Gregor’s father seized the chief clerk’s stick in his right hand… picked up a large newspaper from the table with his left, and used them to drive Gregor back into his room, stamping his foot at him as he went.
…lightly tossed, something flew down and rolled in front of him. It was an apple; then another one immediately flew at him… father had decided to bombard him. He had filled his pockets with fruit from the bowl on the sideboard and now, without even taking the time for careful aim, threw one apple after another.
Grete does only reasonable thing. Buys can of Smite-M. Bug dies gassed in chamber. Cloud lifts, family decides to have day out at mall together for the first time in months. Mr and Mrs Samsa realise daughter will haemorrhage soon. She’s become a consumer in her own right, brand empowered. A happy ending.
‘Wow, that’s adding value, morally incentivising the purchase of Smite-M.’ You’re breathless with admiration. ‘So transformational! Turning that mopey, sad-sack story into the coming of haemorrhage of Grete. And it works on so many levels – because brand perfunctionaries really are like bugs with their heads pushed low to the ground by their big hunched backs.’ I’m trying to shut out your frothy effusions, to tell myself not to let Declamartiste’s impresario performance stop my eyes adjusting to the shapes in its darkness. I must think. ‘And the chance to see how a copywriter’s mind works – even you’ve got to be excited about that, Frith,’ You jubilate.
Concentrate. Kafka’s Metamorphosis is one of the stories in the human book Dad gave me, but Declamartiste would’ve had to go to the book repository to get a copy of it. That means the silo shelves are probably still intact. It’s five years since I left them with Dad, and I feel a stupid kiss-planting gratitude to the copywriter for letting me know that they’re all still there waiting, the titles read and unread.
Once the realisation has settled and sedimented, I reread the copywriter’s notes. It isn’t just the gleeful savagery that keeps knifing me. I know that Smite-M also sponsors advergames where players build up arsenals of aerosol chemical weapons (nerve gas, antifeedants, growth regulators) of varying effectiveness on a range of monster mutant insects. Fire the right spray at the right bug and you get to watch it die in gory detail. So that was probably to be expected. But Declamartiste’s horror at poor Gregor’s ability to survive so long without consuming – I think that’s why he relishes Gregor’s death so much. Nothing is more horrible than a failure to consume. He expresses the same disgust when the parents do nothing (what he means is buy nothing) and the family is only rehabilitated by going to the mall. It’s also why You’re cheering. This is your credo, too.
I still don’t know why a copywriter died badly dressed, run over in a shabby neighbourhood. Swiping over to the next page, there is only a heading: ‘Covert market research observations: Fumigation of apartment block at 6 Tenth Street’.
I picture Declamartiste, his skin prickling inside the polyester jacket and pants, wondering whether he dares clutch the golden handkerchief to his nose. Has he caught a whiff of the chloropicrin released as a warning before the odourless fumigant, or is it just the rank file milling about? The tented building looks like a giant circus top. And outside it, he is surrounded by blue-collar true squalor. He notices that they gesture and grimace a lot when they talk, throwing themselves bodily into a farce of expression. He must study them like traffic patterns worn into the supermarket floor, marking the migratory movements of the herd.
‘Imagining the copywriter putting on perfumed airs, eh Frith? You’re always so sure they’re looking down their nose jobs at everyone else. But who creates equal optimism through LipService, so that all adults keep their spirits up with a cheery turn of brand praise?’
And who goes spying on us in our neighbourhoods because they can’t trust a word of our chipper chatter – having scripted it themselves?
‘“Spying”, that’s so passé. It’s observational market research – gaining a better understanding of target market behaviours and needs to improve products.’
Or to invent new jiggery-pokery to sell the same old stuff. I put the OLED panel back into the jacket and close the box. But Declamartiste has already escaped and is cutting a caper across my mental stage.
It’s about a week since I excavated Declamartiste’s carton, and I see a man approaching my window. He moves like an astronaut, as if trying to avoid contact with his cheap synthetic clothes. As he inserts a finger to scratch underneath his woollen beanie, I notice what is clearly the scabbing of a hair transplant. Immediately, I know who he is – one of them.
I want him to speak, to hear him use unbranded LipService and loop-the-loop language as only a copywriter can.
‘In-hale and hearty with Suck-o-Matic’s clean-air design.’
A vacuum cleaner greeting? Disappointing, but I probably should’ve expected it as part of the whole ‘average consumer’ act. I imagine him practising it in front of the bathroom mirror. When it’s not neurally programmed, LipService drift doesn’t come naturally. It didn’t to me before I haemorrhaged and I wonder whether he can sustain the brand suck-up. I smile but leave him to continue.
‘I’ve come to make a clean sweep of my brother’s remains.’
‘It leaves a gap in your smile when one of your set is suddenly pulled,’ I say because I’m patched into Big Grin’s toothpaste – not the best brand for condolences. I don’t know if Declamartiste really was his brother. I doubt it. He’s probably just had the paperwork forged so that he can claim the box as a family member and get back that high-tech panel and the Smite-M adaptation. Maybe he won’t have thought of preparing to make an emotive brand pitch.
‘Yes, we miss him terribly. So gifted.’ Brusque, like the short, sharp jerk of pulling legs off a spider. I had almost forgotten how cutting a statement without brand alerts could be, and the surprise shows on my face. He must’ve resented Declamartiste. Were they rivals? I had unintentionally antagonised him. Corporates don’t like copywriters to be outed in public – it distracts from the message and reminds shoppers of what they can’t buy into. Someone always has to pay for such indiscretions.
I try to recover my brand face. ‘You know the drill, there are holes to fill. Records, please.’
He pushes the documentation for the release of the box through the slot under the glass of my window. I check through it, rubber-stamping where appropriate, and slide the box out a door in the wall next to my window.
The copywriter turns and is gone before I can say anything else. I’ll miss having Declamartiste on the shelf.
8
Today, I need to wear You like a fast-food mascot costume, to shrink myself into insignificance within your cartoon cranium. Until now, all my post-CVA testing has been to establish baselines. But today when I go for the battery of tests – an assault of electrodes, straps, questions and psychological probing – I’ll be captured. My results entered for analysis in the cohort database. When their contrast agent shines his flashlight around the inside of my skull, my thoughts must retreat, squirming grubs before the brightness. All that can be allowed to show up on the fMRI is the great hollowness of your bobble head. I can’t allow the doctors to see the neural fire of insurgency that must go off every time I speak LipService. But what if in allowing You and your brandstanding full executive powers, I can no longer reclaim myself? What if I’m exiled forever from the control room and can only watch as You operate me like an animatronic figure in a theme park for the rest of my life?