I grunt noncommittally. My jaws ache from clenching.

  @Skiny_Leny flips his hair over his shoulder with a head toss and a long snort. Says, What did he think was going to happen?

  Mr. Ray focuses at a point in space beyond the cheap tile wall and speaks:

  “You will hear thunder and remember me,

  And think: she wanted storms. The rim

  Of the sky will be the color of hard crimson,

  And your heart, as it was then, will be on fire.

  “That day in Moscow, it will all come true,

  when, for the last time, I take my leave,

  And hasten to the heights that I have longed for,

  Leaving my shadow still to be with you.”

  @Skiny_Leny shelters his thoughts as tears escape the Venus flytrap of his eyelashes.

 

  The livestream continues in my dreams. I see her silhouette fall. A dark shadow of pigtails and a turtle hump from her oversize backpack. She collapses as if God cut her strings. My memory blurs and I try to visualize the little girl getting back up. Dusting off her knees. Another small shadow helping her.

 

  The feedback from the band’s amplifiers resonates with the scream of hundreds. The ringing in my ear never stops. The story I tell no one. This in Paris.

 

  Magical thinking vs. magikal thinking.

 

  Everyone has forgotten the little girl at the school-bus-stop shooting. But the funeral and the subsequent protests come across Mr. Ray’s feed. A new alert sounds on my computer and Mr. Ray flips the feed to me.

  Cross fire. Drug gangs or cops. Or a personal beef from years ago. Or mistaken identity. The verdict is still out. I kept thinking it was about homework. Child custody. Chinese cuts. No one saw the live feed once Mr. Ray hit the kill switch, but multiple narratives are edited together with footage from various devices.

  No matter your take on socioeconomics, guns, race, parenting, gentrification, there is a video that supports your view. It’s a moving Rorschach test: Look at the evidence.

  A few police officers attend. No one shouts Blue Lives Matter. Recognizing the inappropriate forum.

  A few gangbangers attend as well. Guns left in glove boxes. Afraid of Mama’s wrath. Not in church. This is Chicago. Not Texas.

 

  The body cam footage of the cross fire is leaked. FAKE. REAL. ALTERED. VERIFIED.

  The girl is black. Nine. Unlike in my dreams, she did not get back up.

  The shooter is a cop. Black. Former gang member. And off duty. His BAC just below the legal limit. He’d had a tough case that night. Not all the bodies he pulled out of the wreck survived. He’d get a commendation.

  Why was he still in uniform? Who fired first? Did the bushes hide the kids from plain sight? Did a parent really have a gun or a cell phone? Did the officer identify himself? Was he violating his custody agreement by visiting his kid at the bus stop? Was the other shooter his ex-wife’s Caucasian boyfriend?

  The questions to this one are slippery. The narrative pliable.

 

  Violence has always been a lottery ticket. But now a lucky civilian or two might profit with video of an event. The real lottery.

 

  When I was younger, I found four-leaf clovers. Usually within a few minutes of looking. My folks laminated one. As I grew older, they became more elusive.

 

  The small girl’s small casket is the center of the livestream from the church. The preacher opens his mouth for the eulogy, but doesn’t know what to say. You and I discussed attending. You sensing that I might need closure.

  But I couldn’t go. One tiny casket in my life was enough.

  Also, we had seen the body cam footage earlier that day. Another leak.

  We knew why the South Side church mourned and the casket was closed. A mother, a cousin, a sibling all cry for answers. We have them. And NDAs.

 

  #Loop

 

  Molotov cocktails are just messages in a bottle sent priority. But with the cost of gasoline there is less correspondence than you imagine. Here in the States anyway.

 

  The school-bus-stop shooting, one of thirteen that day, sparks a protest of civic-minded civilians that turn onto our boulevard, marching and chanting, as they stream below Vex’s office windows. No one in the pod remembers looking out the window prior to today. We’re here in case the event goes bloody on a live feed. Volunteers in the war on savagery.

  Everyone can protest the death of a nine-year-old girl. Adopt it for their cause. Rail against the root of it all.

  Less cinematic than a California wildfire and about as compelling as an inauguration aerial. But all the news outlets send professionals. Their bosses ready to plunk down life-changing money for civilian footage. Plus, the 24/7 news cycle’s voracious appetite is never satiated.

  In the crowd, everyone has his or her or their devices out hoping to capture a moment that can boost their followers, their likes, their cartoon hearts. The savvy ones have media contacts stored in their burner phones.

  I’m sure a drama-starved teen is thumbing firecrackers in one pocket, a lighter in his other. I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt, he will say, chained to a metal table as his bravado exits in sobs. The DA will weigh charging him as an adult instead of a juvenile. What happened to foresight?

  The smell of microwave popcorn fills the office.

 

  The protestors march down below our office window.

  This is not recreational outrage, @MØM says. Referring to America’s new pastime.

  Mother/Screen juggles news feeds of multiple camera angles from the street below as footage is stitched together live, like a sporting event. A few aerial shots from news GoDrones to give the viewer the big picture with establishing shots, to show scale.

  But most of our Vex pod watches from the stationary window, a static view unenhanced by graphics and broadcast commentary. We’re used to raw footage and do not get bored. @Skiny_Leny and @Babyd011 pass out compostable bowls filled with full-butter-and-sodium popcorn.

 

  One nation under God. Indivisible.

 

  A SQUAWK cuts through the crowd noise. Chants through a bullhorn. Where do you even get a bullhorn? Mothers of color, cousins of color, siblings of color marching like ants. The men of color institutionalized.

  All this on our day off. They’ve seen just a small percentage of what we’ve seen. I’ve been on the feed. I’ve seen every color of man fall to every color of man. Every animal. The things we’ve protected them from seeing… If only they knew.

  But that’s a complicated narrative and the new stream of counter-protesters comes around the corner. White. Masked. Having learned lessons on 1/6. Everyone wants peace, but the outrage needs to be vented. And directed at a target.

  Anonymity a MiracleGro for hate.

 

  America: Commies love it or leave it. Patriots riot.

 

  Once again, the youth lead the charge. Civil rights. Normandy. Viet Nam. Chicago. Young enough to take risks based on principle, yet wise enough to know that repercussions could derail their future. Taking the long shot that they are putting the country back on track one railroad tie at a time.

  I can hear both sides chanting as they face off. I can’t hear their words and I don’t have to understand their positions. The sun peeks out and the protesters are now half in each other’s shadow, half in silhouette. Part of me wants them all to fall over like that little girl.

 

  Any hard-boiled detective will tell you that people only kill for two reasons: love or money.

  How quaint, eh?

 

  @Skiny_Leny sprays popcorn when he talks. His hair hasn’t been washed in days. We should give free cable and A/C to the South Side, he says. That would quell violence.

  I don’t know what to say to that. My brain pulled into several arguments.

  Mr. Ray says that every cop should foster a black child for a year.

  @Skiny_Leny asks who’s going to shoulder that financial burden, the government?

  We can’t shoulder the current burden, Mr. Ray says. They argue polices enacted by the Federal Reserve.

  They are arguing the fisherman parable. But I can’t decide which side represents which.

  In other countries, inalienable rights are grounds for execution, Mr. Ray says.

  They’re just going through the motions, @Skiny_Leny says. They’re just following a pattern of grief. It’s nothing new. A moving truck would solve most of their problems.

  Every car I see in an alley below, I imagine it is revving its engine, waiting for the protest parade to come into view. A legacy on either side of the windshield about to be created.

  Mr. Ray has seen his father’s stories of the Gulag transferred to a sci-fi setting in The Aquarist of Ganymede to such universal acclaim it got him removed from his country’s history. His body never thawed.

  On occasion the concept of scale eludes my pod-mate. Venture capitalists concur, as evidenced by his desk trash can overflowing with the confetti of his rejected business plans and pitches. A graveyard of Big Ideas.

  These are my silent observations.

 

  #Incite

 

  Seriously, if a moving truck plowed through that crowd, @Skiny_Leny says. Think of the financial settlement. The GoFundMe windfall.

  Suddenly, the Twins are restraining me and pulling me off @Skiny_Leny. I have a handful of his hair and a bit of his scalp in my hand. His eyes widen with shock and surprise as I pound his head into the Cherry Maca Mocha-stained carpet. No one recalls exactly what I screamed.

  Eventually, the primates turn on one another.

  [N S F W]

  9

  Subject: @Sa>ag3

  Age: 49

  Title: SMCM

  Test: Short Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Rating Interview (SPRINT)1

  Administrator: Raymond Gunn II

  In the past week, how much have you been bothered by unwanted memories, nightmares, or reminders of the event?

  0 = Not at all

  1 = A little bit

  2 = Moderately

  3 = Quite a lot

  4 = Very much

  In the past week, how much have you been bothered by pain, aches, or tiredness?

  0 = Not at all

  1 = A little bit

  2 = Moderately

  3 = Quite a lot

  4 = Very much

  Repeated, disturbing memories, thoughts, or images of a stressful experience from the past?

  0 = Not at all

  1 = A little bit

  2 = Moderately

  3 = Quite a lot

  4 = Very much

  Feeling very upset when something reminded you of a stressful experience from the past?

  0 = Not at all

  1 = A little bit

  2 = Moderately

  3 = Quite a lot

  4 = Very much

  Avoid activities or situations because they remind you of a stressful experience from the past?

  0 = Not at all

  1 = A little bit

  2 = Moderately

  3 = Quite a lot

  4 = Very much

  Feeling distant or cut off from other people?

  0 = Not at all

  1 = A little bit

  2 = Moderately

  3 = Quite a lot

  4 = Very much

  Feeling irritable or having angry outbursts?

  0 = Not at all

  1 = A little bit

  2 = Moderately

  3 = Quite a lot

  4 = Very much

  [N S F W]

  10

  Train: I tremble, doubled over. The darkness spins and I feel a wave of impending doom. It’s either a panic attack or a heart attack. The symptoms are the same. Knowing which doesn’t relieve the terror. It’s drowning, slipping below the surface. Trying to swim to the surface, with concrete blocks of anguish and despair chained to my legs. Death and madness inevitable.

  You lay over my body, a human security blanket. We look like unhoused people curled up in a corner of the train car, riding out the winter from end of the line to end of the line.

  This is what happens when you attack your drug dealer but need his lorazepam and alprazolam.

 

  Garden: I can’t stop shaking. My lizard brain is on fire, the chemicals in my brain a firewall keeping me from the lucidity of rationality.

  Amazingly you get me home, through the park, down the block, up the stairs.

  My hands curl and my arms lift of their own volition. It’s a seizure. I’m stroking out.

 

  Bathroom: The tub. You run freezing water, even as the winter wind cuts through the cracked wall and forms ice on the bathroom mirror. You plug the drain and hold me as the shower dribbles like a cheap watering can with its second-floor water pressure.

  Your rapid breathing is causing you to lose carbon dioxide, you say. This is why your arms and hands are curling, you say. You put your mouth over mine and breathe out as I pant in, then reverse it. I breathe in your oxygen and then expel it into your lungs. You do the same. We are trading a single breath, back and forth, the CO2 increasing. You a human brown paper bag.

  The water in the tub rises; my muscles contract with the cold. I feel another wave coming on. It would be easy to just let go. Let this be the end. The end of pain. The end of worry. Just the end. The peacefulness of nonexistence. I must have muttered or rambled these thoughts out loud. I’m sorry, I say.

  Shhh, you say, and straddle me in the tub. I think we still have our clothes on—a direct violation of the Garden. You put your hands around my throat and push my head under. My tinnitus stops. The shock of cold on my neck, my face. My eyeballs. I see clouds of dirt drift in front of me. I can just see your eyes distorted by the tainted water. The wind whistles in through the crack in the wall, a bolt of lightning in negative. Roses blossom on your cheeks. Ice forms on your eyelashes.

  You hold me under and I do not struggle. Your lips move as you say a prayer, a baptism, or wish me luck on my journey. My body does not seem to be producing DMT.

  I get a clear look at her face. The other face. The face before I met yours. Remembering and seeing her with perfect clarity. I can smell her perfume. I remember the words I tried to say. And maybe I do, but they are lost again, this time under an inch of water. The words forming bubbles that burst with their own language.

  It’s a gift, this vision.

  Blackness.

 

  I gasp and humid air fills my lungs. You’re kneeling behind me, the wool blanket around us both. Tendrils of your hair spill from a hasty put-up. I roll out of my cross-legged position. The sunlamps have evaporated the cold. A not-unpleasant breeze drifts from the hallway, the bathroom exhaling its chill.

  It feels like a resurrection, a return from hell, a reprieve from Yahweh. I shrug off the blanket. You roll up behind me. The room feels like Spring. The Garden is whole.

 

  We stay up watching the jellyfish. It hovers and floats as if waiting for the mother signal. You take my hand. In the glow of the jellyfish, we stare into each other’s eyes for ten seconds at a time, falling deeper…

  Jellyfish are used in anticancer medicines. Maybe this one will stop the spread, you say.

  Neither of us have cancer, I say.

  …then for ten minutes at a time…

  It’s working already, you say.

  …until we began to dissolve. We disassociate.

  There’s no panic, only weightlessness.

  [N S F W]

  11

  Mr. Ray taps the paper with my psych test results. Takes off his glasses. Cleans them and peers at the results again. Sets them aside. Tells me nothing came of the weekend protests. No violence incited. Externally, that is.

  Asks if I know where the term “basket case” came from. He explains: in WWI, soldiers that had both arms and legs amputated had to be carried in a litter or basket. Such soldiers were warehoused, and fed and hosed down like livestock. A secret slush fund was created to bring in women from France in exchange for US citizenship. Comforters for the basket cases. After six months, when their flesh had healed, the basket cases were shipped off to Germany, in exchange for data achieved from experiments that became the basis of the German Research Foundation. It was on these shoulders Josef Mengele stood.

  This deal supplanted a similar deal with the Soviet government. They’ve never forgotten the US breaking that deal and we’ve been rivals ever since. Mr. Ray adjusts his sock garters and slips into his slacks. Nobody remembers this because of Operation Paperclip, he says.

  And now basket case means one who can’t get their shit together or one who can’t cope.

 

  My father Raymond Gunn the First—he takes pride in saying his father’s name. I wish I could do the same—he left me this. He taps his industrial-green, sleek Groma Kolilbri typewriter. A West German product. Not much bigger than the first laptops. This machine kills fascists, he says. He scribbles on a Post-it note and slaps it casually on the desk. He excuses himself from his office with a false narrative.

  I move around to his desk to admire the typewriter. Next to it is a sheaf of paper, on the Post-it, an address.

  A Hawaiian address. The home address of the ƒace. Twenty thousand square feet of temporary home while his army of lawyers annex land for his dream compound.

  Instead of the blank paper, I roll in the results of my test and begin to type on the back of them. The satisfying clack of the keys merges with the physical sensation of physically creating words by mechanical means. There is no delete. No spellcheck. No autocorrect. Just ink stamped into pulp. I feel as if I am doing work for the first time at Vex.

 

  We are the thin digital line, the ƒace says.

 

  I type the ƒace a letter. I type it slowly, hunting and pecking each key, keeping the number of typos to an acceptable level. A human touch. My ink-stained fingerprints evidence of physical collaboration between man and machine.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25