favela

they steered down the caste iron stairway arriving at the dodecahedron, shining black as black, in the center of the lobby. synthetic weeds piled-up and fell around the base. A desperate space probe machine gun religion jutting up through the floor. A cheap Lecorbusier ripoff determined to grip onto a a once promising dream once again. The structure interacted with telekinetic smugness, displaying a holographic representation of the two people staring at it. In the mirror, miss charlotte sat on hroderbert's lap. They were in the bedroom. Upstairs. He gripped her around the waist. She placed her hand lightly on the side of his face, dragging her thumb lingeringly behind. “Where do you want to be kissed?” she asked. “Imperfectly,” he said. Hrodebert turned to miss charlotte. She continued to stare into the mirror as she increased her filter and the image faded. She turned toward him and smiled. “a favor?” hrodebert wondered. “does she know how it feels? The lonely frustration. The jitter to connect.” he looked at her curiously, and she turned to face toward the exit. “c'mon,” she said, navigating her liquid black-toned limbs toward the door. They exited into the mirror-world street. Cars lined the thoroughfare, windows smashed, glass shining on the ground. Some cars were gutted and used as sleeping quarters. Others laid charred like wounded buffalo killed for game. The carpacolypse never did quite occur. Replacement sewer tunnels, halted above ground in the midst of construction, provided luxury caves for some of the people in east hollywood. This was y territory. The madness of circuitry had broke and was replaced only with wreckage, rust, more broken pieces. After some time hooked on y, it became nearly impossible to clean-up the shards. The mind became too fractured, inveterate.

“where are we going?” hrodebert asked.

“i'm following you,” she said.

“what? You're connected. You know the dimensions of the landscape...”

“i've been following you all along.”

“let's get a drink.”

they walked down the street. Out of a refuge pile situated on the kerb, trotted a tiny man in a bowler's hat. He had the look of an anime character with a thin, slightly curved mustache and toy doll tony dark eyes that flourished inimitably. as hrodebert and miss charlotte passed, he took his hat off and commenced a sweeping salutory gesture. Miss charlotte laughed and waved. Hrodebert walked past, and in a delayed gesture, bowed to the man swing band style. they continued on. human forms hung by rope from the rooftops of abandoned buildings – art pranks. Graffiti murals and apocalyptic utterances decorated the interiors of disused shops – EXIST. DO YOU NOT know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own
1 Corinthians 6:19

BLOOOD OF MY BLOOD

DO

Two bearded men sputtered from an alley and rounded the corner. one fiddled with a monocle – the broken crest of an interface washed to the refuge frontier. It was a real find. “i say, will we not monkey the farcle or for that matter brew some tea. It's the afternoon of the perfect wooden table in the year of the great wide. This will not be tolerated.” said the unmonocled man, his houndstooth coat rippling in wind gusts. “don't play unfluorescent with me,” said the other. They whisked off shoulder to shoulder, the unmocoled man's ruddy face disappearing like a 90's era auto taillight.

“this place is riddled with h,” said miss charlotte.

“it's the only way to live here. This is the end.” said hrodebert.

Far down the thoroughfare, a smokestack and two old factories could be seen. Moss was creeping around the base of the building. Vines sloped all around the facade, and a rash of brush encircled the two concrete and steel structures. Feral buildings of east la. They walked down the street saying nothing, prepared for whatever sort of goofs or kicks the street threw their way. They passed a rotting filling station to their right, and took in the fragrance of gasoline and leaves. “i always did love that scent,” said miss charlotte. Hrodebert said nothing but smiled gently. They strode carefully together, admiring the hollowed out cafes and bike shops. The defunct convenience stores and check cashers. There were some bonfires tending to huddled bodies in the rabble. mechanical cctv camera gulls circled trash heaps – televisions, mannequins, broken glass, spinning motors. As they approached the feral buildings, a whooping and hollering could be heard. The anachronistic outline of savages from an old school textbook, or possibly from an 80's era cartoon, fuzzed to life. Long-haired reurbaners, some bearded, some not, were gathering beige objects out of barrels. They placed the bounty on an elongated television built table and diced them up.

“howdy,” said hrodebert.

“howdy, man,” said the one with stacks of bracelets – circuitry, old wires, and twisted metal, too – his long hair was tied back, a smiled glowed through his beard, and it extended out toward twinkling blue eyes.

“what are ya all getting into it?” asked, hrodebert.

“huh?” asked the savage.

“what's the good news, brother?”

“oh. We're about to celebrate. You're just in time. Please come join us.”

“i'm hrodebert, by the way,” he said outstreching his hand. “and thanks, but we probably should get going.”

“thad. It's a pleasure. No, i insist upon your company. we're feasting tonite. You must stay.”

hrodebert introduced miss charlotte, who interjected: “we've nowhere to go right now. If it's not a burden...”

“of course not. Please do Join us.”

they walked over to two dreadlocked rastafarians picking what appeared to be potatoes out of two white plastic barrels.

“hail i,” they said turning around to greet the visitors.

“greetings,” hrodebert and miss charlotte said.

“we don't get many visitors, and you have come on a grand day – the day of our feast.” said one of the rastas.

“thank you,” said miss charlotte who introduced herself and hrodebert.

The male's name turned out to be freddie. He was of average height, and His sinewy but lean muscular arms deftly removed the vegetables as if he was in an unearthly trance. He smiled often and so did ashanti, who's glowing white teeth made you smile with joy in return. Ashanti handed miss charlotte a marijuana stick. “here. Smoke this.” miss charlotte passed around the tea. Hrodebert inhaled, and He felt the smoke flower through the sensors in his upper respiratory system. He didn't know whether his faraway soul, if it could be called a soul, would respond to the drug. Freddie and ashanti continued to transfer the potatoes to the television table. Goldstar, samsung and toshiba labels protruded into sight from the table as someone in black jeans, t-shirt and boots silently cut the potatoes. To the right, a fire began to flicker in a pit. Three Strange characters dressed in white polycarbon material tended to the fire while two figures in salvaged military apparel carried wood from the debris of the neighborhood.

“can we do anything to help?” hrodebert asked.

“you're here, right? You are helping.”

“there must be something...” said miss charlotte.

“i'll introduce you to the rest of the family. Come.”

they began walking over to the others. Hrodebert looked up at the dilapidated building and began feeling a mysterious shroud envelop his consciousness. He noticed herbs sprouting from reclaimed glass jars in the windows of the buildings, and his mind floated to thoughts of a grapevine in the valley. That very moment he wanted to implore miss charlotte – spill his uncanny dream to her - to join him in his imagination: “forget your customs; forget your rituals; lose your religion; i don't know you from eve, dig? You're woman. I'm man. Let's stay together in the red dust of god's cradle beneath a fiery sun while clinging to the terminal grape vine.” he looked over at her and was struck, for the first time he could remember, at such a look of placid contentment as she stared straight ahead in what could only be surmised as a moment of clear apophenia. the three marched lockstep, and hrodebert's mind fragmented and blurred. They reached the two eurasians who were dressed in white monomer showercurtains, and upon closer inspection, cubist designs with a hanson sheen could be seen on the showercurtains. They wore boots reminiscent of 20th century anti-gravity moonwalkers. They were very focused on the cooking of the food. Freddie startled the two as he attempted introductions. “hail i. We've visitors, mon.” They all made greetings and spoke in spacey tones though their inflections sounded genuine and kind. The girl called photonia brushed her posh bobbed hair behind her ear and stirred the simmering contents of the industrial tin cauldron.

“where are you coming from?” asked simon, his countenance morphing into quizzical wonderment in this attempt at small talk.

“we were staying at the motel yonder.” hrodebert said and pointed back in the direction of the motel.

“the tinsel town estuary?” photonia questioned with a sound that floated somewhere between disdain and amusement.

“we were visiting a friend,” miss charlotte said. “We're coming from new york.”

“i was thinking you do not look the part. Irie. We are so happy to have you, however.”

“we're thrilled to be here,” said miss charlotte. “how can we help?”

the third beshowercurtained girl walked over with her hands full of disrepaired wood. Her red hair flowed over the shower curtain like chthonic tentacles, and she was followed by two girlboys, one draped in a u.s. Military dress raincoat, the other in an h2o parka unzipped to show a pale green sheet beneath it. More introductions.

“i'll never remember all these names.” said hrodebert.

“give it time. You're home now,” said freddie.

Hrodebert looked up at the too-big sky and scanned the horizon. Beyond the two buildings, a field of yellowing grass and weeds rolled in one huge bulge of land toward another building situated on a parellel street. In back of the building a field of marijuana crops sprouted haywire from the earth.

“that's where we feast, my friends,” freddie said, noticing hrodebert's surveying gaze.

The girlboys walked to the warehouse and took out a stack of chrome platters. Ashanti also strode over with a big smile, pearly teeth shining in halogen beauty, and took one of the platters. Photonia scooped the contents of the cauldron onto the platter, and ashanti made her way to the far building. Freddie and the rest did likewise, and hrodebert and miss charlotte followed suit.

As they strode peacefully across the disused valley, hrodebert turned to miss charlotte and casually asked if she was connected.

“i haven't even thought about it,” she said. “This is so lovely.”

the field formed a sort of quadrangle, and they trudged over the soft grass as if it was the penultimate treat for the joints of their soft machines in motion.

“how do you feel?” miss charlotte asked hrodebert.

“pretty good,” he said.

“really?” she asked surprised, expecting a certain level of consternation due to his lack of an outlet.

“i don't know how, but i feel pretty high.”

“you're whole,” she said with wonderment.

He smiled and quipped, “we're never broken.”

they came upon the stately ruins of an episcopal church built largely of stone in neogothic style. Thick undergrowth crept its way up the bleak walls of the church, and rotting grey trees framed the structure in such a sense of gloom as to rain soot across the dark tarmac of the jewelhead. The heavens that shot through the shattered stained glass redeemed the despair somehow by twisting macabre mysteries into renewal of the sublime. The discarded house of worship opened itself to new subjective superstitions, stranger roots had grown.

“take a look at the beach, mon,” freddie said pointing to a feral water garden where the holy ghost of toads could be heard praying beneath a setting sun.

“it's gorgeous,” said miss charlotte.

They entered through the parlor one by one as freddie held the door open. A musty stench of ancient art hung in the air. Each footstep multiplied itself in acoustic arrangements, cascading off the walls as they walked through the parlor and entered into the transept. A wooden banquet table supported by sawhorses was situated just outside the center of the room. One of the girlboys lit a match and and began to light the four wax candles distributed on the table. The transept showered luminescence and the flames brightness pounced upon the shaggy crimson carpet, which steeped its way to a plateau leading to the sanctuary. Strewn across the carpet sat cages, some of bamboo. Some were intricately designed baroque cages. Others were east indian influenced and decorated with candy wrapper collages and turrets. There were medieval castles constructed of plastic and one looked singular in its stone make-up. These were cast about in such chaos as to give the impression of a sort of freedom and archaeological wonderment.

The group took seats on planks supported by cinder blocks on each side of the table, and photonia urged everyone to dig in. Hrodebert and miss charlotte picked up the chopsticks beside the fine china plates, and grabbed chunks of potato, radish and onion. The food was decidedly hot, and freddie and ashanti could be heard praising jah for the meal.

“everyone waits for that one sacred bird,” hrodebert said to miss charlotte.

She glanced over at the cages, toggled into the beyond, and saw images of digital meadowlarks. She gasped.

The group ravished the food ruthlessly as the girl in black who'd been chopping vegetables on the television sets arrived. She carried a chalice filled with what appeared to be rolled pot.

“oh, guests!” she shouted upon noticing hrodebert and miss charlotte. “i had no idea! How grand!”

“erasia, meet hrodebert and miss charlotte,” simon said.

“how do you do?”

“so glad you could join us for the feast. It's not everyday we get such special guests, you know.”

“thank you,” said miss charlotte and hrodebert appreciatively.

They continued to pile their plates with the vegetables and filled their hunger with the harvest.

“if you don't mind if i ask, do you happen to have an outlet to the beyond?” hrodebert asked between bites.

“my friend, its all around us,” said ashanti.

“but... i, i toggled and saw birds, unique, colorful birds, some with monkey heads, others with serpent tails in the cages.”

some shook their heads. One of the boygirls hadn't lifted a head from the plate. “those are monkeywrenchers, dear. Technofetishists fighting to bring electricity and vain images to our peaceful land.”

“where do they come from and what do they want?” asked hrodebert.

“they want to destroy our harmony, become the substance of our nightmares.' who knows? The berserkers smash the circuitry and the technofiles reconnect. It never ends,” said clarence 13x.

“you don't want the power?” miss charlotte asked incredulously.

“for what?” snarled one of the girlboys. “we have so much here. There's no need for it.”

“but there's so much y use around,” miss charlotte said.

“y y y,” said simon. “why question y? The berserkers manufacture it and hang with the people in the neighborhood who are doused in y. it's very peaceful.”

“i don't know. I don't mean to be impertinent but it seems like such a waste.”

everyone at the table chuckled amusedly.

“we are the waste possibilities,” said photonia. “we don't answer to nobody. We don't owe nobody nothing.” the conviction in her eyes looked charming. Her hair threatened to throw a net of liminal desire over her lashes.

“we've found the secret garden,” interjected simon. “... and we've tamed it. You haven't touched your water, by the way. It's been sand-filtered, infused with rose petal extract. It's lovely. Don't be shy.”

miss charlotte and hrodebert washed down their food with the sweet water, and the last of the morsels were picked off the platters. Erasia took a couple tea sticks from the chalice and passed them around the table.

“I want to show you something,” freddie said to the guests as he rounded the deteriorating organ and entered the sanctuary. Hrodebert and miss charlotte followed behind in a smoky haze of iridescence. They entered the sanctuary and were struck by a sculpture of machinery, wires, industrial refuge, mold injected toys, all the effluvia of pop americana. The sculpture was staggeringly intricate. A space vessel of some kind tearing away from a church mounted on steel sprockets and rubber. There were gobs of human faces fleeing the church in plasma form, arms and hands desperately reaching for the space vessel. The three dimensional sculpture was comprised of such a heady mishmash of styles and materials so as to project a future world that mirrored a past world, swinging out to a new world of grotesque beauty, possibly buried somewhere in the center of the earth, waiting to be discovered by another subterranean klimm.

“who created that?” miss charlotte asked clarence 13x.

“I've spent countless years on it. My hope is that somebody, someday will happen upon it, and ask themselves in mystical wonder, “who are the ancient ones? This is not earthly.”

“it's breathtaking,” hrodebert said as he approached the sculpture. He leaned his hand on a pedestal to the right as he kneeled down to inspect the rococo detail, and his hand brushed across a large parchment leather bound volume with an embossed emblem on the spine. Hrodebert rose and picked up the book. In raised black lettering on the loosening spine read, phaidon mirabillibus. He opened it gently and scanned the text. it was a lost quarto gothic, sprung to life through the rubble of indeterminate dust. A small history of another universe with all its algebra and spices and oceans and precious metals. Some interplanetary civilization, which had long been buried through the haste of efficiency of time and metamathematical demystification, tiptoeing silently through the fissures of a collective imagination so as not to leave a trace.

As Clarence 13x advanced toward the book the overhead halogens flickered to life. Miss charlotte and hrodebert looked up, then turned to clarence 13x.

“we'll go outside now,” he said.

They met the others outside. Small gusts of wind warred with the parched yellow grass, and the sky hung with a dark mezzotint.

“the berserkers will come out soon all quaffed, dissolute, lobbing petrol bombs at the vital nodes of all this reformed circuitry,” said ashanti.

One of the boygirls cut in, “the vain conceit of this techno-madness will be scaled down to pretty accessories – ring-around-the-rosie.”

“and the question of why we are playing is never answered, and nobody cares - we all fall down and get back up. Come. Let's go to bed,” ashanti continued.

They all skirted the marijuana field and a tent-like structure of polyvinyl chloride pipes supporting a roof of cardboard came into view on the other side of the crops. Screeching tires and tired gear grinding emanated in the distance.

“yes, let's sleep now. Tomorrow we feast,” freddie said.

The troupe walked to the portico of the makeshift encampment, which was constructed of polyvinyl chloride pipes, cardboard, and a tarpaulin. The tarp was fastened on top of the cardboard, though the frayed and battered edges of the cardboard were exposed to the elements. An old kerosene lamp hung between a few scattered rocking chairs of homestead quaintness. The girlboys lounged in the grass outside the portico, and clarence 13x, ashanti, and the gang took seats in the rocking chairs or on the ground. Hrodebert spread out on the grass, and freddie, who sat on the ground, offered a rocking chair to miss charlotte. She thanked him and sat down. Clarence 13x picked up a mandolin from beside the rocking chair and began strumming. Ashanti hummed to the tune, and stroboscopic flashes could be seen in the distance. It was beautiful. Nobody talked. Intrapsychic wormholes were being dug from the atmospheric music. far-off surges and sparks festooned the horizon, intermingling with the music to form a secret animal language. One alien wavelength. Hrodebert watched the electrically wired currents pop and fizzle over the pavement. The girlboys writhed in the grass in free-love forms. After a few songs, the group began to file into the tent. Sheet metal and drywall sectioned off compartments inside the tent where the interlocutors slept. Sufi. Some paired off and retired to their respective compartments. Photonia advised miss charlotte and hrodebert they were to stay with her. Photonia and miss charlotte followed the others through the open hallway, crouching slightly as they moved through the space. Miss charlotte looked back at hrodebert who was still sitting in the grass.

“i'll head in in a bit,” he whispered.

“you should come,” she shot back.

“in a little while. I'm smitten with the view right now,” he said.

A geometric diagram of industrial angles quantified the sky. He looked beyond the field, beyond the dueling blades of grass and watched the halogens flicker off downward of th' pitch. The others had settled into sleeping bags, and after watching the process of dashing lightbulbs, hrodebert stood up and walked back toward the church. His mind was in a haphazard way, not content with the illusory prospect of his host body feigning sleep. He walked, arms and hands outstretched as if on a balance bean, only to feel the night air rush against his input sensors. He escaped the moon and reentered the church through the parlor. The overhead halogens cast an extraplanetary glow over the church, and the building took on strange new shadows in the electric haze.

aladdin sane

Aladdin sane dropped the bag on the doily, which mutltiplied itself spread-eagle style over the surface of the victorian end-table. “great meeting you.” chimed cristina and nelson. “likewise,” said miss charlotte. “likewise,” i said. “i'll see you soon,” arturo said, as he walked toward the door, closing it as they left. Arturo flashed his retina opposite the obscured laser vomit in the wall, flush with the “secure” icon. “take a seat, hrodebert,” arturo said, as he stumbled away from the door. Ronko morphed into the second co-host of the 1985 edition of the gameshow “break the bank” and lifted the celluloid cover off the table, waving her hand sexily above. Hrodebert stood objectively in place, handsapocket, scowling with a look of silicon-determination. “what the fuck do they want from me?” he shouted. “take it easy” - arturo broke into a coughing fit, cyan colored saliva dribbling into his beard - “they want structured dreams from you. You operate on the fringes. Exploiting exotic images as if they were common.” “can't you see i'm losing my motherfucking mind,” hrodebert yelled and picked up a folded tin chair with a warped wooden seat and threw it through the plaster wall, exposing the steel reinforcement. “500% fuzz,” hrodebert said, as he slid into the glandular seat and ran his fingers through his hair, torturing his follicles with shrewd, angry strokes. “listen,” arturo said. “you're my responsibility. I'm the reason you're here. Trust me or them, hrodebert. I'm all you have right now.” arturo made his way toward the far window, wheezing, using chairs and tables for support. “you see,” he said, throwing the sachet to light. A horseshoe fly hovered against the glass window. “they're here.” “who's here?” “a surveillance subsidiary, of course. You're not safe in meatspace...” “but i'm on their mainframe?” “don't worry about that. I uploaded you. Besides, you're worth too much...” hrodebert turned sharply to arturo who began coughing uncontrollably and muttering unintelligible monosyllables, “table!” he managed through two quick breaths. Hrodebert walked over to the table and laid down. He closed his eyes, and his morose expression sent miss charlotte into the corner of the room where she stood facing the wall, grinding her teeth and punishing her cuticles.

Aladdin sane turned his head toward the back of miss charlotte's shiny black silhouette, turned back toward the table and promptly reached for the wifi jammer. He turned it on and sent a continuous stream of valid wifi packets to the embedded module of the locomative simalucra in order to block 11layr's mix cascade messages, tunneled through onion layers of routing complexity streaming from the floating host. Hrodebert's consciousness left his body, floating in a non space field. Sane took out a pen laser and set to work despoiling the product code. Ronko gingerly gathered the organic aesthete membranes as sane carved into the body's proportions. Miss charlotte floated over to the table, lit a cigarette and watched on as the metamorphosis took place. Sane toggled in and out of the beyond, following the prescript for physical detection avoidance of simulacrum 17-543, the prescript being similar to algorithms used for digitally manipulating human images to form superior second-life attraction without removing the beef-eye essence. Sane's hands moved effortlessly as if guided by a marionette. his genius lay in his technical reality hacking. The prescript information flowed to digitally infuse his grey matter from the dionysian muse of infinite phosphorescent alphanumerics. Ronko emoted “transfigured night,” which exploded off the walls while Sane composed a maestro godhead sculpture, fusing the loose membranes into the indents and hollows of the body, forming an alternate physical equasion, understated in its complexity, though revealing a diagram of bones separate and less intense, more approachable even than the original form. The essence remained, though without the threat of laser identification. Sane removed the rfid card and handed it to ronko who crushed it. The monomers fell feebly to the floor. Miss charlotte stood apprehensively, fidgeting with a chinese trinket she picked off the end table. Her downturned eyes peeked up occasionally, bobbing vertically as a result of curious whispers that shook her from deep inside an atomically dark place.

“el fin es en la demarcacion.” sane announced.
Ronko farted a series of sound files before waving her hand over the nerve fibers of the chrysalis. Sane cut off power to the jammer, and hrodebert awoke with chimerical dread.

“talk to me.”

“i'm having a nervous breakdown.”

“the prosthetic eye is a camera, hrodebert.”

“huh?”

“you've been recording everything. You'll continue to record events, people, environments, situations, and you'll organize the movement and time into a movement image.”

“like, edit the footage?”

“right. But that fact won't make the credits.”

the freudian-marxist program was sated. His sternum began palpitating regularly, and he turned to miss charlotte.

“you look great,” she said.

“i saw them,” he said. “they crashed down through the glass paneled roof of the warehouse. Swung down on steel cables, wielding the most violent hardware. They were wearing ballistic clothing, sonar helmets... i made it through a window in the wall and could hear a chopper overhead. You wouldn't believe the noise, air currents. They stormed into the room... i weep for the future... i figured out how to reverse the extinction of the earth... Glad puppet hell... i love you.”

“you need to take him to the periphery. There's a public lab group operating in the blur zone where psiphon software will allow him to circumvent state controls of cyberspace. Find kraftwerk. He needs to feel the connectivity, the rush of second life in abstract space. go. I'll call you a smartblade. Go, mutherfuckers,” he said, flailing his arms toward the door.

sane plucked the inhaler off the table and bent his worn lever of an elbow perpendicular to his mouth. He released the Drug into his bloodstream. The old prick began sputtering, coughing. He waved them out of the room before he collapsed in a heap of organic detritus, fluids and phlegm exuding out of his soft machine case.

explanation

hrodebert and miss charlotte knocked on his door. there was a fat wash of white sound emitting from the room, as the two stood there waiting expectantly. muffled sounds, door opens. arturo greeted them looking worn out and haggard. his typically glowing white linen shirt was covered in cigarette ash, yellow stains and hung limply backwards on his narrowing shoulders. his graying beard flowered kaczynski-like about his imploding face. He ushered them in as he took a quick puff from the inhaler. “don't mind the detritus, please. i assure you ronko brought the equipment in as little as one hour ago. look,” he said, lifting the celluloid cover off the table slightly. “baby clean. But, ah, ah, take a seat first. We have much to talk about. oh, and say, 'hello' to ronko. Ronko blinked proudly in the corner of the room and as hrodebert and miss charlotte moved their gaze toward him, ronko morphed instantly into a very benign appearing human waving affably and articulating a clear, friendly 'hello.' accustomed to the consensual hallucination, hrodebert and miss charlotte each saluted in turn. they maneuvered through the strewn video cards, discarded food containers, subzero cpu coolers lying like upturned cockroaches, and sat down in two great depression era rocking chairs. Arturo tripped his way into a fraying, cantaloupe-colored lay-z-boy.

“so... you know that dr. leclercq has inquired of you recently. You're a very popular man right now.”

“what's he gotta say?” hrodebert inquired, recrossing his legs uneasily.

“just curious as to how you're faring without access to the beyond is all... how do you feel?”

“uh, i feel like i'm falling down.”

“i'm not surprised. dr. leclercq told me how you two met, but he failed, or more accurately, chose not to tell you who's hosting you. Curious that you didn't ask...”

“huh? what the fuck are you talkin' about? And like-say quick. I don't have the patience for footnotes right now, man. ”

“your mind is being hosted by black hole symphony entertainment, hrodebert. You're expected to produce, and produce quickly, some relevant piece of countercultural art. They don't care what kind (reflect widely and lively [autotelic} through the seventh art) ('the machinic assemblage of movement-images.”)... name-your-prefix punk, space opera, some detached postmodernist bullshit, something that doesn't exist yet preferably, but it must capture imaginations, and you're getting expensive, not to mention...”

“why don't they just extract his raw dreams and edit them into an art form?” miss charlotte interjected.

“well, black tried that with the film director, edvard van der hurd. They thought they'd have a cash cow to milk for dark, offbeat scandinavian film enthusiasts, but the melding of images became a bit inaccessible as technology grew. His dreams were partly influenced by context, you see, and technology...”

laughing, laughing, a hand slapping soft flesh, rapping at the door.

“ah.” arturo said, “please excuse me.”

he opened the door to a latino guy dressed as an old don johnson miami vice character with his arm around a latina who was sporting knee-high black leather boots, a black skirt, kandinsky colored blouse with slits down the sides, and an array of spiderwebs jettisoning over her black, silky hair – unbearably typical valley girl fashion. They were laughing uncontrollably. The motel was overrun with an array of recycled hollywood golden era inspired mod characters, b-movie characters, and even kitschy 1980's television suggestive fashion entertainers living in the underworld of cinematic purgatory. Some were able to get work as stand-in extras for visual entertainment pieces edited into large video overlay films (used to pique a viewer to any latent feeling, which could then be projected at chosen amplification or frequency to other sensenet users) while others were just quirky enough to outhustle hospitalitybots for nightlife gigs. The lucky ones, the real talent were scooped up by fractallife corporations like 11layr, and the actor's vocabulary of feelings would be uploaded to sensenet databases via neuralelectric drives. Billions of legitimate users could download and project any given stimulation or response in the transcend similar to massive multiplayer online role-playing games of the past. News content providers would regularly give accounts of the happy couple who met due to their affinity for throat-slashing gore-horror or the story of self-reflexive social media critics in love...

“come in, come in, sit down. Please,” arturo told the most recent arrivals. “hrodebert, miss charlotte, nelson and cristina.”

they exchanged greetings while nelson fished a hemp bag out of his pink jacket pocket and handed it to arturo.

“we'd love to stay, doc, but we've most pressing business to attend to, and besides, looks as though you all are in the middle of something.”

deviation street

they arrived on deviation street and entered the baila. the air in ashleigh's secret baila, emitted through an overhead airshower, felt like a heady mixture of styrene and lambic. ivan and jesus rushed toward two of the old, svelt white plastic consoles, which were distributed in a pentagram shape in the center of the room. arturo looked around curiously, as this spot was designed for neuroelectric outsourcing, of which he was already equipped. he noticed what looked to be salvage punks accustomed to operating in the drag, motionless, entranced by the holographic pronbots at each console. the wall to the left animated in symbiosis with the psychic wavezones of salt water lapping a generically-dreamed shore. to the right, beer on tap along with a digital menu board advertising drink specials in verdana font where a fairly obvious android, reminiscent of an aging rock star's reality love show, chatted up patrons and mixed drinks.

arturo felt the world giving him the finger and ordered a drink, "more-less-by-division," he told the barkeep.

"hee-yaw, coming right up, captain," shouted the droid, as he spun liqueur cherries out of cayenne pepper rolls and threw them into the whiskey glass. next, he poured the whiskey. next layer, milk and honey. topped it off with alkermes, vermouth, strega and slid it over the white plastic veneer with calculated carelessness. arturo sat down on the aluminum stool and took a sip. pronbots were chatting with each other in the strata and delivering drinks to the cats at the consoles. arturo's eyes landed on ivan and jesus who were frozen before the console, lost in ovid-tinged erotic dreams.

for 10 new yen, ashleigh's secret offered a menu of holographic orbital erotic-dreams. arturo had telepathically transferred the 20 new yen to ashleigh's secret, and ivan and jesus had placed their heads in the consoles, securing the trodes in order for their eeg to be read. a menu of dreams hosted by the partner corporation, alluretube enticed visitors with various interactive erotic fantasies. ivan's mind wandered to the beach setting labeled "most popular" where holographic pronbots began feeding him wild fruit. his sensory perceptions were sated by his eye movements in the holo temple as he directed the women on the beach in accordance with the oscillations of his whims. three women, sand, cranes flying overhead in the gentle breeze where palm leaves shook. loves body is taken in visual literacy to the delta of venus before the light fades and time's up.

jesus, too, had found something kinkier, wilder so he thought. his eyes made their way to the "once in your lifetime" submenu where he focused on the bathroom of a dirigible untethered to the art deco night sky. a flight attendant was coaxing him, no, seducing him into the restroom. she was tanned or more of a cafe-au-lait complexion, a eurasion married to a wealthy executive who was searching for something young and fast and dangerous. jesus was her man in jesus's mind. he entered the restroom, and in a frenzy they tore off each other's clothes. he felt her pressed up against him, overtaken with longing, lust. jesus moved his hands over her. she unzipped his fly and began going down in him.

arturo continued to sip his drink, amused by the operations of the last vestiges of holo temples. a pronbot began chatting with one of the patrons, caressing his back, moving her hands ever lower. she reacted to each of his actions with programmable efficiency. she was programmed with words, odds, the entire computer system of human consciousness. the mex was putty in her hands as she moved him toward a bead curtain to the left of the bar where neon lights illuminated beanbag beds. the pronbots knew how to sell themselves and exploit the immediate need for gratification and the furtive excitement of backroom sex, but they were at a technological disadvantage to the erotic mental gymnastics possible in the wind tunnel of imagination waiting at each console.

he shot down the remaining whiskey, content to leave the two mexicans to walk back on their own, arturo headed for the door. "you pop-dream enabling types are unbearable. look at that shit," she said, pointing to the 11layr building, its spiraled slip-stream mercury swerving up, up, up to the crystal pyramid staring down on the city with tyrannical aplomb. "the collective dream of peasant favored fascism. tacky as fuck!" these words had been echoing in his head for the past week. her fury melded into his nonchalant walk to ling-po's. she was beyond beautiful, beyond anything he could have dreamed up. her cyan colored, emblemless cotton sweatshirt cut to form, her taut black cotton tights stopping just short of heavenly ankles and then what? slippers on her delicate ivory feet. arturo could see that beyond her grey eyes and the tangle of dark brown hair creeping ever-so about her shoulders lurked a terraform future, a terraform present. "pardon me?" he asked, bitten by something more than surprise - say, real stabbing pain. "you heard me, asshole. i saw you walk out of that building... look at you in that ridiculous getup, like an ancient hairy-backed roman senator. are you even human?" he scuttled past her, trying to ignore, forget. he continued on to ling po's.

now, leaving the baila, these words mutated, fractured, reverberated in his mind, tracing across the inside of his forehead like childhood remembrances of an old exorcist horror show. he toggled into the beyond and ordered a smartblade. the car tried to make small talk. “hey, pard, how 'bout the dodgers this year? escobar's due for a breakout season.” arturo managed a conventional affirmation before arriving at his galley. “hello, art,” chimed the doorbots in unison, as the thick glass parted in the middle to let their god enter his castle. He shot up to the twenty third floor where his wife was lounging on the cranberry divan in her white tunica and stola, fanning herself with peacock feathers. she immediately rose when he entered and gave him a finely programmed kiss. he had stuffed the hemp sack in his trousers to avoid detection. he told her he had some work he needed to get done pronto and retired to the study where he took out the sack, emptied the inhaler into his hand and released its aqueous contents into his mouth, soon to be strung out in heaven.

only shallow

Outside, the semaphore-topped skyline stared down pityingly in the angel of a dirigible night, as if it too was privy to some sudden mammalian pain. He shuffled down pico boulevard looking cracked, mad, sad as ever. his head to toe white linen ensemble with the custom-tailored collar made his anguished face appear all the more ridiculous as a pride battered peacock might look after being spurned by a potential mate. an inflatable tumbleweed gaging air purity skimmed across arturo's path as he walked in the direction of his top floor galley in the sky. He typically took the magnetic streetcar from ling po's back to his galley, but tonight he was determined to find an escape, and he knew the spot to look. Down by the arena an old electronics shop had been taken over by salvage mexicans who scooped archaic mobile devices out of scrap depots with the intention of hawking them to other aliens whose work had been displaced by bots. These aliens in the city had managed to create their own underworld analogue economy, and they were tolerated as another revenue stream for the local sports franchises whose arenas would be obsolete without the salvage mexs paying for analogue viewing. Arturo was nearing the arena when he spotted two shadows outside the electronics shack. No skynet eeg. “analogue warriors,” he thought. “sure to have some junk.” he toggled out of the beyond and into the drag as he approached the two shadows.

“what you need, papa?” one of the shadows blurted upon seeing arturo's white billows glide near.

Arturo walked up to the two, noticing outdated bracelet interfaces with bandanas wrapped around their forearms, obscuring the devices. They wore name brand derivative clothing manufactured with outdated polymer, a relic of the previous decade. One kept his jet-black hair in close-cropped fashion while the other brandished a ponytail and a chip on the inside of his left wrist, which was an easily discernible fashion mod. The pony-tailed mex shot the words, “blanco. es un cientifico.” his metallic teeth reflected a faint ray of light from a nearby palm. “que quiere?” the other mex asked.

Arturo crept closer until he could see the bemused, curious eyes of the two angels, and he looked around cautiously before whispering the word slowly and haltingly: “junk.” arturo felt the sweat begin to build on his brow.

“ahHahhhaa.” they cried out. “yonqui. Ahahaaha. Un chiste, no?” they laughed and pushed each other cheerfully. The fact of el cientifico asking for junk sent them into such a frenzy a mirth. They continued to hop around laughing until the pony-tailed one gathered himself and said seriously, “Ven conmigo, apache,” as he walked over and opened the door to the electronics shack. The other waited outside, still gabbing to himself and cackling maniacally, as arturo followed the ponytail into the shop. The unlit shop was illuminated with small lcd screens and absurd blinking lights. Arturo could hear the drone of fans cooling machines he'd read about and forgotten years ago. There was a buzzing he couldn't quite make out as he passed a cathode ray tube television set he'd learned about in a history of electronics engineering class. It was playing a movie he couldn't quite place, but he recognized the actor as “what's his name? Cruise.” arturo then heard a dull thud, and within a second, felt himself fall to lower ground. “shhh. Callate, apache,” the ponytail said. They were beneath the showroom of the shop, and arturo could make out a small fire in the distance. the wafting fragrance of rice and steamed crickets began to fill the air. As they neared the fire, arturo could discern a semi-circle of makeshift canvas tents. There were people sitting around the fire eating, mothers cradled babies, and some men were tinkering with small machines by the flame. One of the men wore a not so outdated visor, which was still popular with the entropy crowd on the outskirts of the city. Arturo noticed a pile of what looked to be actual wood, which fascinated him entirely “where the hell did that come from?” he wondered. and then scanning to the right, he saw an entropy-dwelling caucasian dressed in denim and cotton. An exchange was taking place. Meanwhile, ponytail had crawled into one of the tents, and in a moment, returned with a small hemp bag. “first, we go to ballet,” he told arturo.

Back outside, voodoo city was still breathing like ambient-cinnamon clockwork. “to the ballet, amigo, to the ballet, alla, alla,” they yelled in unison in the nearly deserted arena district, only broken by the cricket vendor munching a snack (enticement purposes) across the way before he headed home for the night, wherever home was. It didn't matter. He didn't need sleep. Arturo toggled into the beyond, and in short order a smartblade arrived to whip them to the ballet.

i hope you died in a decent pair of shoes

pale, she walked in, blue eyes shining, chrysanthemums neatly coiled in her hair where fireflies nested, glowing with lust. a unique bio mod. she'd read somewhere about indigenous south american women placing fireflies in their hair as jewelry, and if by some unlucky chance they fell asleep, the women would rub them to glow again. she'd ordered this simple vanity procedure years ago, and not soon after, had her skin optioned to the color of night. you can imagine the raw exoticism, swirling chaotic beyond-nature beauty.

"how are you holding up without dlens access?" she asked as her eyes drifted toward the green ambient glow of the bioluminscent palm trees outside.

"dimension lack mind hell," he snarled.

she took a seat on a crystal gland, which palpitated softly with her own internal rhythm in gentle and precise symbiosis. she watched intently as hrodebert twirled the heat gun, glitter splashing fragments of rainbows from the piece. somewhere from deep inside her primitive sense of sympathy, she felt a twang of pity for his anagnorisis, knowing he'd had to remove his telepathy chip; in other words, he fucked his mindplexes royally in order to avoid detection by the cognet.

the electric stream of cicadas singing bounded off the walls. a popular nighttime channel, as they're among the earth's greatest musical artists, and of course, deepest drinkers.

"arturo's waiting for you," she said. "but you already knew that."

he rose slowly, fearfully, knowing it was time to make the change and begin the trip to montreal. arturo kept a room on the third floor, the top of the motel, for no particular reason other than the fact that polaris, the north star, or possibly a lone antique russian streetlight far-off in the galaxy splashed crystalline into the room when the rest of the night had fluttered to merciless black. hrodebert and miss charlotte had consulted arturo a few days earlier in order to map a plan for hrodebert's scrubbing and mods.

arturo had been employed by 11layr, a pioneer in organic locomotive simulacra, among other more ubiquitous media ventures. the latest locomotive model, anthropometric to the last vigintillionth of a yoctometer, was housing hrodebert's mind. arturo was a key player in development at the los angeles-based firm, although as his heroin addiction worsened, the lies predictably began piling up. the men of science at 11layr were accustomed to joining each other for highballs at ling po's yoyo bar after exiting the lab, but after a couple of earth years, arturo no longer showed up at ling po's. the dreaming buildings, projecting themselves with vague longing and the shadowy ant-farm towers in downtown los angeles began to sicken him. the speed and highballs and pleasure models at ling po's made him cringe. six months ago, a pleasure model named trilyn approached him as he'd left his associates to talk with ling po who was stationed behind the bar.

"the serengeti ecosystem interface has been a boon for business," said ling po, staring out at the persistent grasslands where blue wildebeests and gazelles made their circular migration beneath the golden-paced serengeti sunset. they were gazing, enthralled by the plains when arturo noticed two brown orbs flash off the lacquered hemp bar, and he turned slightly right.

"you seem down," the pleasure model said, channeling his skynet thoughts.

"just in a bit of a funk," he said, knowing he sounded redundant, as she was tuned into his thoughts and spoken language had, in an instant, become a socially encouraged formality. he noticed her keenly programmed empathy and knew he didn't have to elaborate.

"i'm trilyn," she said, extending her ivory-colored hand. "arturo," he said, greeting her and peeking back at the serengeti. content brought to you courtesy of 11layr flashed across the wall. spinning on the balls of his barefoot shoes, he made a french exit into the mirror world street.

i don't know (this post may self-destruct)

i hear myself repeating over and over, like some freak mechanical flaw, a slot machine spitting change despite not ringing cherries: happiness postponed due to inclement weather. check back next summer [there's not even an exclamation point here.].

the coffee's been bitter lately, and the carousel with the bright lights and smiling horses throws me off as soon as the aha! peers into the dark, mirrors reflecting empty benches.

sure, i've a glob of putty to work with, though it seems stained with the past, a surefire cut-to-the-chase archaeology of the future . it's as if poor english poet, owing to the languorous after-effects of filthy forethings in the forest, stumbled in Act IV when arriving at that bit of avuncular nonsense regarding pudding and a goose, but ladies and gentlemen, i'm getting carried away.

the blue pills and red pills are best taken in the dark when nobodies watching, the projector in my mind tells me. better for marathon sessions of don't stop there, and i tend to agree. so what of this fine little space, i inquire...

linger.