Archive for the ‘David Kopaska-Merkel’ Category
Reanimated
Monday, July 12th, 2010
Oxford blinked again. It was easier this time. Liquid dripped into his open mouth. Repeat. Eventually, he could whisper. “Who?”
The two masked figures turned to look at each other, then back at Oxford.
The humans (?) were completely covered in tight-fitting blue garments, yet no physical details showed through. No nose, no chin, no breasts, nothing between the legs, nothing. The figures were not only sexless but speciesless.
“How? When?” Only single words could force themselves past his swollen lips. He felt restraints at ankles and wrists.
The two stepped back, then beat a hasty retreat.
“Wait!”
They were gone.
Perhaps he was imagining their haste. If they weren’t human their body language might be completely different, his inferences about them all wrong. He wiggled his toes. He knew one thing for sure. They’d healed the severed spinal cord that had sent him to cryo in the first place. They had some kind of plan for him.
He was fed by a smooth-featured robot (designed by aliens?) until he could feed himself from a bowl. Over the next few days his strength returned. When he was able to stand the bed lowered itself to a few inches above the floor and the restraints vanished. He explored his cell. The ceiling was hidden in darkness, as were the walls, but he was able to find those. He was in a square about 20 feet across. A weak source of illumination above the center, and a bed directly beneath the light, were the sum total of its features. Food and drink appeared at intervals, apparently materializing on the floor in plain dishes (which proved unbreakable). Somehow he was never looking when the food appeared, and it did not always appear in the same place, so, clearly, he was being observed. Wherever he eliminated waste, the spot was clean in moments, even the bed (he’d had no bedpan in those first days). The dishes disappeared unobserved, just as they had appeared, no matter how fixedly he stared. If he held them, they vanished when he slept. He saw, heard, and smelt no one and nothing save for himself and his meals. He cajoled, implored, sang, composed letters, ranted, declaimed, jabbered, howled.
A man can only take so much.
His fruitless attempts at communication escalated over a few weeks to self-mutilation.
—
“I win again. Want to go for best out of 3?”
“No. Let’s try a different specimen this time.”
End
Reduction In Force
Monday, June 28th, 2010
I didn’t see any practical difference when they replaced the bus drivers with chimpanzees. When the grim ladies in the benefits office vanished and octopi took their places I thought it was an improvement. And so it went. In the end, zero human employment wasn’t such a bad thing. The factories ran smoothly staffed by giant spiders and genetically modified prairie dogs. Sylvia and I had our museums, parks, sidewalk cafés, and all the pleasures of a leisured life. I had my games and she had her tableau photography. We loved gallery openings, plays, espresso by the square. We had TIME. All that’s gone now, and I’m a hunted man.
One night I returned to our apartment after spending a couple of pleasant hours playing baseball in the park. I anticipated that Sylvia had prepared a delicious meal – gourmet cooking was a passion of hers. We would settle in at the entertainment portal and launch a beautiful milieu in which to eat our dinner. Maybe Venice before the Melting. I palmed the security pad, slipped inside, and stopped still. I sniffed the air. There was no sound; an acrid scent tickled my nose, and something else. The lights were off.
“Hi honey, I’m home?” My only answer was a faint rustling from the portal area. I flicked on the light.
“Is this a prank?” I think I already knew that it wasn’t. Something a lot like a mantis sat in Sylvia’s favorite chair. Its color matched her skin tone. Its mandibles clacked and a semblance of human speech emanated from its voder.
“This one regrets to inform that the female human has been downsized. This one will function as spouse at greatly reduced expense.”
I was already swinging the bat when the mantis lunged, jaws wide. Dense plastic met chitin-clad protoplasm, and ungodly amounts of green goo mixed with flesh-colored shards splattered everywhere. The mantis’s body jack-knifed across the room, legs thrashing. I dropped the bat and leaped to the chair. Most of Sylvia lay on the floor behind it, in front of the faux bookcase. The carpet surrounded her, wet and brown. I didn’t see her head.
The next thing I remember I was running down the street, bat in hand. I was sticky and I smelled. Everyone else was running too, perhaps for the same reason I was. I heard screams. I’m almost sure they weren’t mine.
end