Affinity

The thread of Miss Delaware:

In the moment, embracing the minutes and seconds, she looks down at her unblemished wrists. Out of the window and into the apartments they stare mesmerized by a cable fed kaleidoscope, they smoke away on balconies, consider love in barricaded bedrooms. She looks to a particular room on an adjacent tower. Today he is not there.

Her watch beeps. Rushing to mirror she adds colour and definition to her face. There is no need really, but today promised to be one of those days. It was a day to change all days that would come. It would make sense of the days that served as mere filler between such momentous occasions in life.

Swinging her handbag around her neck she exits her apartment and rides the grav-tube to street level.  She views the messages that her friends had recorded for her and sent that morning, little holograms that sprouted from her wrist.

“Can’t wait to hear about how handsome he is” they say.

“I’m so excited for you.”

“You go girl. Affinity to infinity!”

She hurries out the door and hails a cab.

“Tigris Corporation” she says.

The cab driver looks at her briefly through the rear view and nods.

“Affinity Division” she adds.

The mention of the Affinity Division causes the cab driver to double take. He looks at her with new eyes, intentions different. The very mention of the ‘a’ word was a catalyst for many emotions within people. It separated the haves from the have nots, it spoke of material wealth, hope, a ticket to a better existence - something out of reach for many people. 

She was a modest woman and did not mean to gloat. She already regretted the mention of Affinity to the man. She should have just mentioned “Tigris Corporation” and walked herself to the appropriate sector of the complex. 

She doesn’t want to make further case with the man but as she sits the holograms project out wildly in her face. Advertisements of holiday getaways on private islands, wedding dresses, sex parties and toothpaste. She was sick of all of the images and they were almost unavoidable, the world seemed to rotate around them.

“Can you switch them off please?” she says to the cab driver.

“But if off, your fare more. If on, your fare cheaper” he says.

“I don’t care” she says. “I want to live without being told how to live. I want a life that cannot be bought.”

The taxi driver laughs. “Yet you go for Affinity” he says. He flicks off the advertisement projection system angrily and rues lost commission and ambassador credits.

She notices a smudge on the driver’s wrist as he switches off the advertising system. She can tell that he was a user. It wasn’t the wrists however that gave it away. It was in his eyes, a slight and occasional vacancy. Her brother was the same. He had started at first recreationally, but now he was hooked. Rubbing out had become his only form of solace. The more he had, the more he needed. Soon he found more meaning in rubbing out than living life. There was little left. He went from one fix to another, the severity in coming down necessitating the next hit.

Along the western corridor traffic was slow. They slowed as they passed paramedics attending to a few collapsed pedestrians. One had collapsed at the bottom of an overpass escalator and his shirt had got stuck in the machine. The other had collapsed on the footpath outside a Mass Transit Shuttle stop. They were both young.

The cab driver shakes his head. “Aye-argh” he laments, his words sorrowful but also fearful and angry. “This is problem.” 

He flashes one arm around and gestures at the world outside the cab.

No one knew why more and more young people were falling dead seemingly without reason. Drug use was speculated but there was no direct correlation found. Some had a history of heavy drug use, others were mostly clean. Coroners reported that cause of death was by unexplained neurogenic failure to the heart. Their hearts had simply ceased to beat. 

She clutches her hand bag tightly as traffic returns to its normal pace. It was a straight run now and she was at once nervous and excited.

The Tigris corporation complex took up a large section of the downtown area with five sky scrapers arising from its base in the shape of a hand reaching out from the ground. Inside the Affinity Division she welcomed by a man in a tuxedo and a woman in a scarlet dress. They escort her to a private lounge where they pour her a glass of champagne. 

“This is for you on your special day” the woman says. She places the glass of champagne on the table beside where Miss Delaware is sat. 

They stand together with loose embrace and smile down at Miss Delaware on the couch.

“As you know Miss Delaware, we already have your details on our database.” 

Miss Delaware looks around for the voice that is speaking to her. The voice comes from behind her. She turns her head and notices another man in a suit, but this man seeming more official. He has just come through the door. He keeps speaking as he walks, his words as if known by verbatim.

“We know your activities, hobbies, likes, dislikes, humour, religious beliefs, moral outlook. We know your favourite books, foods, music and drinks. We know your friends, relatives and the people you avoid. We know your sleep patterns, your sexual preferences and appetite. We can even assess your propensity to change given common variables in life such as stress, time restraints, societal fads, movements and political climates. Our system is the most comprehensive on the planet. Just about everyone is linked to our social network. We have over six billion subscribers worldwide and five million alone in this city.”

He sits on the couch directly opposite her and looks into her eyes.

“Affinity awaits you. We will find your match. All I need first is the payment.”

She hands him her card. Fifteen years of hard work and saving since the age of eighteen. The payment is processed and he puts the computers into action and starts the trawl.

The man tells her to sit back and relax but she is mesmerized by the colours and flashes of faces upon the screens. She can’t help but think about all the people that she had never met in life because she had worked so hard. All of the people that she would never meet in life because that was the way of life in modern times. The faces flash up on the screen for only a split second each but in a strange way, she was knowing them all, everything about them, analyzed and critiqued, computed and permutated, vicariously through a system of machines. She sits there for hours. Face after face. Frame by frame.