I stand outside the door of the flat with my shopping bags, keys in hand, but I don’t want to go in. Since being pro-opted by Wordini, my flat has closed in on me. Gangs of goods wield their sharp edges in the shadowy alleyways between boxes of material indulgence that I’ve never unpacked. All these things wait for me. They lurk. I lurch. They throw themselves at me. Sharp heels and kicking toes of bitchy stilettos. It’s as if they know I’m foundering in their ostentnarration. Reaching for the light switch, I’m pelted by a collection of Fabergé eggs. I beat a retreat to my bed, where I have to fend off the advances of the greedy guava-walnut-melba ensemble that reclines there. I’m grateful to sleep.
The alarm goes off in the half light. My mind tears loose from my body in shock and my limbs can’t find their way home. An arm connects with something hard, and one of the skis falls like a guillotine on my head. The rabble of revolutionary un-a-wares cheers. My head hurts and my vision jumps like the picture on a bad TV screen.
Through the blur, I notice a movement at the front door. From the hood of the Skidoo parka that hangs on the hook there, I see a face emerge. My face. But it’s elaborately made up – as if I were Mother. She that’s me approaches the bed with an awful painted smile. All my great and goods rattle with excitement. In her hand she holds my spoon – the one with the mouth-filling bulb – and a beard. She moves towards me with swaying hips, the snake in the gross sales. And I know – I know without a doubt she’s come to wedge the silver spoon in my mouth and tie it in place with the beard.
‘Mild concussion as the result of minor head trauma,’ says Stillwell to me in the hospital. Although I’ve seen him weekly at the office for the MindSweeper downloads, we haven’t been able to meet for an unbranded speakeasy for months. ‘You’ve been certified invalid for two weeks – although you’ll be discharged tomorrow. You’ll need to remain recumbent. I’ll increase on-site neural monitoring.’ I dip my chin into a nod and feel a stab in my head. Any relief at escaping the office is sold down the shiver by the fact that I’ll be deworded for all that time. My stock will be downgraded.
Stillwell arrives to check in on me at home. He looks shocked at how my flat has come under pretsiege by status goods and carefully picks his way through the tortuous terrain of pricey, pretty things. While taking data readings and doing the neural checks, he seems more withdrawn than usual. I miss the little touches. When he’s done, I get out the two unbranded patches left over from last time.
‘What’s, what’s all this… stuff?’ he blurts out as soon as he’s patched in, waving a hand around the room.
‘Investments with an appropriately high cost-to-status ratio,’ I say.
‘I thought you didn’t care about… about things.’ It’s an accusation.
‘Spend-swift is a corporate responsibility of all copywriters.’
‘So? You don’t have to keep it. Sell it, sell it all,’ he says.
I hesitate and his face takes on an expression of disnay – a hardening against me.
‘But I need it to get into the products’ spin so that I can transprose the buyological urge.’
‘They’re, they’re…’ I can see his thoughts engaged in a furious stock count of words. ‘They’re contumour goods, understand? Contumour goods!’
He starts fiddling with the edge of his patch as if he’s going to tear it off and walk away. Instead he looks at me and says, ‘You know, you’re talking like him.’
‘Who?’
‘Wordini. You’re talking like him – even when you don’t have to. The armnotes were never like that. Are you still even making those?’
I haven’t written an eloquention for weeks. I’ve been too busy writing commercenery rhymes. I look at my hands even though hanging my head hurts.
16
The noosey parka is keeping to itself. I stare at it hanging on the door. I squint and look atrance. But it remains unanimated – a legless back turned to me as it hides its face and perhaps a gallows-knot in its sleeve. But she that’s me doesn’t appear.
The censuring ski has done me a kindness. It’s given me time to think about how I got from working on the beards to where I am now – from an empty flat to one beset and bethinged, and from Stillwell’s expression when I wrote the armnotes to his face when he saw my advertising hoardings. There must’ve been a moment when I made a You-turn, chose to peddle indulgence and commodeify my life. Only there wasn’t. I didn’t surrender to You, and I haven’t become mirage-me with the awful painted smile. Have I? All I wanted was unbranded language, but somehow that single desire mutated through rapid sell division into a legion of splurge urges. One desire in life is never enough for the conspicuous consumer. On every street corner, products are out soliciting with a wink and a smile.
Suddenly I see the parka jump and twitch. I’m so afraid of the return of the proxy-mate that it takes a moment for me to connect the jacket’s spasms with the banging sound. Someone is beating at the door.
Stillwell comes in. I wasn’t expecting to see him; he must’ve snuck off on his lunch break. He’s flustuttering so much that I can hardly understand him. I pull out the unbranded patch from a drawer and offer it to him.
‘Can’t, can’t… must ration doses based on priority determinants,’ he says, waving away the patch. ‘Now, now… I, I need your full stethoscopic auscultation. No attention deflit-um-um-deficits, please.’
I nod with deliberateness, as if the action can slow the syllables’ tripping feet.
He takes a breath. ‘You see, I consulted with Dr Bromide.’
That name – it’s like a glinting in the glass eyes of stuffed animals. I think Stillwell notices but he ploughs on anyway: ‘Your recent occupational readings show decreased activity in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and right middle frontal gyrus during presumed phases of reflection, while activity increases in the right posterior cingulate cortex and the right middle frontal gyrus during phases of inferred problem-solving. This presents a classic neurological pattern – clinically unmistakable.’
The EmPath LipService is taking him to the dry cleaners. I imagine him plastic clad, swooshing along the motorised conveyor, hustling along a closed loop of meaning. I know that’s ungenerous of me.
He snaps his fingers at me in annoyance. ‘You’re allocating insufficient neural processing resources to my articulations. This is important.’
I use mute point to indicate that I don’t understand.
‘Then read for yourself,’ he says in exasperation.
On the tablet he hands me is a screenshot of a document. It’s the agreement that I signed in Bromide’s office. But now I see that I was never one of the contracting parties: only Wordini and the doctor are. I was the subject of the transaction. Stillwell points to a clause headed ‘Planned obsolescence’. It’s written in the usual legal fata arcana that shimmers on the horizon of apprehension. Wordini is granted the mind rights for exploitation to the point of depletion, at which time the human resource reverts to the original owner, the medical professions syndicate and the management of Dr E Bromide. Depletion is defined according to the Maslach Burnout Inventory, with special reference to the emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation scales. The implanted intracranial EEG readings should correlate with job burnout and validate the stress-dependent disruption of prefrontal function.