Modern Love
Blood spurted across the white laboratory floor as the crocodile ripped Geoff’s calf muscle from his leg. A monkey dressed as a doctor makes an incision just above the eyes and some form of rodent cackles maniacally. All the while I stand there, staring. There’s some form of music. Geoff looks up at me and speaks.
“Oi shit for brains. What the hell is wrong with you?”
With one devastating blow, reality, I’m back. Hopefully for just a few seconds. My bloodstreams is filled to bursting with ‘Sandman’s Dreamtm’, that gorgeous golden liquid pumping through my veins, impacting on all five of my senses, leading the signals in my brain on a merry little dance. I was right, a flash and I think I might be in the living room. Am I dancing? That doesn’t sound like me but the purple blobs ooze all around me and I’m trying so hard to catch them. I’m laughing, laughing hysterically.
This is how I prefer to endure a party. ‘Sandman’s Dreamtm’ is really just for a night cap, more like a tea than the usual party sodas but if you take enough of it, you get this wonderful waking dream sequence. I find it’s more like a coffee than tea. My nights are not so different from when the world spent their weekends blitzed on alcohol. Only in the morning, no hangover and the little snippets of memory are so much more vibrant. They’re really just beautiful little lies.
Tonight, it is more difficult to tell what is real and what is not. It is Halloween, another of those horrible occasions where people get together to celebrate because their existence is so absolutely dreary, that they need to celebrate something.
Thank god it’s not Christmas or even worse, my birthday.
I feel the tiny little nanobots make a small chemical adjustment to combat the negative feelings attempting to force their way to the forefront of my consciousness. I’m so relieved not to have to think anymore. It’s all just chemicals in the brain anyway, making an adjustment is no different than surgery. I’ve always thought that the search for truth was overrated and with brain tonics the easiest person to lie to is yourself.
A flash. A woman with the features of a lamb. Is that the tonic? Or has she had surgery?
And then I’m speaking to some people, a boy, two girls and one undisclosed. The girls and the undisclosed are clearly a romantic trio. They’ve come as ‘Lock, Shock and Barrel’ but I don’t see it. The boy has had a horn attached to his head and the girls both have red bushy tails. He’s come as a knight of some kind. I’m imagining a mechanical arm on the undisclosed, you can tell that it’s not real because it’s hazier and less defined than the others features. When you concentrate you see no substance. One of the girls is showing me her tattoo, a short simulation of one of the classic consoles from when we were children. It moves, that is true but the little the fireworks, exploding all around are pure imagination. Actually I’m not sure if the dream sequences are preprogramed, never thought to ask.
“She’s a freaking Chimera man. Don’t go for it.”
Where am I? What am I doing? That’s James. I know him.
“A Chimera?”
“Yeah man…” he looks deep in thought. Then he goes to say something and stops. Some form of paintbrush is changing the colour of his t-shirt. Is he Elvis? Some of them are colours I didn’t know existed and I am amazed. His veins are blue but that is true, mine are golden, it’s the tonic that does it. He must be drinking ‘BoozeCruztm’, all the fun of alcohol and none of the side effects, such as depression or dehydration and its cheap, so very cheap.
“Yeah man. I mean she’s like a lion up front and you think that’s all you have to worry about but then you see there’s this snake at the back and if you’re not careful it comes up and bites you and then you’re poisoned. She’s also got that goat head or lamb or whatever.”
That’s ‘BoozeCruztm’, realistic alcohol infused bullshit.
Flash. I’m looking in a mirror. Who am I? I’m not sure what I look like. All I can see is the sea and little boats chugging and a great sea urchin. Like a dream I can be anybody one minute and another the next. That’s why I love this stuff.
I’ve got to find her. Who is she? She’s a lamb, beautiful, pure, timid, she probably likes to graze. Forget that last one, I’m starting to drift off again but I must hold on to her against all the odds. A defenceless lamb, she needs my protection. Did I come here for her? I must have done. I’m a romantic at heart, I must find a gift to show my affections for her or a quest to embark on. I should find the knight with a horn. He will be able to help me. After all is said and done, I will have won her heart and that is true romance, a story as old as time itself.
There’s some kind of game going on. Drinking games are a lot more dangerous than they used to be and usually involve taking various sodas. This one is simple enough, it’s a card game, a mix between 21 and old maid with the losers taking shots. God knows what they are taking. You should never mix tonics. I can see their veins pulsating with different colours as the bots fight, emitting different chemicals and trying to combat their brothers. Some of them are not even legal, I’m sure of it. A girl dressed as a policewoman collapses in her chair, her veins have turned a deadly shade of black and her friends are worried. She’s carted off to one of the rooms at the back, out of sight, to be watched, in case her veins start to pop. A bleed out is far too common these days.
My own veins explode and a rainbow pours out. I share these lights with my friends or are they strangers?
I’m with James again. He likes to talk to me because I’m usually too doped out to respond or offer any form of conversation.
“Man have you looked at the world recently. We are living in an actual cyber-punk society. I mean look at the Government and the addiction to sodas and…. I mean there’s 10 billion people in the world now…. You know what I’m saying right?”
I nod my agreement because I’m floating elsewhere. My mind is a chemical soup.
It’s her, when did I start speaking to her? She is bleating so softly in my ear and I relish the sound, its lyrical whisperings mingling with the dreams coursing through me. I swear I could feel a tingling in every pore. Am I sweating? She told me her name, my God, what was her name? I can feel it escaping, like these dreams, so many gone. Then the tonic does its magic and I look into her eyes and the stars, the stars are swirling, sinking slowly into the vast depths behind her pupils. Her skin is so soft, the wool caressing my cheeks as we kiss. When my eyes close those dreams explode into such wonderful visions and I am ecstatic. Not alive because this is better than living, this is a dream and a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. This is my dream, I can change her and she is a lamb and I can lead her.
This moment is perfect. I love her.
She leads me into the kitchen, the night has started to wind down. Am I the sheep? Why did she do that to her face? What is she trying to say? This is too much thought, I’m becoming myself again. The mediocre, average, hopeless person. The person without any dreams. I notice her veins. They are bright yellow, not such a different shade from my own but if I’m not mistaken it’s a different soda. I think she’s been drinking ‘Upside-down Frowntm’, liquefied happiness. What does that say about her? I need a drink.
She goes to the fridge and takes out a deep red soda, the colour of lust. It’s called ‘Horny Deviltm’ and now I am nervous now. I go to grab my own tonic. There’s plenty of ‘Horny Deviltm’ left, it happens at every party, too many overly optimistic men who think they’re God’s gift to women. I can see a few ‘Cloud 9tm’s as well, they’re bright blue, more for women. Both drinks have revolutionised sex, working as a contraceptive and a guaranteed orgasm or your money back but they’re not what I’m looking for. Please let there be just one bottle and then I see it, at the back of the fridge, lonely and forgotten. I take it out of the fridge and she gives me a look and I feel completely emasculated. I’ve chosen ‘Cupid’s Love Arrowtm’. Why is it so pink?
But we drink up. Quickly. I’ve broken my only rule, don’t mix tonics. I’m being lead again, this time to one of the bedrooms and I feel a nervousness rising in the pit of my stomach but when she opens the door, the dream tonic kicks in and I see only paradise. I look at her and I feel the effects of Cupid’s Arrow pierce my empty heart. The girl from earlier is lying in the bed alone. We lift her and discard her at the edge of the room like a sack of crap.
And then the ecstasy begins.
The moaning that escapes her erupts a fire inside me and I tell her she was made for me. She doesn’t mind, I’m not sure if she can hear me, her relationship is with the soda, as is mine. I don’t care, all I want is beautiful little lies. The warmth washes over me and the icy unwavering fortress that imprisons me, falters for a few precious minutes. I feel a connection, a tie to something, maybe even someone.
With a grunt it’s all over. I fall asleep, peaceful for a change.
I wake up lying beside her, with my memories of what wasn’t and I pull the ties beside me, finding they unravel too easily and there’s nothing at the end. It was just the soda and she is irrelevant. In the end, that’s all love and romance are, chemicals in the brain.
RYEBREAD CREATIVE 