In another room he is pacing. He watches her via the surveillance system, sitting as attentively as when the faces first started to flash up on the screen. This had never happened before. It had been four hours. The trawl had been completed three times. First the city, then the state, finally the entire country. Everyone has a match, he thinks. All that was required was change.
He re-enters the room with another man. As they enter the screens turn blank and Miss Delaware turns to them as if her moment had come. Her face was like that of a girl recieving flowers for the first time. Her eyes were large and full of hope. They were a fable realized.
They sit down in front of her with serious faces. Before speaking the unknown man unzips a black bag. This was the moment she had waited for and dreamt about her whole life. Now that it was happening, she expected it to be different.
"We do not have a match for you yet" the Affinity curator says. "What we can offer you is what is contained in this bag."
The world was different when Miss Delaware exits the palm of the Tigris Corporation. On the day that she had expected answers she had been given further doubts and questions. She hails a taxi and demands to be taken to her brother.
Outside the windows of the cab she starts to see things with new eyes. New emotions and thoughts are awoken in her and it feels like a fatal wound. She sees all the cracks in the city where they had been painted over and watches them grow as the taxi continues to the East Side.
A light flashes on her wrist indicating that she had a dozen new messages awaiting her attention but she decides that she cannot face them now. She already knows who they were from and what they would say. She already knows the congratulative expressions and remarks.
She looks down at the black bag that she had been given. The city had a soul and all it needed was to be unzipped. To join it or leave it, that is what they had told her. The decision was hers.
The East side was the roughest part of the city and more affluent parts liked to pretend it didn't exist. She watches the slow societal decay on its approach and contrasts it with the black bag that sat on the seat beside her. In the middle of both contrasting scenes was her brother. She knows that she needed to see him no matter what state he was currently in. He may provide her with some sort of answer or guidance.
She doesn't bother knocking when she reaches his door and instead swipes herself inside. Some days he was lucid and with it, other days he was nothing more than mumbling sloth in. Calling out to him and stepping over empty pizza boxes and an assortment of take out containers she hears the latter.
In the living room she finds him lying on his side with his top arm dangling off the sofa and onto the floor. Slowly he rolls onto his back and slowly addresses his sister.
"He-ey sis.." he manages, his eyes staring past her, bloodshot and vacant.
"Oh Si!" she says compassionately, sitting down and giving him a soft embrace. She places her hand bag and the black bag on the coffee table clearly in his view. As she leans over her to hug him more firmly he starts to reach for it.
"How are you?" she asks her brother. "Have I come at a good time?"
Si does not respond having reached the black bag and taken a firm grip of one of its corners with his fist.
He turns his attention back to his sister. The unbelief on his face heartbreaking. He does not ask what her sister is doing with this black bag. His sister can already read the question on his face.
"I know, I know!" she says. "I mean I don't know! I don't know! Oh, I can't..."
She feels tears well up somewhere behind eyes, as if pumped from an infinite ocean that was bound somewhere deep inside.
"They gave it to me today!" she explains. "Today I was supposed to find Affinity but I didn't have a match. This was all they could give me. They said it was the only way."
Her brother lets the bag go as if extending his arm to reach for it had taken too much effort. As he does this his head collapses backwards onto the arm of the chair, his eyes closed, a deep breath taken, before summoning strength and continuing again.
"Everyone says many things Sis" he says. "Everyone has an opinion about everything. Everyone wants assurances in life. They want answers. They want to know that everything will be okay. We pay for it. We pay for it everyday. They sell us what we want to believe and we buy it! And we will keep buying it. We will buy it until we are broke, until it has taken us over and there is nothing left and then we will be burried in the ground."
He looks seriously at his sister, the one who had always lived a virtuous life, the one who both inspired him and wordlessly criticized him for the way he had lived his life. He pulls out an unused cartridge from his pocket and quickly inspects the label.
BADMINTON MATCH it read and as he reads it, he rolls his eyes and decides that he should no longer buy assorted packs from the Chinese man in the next block no matter how cheap they may seem. He directs his eyes back to his sister and narrows them.
"Don't do it Sis" he says. "You are probably the truest thing there is. You are the truest thing I know. Do not open that bag. Take it back to whoever gave it to you. Otherwise, this is what you get."
He rams the cartridge onto his wrist which stimulates the clamping and injecting mechanism built inside. He writhes in a semi painful looking exstacy before exhaling hard and his body relaxing. Immediately after doing this he reaches into his pocket and finds another cartridge and clamps it down on his wrist and infuses the substance.
This one says THREESOME and he catches a glance of it just as the infusion process starts.
This will be interesting he thinks.
"See you later Sis. Come back and see me next week and tell me that you are not afraid, that you will swim in the ocean no matter how infinite and lonely it may seem."
And with that, his body is overcome again. He contorts on the sofa and then is released with laughter and heavy rapid breathing. Miss Delaware stays for several minutes until her brothers body is lame except for the signs of breath and pulse. He has a semi happy look on his face.
Miss Delaware arrives back at her apartment after nightfall. On the table in the middle of her living space she places the black bag and looks at it. She looks around her to see if anyone is watching but she is entirely alone. On the room function remote control she sets the function to "Oceans" and the walls, ceiling, and floors of her apartment become waves crashing on an undefined shore. She unzips the bag and fumbles through its contents. She reads the labels on the cartridges. KAMA SUTRA, DEER STALKING, COCAINE...
She looks through the bag at all the labels, each one speaking of an experience, some questionable, some desirable, but none that she deemed she wanted to experience artificially. She begins to cry feeling inept in all her lack of experience in some aspects of life, feeling alien when compared to what her friends and work colleagues were doing. In the process of questioning whether it was her that was abandoning her friends or her friends that were abandoning her, she raises the black bag and it's contents and smashes them onto the floor.
"To find your match you need to be more like your match" they had said.
Next she goes around her entire apartment and strips every wire that connected into every socket. She removes the communication device of her wrist and crushes it under her foot. She smashes every screen that fed her any image, every speaker that delivered any sound. She erases her social networking profile then smashes the hard drive as if sawing a body in two to release a soul. When her rampage is over she is so exhausted that she collapses on the floor. Her whole apartment is silent for the first time in as long as she can remember. There is no humming of machines, no clicking of information through electronic devices. No ones and zeros except for those that were jumping across the synapses of neurons in her head. Sick of her apartment and wanting to look elsewhere other than the destruction of her hands she makes her way to her balcony. Around her was a sea of towering buildings and flickering lights stretching as far as her eyes could see.
In the tower she sees him.
This was also the moment that the sky rained paper tigers.
He re-enters the room with another man. As they enter the screens turn blank and Miss Delaware turns to them as if her moment had come. Her face was like that of a girl recieving flowers for the first time. Her eyes were large and full of hope. They were a fable realized.
They sit down in front of her with serious faces. Before speaking the unknown man unzips a black bag. This was the moment she had waited for and dreamt about her whole life. Now that it was happening, she expected it to be different.
"We do not have a match for you yet" the Affinity curator says. "What we can offer you is what is contained in this bag."
The world was different when Miss Delaware exits the palm of the Tigris Corporation. On the day that she had expected answers she had been given further doubts and questions. She hails a taxi and demands to be taken to her brother.
Outside the windows of the cab she starts to see things with new eyes. New emotions and thoughts are awoken in her and it feels like a fatal wound. She sees all the cracks in the city where they had been painted over and watches them grow as the taxi continues to the East Side.
A light flashes on her wrist indicating that she had a dozen new messages awaiting her attention but she decides that she cannot face them now. She already knows who they were from and what they would say. She already knows the congratulative expressions and remarks.
She looks down at the black bag that she had been given. The city had a soul and all it needed was to be unzipped. To join it or leave it, that is what they had told her. The decision was hers.
The East side was the roughest part of the city and more affluent parts liked to pretend it didn't exist. She watches the slow societal decay on its approach and contrasts it with the black bag that sat on the seat beside her. In the middle of both contrasting scenes was her brother. She knows that she needed to see him no matter what state he was currently in. He may provide her with some sort of answer or guidance.
She doesn't bother knocking when she reaches his door and instead swipes herself inside. Some days he was lucid and with it, other days he was nothing more than mumbling sloth in. Calling out to him and stepping over empty pizza boxes and an assortment of take out containers she hears the latter.
In the living room she finds him lying on his side with his top arm dangling off the sofa and onto the floor. Slowly he rolls onto his back and slowly addresses his sister.
"He-ey sis.." he manages, his eyes staring past her, bloodshot and vacant.
"Oh Si!" she says compassionately, sitting down and giving him a soft embrace. She places her hand bag and the black bag on the coffee table clearly in his view. As she leans over her to hug him more firmly he starts to reach for it.
"How are you?" she asks her brother. "Have I come at a good time?"
Si does not respond having reached the black bag and taken a firm grip of one of its corners with his fist.
He turns his attention back to his sister. The unbelief on his face heartbreaking. He does not ask what her sister is doing with this black bag. His sister can already read the question on his face.
"I know, I know!" she says. "I mean I don't know! I don't know! Oh, I can't..."
She feels tears well up somewhere behind eyes, as if pumped from an infinite ocean that was bound somewhere deep inside.
"They gave it to me today!" she explains. "Today I was supposed to find Affinity but I didn't have a match. This was all they could give me. They said it was the only way."
Her brother lets the bag go as if extending his arm to reach for it had taken too much effort. As he does this his head collapses backwards onto the arm of the chair, his eyes closed, a deep breath taken, before summoning strength and continuing again.
"Everyone says many things Sis" he says. "Everyone has an opinion about everything. Everyone wants assurances in life. They want answers. They want to know that everything will be okay. We pay for it. We pay for it everyday. They sell us what we want to believe and we buy it! And we will keep buying it. We will buy it until we are broke, until it has taken us over and there is nothing left and then we will be burried in the ground."
He looks seriously at his sister, the one who had always lived a virtuous life, the one who both inspired him and wordlessly criticized him for the way he had lived his life. He pulls out an unused cartridge from his pocket and quickly inspects the label.
BADMINTON MATCH it read and as he reads it, he rolls his eyes and decides that he should no longer buy assorted packs from the Chinese man in the next block no matter how cheap they may seem. He directs his eyes back to his sister and narrows them.
"Don't do it Sis" he says. "You are probably the truest thing there is. You are the truest thing I know. Do not open that bag. Take it back to whoever gave it to you. Otherwise, this is what you get."
He rams the cartridge onto his wrist which stimulates the clamping and injecting mechanism built inside. He writhes in a semi painful looking exstacy before exhaling hard and his body relaxing. Immediately after doing this he reaches into his pocket and finds another cartridge and clamps it down on his wrist and infuses the substance.
This one says THREESOME and he catches a glance of it just as the infusion process starts.
This will be interesting he thinks.
"See you later Sis. Come back and see me next week and tell me that you are not afraid, that you will swim in the ocean no matter how infinite and lonely it may seem."
And with that, his body is overcome again. He contorts on the sofa and then is released with laughter and heavy rapid breathing. Miss Delaware stays for several minutes until her brothers body is lame except for the signs of breath and pulse. He has a semi happy look on his face.
Miss Delaware arrives back at her apartment after nightfall. On the table in the middle of her living space she places the black bag and looks at it. She looks around her to see if anyone is watching but she is entirely alone. On the room function remote control she sets the function to "Oceans" and the walls, ceiling, and floors of her apartment become waves crashing on an undefined shore. She unzips the bag and fumbles through its contents. She reads the labels on the cartridges. KAMA SUTRA, DEER STALKING, COCAINE...
She looks through the bag at all the labels, each one speaking of an experience, some questionable, some desirable, but none that she deemed she wanted to experience artificially. She begins to cry feeling inept in all her lack of experience in some aspects of life, feeling alien when compared to what her friends and work colleagues were doing. In the process of questioning whether it was her that was abandoning her friends or her friends that were abandoning her, she raises the black bag and it's contents and smashes them onto the floor.
"To find your match you need to be more like your match" they had said.
Next she goes around her entire apartment and strips every wire that connected into every socket. She removes the communication device of her wrist and crushes it under her foot. She smashes every screen that fed her any image, every speaker that delivered any sound. She erases her social networking profile then smashes the hard drive as if sawing a body in two to release a soul. When her rampage is over she is so exhausted that she collapses on the floor. Her whole apartment is silent for the first time in as long as she can remember. There is no humming of machines, no clicking of information through electronic devices. No ones and zeros except for those that were jumping across the synapses of neurons in her head. Sick of her apartment and wanting to look elsewhere other than the destruction of her hands she makes her way to her balcony. Around her was a sea of towering buildings and flickering lights stretching as far as her eyes could see.
In the tower she sees him.
This was also the moment that the sky rained paper tigers.
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