ONE AND THREE Marie rents out her mental bandwidth.
Her father is Lucian, Optimortis Head of Operations, a widower and depressive.
The company re-combines elements to find things out and make things for clients.
As a consequence it has broken encryption unknown to exist. Like any business with sense Optimortis appreciates the value of real estate. It owns a portfolio of dome homes.
Marie wishes to leave her dome for another, nicer dome, and is earning a little more money subletting. The price she pays for letting is dominion over her internal thoughts.
She is the corporeal one of the Three. In Marie, the Three are herself, Ron and Sally.
Ron drifts from dome to dome via the mental bandwidth he rents.
He hasn’t had physical presence in years.
He wishes to become corporeal again, except he’s contracted to remain and too poor. Ron acts as telephone support for other band-renters and landlords. A telephone-psychotherapist-salesman with a script.
Sally is a recluse. She is happy to watch the unfolding world of another person.
Happy to be free from decisions. She suffered from decision fatigue. What makes Sally unhappy is the periodic wish to eat something, to feel food. She is a ghost.
The breaking of encryption means Ron and Sally can take on the characteristics of things. Once bound to Marie’s form, now they have a small leash to roam.
This is a new and unstable existence. Wider problems are growing visible as the concept of an inner world in society crumbles. An escape cord exists. In the box in the kitchen above the toaster.
The box contains a pen. The pen contains a drug. The drug will unite the Three. Leaving traits of Ron and Sally in Marie until she dies. Or can afford some psycho-plastic-surgery.
Ron wants out. Does he want to become human again or will he take on living in the new matter? If he becomes human again he will drag out Sally, who does not want to be human again.
What stops her from renting more bandwidth?
Fear.
It is hard to find a good place to live, and Marie is really quite nice.
In one of Optimortis’ south facing investments Lucian Firth is busy paddling bath water with a plank of plywood. The thick slap of liquid meeting solid muffled by the steam filling the room. Putrid gases extract into the dome. Firth inhales the steam and feels powerful. His mystery emissions wash round the dome. They make little children’s eyes itch in the block on the opposite side of the bowl. No one says a word.
A little about the bowl, and its corresponding dome. Each bowl contained six hundred houses. Concentrically set out, getting larger as they reach the outskirts. To live close to the dome offers a chance to sometimes, see out. At the centre of the bowl a pylon sticks out.
Above the domed sky weaves itself together. Patching and deforming to let the bubble breathe. A recent combinatory effort of Optimortis applied this breathable tech to the fabric of reality itself. The new matter grew faster than light. Heads broke open, minds spilled out. Certain membranes once thought unbreathable, un-breachable, un-impeachable, were now wholly porous.
Outside lab conditions in the world of domes and bowls.
This brought people jerking down the street screaming “DON’T LOOK AT ME”.
Private lives were being projected onto the big sky dome.
Lives missed by the turn of a key.
A family sat happy on a beach.
A woman with long dark hair stood at the door of a cabin, a tall strong man looking at her from a canoe. She is cradling a child in her arms.
Most of these dreams were love-based.
Impure dreams would also flash up.
Disturbing montages of abuse and hysteria intruded the bowl.
These were also about love.
The destruction of the inner world was never absolute. Privacy remained in places and at times. Only the risk of privacy’s abolition so was absolute now. No fools, citizens asked themselves if this were a trick. A marketing campaign even.
Were these really private thoughts? Was it better to continue ignoring visions?
Predictors of the sky became popular, mind that many had something to say on the matter.
Those who were able to discern ebbs and flows of the sky had acquired listeners however.
The current scene took a small stone staircase well trodden, away into the dark, cool echoing steps lead to the bottom, where a chamber, lit by a stone lamp, and a small bed await. Folded inwards, protected from stress by stone, if it all collapsed the weight would leave no questions asked.
This meant, said the seers, a respite from the rug pulling, naked fear of the last bout of dream projection. What was really happening to those in the know was a re-constitution of matter as a medium. This was all real. They were not in control anymore. They didn’t really mind.
Lucian Firth embedded himself in the dome to gain first hand knowledge of how the new medium was affecting life. How life affected happiness. And how happiness affected the purchase of niknaks.
Sally, Marie and Ron were all ignoring each other in the headspace. Marie was thinking how she had managed to inherited the shop before the law had changed. Her shop, Love Factory, purveyed hormones. Once her mother had died Marie stepped in to take over. Prior to shopwork Marie took long trips abroad for her cultural benefit. She mostly ended up doing too many unnatural hormones.
Her father was a manager at her grandfather’s company, Optimortis, whose produce made up a great deal of the shops stock. Oxytocin, vasopressin, oestrogen, testosterone, serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine. Small pads and single-use syringes filled with little ‘natural’ boosts for the being living on their feet.
Love Factory stood on a busy street, at the end of the curved block stood the dome courts. Proximity to the law resulted in a great deal of both orderly and disorderly visitors. A great increase in disorderly visitors screaming too many, too much. Marie noted the disappearance of walls Marie as she sat behind the till.
The band playing on the corner were leaving turbulent trails of nonsense across the shopfronts. This annoyed Marie. The music was floating over and translated by her ear as she sat at work in her gift shop.
Surrounding her seat were tiny images of her shop.
Any movement was met by a rich ka-losh of metal keychains.
Knots dangled form the ceiling to the floor.
Metal rods protruded and were loaded beyond the tip a with light fabrics. She was listening to the music and decided it wasn’t coming out right.
Toast with poached egg? You can try some o my shrroms bonbon bon bons, shrrrrroms, lovely shrroms, stick butt, nip butt, tuckle fruck, digestivus parsleighus, excellent bowel middle; currant, current, kurant, quarant. Epilosophy, snotty dotty please, upside down knees. Turkle asfid, butt snot kumquat. Ass breath, party pipe, these are the skies you see at night. On a summer breeze squeeze monopol stropple, garabanga tutsiname-č. Rutabaga, rutabaga, give me some more. Slide it under my kitchen door.
Marie opened up her hand and stared pensively. A voice emerged in her ear and greeted her.
“I received this as a sound, but I know its wrong? They don’t sound like that normally.” “We’ll see what’s wrong. Try turning your head, Marie.”
The voice stopped and sigh. Its owner, Ron, leant backwards and scratched his head, the back of Marie’s head, finding he could look at his hand as it scratched while looking at his cubicle also nestled in Marie’s nose. Quite strange he thought.
A harsh wave crashed onto him and transferred to her. Both remembered the time when a rat- mind grew an interface to do some piecemeal SEO work. Neither knew what it meant, but it was disgusting and alien.
Marie was still shaking her head.
“Look it isn’t working. You might have a cushy salary, right, but I don’t. I work, I’m an owner. I need to keep on track. If I don’t then ‘rutabaga, rutabaga’ today will be a Pilgrim boat or my dead grandmother tomorrow.”
Ron, in his eighth hour of a twelve long shift, sighed at his overlooked labour. “Carry on with the line then.”
“Do you need a bag?”
“No, wrong line.”
“Whatever was I thinking!”
“I’m not sure. Carry on.”
Marie instantly turning to honey.
“Whatever would we do without the music?”
Ron gagged at the change in tone and made to hang up.
“So if that’ll be all...” “Mmmmhm, yeah” groaned the reply.
To Sally the lyrical shifting was an amusement. Aware of the toll it took on Marie she’d been ushering her to open her hand and speak to Ron. Sally was paying more than Ron, who made up rent with work on Marie’s subconscious. Sally was also an heiress, she was frugal compared with Marie. Her capital had grown as her investments matured.
These tips plucked from Marie’s fortnightly chats with her father. Ron missed out because he had no money to invest.
He seethed.
The day Sally decided to give up on choice was the day thirty different non-dairy milk products overwhelmed her. Warnings flashed everywhere, asserting she was unable to balance her footprints. Sally passed out in the aisle.
Looking out of Marie’s eyes Sally saw red halos forming on objects around the room. These memories were painful for her, and so they were painful for Marie. Sally stopped them. She thought how relieving it was to live passively.
How much she was saving. How she could one day take a trip and a holiday to another form. Perhaps even corporeality at a nice resort with fresh avatars. She’d always wanted to be a cat.
Marie’s eyes looked at the clock, Sally saw it was 16:54. Marie stood up and Sally thought about what Marie would eat for dinner. Marie thought about chicken, roast potatoes, gravy and stuffing. Sally grimaced. She wanted spice and a burning sensation in her throat and on her tongue.
Sally watched Marie pack up her bag and lower the shutter on the shop. She heard wailing followed by a thumping down the road. A man was hitting his head on the wall. Sally urged Marie to approached the troubled soul. Marie was thinking about it too, but kept walking. Sally frowned and Marie got a stomach ache.
Sally could hear Marie thinking about the pain in her stomach. She frowned again, Marie doubled over. A leak had sprung. Marie didn’t equate this pain with her tenants, instead thinking of the hormones taken on the beach several months ago. They induced a not insubstantial amount of bleeding. She perspired and on her knees booked a vehicle to whisk them all home.
Ron, from the nose, was disgusted by this display of wealth. He flipped Marie’s stomach with thoughts of uncooked chicken. Marie was looking at the dashboard and nearly vomited. She saw, uncooked, bloody chicken sprouting from the plastic. Her hand clasped her mouth as a foul smell entered her nose.
Sally glared at Ron. Was he doing this? Ron glared back. Quite possible. Sally had not seen this vindictive side of Ron so clearly before. Marie’s vehicle arrived at her flat and more objects were losing their distinctions. More blood kept appearing. More voices pervaded her thoughts.
“Ron are you there?” Marie’s mouth tasted like bile.
“Yes, don’t worry, they’re fictitious.”
“I know, I know,” Marie paused to gulp some water, “how can I make it calm down?” “Ron knows what he’s doing to you.”
“Stay off this line Sally.”
“No Ron, you’re not being fair. She just took a taxi.”
“I’ve never been able to take a fucking taxi. Whenever I feel a little iffy!”
“You made her ill Ron.”
“Did I now?”
“Why are you two talking? That’s not how this is meant to work.”
“Come on Marie, we’re having a ‘house’ meeting. The walls are pretty thin in here.”
“I’m sorry, Marie, maybe we should talk about this.”
Three figures were all sitting pretty-not-quite there. Overlapping each other. Bound up in shapes with more corners than edges. Staring at the floor, breathing whether they liked it all not. All around them were artefacts of Firth origin.
The skin stopped writhing for a second. Marie’s furniture passed in and out of fashion, but not style.
For Ron’s eyes used only to ‘ok’, ‘fine’ and ‘that’ll do’ the consistency of thought and care throughout the flat made him well up. Punched behind the sockets were electric eyes of strangers watching them in this new phase. Ron opened Marie’s mouth to speak. His words heaved with envy.
“It wouldn’t be bad, would it, to hold all this, all this we see...more?”
Ron felt like he had a train to catch. He was leaving somewhere that he hadn’t felt great about whilst there.
But where the rails end up they end up. Ron stepped out of Marie onto the the balcony, my platform, is my train approaching?
Ron sits down. There is barely enough room for his legs.
The table out here is not like the rest of the furniture in the house.
The wood is cheap mulched compressed and stained.
Ron realised that he was already on the train.
The little emergency hammer alluring behind the glass.
Ron thinks what it would be like to smash through Marie and tumble to the soft grass whooshing along.
Existing outside the circuits he hopped from dome to dome the last six years.
Bubbles of activity would crop up. He’d find himself washing pots, sitting at checkouts, on the phones.
Afterwards he’d have to sit gazing into space leaving trails of his visions up walls.
Sit in tiny corners of bathrooms, watching his hosts sob. In the fold of a fold of a fold.
Marie sat up, Ron flew back to her. To the glass of their mirror.
“Let me out.”
He was quiet and firm. He urged her onwards to the box. The box sitting on the shelf in the kitchen. Above the toaster.
“Ron, no, don’t make me- her, kick us out. You know how hard it is to find a place.”
Ron focused on crowds. The room was stacked with bodies. Marie ran through them they turned and scattered maintaining their singular divergent flow towards her. The moan they made lapped round the room. A rising wave. Crashing higher on the walls which began to flame.
“Corporeality isn’t effective in your price range Ron. Nothing I can do about that.” Marie was screaming aloud now.
“Ron I don’t want to leave. Please stop!” Sally was crying and babies began to sickeningly hit the carpet.
“You’ll never have a child if you don’t Sally!”
“What a stupid statement. I don’t WANT a child, Ron, you’re so fucking narrow-minded.”
Marie picked up a book and hit herself in the head. Everyone was silent. The room seemed normal.
Marie called her father. Lucian stumbled from his bathroom. Purple streaks down his shirt, his eyes bloodshot, he said hello to his daughter.
“I am having, a bad, time.”
“Darling, please, I told you this was a bad idea to begin with.”
“Dad you fucking-.” Marie’s screamed. Her head felt cleaved into three clumps of matter.
“Sir, this is Ronald. I am a tenant of your daughter.”
“Hm yes, are you a doctor?”
“Sorry what?”
“A doctor boy, keep up.”
“No, I’m...” What was Ron? “I’m travelling.”
“I must remind you that you’re breaking your contract by speaking through my daughter.”
“I’m contracted but I’m also, sick. Ill. I’m quite ill.”
“Not a doctor but a diagnostician.” “Dad will you please listen to me.”
“Marie I’m sorry I was quite clear on how and when I would extend help once you started this endeavour of yours.”
“I’m going fucking mad Dad!”
Lucian was doing a good job of ignoring all the acetone in his bloodstream until this point. He remembered his wife, he thought about little Marie.
“So, several of you are ill?" “I’m not.”
“Ma’am you are?”
“Sally, another tenant.”
“What a tight squeeze in there.”
“Dad, please.”
“Marie, we’ve rather fucked up at the company. We’ve broken distinction and edges... Probably why a few people are getting sick.”
Lucian continued over the argumentative chatter of the Three.
“Ron and Marie, as mere bits and bytes, it should be possible for you both to slip out into anything. I can’t promise that it will last. But imagine that, for a while, leaving as a rock. As a tree. Reunification with nature! We’re monists now!
Ha-ha. Or you know, if you’ve got enough cash go corporeal.
I still think, can’t say for sure, that you might get some visitors. We’re trying to put the walls back up, well not me, I’m seeing what’s selling in response to this change you know. Take the pen out of the box and jab it in Marie. I’ll leave you to discuss it.”
Lucian hung up and returned to inhale in his bathroom
Aware finally of the deal struck. That the waving bushes would wave to him no longer. Ron knew that once passed for good, there would be no more slamming windows in the breeze.
He would be the breeze. He slipped out of Marie and into the window.
Sally was crying like a child. Marie had set out some clothes in the bathroom for her.
Now decisions were hers, until she found somewhere new. Marie took the box and the pen.
She thrust it into her leg. The volume turned down on each of the Three. A tone emanated. Rising in pitch while volume tip it faded into nothing and Marie was whole again.