11.8.15
26.5.15
Working For A Living
I walked through the office and nodded at a few people I recognised. The taste of sleep still rested in the cleft of my gums, where the face meets the skull, and the coffee wasn't washing it away. I finally got to a door and went into my office, a lone desk by the window with a computer and chair. A large metal cabinet painted in red was against one of the walls. After turning on my computer I then begin the actual work of pretending.
For a few hours I sit and stare at the screen, doing completely nothing. Sometimes falling in and out of sleep, I could hear the office sounds around me. Telephones, shoes on cheap carpet, the hum of fluorescent lights, the occasional sneeze or cough, the barking of laughter. Now and then people pass my office door although nobody ever comes in. Once it reaches twelve I go for lunch, walking through the office corridors reading printed out spreadsheets, tiny on A4 paper. I stand in the kitchen and make brief conversation with others who happen to be there, before doing a lap of the buildings exterior. Eight hundred feet high, a mirror of the sky. I eat a packet of crisps behind some trees before heading back in. I pause at the end of the corridor. My office door was open. I walked towards it, checking my lapels for grains of salt before entering.
"Hello." I said, walking past two men and sitting back at my desk.
"Hiya. I hope you don't think me rude for asking, but who are you?" said the older of the two. I introduce myself.
"I don't think we've met. Who's your manager?"
"I wouldn't say I have a direct line manager per se." I say, wiggling the mouse to get rid of the screensaver.
"Percy?"
"Per se. As in, as is. I think anyway. You haven't heard that?"
"What is it you do here?"
"Most of my time is taken up by a side project. Excuse me, but I don't think you introduced yourself. Who's your manager?" I say, turning back towards them.
"I'm the head of HR. And I haven't heard from you. So I'm asking you again, who are you?"
"I said who I am. Who's this?" I say, nodding at a young lad in a tight suit.
"I'm Adam, the new social media manager. I'm confused, I thought this was my office?" he said to the head of HR.
"It is. Do you mind stepping out a moment?" he said. Adam leaves. The head of HR and I stare, fantasising about both being killed by and killing each other.
"I don't remember hiring you."
"I started about four months ago. Colin showed me around."
"Colin left four months ago."
"I wondered why I hadn't seen him."
"So what is it you've been doing?"
"I was given some photocopying to do." I say, nodding at a pile of neatly stacked papers.
"Then what? Why didn't you ask someone what to do?"
"No. Why would I?"
"Because you work here! You turn up here on your agreed hours and do whatever is required of you. What's your actual job title?"
"Assistant." I said.
"Come with me please." said the head of HR. I paused, weighing up the situation. Imagining potential endings to various strings of action, some ridiculous, others mundane. I got up and followed the head of HR towards the door before waiting for him to leave and then shutting it behind him. Lunging across the office I grab the edge of my desk and throw it back into the door, putting a large dint in the wood panelling. The head of HR and Adam both begin to rattle the handle of the door before there are murmurs.
"Open the door please." comes a muffled voice. Quickly I open the door of the cabinet and make some adjustments to its contents before closing and locking it. I swallow the key and walk towards the window. It had been painted shut, abandoned cobwebs spread like old ice across the sill. Placing both palms on the glass I begin to push, spreading the weight of my body across wide fingers. Sometimes an old window would just pop out. The head of HR meanwhile had managed to push the door open wide enough to reach a bare arm through it, it was quite odd. I took one of my shoes off and was about to hit the window with it when I felt him grip me around the waist, dragging me down towards the floor. The smell of Joop was overpowering as we wrestled on the carpet, pulling at each others clothes and quietly grunting.
Before long Adam and a security guard had arrived. The head of HR had overpowered me and I had my hands bound behind the back of my office chair.
"You captured him!" said Adam with glee.
"I'd like to let everyone know this is wrongful imprisonment and you should let me go immediately." I said.
"You're under citizens arrest for...posing as an employee at a private company."
"I am an employee though. I've just not done anything for months."
"He's right sir, I'm afraid he hasn't broken any laws technically speaking." said the security guard.
"What about vandalism? He broke that door!" shouted the head of HR.
"I was defending myself against false imprisonment and I failed. There's no need to make me feel bad about it as well."
"Let me untie you." said Adam.
"You'll do no such thing until he explains what's in this cabinet." said the head of HR, armpits damp with sweat that must have brushed cold against his underarms as he slapped the aluminium.
"My personal things are in there."
"It's company policy to allow us at any time to search through your belongings under suspicious circumstances."
"Is it?" said Adam.
"I swallowed the key."
"Darren, do we have any bolt cutters?" said the head of HR.
"I think we might." said the security guard called Darren.
"Fetch them up here will you." he said.
The three of us had been listening to each other breathe for ten minutes before Darren reappeared. Darren glided across the ribbed carpet before resting the teeth of the bolt cutters around the padlock. Although I'd been untied I remained sat in the chair and watched as the broken lock fell to the floor.
"Open it." said the head of HR. Darren nodded and swung open both doors. Inside the cabinet was a wall of soil kept in place with a series of planks that resembled the Slavonic cross. On the inside of the cabinet doors I had made many notes in my beautiful handwriting, along with diagrams. There was a true silence as they looked upon the things. Finally;
"What is it?"
"It is a diagram involving the infinity found inside pi, which in itself is found in all circles, both a positive and a negative infinite. The circle itself occurs in nature repeatedly, from a cell to a star. If seen at the right perspective a cell would eclipse a star. And in all of infinite is all of everything. All of the things possibly said, every molecule of DNA ever coded, every image that could be seen. All." I said, pointing at my notes.
"And the soil?" said the head of HR. I walk forward and pull at the central plank, causing an avalanche of blackness to flood the small office space along with a rotting pig.
"It is a grave." I said, picking up the carcass and looking at it, face to face. The skin had turned a bruised yellow and had begun to harden, shrinking tighter to the bone in some areas and bloating out in others. Worms festered in it's ears. I left the room and begin to walk through the corridors, carrying the pig. People were awed at the foul march as I made my way through every single office, the death stench hanging heavy in the air. Parts of the corpse had begun to fall off or leave big patches of rotten slime across my work clothes. An alarm wailed as I made my way out of a fire exit and across the car park. I carefully placed the thing in the back seat of my car and slowly drove away. In the rear mirror the office fades from view, around a corner, behind a tree. The traffic ahead swallows me into it. Summer is almost here.
For a few hours I sit and stare at the screen, doing completely nothing. Sometimes falling in and out of sleep, I could hear the office sounds around me. Telephones, shoes on cheap carpet, the hum of fluorescent lights, the occasional sneeze or cough, the barking of laughter. Now and then people pass my office door although nobody ever comes in. Once it reaches twelve I go for lunch, walking through the office corridors reading printed out spreadsheets, tiny on A4 paper. I stand in the kitchen and make brief conversation with others who happen to be there, before doing a lap of the buildings exterior. Eight hundred feet high, a mirror of the sky. I eat a packet of crisps behind some trees before heading back in. I pause at the end of the corridor. My office door was open. I walked towards it, checking my lapels for grains of salt before entering.
"Hello." I said, walking past two men and sitting back at my desk.
"Hiya. I hope you don't think me rude for asking, but who are you?" said the older of the two. I introduce myself.
"I don't think we've met. Who's your manager?"
"I wouldn't say I have a direct line manager per se." I say, wiggling the mouse to get rid of the screensaver.
"Percy?"
"Per se. As in, as is. I think anyway. You haven't heard that?"
"What is it you do here?"
"Most of my time is taken up by a side project. Excuse me, but I don't think you introduced yourself. Who's your manager?" I say, turning back towards them.
"I'm the head of HR. And I haven't heard from you. So I'm asking you again, who are you?"
"I said who I am. Who's this?" I say, nodding at a young lad in a tight suit.
"I'm Adam, the new social media manager. I'm confused, I thought this was my office?" he said to the head of HR.
"It is. Do you mind stepping out a moment?" he said. Adam leaves. The head of HR and I stare, fantasising about both being killed by and killing each other.
"I don't remember hiring you."
"I started about four months ago. Colin showed me around."
"Colin left four months ago."
"I wondered why I hadn't seen him."
"So what is it you've been doing?"
"I was given some photocopying to do." I say, nodding at a pile of neatly stacked papers.
"Then what? Why didn't you ask someone what to do?"
"No. Why would I?"
"Because you work here! You turn up here on your agreed hours and do whatever is required of you. What's your actual job title?"
"Assistant." I said.
"Come with me please." said the head of HR. I paused, weighing up the situation. Imagining potential endings to various strings of action, some ridiculous, others mundane. I got up and followed the head of HR towards the door before waiting for him to leave and then shutting it behind him. Lunging across the office I grab the edge of my desk and throw it back into the door, putting a large dint in the wood panelling. The head of HR and Adam both begin to rattle the handle of the door before there are murmurs.
"Open the door please." comes a muffled voice. Quickly I open the door of the cabinet and make some adjustments to its contents before closing and locking it. I swallow the key and walk towards the window. It had been painted shut, abandoned cobwebs spread like old ice across the sill. Placing both palms on the glass I begin to push, spreading the weight of my body across wide fingers. Sometimes an old window would just pop out. The head of HR meanwhile had managed to push the door open wide enough to reach a bare arm through it, it was quite odd. I took one of my shoes off and was about to hit the window with it when I felt him grip me around the waist, dragging me down towards the floor. The smell of Joop was overpowering as we wrestled on the carpet, pulling at each others clothes and quietly grunting.
Before long Adam and a security guard had arrived. The head of HR had overpowered me and I had my hands bound behind the back of my office chair.
"You captured him!" said Adam with glee.
"I'd like to let everyone know this is wrongful imprisonment and you should let me go immediately." I said.
"You're under citizens arrest for...posing as an employee at a private company."
"I am an employee though. I've just not done anything for months."
"He's right sir, I'm afraid he hasn't broken any laws technically speaking." said the security guard.
"What about vandalism? He broke that door!" shouted the head of HR.
"I was defending myself against false imprisonment and I failed. There's no need to make me feel bad about it as well."
"Let me untie you." said Adam.
"You'll do no such thing until he explains what's in this cabinet." said the head of HR, armpits damp with sweat that must have brushed cold against his underarms as he slapped the aluminium.
"My personal things are in there."
"It's company policy to allow us at any time to search through your belongings under suspicious circumstances."
"Is it?" said Adam.
"I swallowed the key."
"Darren, do we have any bolt cutters?" said the head of HR.
"I think we might." said the security guard called Darren.
"Fetch them up here will you." he said.
The three of us had been listening to each other breathe for ten minutes before Darren reappeared. Darren glided across the ribbed carpet before resting the teeth of the bolt cutters around the padlock. Although I'd been untied I remained sat in the chair and watched as the broken lock fell to the floor.
"Open it." said the head of HR. Darren nodded and swung open both doors. Inside the cabinet was a wall of soil kept in place with a series of planks that resembled the Slavonic cross. On the inside of the cabinet doors I had made many notes in my beautiful handwriting, along with diagrams. There was a true silence as they looked upon the things. Finally;
"What is it?"
"It is a diagram involving the infinity found inside pi, which in itself is found in all circles, both a positive and a negative infinite. The circle itself occurs in nature repeatedly, from a cell to a star. If seen at the right perspective a cell would eclipse a star. And in all of infinite is all of everything. All of the things possibly said, every molecule of DNA ever coded, every image that could be seen. All." I said, pointing at my notes.
"And the soil?" said the head of HR. I walk forward and pull at the central plank, causing an avalanche of blackness to flood the small office space along with a rotting pig.
"It is a grave." I said, picking up the carcass and looking at it, face to face. The skin had turned a bruised yellow and had begun to harden, shrinking tighter to the bone in some areas and bloating out in others. Worms festered in it's ears. I left the room and begin to walk through the corridors, carrying the pig. People were awed at the foul march as I made my way through every single office, the death stench hanging heavy in the air. Parts of the corpse had begun to fall off or leave big patches of rotten slime across my work clothes. An alarm wailed as I made my way out of a fire exit and across the car park. I carefully placed the thing in the back seat of my car and slowly drove away. In the rear mirror the office fades from view, around a corner, behind a tree. The traffic ahead swallows me into it. Summer is almost here.
3.2.15
Man Travels Faster Than The Speed Of Light. What Happens Next Will Shock You.
I watched Kyle McPeterson stand at entrance to the tube, the paper sleeve on his arm wrinkling back and forth as he waved to the crowd gathered to watch. He enters the chamber behind him and it closes him in, though monitors overhead show a live feed of the Quantumnaut as he breathes out to himself. A countdown begins. The crowd around me raised phones like plastic peacock feathers.
“Zero.” Came the announcement. There was a flash and Kyle McPeterson had disappeared. “Deconstruction achieved. Kyle has been broken down into subatomic particles.” The crowd cheered, hugging each other and high fiving. The parts that had made up Kyle McPeterson had now been broken down into their smallest unit and were travelling in a single line through the particle accelerator. A map comes up of his journey around the ring, his self had been broken down into organs, cells, atoms, protons, electrons and smaller as he made his orbit round and round.
“Eight hundred miles per hour. One thousand miles per hour. Eight thousand three hundred miles per hour. Eighty nine thousand miles per hour. Three hundred and seventy thousand miles per hour. Five million and eight miles per hour.” Said the announcer.
“C’mon, c’mon.” said a scientist next to me, taking off his sunglasses.
“A billion miles per hour. Twenty nine billion miles per hour. Six hundred and thirty billion miles per hour.” The room around us began to shake. Inside the tube the particles were travelling at such enormous speeds at almost every point inside its seventeen mile track it was overtaking itself constantly before they vanished.
“We have lost contact with the subject. No particles detected.” Said the announcer. Everyone began to talk amongst each other. Tension came in a new wave over the room.
“Particles have reappeared at a speed of three hundred and ninety billion miles an hour and decelerating.” Said the announcer, breathing a sigh of relief. A large block of acrylic is brought forwards via robotic trolley. Inside it there is a Lichtenberg figure, a version of Kyle McPeterson imprinted onto the glass as an electric tree, an exact atomic replica of the Quantumnaught. The fractal man is loaded into the tube, acting as a perfect reverse focus for the entirety of Kyle McPeterson. He comes back to formation quickly, in the exact position he had been before although immediately collapses.
“Particles have reformed back into Kyle. Subject is alive and well.” Said the announcer. There was a great cheering as medics rushed forward, pulling the man onto a stretcher.
A few hours later I am sat at a bar, eating peanuts from a chipped ceramic bowl.
“Hey, turn it up.” said someone behind me, the bartender obliges. Kyle McPeterson is sat at a press conference along with his wife and an old man.
“We have finally managed to accelerate a person faster than the speed of light. Anything is possible.” concluded the head scientist, Werner Von Maxim. The press all began to raise their arms and ask dozens of questions at once. The warble of voices merged into vaneesaheagakfogoayakneevanagoaheywappleplashahati. Werner pointed into the audience.
“Bessie Treadwell, New York Times. I wanna ask Kyle, what was it like to have travelled at such a speed? Were you conscious?”
“Well Ms. Treadwell, it went by so fast I barely noticed it.” Said Kyle with a smile. The crowd chuckled. “What I can say is this, that I’m thankful to be safe and glad that I can contribute to what might be the next step for humankind.”
“Charles Jones, BBC News. Doctor, what is it we can learn from this experiment?”
“We are working on storing people on miniature particle accelerators, spinning their particles faster than the speed of light indefinitely. Time will cease to be important. We can send these washing machines out into space, colonizing the infinite future like dandelion seeds in a cosmic night.”
“What about actually travelling at the speed of light?”
“What do you mean?”
“If we can accelerate a man faster than the speed of light, why not a jetplane or motorbike?”
“What is it about a particle accelerator you don’t understand? It accelerates particles, but that’s it. Anything out of the accelerator moves at a normal speed. The only way you could travel from Paris to Berlin at the speed of light would be to have a particle accelerator big enough that would include both cities somewhere on it's circumference. Next question.”
“Kenji Takanakagi, Japanese Reporter. This question is for Mrs. McPeterson, how does it feel to be married to the fastest man on the planet?”
“Well, I wish he’d be so fast to get out of bed in the morning.” said Francesca. The crowd chuckled. Kyle reached over and held her hand. “I’m so proud of him. I’d like to use this press conference to announce…I’m pregnant.” She said. The crowd cheered. “With twins!” she revealed. Kyle’s eyebrows shot up.
“Huh?!” Some journalists started to shout out ‘uh oh’ and other things like that. “Does this mean it’s buy one get one free with the midwife?” he quipped. The crowd laughed, started to cheer then clap as the couple embraced. As he pulled away she saw that his nose had started bleeding and had left a stain on her cardigan.
“Kyle…you’re bleeding.” she said. He slowly brought a hand up to face, poked his philtrum a few times and then outstretched his fingers to slowly examine the redness. “Someone get a doctor!” she shouted.
“The press conference is over!” said Werner, he stood up and started shaking his hands in a cutting motion. Kyle ascended from his chair, looked directly into the camera and beginning to shout. His entire face was turning purple, the bloodied nose had become a bubbling gush that cascaded down his swollen neck. His body was trembling, as if in anticipation of something. He then suddenly bolted forward, running forwards, knocking over the desk as he did so. Scrambling forward he began to run. He sprinted into the front row of journalists and kicked them out of the way, screaming at the top of his lungs as his eyes darted around like a frightened horse. The camera followed him as he made his way through the door at the back of the room. The camera cut back to the presenter in the studio, a finger to her ear pierce.
“We apologise for those distressing scenes but will continue to cover the story as it develops. In breaking news, so-called-” said the presenter. I turned back to my empty bowl and waved the bartender over.
“Could I have some more nuts please?”
As I leave the bar I see Kyle McPeterson sprint past me, the stitching on his clothes had begun to undo themselves. His shout changes pitch quickly as he passes me and runs off into the night, never to be seen again.
The chief editor throws a copy of my story on the desk, the headline reads ‘Man Travels Faster Than The Speed Of Light. What Happens Next Will Shock You.’
“What is this crap?”
“It’s what you asked for Don. Coverage of Rungate.”
“Get me the real story. I want two hundred words on the McPeterson twins by ten!”
“Don, c’mon.”
“No, you c’mon. This is Buzzfeed, our readers want the drama, the human side of the story. Can you do that for me before you give me a heart attack?" says Don, taking a puff on his electronic cigarette.
“Those things will kill you, you know.” I say. An intern walks up with a stack of ipads that Don knocks over as he turns to leave.
The human side of the story? What is more human than mad cap science gone wrong. I get the intern to write up the article Don wants whilst I head to the chateau of Dr. Werner Von Maxim. He answers the door and ushers me in.
“I wondered when you reporters would find me.”
“I’m the first?”
“Yes. So let me give you an exclusive…the truth.” Says the doctor ominously. We enter a study, he pours two glasses of whiskey. I take out a tape recorder and rest it down.
“What happened to Kyle McPeterson?”
“You were there, weren’t you? When we accelerated him? He disappeared for a moment, at first we thought he was moving so fast our sensors weren’t able to pick him up. But he’d disappeared. You know, when he came back he weighed nearly two grams heavier? We didn’t catch it on the x-rays, but the CT scan showed…modifications.”
“What kind of modifications?” I ask, taking a drink.
“His brain had been altered. I’m uncertain if this was a natural phenomenon or through a medical procedure far more advanced than anything we’re capable of. I believe Kyle entered another dimension…of pure speed.”
“The speed dimension?”
“Correct. Everyone knows about time and space, but how do the two interact? Movement. And how do we measure movement?”
“Speed.” I say, turning towards the fire.
“Precisely. You know, for a journalist you sure do know a lot about science.”
“What happened to Kyle on stage?” I say.
“I believe that whatever happened to his brain to make it two grams heavier kicked in under an intense emotional response, in this case, the discovery that his wife was pregnant. The surge of chemicals in his brain reprogrammed it to try and home in on the speed dimension and through doing so, forced the man to run as fast as he could. At least, until he couldn’t any more.”
“Running himself ragged?”
“Literally. To better design robotic legs they used to put human limbs through stress tests. They’d stimulate a pair of legs donated to science to run by being pushed and pulled faster than the body was capable of. You can imagine what happens to the leg as it is forced to run at hundreds of miles per hour.”
“Is that what happened to him?”
“For his sake, I hope he managed to run fast enough to get to where he was going to.” Said the doctor.
“Is that possible?”
“No.”
A few days later they found a pair of smouldering shoes at the edge of a field and a track leading through the corn. They couldn’t find any trace of Kyle McPeterson. Maybe he had entered the speed dimension, maybe aliens had abducted him. Wherever he was I hoped they had a good shoemaker.
“Zero.” Came the announcement. There was a flash and Kyle McPeterson had disappeared. “Deconstruction achieved. Kyle has been broken down into subatomic particles.” The crowd cheered, hugging each other and high fiving. The parts that had made up Kyle McPeterson had now been broken down into their smallest unit and were travelling in a single line through the particle accelerator. A map comes up of his journey around the ring, his self had been broken down into organs, cells, atoms, protons, electrons and smaller as he made his orbit round and round.
“Eight hundred miles per hour. One thousand miles per hour. Eight thousand three hundred miles per hour. Eighty nine thousand miles per hour. Three hundred and seventy thousand miles per hour. Five million and eight miles per hour.” Said the announcer.
“C’mon, c’mon.” said a scientist next to me, taking off his sunglasses.
“A billion miles per hour. Twenty nine billion miles per hour. Six hundred and thirty billion miles per hour.” The room around us began to shake. Inside the tube the particles were travelling at such enormous speeds at almost every point inside its seventeen mile track it was overtaking itself constantly before they vanished.
“We have lost contact with the subject. No particles detected.” Said the announcer. Everyone began to talk amongst each other. Tension came in a new wave over the room.
“Particles have reappeared at a speed of three hundred and ninety billion miles an hour and decelerating.” Said the announcer, breathing a sigh of relief. A large block of acrylic is brought forwards via robotic trolley. Inside it there is a Lichtenberg figure, a version of Kyle McPeterson imprinted onto the glass as an electric tree, an exact atomic replica of the Quantumnaught. The fractal man is loaded into the tube, acting as a perfect reverse focus for the entirety of Kyle McPeterson. He comes back to formation quickly, in the exact position he had been before although immediately collapses.
“Particles have reformed back into Kyle. Subject is alive and well.” Said the announcer. There was a great cheering as medics rushed forward, pulling the man onto a stretcher.
A few hours later I am sat at a bar, eating peanuts from a chipped ceramic bowl.
“Hey, turn it up.” said someone behind me, the bartender obliges. Kyle McPeterson is sat at a press conference along with his wife and an old man.
“We have finally managed to accelerate a person faster than the speed of light. Anything is possible.” concluded the head scientist, Werner Von Maxim. The press all began to raise their arms and ask dozens of questions at once. The warble of voices merged into vaneesaheagakfogoayakneevanagoaheywappleplashahati. Werner pointed into the audience.
“Bessie Treadwell, New York Times. I wanna ask Kyle, what was it like to have travelled at such a speed? Were you conscious?”
“Well Ms. Treadwell, it went by so fast I barely noticed it.” Said Kyle with a smile. The crowd chuckled. “What I can say is this, that I’m thankful to be safe and glad that I can contribute to what might be the next step for humankind.”
“Charles Jones, BBC News. Doctor, what is it we can learn from this experiment?”
“We are working on storing people on miniature particle accelerators, spinning their particles faster than the speed of light indefinitely. Time will cease to be important. We can send these washing machines out into space, colonizing the infinite future like dandelion seeds in a cosmic night.”
“What about actually travelling at the speed of light?”
“What do you mean?”
“If we can accelerate a man faster than the speed of light, why not a jetplane or motorbike?”
“What is it about a particle accelerator you don’t understand? It accelerates particles, but that’s it. Anything out of the accelerator moves at a normal speed. The only way you could travel from Paris to Berlin at the speed of light would be to have a particle accelerator big enough that would include both cities somewhere on it's circumference. Next question.”
“Kenji Takanakagi, Japanese Reporter. This question is for Mrs. McPeterson, how does it feel to be married to the fastest man on the planet?”
“Well, I wish he’d be so fast to get out of bed in the morning.” said Francesca. The crowd chuckled. Kyle reached over and held her hand. “I’m so proud of him. I’d like to use this press conference to announce…I’m pregnant.” She said. The crowd cheered. “With twins!” she revealed. Kyle’s eyebrows shot up.
“Huh?!” Some journalists started to shout out ‘uh oh’ and other things like that. “Does this mean it’s buy one get one free with the midwife?” he quipped. The crowd laughed, started to cheer then clap as the couple embraced. As he pulled away she saw that his nose had started bleeding and had left a stain on her cardigan.
“Kyle…you’re bleeding.” she said. He slowly brought a hand up to face, poked his philtrum a few times and then outstretched his fingers to slowly examine the redness. “Someone get a doctor!” she shouted.
“The press conference is over!” said Werner, he stood up and started shaking his hands in a cutting motion. Kyle ascended from his chair, looked directly into the camera and beginning to shout. His entire face was turning purple, the bloodied nose had become a bubbling gush that cascaded down his swollen neck. His body was trembling, as if in anticipation of something. He then suddenly bolted forward, running forwards, knocking over the desk as he did so. Scrambling forward he began to run. He sprinted into the front row of journalists and kicked them out of the way, screaming at the top of his lungs as his eyes darted around like a frightened horse. The camera followed him as he made his way through the door at the back of the room. The camera cut back to the presenter in the studio, a finger to her ear pierce.
“We apologise for those distressing scenes but will continue to cover the story as it develops. In breaking news, so-called-” said the presenter. I turned back to my empty bowl and waved the bartender over.
“Could I have some more nuts please?”
As I leave the bar I see Kyle McPeterson sprint past me, the stitching on his clothes had begun to undo themselves. His shout changes pitch quickly as he passes me and runs off into the night, never to be seen again.
The chief editor throws a copy of my story on the desk, the headline reads ‘Man Travels Faster Than The Speed Of Light. What Happens Next Will Shock You.’
“What is this crap?”
“It’s what you asked for Don. Coverage of Rungate.”
“Get me the real story. I want two hundred words on the McPeterson twins by ten!”
“Don, c’mon.”
“No, you c’mon. This is Buzzfeed, our readers want the drama, the human side of the story. Can you do that for me before you give me a heart attack?" says Don, taking a puff on his electronic cigarette.
“Those things will kill you, you know.” I say. An intern walks up with a stack of ipads that Don knocks over as he turns to leave.
The human side of the story? What is more human than mad cap science gone wrong. I get the intern to write up the article Don wants whilst I head to the chateau of Dr. Werner Von Maxim. He answers the door and ushers me in.
“I wondered when you reporters would find me.”
“I’m the first?”
“Yes. So let me give you an exclusive…the truth.” Says the doctor ominously. We enter a study, he pours two glasses of whiskey. I take out a tape recorder and rest it down.
“What happened to Kyle McPeterson?”
“You were there, weren’t you? When we accelerated him? He disappeared for a moment, at first we thought he was moving so fast our sensors weren’t able to pick him up. But he’d disappeared. You know, when he came back he weighed nearly two grams heavier? We didn’t catch it on the x-rays, but the CT scan showed…modifications.”
“What kind of modifications?” I ask, taking a drink.
“His brain had been altered. I’m uncertain if this was a natural phenomenon or through a medical procedure far more advanced than anything we’re capable of. I believe Kyle entered another dimension…of pure speed.”
“The speed dimension?”
“Correct. Everyone knows about time and space, but how do the two interact? Movement. And how do we measure movement?”
“Speed.” I say, turning towards the fire.
“Precisely. You know, for a journalist you sure do know a lot about science.”
“What happened to Kyle on stage?” I say.
“I believe that whatever happened to his brain to make it two grams heavier kicked in under an intense emotional response, in this case, the discovery that his wife was pregnant. The surge of chemicals in his brain reprogrammed it to try and home in on the speed dimension and through doing so, forced the man to run as fast as he could. At least, until he couldn’t any more.”
“Running himself ragged?”
“Literally. To better design robotic legs they used to put human limbs through stress tests. They’d stimulate a pair of legs donated to science to run by being pushed and pulled faster than the body was capable of. You can imagine what happens to the leg as it is forced to run at hundreds of miles per hour.”
“Is that what happened to him?”
“For his sake, I hope he managed to run fast enough to get to where he was going to.” Said the doctor.
“Is that possible?”
“No.”
A few days later they found a pair of smouldering shoes at the edge of a field and a track leading through the corn. They couldn’t find any trace of Kyle McPeterson. Maybe he had entered the speed dimension, maybe aliens had abducted him. Wherever he was I hoped they had a good shoemaker.
1.1.15
#2015
As the world completes another orbit around the sun and the beings that live on it mark the passage of time from that relative coordinate again, so the year two thousand and fifteen has arrived. The actual year is 4,543,265,993. P'raps you're reading this on this very day, hair smelling like cigarette smoke and teeth loose from gum recession. P'raps you're reading this in fifty years time as part of a school project on data archeology. P'raps you're reading this a billion years into the future, a little zig emanating from a long dead planet. Whatever your temporal orientation, this is authored from the point of view of a humble humanoid casting a face back and a face forth, Janusian pattern recognition in full effect.
What was 2014? Turn it down for hdyoutube soul blast misanthropic pre-futurist iphone asteroid landing robin williams world cup farage missing planes cumberbatch nude photo ebola fracking ice bucket isis extravaganza, to sum it up. Each decade in the 20th century had a certain flavour and yet 15% through this century and the only thing to tell old from new is the resolution of the image.
"Dreams are the subconscious desire of unexplored parapraxis in order to avoid taboo. Does wish fulfilment lead to ritual; Cave paintings, hieroglyphics, theatre of the cavemen, painting, television; Fictions that could be entertainment but also an allegory or metaphor. The modern language of media is through homage and cliché, repetition, the simulation of media that has come before in order to remind you of the original and that you are watching fiction. In our imagination we may picture our minds filled with homunculus' who walk around the estates of our memory. Although this is affected by photography, as an individual perspective on the world around us we choose to remember the photograph of. We edit the photographs of reality for sharing in order to stroke our digital ego; it itself an extension of us on the World wide web, technology has invaded life so subtly as to appear normal. But is satisfaction through materialism just a distraction? Capitalist industry is a system that isn't reflected in nature, it is one of such extreme complexity and asymmetry that it can not be predicted currently. Death." - Russell Brand, thinker of 2014
January
The bitterest month, in memoriam ex mento that 2015 will be remembered as a year that happened in the past in which the present history will say have had a series of events occur that would lead to developments in the future. The main one being a series of attacks from sensitives. There was an experiment done in 1987 in which an area of forest was cordoned off and a deer introduced every hour. They found that within a certain amount, the area divided by the population and then multiplied, was the overpopulation sweet spot. The forest could adequately hold sixty deer, so that each had enough space that they didn't display any signs of aggression towards the self or others. At one hundred and twenty deer some individuals began to attack those nearby or begin to mutilate themselves. After two weeks just over three hundred deer had been stuffed into the forest. Scientists watched from observation platforms in the tree tops waves of pain ripple across the backs of the deer. Some would knock their head from side to side, biting at the ears of its neighbour as they tried to find their footing on the dead below. Although humanity hasn't yet reached this badness, the same applies in a psychic sense. The brain is constantly bombarded with information and so drives certain people to undertake terrorist attacks in order to decrease the population back to a more manageable state. Towards of the end of January scientists will make this breakthrough discovery and completely change every single language into the same one in which the only word of the language is 'oyo'. This leads to a massive decrease in communication complexity and and nobody ever kills anyone again.
February
As the soft jelly snow of January melts, so do the ice caps. For a few weeks they reveal an extraordinary scene, a pair of fish dinosaurs battling underwater are frozen in perfect condition. News helicopters constantly circle the glimpse into the past as the bizarre sepulchre breaks away from the glacier and heads towards America, slowly melting as it travels. Just as it reaches the Statue of Liberty the two huge creatures come back to life after being struck by lightning and continue their prehistoric death duel in the Hudson Bay.
March
The true beginning of the year is of course in Spring. And Spring definitely 'springs' into action as an enormous spring escapes from a factory and begins to bounce away, getting higher and higher with each tumble. The curious nature of this super spring is the material it's made from; graphene. The wonder-material is thought to be of such vital importance in the years ahead due to its resilience, lightness and abundance. The only unforeseen property of this material is that anything made out of it will cause chaos and destruction. The giant spring therefore leaves a trail of misery out of Manchester as it begins its travel across England, the eighty tonne juggernaut is unable to be stopped by conventional means until it is captured inside a graphene containment cube. Although as this is also made out of graphene, the containment cube also manages to trap most of Wakefield inside as well.
April
The newest internet sensation begins in April that is copied by billions. In order for something to be popular it requires that people can show off in some way with the least amount of effort. With the 'Necknomination' craze that swept the web people could show off drinking, so followed the 'Ice Bucket Challenge' in which people could do something wacky whilst being naked. The next logical conclusion is the 'Oil Aboard' in which a number of people oil themselves up and then try to pile of top of each other. This also follows the liquid theme pervading the fads as people love water. They also love goo, and so 'Oil Aboard' is an instant success enjoyed by all. Laugh as people not thought of as attractive try it. Lust over sexy people doing it. Wince as painful accidents occur. Like all fads this will die out after eight weeks, although the thing it will be replaced by in 2016 will be so wonderful it will definitely be worth the wait.
May
The 2015 General Election will be a series of 'gaffs' as politicians are meant to act like humans but can't pull it off properly. Names will be called. People will cry. The entire political landscape for the rest of the decade lies in the hands of a racist pensioner again. But from the smoke will rise a champion, forged in the heat of battle. Ed Milliband will walk through the palace of blood to sit atop the throne of skulls, upon his head he will wear a crown of tears as he looks out on his kingdom, expressionless. Inside his head he dreams he is hiding in the dark, naked and afraid, but that is just a dream. He summons a servant boy with the flick of a wrist and demands that the NHS is to remain free and that there should be a mansion tax. The boy nods his tongueless head and the rhythm of his feet running down the hall fades. The prime minister is alone once more and turns his wet eyes up to the stars.
June
The most interesting things usually happen in Summer and this year is no exception. With the hottest day on record happening consecutively, the summer of '15 will be a killer! A hosepipe ban will be in effect, ice cream will be sold out and chaos will take to the nations motorways as sun bathers will relax amongst the traffic jams. This will be the first year that the country will get a taste of its Tropical future, they will discover palm trees at the bottom of their garden and hear monkeys howling in the night. Resorts are built ten miles inland awaiting global warming, this will be exclusive beach front property in twenty or so years. Piers jut out from hillsides as ferris wheels are rolled towards them, boats already begin to populate the streets of nearby towns. The water shortage meanwhile leads to no water available for bathing or showering, personal hygiene goes down the toilet and the Brits are known as the stinkiest nation on this side of the equator.
July
A private space company decides to mark the launch of its flagship shuttle with a special million dollar promotional event. Pitbull, Taylor Swift, Scott Walker, Nicki Minaj, Flying Lotus, Nine Inch Nails and Faithless have been booked to play throughout the day accompanied by visual DJ's and circus performers whilst various celebrities arrive in order to do skits and quick interviews. The astronauts for the flight dance awkwardly as Nicki Minaj sings her hit 'Starships' and encourages the crowd to clap along. As the launch draws nearer Michael Collins comes onstage and begins to countdown, accompanied by mystical drumming. The curtains draw back to reveal the shuttle a few miles away, its main engines ignite. The audience gaze in anticipation. Pure zen. The rocket roars and separates from the mooring, moving upward slowly. Everyone begins to cheer as the space ship safely makes its way into the upper atmosphere, the astronauts breathe a sigh of relief. As gravity no longer affected it, a towel began to unfurl in the compartment, revealing Pitbull crouched in the corner.
"Me not working hard, yeah right! Picture that with a Kodak or better yet, go to Times Square, take a picture of me with a Kodak. Took my life from negative to positive I just want y'all know that, and tonight let's enjoy life;
Pitbull, Nasa, Eeyore, that's right."
August
With the increase in sexiness in culture the tide begins to turn. Dressing extremely conservatively becomes fashionable, as does abstinence from everything. Social media commentators begin to wonder why they even bother having sex any more and they'd just like to live in sensory pods where they can strap on a virtual reality headset whilst a pipe runs directly into the stomach to remove the need for food. On their nethers another virtual reality set is fastened, although this is meant to simulate touch rather than vision. Hundreds of little robot arms tend to the genitals, manipulating them in a constant stream of arousal. Another tube is put at the rear and fills the body with a continuous enema so that waste simply floats in and out. Lots of people sign up for this service but find it quite uncomfortable, although there is no way of exiting the sensory pod once locked in and buried beneath concrete to make way for a luxury car park. In the meantime sexiness prevails with the new fad of men wearing cute skirts and low cut tops.
September
A robot is invented that becomes a celebrity due to its wit and handsomeness. It is called Boosle-body: The fun android and is taken on a tour of chat shows across America. It releases a hit single and does youtube collaborations with other celebrities like Pew-die-pie and Chris Rock. Boosle-body preaches peace and equality but isn't afraid to get its hands dirty. This is one sassy robot! At the premiere of the Clockwork Orange remake it lays the proverbial smackdown on Bradley Cooper so much so that Cooper punches the android in the neck and its head flies off. Boosle-body is reactivated but isn't the same afterward. Its jokes are more cruel and to the point, it has less time for its fans. Boosle-body ends up retiring and goes into solitude in the Nevada Desert, waiting for the time of the robots.
October
In a shocking twist of events it is revealed that everybody in the UK will inherit a million pounds due to the last wishes of eccentric expat billionaire Pat Sharpe. After the a long weekend of elaborate celebration many decided to quit their jobs and enjoy the inheritance. Generation Millionaire had arrived and it was lazy. A million quickly became a new unit of currency called a Hyper-Quid. Hyper-Quids were useful for buying black market luxury goods, paying for services and gambling with but not much else. The economy trundled on as normal as a new social class bloomed into existence on the econosphere.
November
After a rollercoaster year of thrills and spills it seemed there were no more surprises left in store. But a new age was about to begin. A team of astronauts and Pitbull had landed on Mars and discovered an ancient building hidden inside a hollow mountain. They had discovered a martian temple, proof that intelligent life had existed on Mars at some point millions of years ago. The head astronaut steps inside a chamber and dusts off a sphere in the centre. It is a map of the galaxy constructed from bubbles in the glass, they catch the light thrown from her helmet lamp. The astronaut runs a gloved finger across the orbit of the Milky Way, eventually finding our solar system amongst the blizzard of stars. Then the sphere cracked open and an alien jumped out.
December
Christmas shopping.
What was 2014? Turn it down for hdyoutube soul blast misanthropic pre-futurist iphone asteroid landing robin williams world cup farage missing planes cumberbatch nude photo ebola fracking ice bucket isis extravaganza, to sum it up. Each decade in the 20th century had a certain flavour and yet 15% through this century and the only thing to tell old from new is the resolution of the image.
"Dreams are the subconscious desire of unexplored parapraxis in order to avoid taboo. Does wish fulfilment lead to ritual; Cave paintings, hieroglyphics, theatre of the cavemen, painting, television; Fictions that could be entertainment but also an allegory or metaphor. The modern language of media is through homage and cliché, repetition, the simulation of media that has come before in order to remind you of the original and that you are watching fiction. In our imagination we may picture our minds filled with homunculus' who walk around the estates of our memory. Although this is affected by photography, as an individual perspective on the world around us we choose to remember the photograph of. We edit the photographs of reality for sharing in order to stroke our digital ego; it itself an extension of us on the World wide web, technology has invaded life so subtly as to appear normal. But is satisfaction through materialism just a distraction? Capitalist industry is a system that isn't reflected in nature, it is one of such extreme complexity and asymmetry that it can not be predicted currently. Death." - Russell Brand, thinker of 2014
January
The bitterest month, in memoriam ex mento that 2015 will be remembered as a year that happened in the past in which the present history will say have had a series of events occur that would lead to developments in the future. The main one being a series of attacks from sensitives. There was an experiment done in 1987 in which an area of forest was cordoned off and a deer introduced every hour. They found that within a certain amount, the area divided by the population and then multiplied, was the overpopulation sweet spot. The forest could adequately hold sixty deer, so that each had enough space that they didn't display any signs of aggression towards the self or others. At one hundred and twenty deer some individuals began to attack those nearby or begin to mutilate themselves. After two weeks just over three hundred deer had been stuffed into the forest. Scientists watched from observation platforms in the tree tops waves of pain ripple across the backs of the deer. Some would knock their head from side to side, biting at the ears of its neighbour as they tried to find their footing on the dead below. Although humanity hasn't yet reached this badness, the same applies in a psychic sense. The brain is constantly bombarded with information and so drives certain people to undertake terrorist attacks in order to decrease the population back to a more manageable state. Towards of the end of January scientists will make this breakthrough discovery and completely change every single language into the same one in which the only word of the language is 'oyo'. This leads to a massive decrease in communication complexity and and nobody ever kills anyone again.
February
As the soft jelly snow of January melts, so do the ice caps. For a few weeks they reveal an extraordinary scene, a pair of fish dinosaurs battling underwater are frozen in perfect condition. News helicopters constantly circle the glimpse into the past as the bizarre sepulchre breaks away from the glacier and heads towards America, slowly melting as it travels. Just as it reaches the Statue of Liberty the two huge creatures come back to life after being struck by lightning and continue their prehistoric death duel in the Hudson Bay.
March
The true beginning of the year is of course in Spring. And Spring definitely 'springs' into action as an enormous spring escapes from a factory and begins to bounce away, getting higher and higher with each tumble. The curious nature of this super spring is the material it's made from; graphene. The wonder-material is thought to be of such vital importance in the years ahead due to its resilience, lightness and abundance. The only unforeseen property of this material is that anything made out of it will cause chaos and destruction. The giant spring therefore leaves a trail of misery out of Manchester as it begins its travel across England, the eighty tonne juggernaut is unable to be stopped by conventional means until it is captured inside a graphene containment cube. Although as this is also made out of graphene, the containment cube also manages to trap most of Wakefield inside as well.
April
The newest internet sensation begins in April that is copied by billions. In order for something to be popular it requires that people can show off in some way with the least amount of effort. With the 'Necknomination' craze that swept the web people could show off drinking, so followed the 'Ice Bucket Challenge' in which people could do something wacky whilst being naked. The next logical conclusion is the 'Oil Aboard' in which a number of people oil themselves up and then try to pile of top of each other. This also follows the liquid theme pervading the fads as people love water. They also love goo, and so 'Oil Aboard' is an instant success enjoyed by all. Laugh as people not thought of as attractive try it. Lust over sexy people doing it. Wince as painful accidents occur. Like all fads this will die out after eight weeks, although the thing it will be replaced by in 2016 will be so wonderful it will definitely be worth the wait.
May
The 2015 General Election will be a series of 'gaffs' as politicians are meant to act like humans but can't pull it off properly. Names will be called. People will cry. The entire political landscape for the rest of the decade lies in the hands of a racist pensioner again. But from the smoke will rise a champion, forged in the heat of battle. Ed Milliband will walk through the palace of blood to sit atop the throne of skulls, upon his head he will wear a crown of tears as he looks out on his kingdom, expressionless. Inside his head he dreams he is hiding in the dark, naked and afraid, but that is just a dream. He summons a servant boy with the flick of a wrist and demands that the NHS is to remain free and that there should be a mansion tax. The boy nods his tongueless head and the rhythm of his feet running down the hall fades. The prime minister is alone once more and turns his wet eyes up to the stars.
June
The most interesting things usually happen in Summer and this year is no exception. With the hottest day on record happening consecutively, the summer of '15 will be a killer! A hosepipe ban will be in effect, ice cream will be sold out and chaos will take to the nations motorways as sun bathers will relax amongst the traffic jams. This will be the first year that the country will get a taste of its Tropical future, they will discover palm trees at the bottom of their garden and hear monkeys howling in the night. Resorts are built ten miles inland awaiting global warming, this will be exclusive beach front property in twenty or so years. Piers jut out from hillsides as ferris wheels are rolled towards them, boats already begin to populate the streets of nearby towns. The water shortage meanwhile leads to no water available for bathing or showering, personal hygiene goes down the toilet and the Brits are known as the stinkiest nation on this side of the equator.
July
A private space company decides to mark the launch of its flagship shuttle with a special million dollar promotional event. Pitbull, Taylor Swift, Scott Walker, Nicki Minaj, Flying Lotus, Nine Inch Nails and Faithless have been booked to play throughout the day accompanied by visual DJ's and circus performers whilst various celebrities arrive in order to do skits and quick interviews. The astronauts for the flight dance awkwardly as Nicki Minaj sings her hit 'Starships' and encourages the crowd to clap along. As the launch draws nearer Michael Collins comes onstage and begins to countdown, accompanied by mystical drumming. The curtains draw back to reveal the shuttle a few miles away, its main engines ignite. The audience gaze in anticipation. Pure zen. The rocket roars and separates from the mooring, moving upward slowly. Everyone begins to cheer as the space ship safely makes its way into the upper atmosphere, the astronauts breathe a sigh of relief. As gravity no longer affected it, a towel began to unfurl in the compartment, revealing Pitbull crouched in the corner.
"Me not working hard, yeah right! Picture that with a Kodak or better yet, go to Times Square, take a picture of me with a Kodak. Took my life from negative to positive I just want y'all know that, and tonight let's enjoy life;
Pitbull, Nasa, Eeyore, that's right."
August
With the increase in sexiness in culture the tide begins to turn. Dressing extremely conservatively becomes fashionable, as does abstinence from everything. Social media commentators begin to wonder why they even bother having sex any more and they'd just like to live in sensory pods where they can strap on a virtual reality headset whilst a pipe runs directly into the stomach to remove the need for food. On their nethers another virtual reality set is fastened, although this is meant to simulate touch rather than vision. Hundreds of little robot arms tend to the genitals, manipulating them in a constant stream of arousal. Another tube is put at the rear and fills the body with a continuous enema so that waste simply floats in and out. Lots of people sign up for this service but find it quite uncomfortable, although there is no way of exiting the sensory pod once locked in and buried beneath concrete to make way for a luxury car park. In the meantime sexiness prevails with the new fad of men wearing cute skirts and low cut tops.
September
A robot is invented that becomes a celebrity due to its wit and handsomeness. It is called Boosle-body: The fun android and is taken on a tour of chat shows across America. It releases a hit single and does youtube collaborations with other celebrities like Pew-die-pie and Chris Rock. Boosle-body preaches peace and equality but isn't afraid to get its hands dirty. This is one sassy robot! At the premiere of the Clockwork Orange remake it lays the proverbial smackdown on Bradley Cooper so much so that Cooper punches the android in the neck and its head flies off. Boosle-body is reactivated but isn't the same afterward. Its jokes are more cruel and to the point, it has less time for its fans. Boosle-body ends up retiring and goes into solitude in the Nevada Desert, waiting for the time of the robots.
October
In a shocking twist of events it is revealed that everybody in the UK will inherit a million pounds due to the last wishes of eccentric expat billionaire Pat Sharpe. After the a long weekend of elaborate celebration many decided to quit their jobs and enjoy the inheritance. Generation Millionaire had arrived and it was lazy. A million quickly became a new unit of currency called a Hyper-Quid. Hyper-Quids were useful for buying black market luxury goods, paying for services and gambling with but not much else. The economy trundled on as normal as a new social class bloomed into existence on the econosphere.
November
After a rollercoaster year of thrills and spills it seemed there were no more surprises left in store. But a new age was about to begin. A team of astronauts and Pitbull had landed on Mars and discovered an ancient building hidden inside a hollow mountain. They had discovered a martian temple, proof that intelligent life had existed on Mars at some point millions of years ago. The head astronaut steps inside a chamber and dusts off a sphere in the centre. It is a map of the galaxy constructed from bubbles in the glass, they catch the light thrown from her helmet lamp. The astronaut runs a gloved finger across the orbit of the Milky Way, eventually finding our solar system amongst the blizzard of stars. Then the sphere cracked open and an alien jumped out.
December
Christmas shopping.
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