I catch myself descending into the same dizziness I felt waking up from the operation. I walk backward out of the closet, half stumbling onto the edge of Blair’s bed.
I can hear Blair running the faucet in the bathroom. The cameraman is gone.
What exactly was the man saying to Blair after my procedure? I hadn’t yet given this any thought. Somehow, even as I was listening to them speak about it in real time, the problem seemed a far way off, as if it didn’t have to do with me. Now, the concern seems trivial.
“Would you help me?” Blair is standing near the bed, pointing to the zipper at the top of her back.
It’s stuck, so I push against her with my left hand to get some leverage. By the time the zipper is loose–moving down her spine, splitting the butterfly outfit in two–I find that my fingers have encircled Blair’s upper arm. I let them glide across her bicep and then slowly trace a vein down her forearm. There are little glowing nodes on either side of her spine, submerged beneath the skin. I peel away the dress and let it fall to the floor. Blair sighs, as if releasing something, handing a part of herself over to me.
I take her from behind, facing the windows that overlook Union Square. Everytime my gauzed hand moves down her back, the little nodes brighten. We do not speak. I bring my mouth to her neck and bite into her. She whimpers and flattens herself against the bed. I pin both of her wrists above her head, and push into her hard enough for the bed to shake free of the wall.
Afterward, Blair slips into a kimono and boils some water. She pours herself a cup of tea, but doesn’t extend the offer, so I lace up my shoes.
“We have that 8am call tomorrow to go over the content calendar,” Blair says between sips. “I don’t want to do it any more than you, but we’ll just get it out of the way, yeah?”
“Sure, but I’m going to take the rest of the day off,” I say, plainly. Blair nods. “Of course, do what you need.”
As I walk toward the train, I pass a man who’s set up a bed for himself in the bushes, underneath a canopy of posterboard and cast-out construction materials. A scrappy, spray-painted piece of plywood reads “still human” in dripping red letters.
I’m home in an hour. An industrial zone of decaying factories transformed into illicit lofts, each unit split into a dozen rooms with permeable walls. I walk out to the backlot with my dog–a rescue with black matted hair–and watch her chase a cat up the side fence and into the adjacent yard. There’s a resiliency to these animals that not even a fourteen-hour stint locked inside can diminish. The dog emerges from some weeds with a dirt-caked tennis ball in her mouth and drops it at my feet. A slight pang ricochets through my fingers as I pick up the ball and launch it into the darkness.
It’s dark when we’re finally standing on the sidewalk in front of Blair’s building.
The SUV pulls itself out into the street, preparing to put itself to sleep in some garage tucked away beneath the city.
Alex brings me in for a dap and a hug, and then walks toward a black sedan waiting nearby with its hazards on.
“Remember to avoid the water for a few days,” he shouts.
The cameraman’s buckling under an assortment bags and cases, even through the darkness I can see the patch of sweat seeping through his shirt. I run up behind him to take a few of his things and together we head up to Blair’s apartment.
“Put everything in the closet, yeah?” Blair’s standing in front of the bathroom mirror wiping her face clean.
I push the bags into a tight square below an array of dresses. The closet is deep and color-coded. The endlessness of it has a disorienting effect, and I catch myself descending into the same dizziness I felt waking up from the operation. I walk backward out of the closet, half stumbling onto the edge of Blair’s bed.
I can hear Blair running the faucet in the bathroom. The cameraman is gone.
What exactly was the man saying to Blair after my procedure? I hadn’t yet given this any thought. Somehow, even as I was listening to them speak about it in real time, the problem seemed a far way off, as if it didn’t have to do with me. Now, the concern seems trivial.
“Would you help me?” Blair is standing near the bed, pointing to the zipper at the top of her back.
It’s stuck, so I push against her with my left hand to get some leverage. By the time the zipper is loose–moving down her spine, splitting the butterfly outfit in two–I find that my fingers have encircled Blair’s upper arm. I let them glide across her bicep and then slowly trace a vein down her forearm. There are little glowing nodes on either side of her spine, submerged beneath the skin. I peel away the dress and let it fall to the floor. Blair sighs, as if releasing something, handing a part of herself over to me.
I take her from behind, facing the windows that overlook Union Square. Everytime my gauzed hand moves down her back, the little nodes brighten. We do not speak. I bring my mouth to her neck and bite into her. She whimpers and flattens herself against the bed. I pin both of her wrists above her head, and push into her hard enough for the bed to shake free of the wall.
Afterward, Blair slips into a kimono and boils some water. She pours herself a cup of tea, but doesn’t extend the offer, so I lace up my shoes.
“We have that 8am call tomorrow to go over the content calendar,” Blair says between sips. “I don’t want to do it any more than you, but we’ll just get it out of the way, yeah?”
“Sure, but I’m going to take the rest of the day off,” I say, plainly. Blair nods. “Of course, do what you need.”
As I walk toward the train, I pass a man who’s set up a bed for himself in the bushes, underneath a canopy of posterboard and cast-out construction materials. A scrappy, spray-painted piece of plywood reads “still human” in dripping red letters.
I’m home in an hour. An industrial zone of decaying factories transformed into illicit lofts, each unit split into a dozen rooms with permeable walls. I walk out to the backlot with my dog–a rescue with black matted hair–and watch her chase a cat up the side fence and into the adjacent yard. There’s a resiliency to these animals that not even a fourteen-hour stint locked inside can diminish. The dog emerges from some weeds with a dirt-caked tennis ball in her mouth and drops it at my feet. A slight pang ricochets through my fingers as I pick up the ball and launch it into the darkness.
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Sam Rappaport is a Los Angeles-born, Brooklyn-based writer and musician. His writing has appeared in, among other publications, Raconteur Magazine, Promethean, Third Coast Review, and Bushwick Daily. His music is available wherever you stream music. He is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at The City College of New York.
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