Deadheads12:03 Jun 02 2012
Times Read: 844
I stumble, pitching myself forward, crashing into the first of three trashcans, to my immediate left. Fragmented pieces of memory flooded my mind: the grommets breaking on the shower rail, as I’d fallen forward and hit my forehead on the white tiles, turning much of them red. I still can’t recall dressing but I must have, as I had begun running, as soon as I had. And, I’m pretty sure I locked up. I’m sure of it.
Then, I’d found myself walking finally, amongst the milling crowds on Main Street and amongst all those people; I could feel no connection, at all.
There was silence in my head, the only noise, that of the faraway traffic and, the few aircars that were permitted in the part of the old city I find myself in.
Finally I find myself falling to my knees, on rain-slick-cobbled stones, I clutch at my head, as a series of nebulous thoughts brought forth many images; ‘from my recent past,’ I wonder; as an image comes to the fore.
I can see myself, as if in third person, at myself: I’m holding onto the sink, after the fall. And, I’ve put my hand to the wound just behind my left ear and, I watch as my bloody hand is held before my eyes. And, my reflected self watches too, as I hold it in my hand, knowing that my world had ended.
And, as soon as the memory ends, it is gone, that’s it; and then the melee returns.
‘But, I’d been looking at something, what was it?’ I muse, “What was it?” I ask aloud, of the shadows, behind the trashcans, where I cower.
‘Yet, I do have a purpose,’ I consider, as I rise, fighting back the nausea that turns my stomach, as the silence deafens me.
I rise and with slow faltering step toward the mouth of the alleyway, I place my right hand on the red brick for stability, both real and meta-physical. I need to know that there is something tangible, as I try to hold onto my mind.
Suddenly, as I make my way forward the walls of the alley tilt, to join the very ground beneath my feet, that undulates back and forth, as sickness sweeps over me.
‘I have to hold on,’ I think to myself: ‘It isn’t far to go, not now.’
And, clutching my left hand tight, I feel it; it’s not lost, I have it. And, I still have a chance, if I can keep putting, one foot in front of the other.
It isn’t far now. It isn’t… far. I just have to keep walking.
Then suddenly before me, is a dim light, from a storefront and, I’m sure I’ve found the right place.
I push the door open and hear a bell ring, the door to where The Man works, knowing he will heal me. I know he will; after all, he is The Man, who can…
Richard Trainer was bent, his body old in a world of the young, for the young. He could have opted for rejuvenation, as the majority had, instead he had taken an extension, to see an end to the projects he had started.
He had originated the Muse-Chip that the majority of the young wore; a chip that the owner wore beneath their skin, located behind the left ear.
This chip connected the wearer to the whole and, all other users, while providing music to the wearers taste. These chip-users considered the few who did not use them as Deadheads, while these same individuals considered the museheads as deadheads, as they found it hard to socialise and communicate away from other museheads.
Trainer had intended to unify and edify the young, while providing what they asked for, a device that was unobtrusive, yet supplied the technology they wanted and, Needed. That had been way the chip had been created initially.
Its use had brought forth a cultural change though and, Richard Trainer had watched these slowly occur, thanks to his extended years. Now he was nearly a hundred and eighty and, the world he had matured into. People rarely talked now; after all, they had no need to. Muse-Chip users had instant communication, simply by flexing a cheek muscle, which provided instant messaging. Trainer missed hearing voices.
And, still he worked, beavering away in his old dusty shop on Brook Street, trying to improve on the perfection of his original idea, to somehow prompt the chips users to at least talk: he so wanted to hear people talk, once more.
But, the work was delicate and Trainer’s fingers were aged, almost as old as the toold the inventor used.
Even now, he stood behind the counter at the end of his store, a single light providing sufficient light for him to work, his glass perched on the tip of his aquiline nose, as he used a micro-laser and magnifying lens on a stand, as he picked at a chip.
The Muse-Chip had made Richard Trainer rich, beyond the dreams of any one man, but he still had his dream.
“Goddamn,” he muttered, “I’ve fixed so many of these thing’s… why can’t I…?”
Trainer so-wanted to improve the chip, he worked many nights, till two, or three in the morning, then after just a few hours sleep, he would return to his work, after a frugal breakfast.
And busy as he was, an interruption, any interruption was unwelcome. And so, when the bell above the front door to his had rang; he looked up, a disgruntled look to his face: “Shee-it, what does a man have to do to find peace and quiet?”
He stared at the young man, dressed as many Museheads, in gaudy colours, but the vacant eyes that Trainer saw in the chips users was not there. Instead, the dark-haired young man looked panic-struck and, more than a little confused.
At that point, he noticed the blood on the young man’s neck, blood that had soaked his yellow tee-shirt and he saw the young fellows eyes pleading as his mouth opened and closed, as he stumbled toward the shop-counter, reaching out his clenched right hand, that he slowly turned, then opened.
On the flat of his hand sat a Muse-chip, bloodied and torn from his flesh.
“I had an accident,” the young man finally said, with words torn from his gut: “Can you fix this; can… you fix… me…” And finally, Trainer heard a man speak, again.
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