But any residue of the idea that this might be a member of the beetling class is utterly wiped away, into a handkerchief – a handkerchief of golden spider silk. Textiles made from the filament of Nephila madagascariensis fit only the pockets of the corporocrats – not polyester plebeians. Either this guy was a thief or he had counterfitted himself out as something he wasn’t. As I touch the handkerchief, I briefly forget all about male, age 37.
For a moment, You and I are planets in conjunction. The fabric tastes beatific – of honey, no, saffron-infused honey. We stand for a long time letting the gold enhalo us. It coos to us with your voice: ‘We know how to appreciate it. We should take it.’ No. This is a box that someone will come for. I don’t feel that he’s a thief. Not even thieves cut holes in their clothes – only someone who considers such wardrobe items purely disposable could be so careless. You howl with disappointment and I feel it.
Packing the things back into the carton, I notice that the Harrington jacket is heavier on one side. I check the pockets again – empty. I frisk the jacket. There’s something flat trapped in the right side. The lining has been torn away to create a pouch. Inside, the owner stowed a flexible tablet computer.
It takes me a while to switch it on because it’s so futuristic – probably a prototype. I’ve never seen one like it. A galaxy glow illuminates a document on screen headed Client brand: Smite-M insecticide. Below that, Project: LipService flanking materials – brand narrative; Copywriter: Declamartiste; and a date.
Copywriter codenames supposedly protect the programmers’ identities and limit the risk of corporate espionage, but are ultimately just another way to a put a brand face on their work. While I was still at school, the Great Dictator had name recognition that began to challenge even LipService itself – although no one knew who he or she really was. Over weekends, kids would beg their parents to buy and apply Disport patches, which shouted ‘Verbal stylings by the Great Dictator’ from a yellow starburst, so that on Monday they could dumbfound their friends by repeating snow sports LipService drift along the lines of ‘smoking the halfpipe’. Then GD just dropped out of speech, with only a vague mention in an uncharacteristically subdued press release: ‘The Great Dictator is heading off-piste onto fresh powder.’ Mother said the copywriter ‘had to be corseted. GD got too big for her brand, letting it disappear between the rolls of blabber. Control briefs were required.’ Mother is very canny about that kind of thing.
The name Declamartiste doesn’t mean anything to me, but then again no individual copywriters have generated anything like the chatter around Great Dictator. From what Mother said, I suppose there was probably an intervention to ensure it never happens again. Even if he was no GD, I think ‘male, age approx 37’ was Declamartiste – a real active copywriter, not just a burnt-out one turned headmaster, cut off from the supply of unprogrammed LipService.
I look at the clothing in the box, which recently rose and fell to the rhythm of free speech. I want that. And why can’t I have it – what copywriters have? And the more I want it, the more I despise them for denying it to me. Prying into the jacket’s polyester, I try to reprise the last traces of that language from the creases, only it’s not words that gush into my mouth. The camel’s-milk tasture neutralises the heartburning hate enough for me to wonder again what a copywriter was doing wearing abused polyester and without the identification that would’ve ensured his bodily possessions a more fitting afterlife than this box.
I start reading the document on the screen, hoping to find the answer there. It appears to be the copywriter’s notes on adapting Kafka’s story The Metamorphosis into a brand narrative for the insecticide Smite-M.
Purchasing message key points
• Insecticide is a necessity for household hygiene and health.
• The good consumer is molested by pests (it’s a scourge, they’re among us everywhere!) intent on our resources, happiness.
• Pesticides aren’t dangerous when used as indicated.
Surprisingly, Declamartiste quotes passages from the original and details their place in his plans for the Smite-M version.
One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin.
A family tragedy – eldest son (Gregor Samsa) suddenly transformed into a horrible vermin. What has he done to deserve this fate? Well, as the very opposite of a fire-brand travelling salesman (boss says, ‘Your turnover has been very unsatisfactory of late’) for a textiles company, his lukewormery is truly contemptible:
‘If I didn’t have my parents to think about I’d have given in my notice a long time ago, I’d have gone up to the boss and told him just what I think, tell him everything I would, let him know just what I feel. He’d fall right off his desk!’ (thank our lucky brain scars there’s LipService to prevent such mewly pukey talk!)
Gregor literally becomes (allegory!) the brand parasite that he is. Story told from perspective of bleeding-heart li’l sis Grete who cares for creepy crawler through misguided sense of kinship, even though it nauseates her. Big mistake.
No sooner had she come in than she would quickly close the door as a precaution so that no one would have to suffer the view into Gregor’s room, then she would go straight to the window and pull it hurriedly open almost as if she were suffocating. Even if it was cold, she would stay at the window breathing deeply for a while.
She still found his appearance unbearable and would continue to do so, she… even had to overcome the urge to flee when she saw the little bit of him that protruded from under the couch.
Character arc – sis must learn that good consumers have zero in common with evil arthropods. We must guard our resources against them. Only the fittest survive (note how long it takes the bug to die, even without eating and with a festering apple in its back – months). Reason for instinctive gut churning is insects are sickening, cause disease. In final epiphany sis says to parents, ‘It’ll be the death of both of you, I can see it coming… it’s got to go.’ This is what vermin do – repulsive infiltrators. Terminate with extreme prejudice or they will force us from our homes, our food. Great speech by li’l sis:
You’ve got to get rid of the idea that it’s Gregor. We’ve only harmed ourselves by believing it for so long. How can that be Gregor? If it were Gregor he would’ve seen long ago that it’s not possible for human beings to live with an animal like that and he would’ve gone of his own free will. We wouldn’t have a brother any more, but then, we could carry on with our lives and remember him with respect. As it is this animal is persecuting us, it’s driven out our tenants, it obviously wants to take over the whole flat and force us to sleep on the streets.
Mother and father paralysed. They do nothing – irresponsible attitude that allows pest to spread misery. Ineffectual father attempts to repulse home invader with ridiculous foot stamping, newspaper waving and later pelting bug with apples.