The Art of Self-Destruction (3 page)

He is missing a sock on his left foot. He had
removed it inside, with her; had thrown it haphazardly across the
room. It should be sitting in front of him, existing as a real
object. No. Gone. Like a fog. Just gone. His shoe, however, is
there, a sickly tint of brown absorbed into the leather. It used to
be black.

Matthew slowly bends down and picks it up,
lifting it to his nose. He sniffs before peering inside. The hole
is gone. Strangely, besides the new color and the intense odor of
foot sweat, the shoe is like new. He slips it on, sockless.

The whispers grow louder around him. Someone
far off moans either in ecstasy or in a masochistic shudder of
painful pleasure. Next to the door is a hook for hanging unneeded
clothing. He grabs his dull black overcoat and slips it on.

The light above the metal door stutters
erratically; off, on, off, on. He flips open a small metal case
embedded in the door, revealing what looks to be something similar
to a hotel key card: white, dull around the edges, smudged from
multiple finger prints. Matthew grabs the exposed edges, removing
it from the slot.

The red lights grow brighter, floating toward
him, moaning, howling, sighing, whispers of torture and death and
hatred and bloodletting that is deserved and reaching inside of her
to grasp the warmth buried below skin, pulling it out for her to
see the decay, the darkness, the rot, and the scraping of metal
against concrete, door latch clicking, and the smell of cinnamon
bubble gum mixed with discarded chicken tikka masala.

He is outside next to the vending booth. The
woman inside raises her eyebrow. The pink orb pulsating from her
mouth explodes. Cinnamon.

The woman wears a long, flowing black skirt
with the numbers "0" and "1" in white randomly patterned across the
fabric. She also wears a black t-shirt with the words "There's No
Place Like 127.0.0.1" plastered across her chest. Her breasts
stretch the words, the numbers becoming oversized and appearing to
compliment her skirt. A tattoo of a red star marks the upper part
of her left hand.

The woman swings herself off of the counter,
jamming the shredded gum back into her mouth and smacking it wetly,
her skirt following her body's movements slowly, almost regretful
that it has to be disturbed.

"Did you have a good time?" She begins
ringing up the additional minutes he spent in the room.

Matthew doesn't know how to respond, staring
first at the woman's bright pink hair and then out into the busy
street. It's raining. Pools of water are collecting in the
makeshift gutters parallel to the street. Slurping sounds come from
metal grates, the water flowing downward to be filtered and spit
out through kitchen taps. Streetlights reflect off the dark
pavement. Cars swoosh.

"I guess I did," he says, still staring into
the street. "There was kind of problem though. I don't know if it
was intended or if it's evolving. She wanted me to fuck her. More
than anything."

He reaches behind his head and feels the
scratches left behind. He finds small wires poking through the
skin. Nerve endings coursing through gold wire, ohms of the body.
And for some reason this does not bother him. It seems to be the
rational outcome of his experience.

Taking the plastic card in his hand, he
places it into a large metal case, snapping it shut.

"This your regular Hommy?" The woman takes
the metal case from him, rolling it over in her fingers. The credit
machine buzzes, approving his card. She smiles at him, handing back
his Visa.

He returns to the words
plastered on her chest, "There's No Place Like 127.0.0.1." Matthew
suddenly sees the numbers swirl, roll, 1's and 0's attacking the
rogue 2 and 7, beating them out of existence. More 0's enter the
pack. More 1's. A swirling of digital text growing exponentially
into...something; as Echo would say to Narcissus 01001011 01001011
01001011 01001011; Narcissus: "May I die before I give you power
over me." Echo: "I give you power over me."

Plastered there on her shirt, in roiling
waves, hovering and whisping is the µ, staring at him, right there,
distorted by her breasts, but there, following him, created of 1's
and 0's.

µ.

Pink hair rolls her eyes and says, "Yes.
They're breasts. Boobs. There are tons of programs out there
showing better tits than these. So stop staring, ok? It's creepy."
He must have staring.

Matthew doesn't feel like explaining his
growing terror-and how does he know this woman with the pink hair
and the pulsating µ across her breasts isn't one of them?
Tenuously, he lets the whole thing go, allowing the woman to think
he's just another dirty old man. Instead, he turns the conversation
back to the anomaly in the program.

Anxiety overflowing, Matthew manages to sound
a bit normal, "This wasn't my normal hommie. I, uh, try new ones
every time. You can check. Uh...don't really, uh, this one was
new."

The woman humors him with a mock frown,
"Well, I guess I could check the stock program." She rolls the
metal case back and forth between her fingers, "Or I could do a
whole format and reinstall the program from scratch. That'd be a
big headache and a waste of time though. You're sure about this?
She wasn't acting like she should?"

Matthew nods; trying to act interested and
ignore the pulsating sign on her chest at the same time, turning
his gaze toward the street once again, at the cars driving past and
the droplets of water being flung into the air.

Pink Hair shrugs, "Sorry about this kiddo.
But you know our policy. No refunds."

He pretends to shrug. "I also lost a
sock."

Turning away from him, throwing the metal
case into a basket, the woman mutters, "Yeah, we'll keep a lookout
for it. Room 3. Smelly old sock. Check back."

Matthew sighs and attempts to walk normally
out of the cramped alley-tripping on a discarded Chinese food box
that has miraculously avoided any rain. He catches himself on the
alley wall, the fabric of his coat scraping against the grime
covered bricks. Above, raindrops clatter against hand machined tin
roofs.

Matthew stumbles out of the darkness of the
alley and into the glowing street, buzzing plasma televisions the
color of sky tower overhead on billboards and special constructs
built specifically for the medium. Colors refract and bounce across
mirrored office complexes. Rain has pooled on the sidewalks,
escaping the crumbling gutters.

Somewhere nearby, dogs howl.

The Sky Above the
Harbor

Humans float by Matthew, each breathing
separate breath, pumping different blood, yet having a singular
smell. He joins the movement, hunched within his dark overcoat, the
entropy of human motorization on the street, carried through the
stream toward a destination predetermined by X: the first one to
start the crusade, to begin the line, everyone following him or her
to the final destination. Until then, movement is what keeps them
going.

Any one of these people could be following
him. Each shifting eye a marked piece of intelligence on Matthew's
state of being, his presence. The µ haunting him, scratched into
the metal of a lamppost or drifting through his peripheral vision
on a bus advertisement. Two way televisions, observing his every
movement, a singular person in a control room scratching notes on a
pad of paper, "Leaves complex at 5:00 P.M. Enters crowd. Switch to
camera B." Matthew can see the eyes behind the phosphors of the
multiple screens; cathode rays pulsing beyond 60 hertz, the hidden
frequency intended to transmit two way visuals.

The rain already having saturated his hair,
droplets begin to stream down his neck, flowing over the tiny wires
growing from his skin-new wires, wires that should not be but are.
Like the µ.

I give you power over me.

Matthew can feel the wetness in his shoe. If
he were wearing a sock, he'd be protected from this discomfort. The
crowd sweeps him by a clothing store. He worms his way inward
toward the shop sidestepping the continuous onslaught of meat and
cloth.

He stands in front of the store's window
considering whether or not the possibility exists that he should
even begin to go through the motions of purchasing a new pair of
socks.

It begins to rain harder and the entire city
seems to echo, for just one moment, with the simultaneous openings
of millions of umbrellas.

###

About the Author

Douglas is a speculative Science Fiction
writer based in Chicago. He researches too damn much and doesn’t
spend his time writing. Shame him. Shame him incessantly.

Email:
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@caycepollard

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