Lemon Tsupryk Q2 #3: Evening Tomorrow
This is her stop.
It says so in the corner of her vision, on the hazy blue rectangle floating in the dark somewhere at her wrist. She gets up and takes the three steps necessary to reach the threshold of the bus doors, turning back instinctively to give her thanks to the driver. There is no-one there past the card scanner though, of course, replaced by extra wires and a synthetic brain. She keeps her mouth shut. But still, she is grateful for the infinite patience of the machine as she shambles down the ledge onto the side of the road; it will not snag her in the doors as long as it knows that she's there.
The almost empty bus departs behind her as she moves forward, vehicles barreling past her. The device strapped to her wrist buzzes. It is a reminder to take her medication: something she has run out of a while ago and has not been able to afford the hefty price of since. She silences the thing that used to serve as just a watch with the flick of a finger.
They ripped up the last bit of sidewalk last week. She walks down what’s left of it, past the closing bookstore and barricaded bench, only stopping to rest her tired bones when she can lean against a garbage bin. One look up at the stars—oh right, there are none: a permanent smog hangs up there, with the wealthy few sailing up above it. Even the stars, they’ve taken.
Continuing the trek, she takes in the sight around her: on one side, derelict, decrepit storefronts, on the other a road and a wall beyond it, with billboards lined up one after the other like soldiers in menacingly bright attire. Need to relax? Try a depressant! and Alleviating loneliness has never been easier, just call Friend—your intelligent virtual assistant! and on, and on. She is grateful when she is able to turn her back to them, taking a right and heading down into the dim alleyway towards her apartment complex.
She passes a dead dove, tangled in a bundle of live wires.
There is a dead cat there too, in a cardboard box, left out to rot. The most grace it has been offered is its small fuzzy body being wrapped in translucent plastic. Poor creature, she thinks, and yet she reasons that she would probably have done the same if it had been her cat and her box and her plastic. A burial? For an animal? There is no time or energy for frivolous things like that.
The camera at the gate scans her face and she walks through, shuffling by the blocked off staircase which has, presumably permanently, been labeled closed for repairs, and into the elevator. The machine groans as she ascends the metal goliath, where many just like her are preparing to complete a round the mortal coil once more tomorrow.
Out the elevator, down the hall, into her closet-like apartment where there is only a bed and an old dell computer. She sheds her work-clothes and dons her sleep-clothes, the only other category of wear there is. Use the restroom down the hall, drink a meal. At last, the overhead lights switch off and leave only the glowing rectangle on her wrist.
It lulls her to sleep and she lets it.
In return, the machine harvests her dreams.
Image source
These dystopian NYC subway ads advertising an AI "friend" were, in addition to my hazy recollections of Fahrenheit 451, what inspired the writing of this blog.
Hi Lemon! I found your blog to be incredibly cinematic, reading it felt like I stepped out of my body for a while and had the opportunity to be a bystander in someone else's. I also find your take on dystopian societies to be incredibly interesting as your use of third person and somewhat cold tone make your blog enthralling. Given the machine you reference frequently I would like to believe your lack of information on the subject is intentional, as I believe the mysterious nature of this so called "machine" is somewhat sinister but leaves the audiences to their own vices to guess what exactly is happening with the girl and the machine. I also found "the girl" an interesting choice as it avoids giving the character a name, which I believe puts the character on the same level as a others, which is the crux of a dystopian society. Overall I found your blog's style and rhetorical decisions incredibly enthralling, and I implore you to continue experimenting with different writing styles.
ReplyDeleteI can definitely see the Fahrenheit 451 influence; great blog this week! I find it interesting that the electronics in this narrative are portrayed as cold, impersonal objects that the girl has become reliant on. In my own life, I’m also unhealthily attached to my devices, reaching a point that feels even worse than simply being void of human connection--it’s become a replacement for it. What’s more disturbing is that the ad in your photo about Friend most definitely understands this, and it knows how to capitalize off of our loneliness.
ReplyDeleteAnother detail that also stuck out to me was that the girl only possesses work-clothes and sleep-clothes in her wardrobe with no in between. I’m not sure if you intended to make a reference to it, but that statement reminded me a lot about modern society’s loss of “third places.” Increasingly, humans’ concept of work-life balance has been overtaken by work over life. We’re collectively going out less to meet each other, so the third places we would usually go to for socialization are disappearing! I can’t help but feel sometimes like everything in this world is being replaced by false connections and blinking machines.