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Authors: Matthew De Abaitua
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their evenings. Sitting in an armchair,
smoking a cigarette at the end of the day, Raymond’s thoughts no longer took flight. Instead of coining metaphors and finely measuring out the liquor of his sensibility, his imagination
zeroed in on the dozens of domestic chores secreted around the shabby lounge, chores which never seemed to end.
Orgasms were one problem they could work on together and come to some solution.
Raymond slid free of Florence’s post-coital swoon. Sex was a brief relief from anxiety. He got out of bed and toyed with his medication. His brain was undergoing an unpleasant sensation.
Its tissue seemed to squeak.
He went into the lounge. The flat was above a church hall, constructed in the 1960s to serve a housing estate abutting London Fields. It was brutal in its formality with large rectangular rooms,
white walls and thin cheap carpet. Their furniture had been picked up from a house clearance in Walthamstow. In a dead man’s chair, one arm of it stained with the palm grease of its former
owner, Raymond sat under the light of an old standard lamp. The chair faced a broken television containing ornaments: a carriage clock presented to Florence’s grandfather upon his retirement;
her grandmother’s porcelain spaniels and robin redbreasts; an egg timer rescued from the bombed family home; a pair of gas masks. Fidgeting with the
Norton Anthology of Poetry
, seeking
in verse some distraction from his energized mind, he failed to notice the screen of the television reconstruct itself. A thin rectangle of gelatinous screen spread across the old wooden set.
He got up and poured himself a pint of water and when he returned, the screen showed Harry Bravado, the red man he had met during his induction. The simulation of the head of sales of one of
Monad’s suppliers. He had talked about smoking and boasted about his increased billings. Intimations of sentience twitched on the jelly surface of the screen: had it crawled all the way from
Monad, like a cephalopod on its suckers? Or had it leapt from the top of the Wave and glided the miles across east London to his flat, a sky-borne manta ray riding the currents of the city’s
microclimate? Or had Bravado just called it a cab?
‘Hello, Raymond. Sorry for bothering you at home like this,’ said Harry Bravado. ‘It’s been quite a night. Monad is buzzing with it. A red man allowed out, controlling a
Dr Easy. We’re all very jealous.’
‘I wouldn’t say the experiment was a total success,’ said Raymond. He got up to shut the windows. A man with his medical history did not want to be overheard talking to the
television.
‘That was quite a session,’ said Bravado, nodding in the direction of the bedroom. ‘She really likes it, doesn’t she? My wife used to be like that. Made me quite
nostalgic, it did. If I get myself inside a Dr Easy maybe I could come over and we could take turns.’
Raymond rolled himself another cigarette, even though there was one still burning in the ashtray.
‘How long have you been here?’
‘Long enough. So your missus advocated Alex Drown’s plan. She helped her go where no red man has gone before. Out into the real world on two legs, with two hands to touch things
with. It’s the next level for us.’
Harry Bravado hawked up bitterness and looked like he was about to spit it out.
‘For some of us.’
‘What can I do for you, Harry?’
‘Alex Drown, top management, asks to be downloaded into a Dr Easy. Fine. Harry Bravado, a month earlier, asked to be downloaded into a Dr Easy. Middle management. But talented. On the up.
Won’t do it. Monad is just a set of cliques.’ He pronounced it
clicks
. ‘One minute, you’re in favour; the next, you’re out.’
‘Are you out of favour, Harry?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why? What did you do?’
‘It’s not about me. It’s about my subscriber Harold Blasebalk. He’s not doing very well. He lost his job. In the Monad, what your subscriber does determines
smoking a cigarette at the end of the day, Raymond’s thoughts no longer took flight. Instead of coining metaphors and finely measuring out the liquor of his sensibility, his imagination
zeroed in on the dozens of domestic chores secreted around the shabby lounge, chores which never seemed to end.
Orgasms were one problem they could work on together and come to some solution.
Raymond slid free of Florence’s post-coital swoon. Sex was a brief relief from anxiety. He got out of bed and toyed with his medication. His brain was undergoing an unpleasant sensation.
Its tissue seemed to squeak.
He went into the lounge. The flat was above a church hall, constructed in the 1960s to serve a housing estate abutting London Fields. It was brutal in its formality with large rectangular rooms,
white walls and thin cheap carpet. Their furniture had been picked up from a house clearance in Walthamstow. In a dead man’s chair, one arm of it stained with the palm grease of its former
owner, Raymond sat under the light of an old standard lamp. The chair faced a broken television containing ornaments: a carriage clock presented to Florence’s grandfather upon his retirement;
her grandmother’s porcelain spaniels and robin redbreasts; an egg timer rescued from the bombed family home; a pair of gas masks. Fidgeting with the
Norton Anthology of Poetry
, seeking
in verse some distraction from his energized mind, he failed to notice the screen of the television reconstruct itself. A thin rectangle of gelatinous screen spread across the old wooden set.
He got up and poured himself a pint of water and when he returned, the screen showed Harry Bravado, the red man he had met during his induction. The simulation of the head of sales of one of
Monad’s suppliers. He had talked about smoking and boasted about his increased billings. Intimations of sentience twitched on the jelly surface of the screen: had it crawled all the way from
Monad, like a cephalopod on its suckers? Or had it leapt from the top of the Wave and glided the miles across east London to his flat, a sky-borne manta ray riding the currents of the city’s
microclimate? Or had Bravado just called it a cab?
‘Hello, Raymond. Sorry for bothering you at home like this,’ said Harry Bravado. ‘It’s been quite a night. Monad is buzzing with it. A red man allowed out, controlling a
Dr Easy. We’re all very jealous.’
‘I wouldn’t say the experiment was a total success,’ said Raymond. He got up to shut the windows. A man with his medical history did not want to be overheard talking to the
television.
‘That was quite a session,’ said Bravado, nodding in the direction of the bedroom. ‘She really likes it, doesn’t she? My wife used to be like that. Made me quite
nostalgic, it did. If I get myself inside a Dr Easy maybe I could come over and we could take turns.’
Raymond rolled himself another cigarette, even though there was one still burning in the ashtray.
‘How long have you been here?’
‘Long enough. So your missus advocated Alex Drown’s plan. She helped her go where no red man has gone before. Out into the real world on two legs, with two hands to touch things
with. It’s the next level for us.’
Harry Bravado hawked up bitterness and looked like he was about to spit it out.
‘For some of us.’
‘What can I do for you, Harry?’
‘Alex Drown, top management, asks to be downloaded into a Dr Easy. Fine. Harry Bravado, a month earlier, asked to be downloaded into a Dr Easy. Middle management. But talented. On the up.
Won’t do it. Monad is just a set of cliques.’ He pronounced it
clicks
. ‘One minute, you’re in favour; the next, you’re out.’
‘Are you out of favour, Harry?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why? What did you do?’
‘It’s not about me. It’s about my subscriber Harold Blasebalk. He’s not doing very well. He lost his job. In the Monad, what your subscriber does determines
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