1. 2035 by PETER ALLEN
2015. The last international crew lifts off Moon heading towards Mars.
Six people spend eighteen years away from earth. John Allen is born 2018 on the red planet.
His neurons develop in an accelerated speed. In the age of ten years he returns to earth,
meanwhile governed by multinational corporations. John discovers a new landscape on the
search for his identity and coming of age on the blue planet.
IN THE FUTURE .
There will be travel to Mars by the entertainment industry. There will be more wars on profit.
Everybody will be more confused by media and technology. More people will seek for
spirituality. Earth will shake itself. I will be old and meet you for the last years. Venice will be
flooded. Dubai will be the new gateway city, beside Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore Delhi,
Bombay & Beijing. The old countries will fight for more real estate, water and resources.
Money will be used for extreme flows of consciousness. Leisure time will be the only way to
spend the day. National governments will take hold on social crisis, while global industries will
produce all the same. There will be no escape. All books will be digitized, except new
published books. People will spend holidays in the same places. Nobody will expect something
small. Churches and temples will be refilled and you can book your space travel via cell phone.
Medicine will allow control of neurotransmitter. Artificial cells can be produced. There will be
rich enclaves (for those inside the entertainment and leisure industries) and megalopolises of the
poor (being forced to consume).
CHARACTERS:
John Allen - born on Mars - protagonist; Peter Allen - born in Singapore - head of crew;
Yoko - Japan - sensitive intelligence; Mark - US - biochemical brain; Arathia - India -
communication talent; Richard - UK - astrophysical cook - the youngest; Miriam - France -
geological intelligence; - Sarah - living at countryside / France - Peters ex-wife; Sammy - Johns
half - sister; Aiko - Johns first love in NY; Emily - Johns second love in small town.
2. I 2015 - SEEN FROM MOON.
27th day. Six days overdue in time. We are running the last testing routines for lift off
tomorrow. Then the ship will be in a parable line of fourteen month towards Mars. For
reaching the destination point, we have to face accelerated speed during first month, to regain
the lost six days.
28th day. Suddenly all the engines are working. After one week of repair and unsynchronized
data flow, leaving the ship in navigable, we are on the way to Mars and fifteen month journey.
The three-week stop on the moon base included.
29th day. Six pm. Greenwich time. The ship is guided by the moons station on its orbit circling
the moon for eight hours and then using the spin for the parable line into space. While the
international space station between earth and moon never has been completed, caused by
financial and political controversies since 2010, national securities grew and military budgets
tripled in between two years on earth. Our manned flight to Mars was compiled in a hurry
caused by severe financial cuts in the years after 2010. We are probably the last international
collaboration inside the solar-system for decades. After reaching the moon base, the screens
disfunction spread rumors of sabotage. There should be no delay in transmitting data between
our ship, the home base, the interconnected old space station between earth and moon. While
the problem along the screens seems fixed, the data received and sent still has time delays,
although it shouldn't. We have to switch to a different satellite to reinstall some programs for
coded transmission. The repair of the communication system made us stay longer than
expected.
The light weighted construction on moon base spreads across five hundred meter. The units for
housing, labs, technical and main unit are connected by corridors, which can be closed in case
of severe problems. The main unit is controlled by high sensitive computers and directed by the
earth base.
Life on Mars? Seemingly haunted by the question, whether mankind is the only intelligent life
form in the universe, looking for a double in the wide mirror of the universe.
Are we tricked by the senses and the range of intelligible data, to expect lifeforms on the same
wavelength scale of in and output? Without the bodies sensory equipment, all digital data flows
would be obsolete.
Can inorganic matter alter mental states via telepathy, mental flights, transmission and
transgressions, observed by drug experiments? Is the brain capable of expansion? Are we
looking for, what we already know? And if so, what will be there beneath our scale of
perception and expectation?
The crews skills vary slightly. The NASA ́s board decision focused on body, mental and
professional specializations. Richard, trained as a cook, studied astrophysics, while applying to
the NASA ́s program and has been chosen as the youngest of the crew. He surprises us with a
talent of organic and stimulant humor.
Arathia from India is a real communication talent. Since two hours she runs the software, sends
messages in a loop, implements feedbacks to erase faults in code interpretation. There might
3. have been a mingling of in- and output, so our on-board computer was incapable to screen
exact routines. During her training on earth, Arathia developed a bilingual filter program, which
enables the crew to intervene in various technical systems by voice decoding in case of need.
Each voice as password: Access to the human survival system, the communication area and the
research data. Each member of the crew is locked into the 32 areas of the ship and fed by thirty-two
security cameras. All screens on board are able to switch between live feed and data. The
ships intelligence, surrounds the crew as second membrane, like the ring of Saturn. Constant
analysis of data. This tiny zero gravity spaceship would accept only variables for survival.
Mark the biochemical brain from New Jersey is responsible for the bodily needs. He is the
coordinator between the biological transmitter cells and the inorganic data system of the ship.
He surveys the stream of the research experiments during the flight. Nobody knows, how
dreams and subconsciousness influence human perception during longtime non gravity flights.
Mark also records bodily disfunction, nervous attacks, psychological contradictions and takes
care of changes in food supply and medical treatment. He is responsible for a program, called
"brain yoga", which, during the six hour regeneration phase recover our ability to be six hours
"online" during the wake phase. "Brain-yoga" lets our synapsis go "off-line" during sleep and
enables synchronous flowing time, instead of superposing incoming sensorial information.
I really don ́t know, what brought me here. The recent dazzling years in a constant
transformation and change. Sarah found the house at the countryside in France. I wanted to
restart my scientific career. But NASA´s training program started suddenly after. I spent three
weeks in France and the rest of the three years in the States. Remembering the few days, the
sun was mirrored by the rooftops chimney, the wind in the trees, the green hills. Now seeing
this fragile planet from outer space. This thin atmosphere, which surrounds this ball like a
shelter.
I fall into sleep for the six hour offline time. The recycled air is filled with water molecules,
while an erotic dream, mixed with a vision of a passage through a small town by bus haunts my
subconscious. While walking, I am stopped by a family with a child and a long arm. The
parents ask me to take the child further. I apologize and return the way I came. The perception
changes. Buried under the construction of a house, collapsed, secured by a thin line. I wake up
and recognize where I am. The noise of the heater, the oxygen supply and the sound of the
computer. The dimmed light stimulates some shadows in the sleeping area, each sleeping cell
separated by foldable walls. Most of the cells are empty, evoked by the overlapping sleep and
wake calendar.
31t h day. Sitting in between aluminum machines for boiling water and frozen dehydrated food.
Compressed chemical extracts for survival. The room is filled with oxygen and the summing of
the boiling machines. I let time pass in eternal amplification. The six hour rhythm seems the
only balance of my nervous system.
There were rumors in the news of the projects failure. Rumors about a conspiracy of sabotage
of the mission. The current global economic competition and the rising poverty made the project
unpopular for investors. There is no basic revenue intended. The project was at least financed
by the space programs of the countries involved, of NASA and one private investor of the
entertainment industry, who expects exclusive rights for constant transmission and broadcast of
images of body data during the flight and the first ten years on Mars.
4. The delay of spin off into parable line provided new glimpses of possible failure.
II 2018 - THE NIGHT OF HORROR.
Yoko cancels the surveillance camera, while I touch her soft skin. We are laying on the bed in
her sleeping dorm, feeling like newborn children, kissing us all over, while our breathing slows
down and the hormones accelerate. We know, that this is the night, our two spirits form a new
life. Johns life. Ten minutes after our orgasm, the alarm of the village crushes into the silence of
the summing of the oxygen supply. Yoko takes her pants and throws the T-shirt towards me.
In accelerated anxiety and exhaustion, we leave the dorm and run towards the control unit room
of the village. What we see, lets our blood freeze. The control system of the computer is out of
order. Fragments of data, projected on the screens don ́t make any sense. Never has anyone
switched off one of the surveillance cameras, whose data is connected with the life feed system,
the bodies functions and the nervous receptors. Arathia is the first, who signals not to panic.
We decide to switch the system back to manual control. Suddenly most of the screens turn
blank, except the main unit for heating and oxygen, the communication system with earth base
and second energy supply for the village. We have to re-boot the system.
During the night of the collapse, we alter the surveillance system and develop a program of
routines for feedback to earth. The entertainment industry is already planning space missions
for entertainment purposes alone, without any human research.
We break the contractual agreement. Facing our lives as mice on Mars and as prototypes, we
had to act. The last international collaboration of human exploration.
We now use the surveillance data for our own purposes: to track and research changes of
human behavior in extraterrestrial conditions and in succession of one generation. Nobody on
earth will get any suspicion. Arathia has implemented irregularities into the broadcast program,
some kind of self healing viruses.
Yoko, Arathia and me begin the six hour routine. We enhance our memory capabilities by
using subconscious and conscious rhizomatic thinking.
Its Miriam, who after her sleeping and meditation phase enters the dining area for a coffee. I
checked the data surveillance inside and outside of the village for six hours, studying the
sensory dream wake human condition and body movement, caused by Mars gravity. My eyes
are tired of the green computer screens. Miriam takes a seat at the table and we are facing our
first encounter since month. "Do you think we will return to earth?" she asks. I shake my head,
feeling this longing for return to earth as something human. "But will this planet provide any
real chance of home? Maybe at the end a claustrophobic home?" I shake my head again: "Don ́t
know. Maybe we find a deeper quest of human destination - maybe we find nothing." "Do you
think, we are challenging only what we already know? That we ask the same questions, we
already have answers for? And for whom will this information serve? We cannot raise children
here." So she doesn't know, that Yoko and me are having a love affair. Humans in close spatial
conditions sometimes have more secrets, than people living in extreme distances. I keep my
lullaby, leave the dining area, move towards sleep time and brain-yoga phase and follow the
stars blinking through the dorm window.
5. III 2025 - JOHNS BIRTHDAY.
John is now 7 years of age. He is the first born on another planet. Constantly he faces control
over his human and neuronic system. I first didn't know, if Yoko would be able to give birth to
John, as unmanned ships brought supplies to construct the village every second year. In 2025
the village was completed and the broadcast to earth has stopped. We now grow vegetables in
one of the containers, forming a close circuit of five units.
After John's recreation period, we meet Richard, the astrophysical cook, who has made an
apple pie in white. Yoko loaded a lot of new music conserves down, supplied by the last
commuter ship. Though not possessing any stimulating or alcoholic liquids, (the few drugs we
possess, are reserved for medical treatment or for testing programs on brain expansion), our
brain-yoga program stimulates the subconscious area for self-entertainment. From time to time
we exchange personal diaries, created by the security cameras and data of the body cells, like in
older oral communities.
John learned, to trick the constant surveillance. His body began to produce neuronic transmitter
on demand, enabling him to play with the conditions being born in. Several times he fooled
Marks program for recording brain and neuronic routines, that itself is learning from Johns
neuronic needs and body cells. He is prepared for an adventure outside of the village. John is
nervous today. His hormones nearly to puberty longing for a missing partner. It is only a matter
of time, he will confuse the whole village.
To start a small population in the Village was the main focus of the mission. The crew was
chosen on genetical criteria. During the first year I fell in love with Miriam, but our extreme
psychological counterparts finally excluded joy in having sex. Nobody knew, if our research
program, focused on human brain and neuronic change in altered living conditions, would
bring back old habits of aggression and of imprisonment. Nobody knew, if we would build a
superficial control unit, where in the near future clans would define new territories.
The corporations on earth are fighting for resources. Frontiers of former countries nearly have
vanished. Instead, sheltered communities have established itself. Still existing national
governments are degraded to solve the problems of those, who don't partake in the luxury
enclaves and in the entertainment industry.
IV 2028 - TILL THE EDGE (OF DAWN)
and then disappearing. Through the gap. Upwards and downwards. Discovering pain. Thats
how John claimed his return and his departure. If there wouldn't have been his sixteen year old
half-sister Sammy. He has seen her photos, which arrived digitally on Mars every second year.
After the three month of quarantine, John went under medical supervision. The altered muscles,
the faster growing cellular structure of body cells and the accelerated hormones differ quite
existentially of those of terrestrials.
With wide open arms Sarah expects him in front of the house. A living parcel from Mars.
Sammy is standing on one leg and dances in front of the garden door, as if her thoughts are
playing roulette.
6. John slides in Sarah's arms, as if she is the expected endless landscape, to be discovered. The
car escort departs from the house. John; sarah and Sammy are stumbling over the gardens
entry. As they arrive inside the kitchen, John unpacks his secrets on the table: a gauge for his
neurotransmitter, three small Mars-stones and a digital camera, compressing the records of his
former life: An electronic diary. Inside the house in France, there are no security locks, no
surveillance cameras, no whispering of the oxygen supply. Instead there are two female beings.
Sammy puts two of the Mars stones in her hands, as if she feels the distance, they have
travelled. John, who fooled everyone inside the village on Mars, seems embarrassed. "How
does it feel to be here?" tries Sammy to begin a dialogue "Do you think, you can swap this
house for your martian village? Do you like french chansons?" 'A sixteen year old girl, who is
listening to french crap' thinks John "I thought on Earth you are now more into Tripn'Blow
with wavelengths of cascades?" " That was en vogue two years ago. Now, there is a real retro".
John wrinkles his forehead: "This must be an effort." Sammy and Sarah don't know anything
about Johns neuronal capabilities. Focusing on his movements, they feel a difference towards
normal body conditions. Sammy has naked boys seen under the shower at school. Already had
sentimental exchanges. But as more and more she is focusing on Johns habits, the more and
more she discovers the stranger in him.
John has saved some music storages from brain-yoga phase. His device re-plays a strange
melange of stretched passages, accelerated scratching noises. The sound transforms the air of
the kitchen into a frozen condition, chopping it up into tiny pieces.
"I haven't heard anything like this before", Sammy cuts into the noise. "Its my own data!", John
counterstrikes. "First, we should eat something", Sarah interrupts the two fighters, "I've made
apple pie and vegetable soup for you. I´m excited to know, if you like the taste. " "Apple pie we
also had at the village, but no apples. Was a kind of substitute. Vegetable we could grow, but
the taste of each was similar." "Then your senses will explode." If they could know.....
Two weeks in advance of Johns tenth birthday, Sarah and John hit the road with the luxurious
Lancia towards Bruxelles. Sarah is into art consultancy of a corporation. She made reservations
for two hotel rooms at the center of the city, whose rooms are named after different countries.
Sarah discovers Kenya, while John enters Madagascar with portholes and photo wallpaper,
suggesting a humble life of a cabin-boy. After eight hours of drive, John puts the gauge for
neurotransmitter on the side desk and tries to relax. In the next room, at Kenya, Sarah slides
into dreamscape of a bourgeoise colonial family, surrounded by fake tiger fur and wooden
ancestors masks. Its short to eleven, as voices of tourists penetrate Johns ears. He connects the
gauge with his left arm to accelerate his neuronal transmitter. His consciousness focused, his
motor force subjected to sensorial bodily records, he rushes out of the room.
Cities during night. He mingles with juvenile tourists and ends up inside a bar at the center of
town. The floor is covered with empty beer bottles, while the young visitors play their
courtship rituals or are simply drunk. Glasses smash unto the ground and the sound of the bass
hits the stomachs region with a rumbling beat. While paying his beer, his senses are still
sharpened like razor blades. He heads back to the hotel. On the way, a group of fifteen year old
boys, who signal a sexual encounter, address words in flemish towards him, he doesn't
understand. He feels relieved, as he arrives at the side entrance of the hotel, takes the security
key, enters the night code and the door opens with a swing. He climbs the stairs upwards and
misses the whispering oxygen supply and the continuous silence of the village on MARS.
7. V 2033 - AT SARAH IN FRANCE.
Science has gained nothing. John follows the technical pages, searches the scheduled
experiments for black holes, Higgs and neutrinos, which brought Cern near Geneva during the
year 2010 into the news headlines. The energy supply for those experiments seems without
limits. A nuclear power station delivers electricity. Multiple feet of data storages will be filled.
Probably nothing will be found. Like 2010, the unresolved questions will remain. But the
experiments continue. The necessary system will expand. The deconstruction of the sub atomic
level is mirrored at the social scale of human network. But John stands aside of this. He feels
like standing beside this historical mirror. Analytic preciseness and bodily transformations are
his capabilities. His sexual desire is now in the age of fifteen comparable to a twenty year old
grown up.school doesn't challenge him. He is getting bored quite fast and feels superior at the
same time. Sarah tries to introduce him to the erotic side of human life. Veiled hints. One is just
born. The other, already an attracting pulsar. John discovers the sensitive meaning of skin,
while seeing a naked companion at school inside the locker room, whose skin all over is
covered with tattoos. On Mars, these rituals weren't existing. Full of curiosity, he is becoming
the observer by crossing the barriers. Circumventing the protection shields being set up.
It is early evening after a sunny day. Shadows are hanging low, and a soft breeze covers Johns
breath. The hiding light protects his consciousness from diving into deep matter. Thoughts are
crawling to the surface of existence, like on a black japanese polished vase. The windows
slightly open, some noises are audible. John creeps along the corridor and stops in front of
Sarah's open door. She is watching her naked body mirroring, touching her breasts gently, her
hips, her belly. The smooth softness of her skin. Not mentioning John, the scout from Mars.
He gets an erection, while Sarah is focused on herself.
Silent minutes. A staccato like orgasm is pushing its way inside his brain. Neuronal transmitter
release a wet spot on his blue jeans, while a cloud of Sarah's eau de toilette finds its destination:
his nose. A smell, he never will forget.
Its the fourteenth July of 2033. The crew from Mars is heading back home to earth. No more
cargo was delivered. The food supply went to zero. The biological farming program on the
Mars village couldn't support their daily needs any more. The glider took the crew on board
during a routine flight from the International Space Station. The Mars lander wouldn't have
secured save landing on earth. They reach Houston. Followed by a three month quarantine and
the muscle building program. But there will be restart problems.
The weeks pass by in agonizing speed. Earth heat acceleration is providing a hot summer for
Houston. Protected in below surface level chambers, wrapped in regenerative plastic, the crew
is killing time. Focused unto uncertain future outside of NASA, their return opened a cataleptic
time trap for them. Like in slow motion their bodies pass the distances between the private
chambers and the meeting room. During their daily meals they are trying to make plans for
future inside an insecure world.
HOUSTON is a faceless Texan city. The number of home- and jobless people, fed with
entertainment are visible within town. The three month, while in quarantine let the crew suffer
more of boredom than the nine month lasting flight itself.
8. STILLS. Arathia will get a job at Al Jazeera. Yoko is heading into marketing for the cosmetic
industry. I will go straight forward into my old scientific career. Mark will stay in New Jersey
and will commit himself to biology inside a bio lab. Miriam, the undecided one, doesn't know,
whom to offer her skills. And Richard, the astrological cook will continue working for NASA
at central Houston.
THREE MONTH LATER. Its middle of October. I am sitting inside a cafe at the center of
town. The medical treatments and the muscle building program have finally come to an end.
I read the news. News of town. Discover a friend out of my old life, who is inviting for an
opening at a gallery. #Parcours NO 1#. That is the title of the show. During evening, homeless
people with sleeping bags will crowd the gallery space, while classical music feeds the ears. I
search for political news and data of the entertainment industry, to get an overview of the
economic changes from the megalopolises Dubai, Hong Kong and Shanghai. The waitress
offers another cup of coffee, which I accept, while noticing a well known human being, as I
take my eyes off the screen.
I suddenly begin to hate the years on Mars. Begin to hate the routines and conditions of
behavior. Begin to hate the psychological conditions. The second cup of coffee delivers a kind
of relief, while letting the hybrid cars pass by the window pane. The traffic of Houston
downtown. The reflections of the glass facades of the buildings at the opposite side of the street
draw hard edges onto the table and the screen of the electronic newspaper. I know, I have to
face a decision. Thats it.
VI 2033 - 42 IN A GADDA DA VIDA.
During nine years, John is in a transition towards adolescence. His neuronal data storages are
ten times more elaborate. First love, bisexual relationships, drugs, a first class exam, escapes
into european, arabic and asiatic countries. Starting a study of Neurophysics and politics. His
first apartment. As Yoko's steps back into his life, the world condition has dramatically
changed. More than ever, influential elites control the entertainment industry. The food
resources are traded with high prices on the global market. The roles of the national
governments are limited.
There are even more disputes at the borders of the enclaves. And the security surveillances have
become unbearable. Human motion can be tracked on meter scale. Chips are woven into
clothes, into communication devices, inside homes and inside public transport vehicles. Johns
capabilities are only known by the crew from Mars. Yoko kept silent after her return. As
expected, for the upcoming space flights no scientists are needed, but mediators of the
entertainment industry, to stabilize the expanded net of economy.
Johns friends are fulfilling the tasks of the global condition, are securing their positions inside
the political elites, or follow social relations, which hardly differ from those of evening sitcoms.
He gets visits by Sarah and Sammy from time to time. I call him once a year, while Yoko
followed his tracks towards Paris. Her instinct as a mother kept permanent contact with John.
I have hidden in London. A city I have never been before. I am exploring the Tate and the
British Museum. Taking my time at the libraries and inside the Cafés, take notes and scribbles.
9. After three month, I even find a small studio. The fragments of memory of Mars and of the
village are dispersing with this new found life. Over saturated spaces in oil begin to explode on
the canvases. Something like a flowing space-time condition enters my habits.
VII - 2042 - ME IS THE OTHER.
Its the twenty third of December. Full naked, John is watching his penis at the mirror inside the
bathroom. A full erection mirror image. Freud is laughing. Self reflections, that are as old as
humankind. The hunt is opened. Excluding the uttering consciousness. Sometimes a ray of light
finds its way through the rooftop window. Followed by grey winter clouds in between
brightness and excitement. Testosterone is running in circles between the endings of the
synapses, while the white substance of sperm appears at the end of his glans. Sticky
protoplasm. The arousal is followed by exhaustion. John dries the wetness with a towel. His
eyes full of adrenaline. Something uncontrollable.
Symphonies are not in fashion. No superpositions. No simultaneous events. But rather fast
transmitter pushes. One after another. The telephone rings. Its Steve. Also a student of
neurophysiology, whose political imagination is rather limited, but has developed
complementary strings for art, to change his brain into a golden section. Brain editing. "I am at
the club tonight. So around ten. Can we meet?" John smiles. Steve is persistent, extremely
heterosexual, but always needs a male companion, to follow his steps to make contact with the
female world. "Lets see. At the moment I am in the bathroom to strip the condom." Silence
"Hello?!""Thats not how precise I wanted it to know it." "Now you know it!" "And?" "Lets
see, if the oracle tells us a short story at ten o´clock." Click. The glossolalia phone signals end.
The display of numbers echoes its numeric neon green before finally hitting the memory
channel. John takes his boxer shorts, pulls it below his sporty belly, puts on his jeans, grabs for
the white shirt, while walking towards the kitchen. He fills coffee into the espresso machine
and closes the buttons of his Levi´s 501.
He smells like a twenty four year old one, whose mystery is the control of his transmitter
acceleration, while at the same time pretending to be a casual grown up on earth. Coffee is
running like a thick sludge into the white cup. Its eight o´clock. Time in transit, while under
focus. If Walter Benjamin would have taken Zen-Buddhism into consideration, his passages
would have been shorter, than published.
TV-news return automatically and report new turmoils at the border lines of the enclaves.
Parallel events in China, India, Texas, Mexico-City. Followed by the prices of consumer goods
and food. John switches to Channel twenty-two. An indian moderator announces french
chansons live from Delhi. Same as ever. John wrinkles his forehead, takes the remote control
and looks for his bank account, that may save him some synapse killers for the evening.
Its ten o´clock. The club looks like a sauna. Heterosexual and gay couples and some singles
treat their skin under sweat. Sheltered by white beach robes, they waddle like penguins between
the shower and the cabins. Mid forty agers and loafers in a row. John and Steve decide, to
jump into the pool, enjoying the warm water, while steam rises above water level to relax their
thoughts.
The sweating cabin is filled with male and female bodies, awaiting the opening of their pores.
John slides onto an open spot of the wooden bench. On the oven, black stones turn to red
10. glowing, while John is searching for a female counterpart. But the most common conversations
noticed are circling around the topic of children or around likes and dislikes. Johns searching
flirting eyes get no response. He cant stand for long the space of torture and looks for the next
cold shower.
A woman next to him looses her consciousness. May be she had no feeling for the time span.
While everyone seems looking for something, the rule of the game seems restricted at the same
time.
Steve and John meet at the small bar set up in the center, between the loafers and the towels of
the visitors. As John tries to start his neuronic acceleration, Steve prevents him from doing so.
Unsatisfied, they head towards the locker room for leaving this place towards Johns apartment.
The apartment is covered with stapled books and washed clothes. The few furniture pieces
disappear under the load of information and knowledge. "Another coffee?" "Why not! But
basically, I am disappointed of so little interest in passion." "Passion and desire have been
killed by rituals of consumption" "No Madame Bovary with a kimono robe?" " No Flaubert
flambé!" " I will probably end up as a software programmer inside a museum!" "Come on, you
still don't know, if the turmoils at the borders will swap." "Will swap into the calmed
consumption." fills Steve the sentence. "Especially inside the heart of our calmed consumption,
nobody knows, what will happen next. Its like being inside the eye of the hurricane."
VIII - 2050 AIKO.
John has earned a job in New York. "Design for interactive fluid devices and handheld
options" Thats the exact description. Based on the reciprocal behavior of psychological moods
of consumers, feedbacks and profiles will be synchronized. In nanoseconds, possible needs
will be televised. John is designing the interactive devices for the multinational corporation
"Editrac Inc", which consists of the main departments: food, entertainment and pharmacy.
As bonus, he got a two room apartment in Brooklyn. Compared to France, his life not
dramatically changed. Life and its tasks seem like routines to him. Like mathematical routines of
daily information and commodity culture. The ecological and social turmoils are solved by task
forces of the transnational corporations and the remaining national governments.
IX - 2053 EMILY.
(notes of the electronic diary of John, being found two years after his disappearance).
Home is a place, where it smells like coffee during morning hours. Where children's voices are
dispersing with the monotone sound of the electronic typewriter and the summing of the
computer. If I wouldn't have moved, I wouldn't have seen clearly. One part of my soul loaded,
the other like a plain desert. These two parts have wrought like two brothers. Now they are
united at the beginning.
11. After I have unpacked the food for the weekend and have stored it in the cupboard, Monica,
our only guest descends down the stairs. A bit sleepy and dozy, a "morning" leaves her lips.
Emily, my wife, is absent, while the telephone rings twice. Its Shaun, who offers me a job.
Nothing special. There is a discrepancy with the Smith and their landlord. They are unable to
pay their lease anymore. If I could mediate. I accept and leave a notice on the desk for Emily,
take the jeep, I have bought from the rest of the fellowship and drive towards our neighbor´s
farm.
AT THE NEIGHBORS.
I always thought, Emily and I would live at the low limit. The inside of the Smith´ farm taught
me something different. As irish immigrants, Robert and his family waited endless on their
green card. Nobody wanted to offer a job to Robert, except Harry´s Bar, who made him pursue
some weekly beer transports. Roberts wife, a red haired irish cleverness, his three children, he,
a bit clumsy, but warm hearted. A word, I've forgotten a long time: warm hearted. Robert
delivers me his story, and I promise to take action.
THE TASK. THE BUSINESS.
The property owner is backed by the lobby of town. It will not get easy, to defend the rights of
Irish without any means against the capital of the city. As I try to get an overview at the land
registry, I discover that most of the properties are assignments out of unpaid leases. Murphy
runs two casinos in town, whose profit is not small. There I have to take action. To attack the
opponent at his Achilles heel, his most vulnerable part. Unexpected and by surprise.
INSIDE HEART OF DARKNESS.
The doors of the casino are secured by muscular guards. As living cash machines, they check
main entrance and exit. Do I get in, I also get out. Thats immediately clear. Too much profit isn't
expected. Thats part of the business. "Gamble away your stake" always had been the slogan
and the profit of the one and the loss of the other. Loss means no game. Small profit guarantees
psychological satisfaction. The seemingly balance will be kept. The game will continue - again
and again. The more brave ones send thunder and lightning.
THE CHILD INSIDE FOREST. I have decided to help. In my own way. Some didn't
understand, or pretended, that I am an ex terrestrial, who neither understands language, nor the
system of numbers. But all have been wrong. If I had not landed in this provincial town in the
age of forty five, my life had disappeared inside a misty fog. A forest would have grown. Me
buried inside. I decided for a new start, took the invitation and the fellowship. Wanted to bring
the anthology of the short stories to an end. Subleased the apartment in New York, took Emily
by the hand and we hit the plane. After two years, there is no regret. The fellowship has ended.
The book will be published next year. The art of traveling has ended. The short trips to the
supermarket remained. I have separated from Aiko in New York. She wanted her own life.
Our common child, she took with her. Didn't expect anything from me. Thats why I decided. It
had only been a matter of time. Daily life inside this american wilderness is now filled with
privacy. Unhindered of short time events, political news or turmoils at the walls of the enclaves.
I am thankful, to be taken out of the machine of writing. Of being able to take constructive
action.
THE TOWN. The town with its two and three level buildings along Main Street appears like
any other city of mid west. For european circumstances an endless optimism is being reflected
12. the eyes of its inhabitants, believing into the circulation of goods, its exchange as the only form
of making sense. Except Shaun. An intellectual refugee from New York. Manhattan has hit him
so hard, that he took a job as a teacher. He sometimes makes fun of my sprouting optimism.
But he became our closest friend. He helped us to manage the leaned time after we bought the
jeep. Emily and I had for three month no cent in our pockets, while Shaun helped us out with
cans of meat and soup, coffee and cigarettes, until the advance cheque from the publisher
arrived. He honored us as his "american pupils", later his "protégés". We thankful invited him
three times a week to join our humble meal. Thats how the symbolic exchange was sealed.
Nobody expected, that I would take action into social matters.
TIME JUMP. I leave the casino and enter the glaring light on the street, without having spent a
cent. The suspicious eyes of the muscle guard still in the back of my mind. I head directly
towards "The Illinois Review" on the opposite side of the street to publish an ad.
"THE CASINO IS RICH. WHY ARE ITS GAMBLERS SO POOR" as its content. Maybe I
expected a refusal of the responsible editor for small ads, who scrutinizes my appearance. As if
I would have been a species of the sixties protest movement. There is no nuclear deposit, no
nuclear recycling plant and no military airports within hundreds of miles. Even eco fighters are
seldom seen, after the land rights of the only existing coal mine have been given back to the
indians. A Coop now handles its contract for the simple transaction. Thats why the new owners
don't have to pay regress debts for the land. The few eco fighters had to acknowledge, that the
indians had to earn money. As the editor now looks at me , as if I am a fool or stupid, or both,
doubting, that a stranger is posting such an ad. After I took the exit, I feel the gaze of the
muscle guard at the opposite side of the street following me. I cross again the street and head
towards Mary Lane Street to one of the two lawyers. After five minutes, I stop in front of a
nameplate which says: LAWYER, PHD. The PHD is a bit flaked off, so that only P D is
readable, reminding to the name of a hip hopper out of another decade. Inside the lawyers
office, a bit musty room, I approach towards a frustrated species of mankind. Maybe his
service is seldom needed? He points towards a yellowed poster, which says: "WHY?" and tries
to guess my reason of visit out of my faceless expression. Though he fails in his ambition, I hit
the nail by offering him the cause of the Smith, the connection between casino and land-rights,
without telling him about the ad I just have posted at the "Review". In hope, to get closer to the
towns secrets, he starts: " See, this is a small city. Everyone knows everyone, and most of them
speculate on the income from the casino. It pays most of the taxes. Nobody would dare to make
trouble with McMurphy, the owner. He even wants to invest in a motel for tourists in transition
on the way east or west. The investment for the construction plan is made possible by one of
the casinos and the leases of his land. Thats money delivered directly into city`s tax budget.
Here are few jobs available. Thats why everyone trusts McMurphy and gamble their dollars in
the casino. Even the mayor." The mayor. Him, I haven´t thought about. I leave the office, to
expect the release of the "Review" at Friday.
IN BETWEEN THE CHAIRS. During the following days I get this feeling, I already know
from Europe and New York called: "sitting in between two chairs". As the electronic
newspaper is broadcasted the following day, Shaun is calling and asks if I´m crazy. This would
not help the Smith in any way. If I plan a revolution. I only wanted to the test some basic mood
and its feedback, I reply. Shaun is irresistible and regrets to have asked me for help for it. I call
the Smith, if they have any news: "We are asking you not to intervene any further. Our contract
is cancelled." "Is it so simple?" I insist. If they are not interested, how the lease is get used and
if they would exchange their home for a motel. It doesn't make sense. Emily returns from the