Painted Void

 

The ads were ubiquitous in FGK6. Flashy posters carpeted the corridors, the walls beneath them long since forgotten. Square posters, floppy posters, faded posters, torn posters, neat well designed posters, and sloppily written posters. There are stories of what the corridors looked like before the posters, but they’re only speculation. The Sophists say that the walls are the same charcoal grey as the floors. The Old Ones get angry with the Sophists and say that they remember when the corridors were naked, and they most definitely were not charcoal but a pleasant blue. But the Tech’s tell the Old Ones that their claims are impossible since most of the 19^th layer ads are over 100 years old and they could not have observed the walls when they were naked.

Twenty-five years ago today, a determined Sophist began tearing ads off the wall in search of the answer. He tore at a furious pace, his eyes burning with discovery lust. His frenzied act quickly gathered a curious crowd. Doubts began to arise, nervous whispering filtered through the mass.

“What if it isn’t charcoal?” said a young Sophist to another, his voice faltering.

The man was hysterical, tearing closer and closer to the truth. The crowd was on their toes with anticipation, eyes fixed on the deepening hole in the ads.

“Hey!” cried a well-dressed middle aged man. “That is paid for property that you are destroying! Step back from the ads!”

The man’s ferocity increased three-fold, his speed almost inhuman.

“Stop!” the well-dressed man screamed as he pushed through the crowd. Hundreds of eyes were split between the two, mouths agape in anticipation. The well-dressed man burst through the last layer of the crowd and grabbed the man tearing at the ads.

“I’m… Almost… There!” the man screamed as he was torn from the wall.

The two men heaved on the ground in front of the crowd, the well-dressed man holding down the other while he struggled.

Hal stared at the patched wall in front of him, he pictured the event in his mind. Twenty-five years ago, right in front of him. He had been only 3 when it had happened, he wished he could have been in the crowd.  His eyes drifted around the patched hole to the recent ads that surrounded it on all sides. The wall seemed to yell at him, chomping its noisy jaws and spitting in his face.

Buy this! Buy that! Vote for me! He’s a dirty lying politician but I’m your friendly neighborhood representative!

He surveyed the hall behind him and reached for an especially repulsive poster. On it was a picture of Reechard Yoll sitting at a dinner table with an unpleasantly happy family, one of Tech Horizon’s newest household bots hovered to the side of Reechard, a pixelated smile on its facial screen. Under the picture was Tech’s slogan “Pioneering simplification through complication”. Reechard Yoll was the worst of the Tech Politicians. He unabashedly bought his way to the top, paying off competition and buying huge plots of wallestate. Hal tore the poster from the wall and stuffed it in his pocket.

F**k you Reechard Yoll. He thought, walking back to his apartment.

 

               Hal lives in a tiny crack of an apartment on the 4^th floor of E-Wing. He moved out of his parent’s suite in A-Wing when he was 18 and never looked back, until both of them died 4 years ago from brain aneurisms. There had been a bout of aneurisms when the new Total Immersion simulator came out. Tech Horizons pulled it off the market after they found out the intense 6D visuals caused an overload in the lateral postcentral cortex, the part of your brain that processes multi-sensorial information. Hal had reluctantly attended the dual funeral and regretted it even more upon arrival.

Hal remembered passing the open casket. His mother lying lifeless, arms crossed holding a bright red bible. Even in death she stayed true to her religious nuttiness. Most of the funeral attendees had been Old Ones too, friends from church and fellow non-active activists. Only at funerals like those were there open caskets. Hal had wanted to blurt out “She’s dead! She’s not going to hop out of her casket like f*****g Lazarus! Just f*****g close it!” but he didn’t.

Hal’s personal Household Bot approached him upon entering his apartment. “Would you like a refreshment, sir?” it squawked through cheap speakers.

“No, I’m fine.”

“Can I help you with-“ the bot sensed Hal’s voice and stopped mid-sentence.

“No, go to your charging station.” 

The pixelated facial screen produced an annoying smile.

“Right away, sir”

The bot rolled back to its charging station in pitiful jolts, unaware of its condition. It carried on with its duties, rust clinging to its body and rolling itself to death. Hal chuckled and walked to the fridge to get a Slouch Pack.

Instant cure for exhaustion and laziness! The label popped from the pack, the 3D hologram pulsating as he lifted it to his lips for a swig. The grape sludge rolled down Hal’s throat, his eyes opened wider and his heart thumped faster. The hologram shrunk back into the package as it scrolled through its contents, finally reaching the fine print at the bottom.

Can cause heart failure, abnormal heart rhythms, Pericardial disease, and other heart related issues not excluding: heart valve disease, congenital heart disease, cardiomyopathy…

Hal’s interest faded. He grabbed his back-pack from the counter and walked to the door.

“There have been reports of rioting in the corridors this evening, I would advise you to stay home, sir.”

Hal growled at the bot and walked out the door. “I’ll do what I want, piece of s**t.”

               Jessie Verve was a compulsive tech buying Sophist, as well as Hal’s hookup for any substance in all of FGK6. If it existed, Jessie Verve had tried it and had more of it to share.

“Man, what are we doing here? Today is f*****g important man, do you know what day it is?” Jessie popped another bright blue pill that Hal had never seen before, it looked sexy and he wanted one. He humored Jessie and took the bait.

“No, I don’t. What day is it?”

“It’s the f*****g anniversary of Urhel Gordon, the guy that almost got to the wall, man. Like twenty years ago or something.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right. Big s**t or something. The Entrepreneurs and Tech’s hate him. ” Hal patronized.

“Big s**t? I won’t impose my Sophism on you, man. But you should care more about it. It’s an important event, you know that, man?”

“Sure, whatever you say, Verve.” He responded, his eyes drifting between Jesse and the blue pills lying next to him.

“What do those do?” Hal said, fixated.

“Oh, these fuckers. They’ll send you to pearly gates and back, man. Heavy s**t.” He said, forgetting Urhel Gordon in an instant.

“You’re popping em’ like skittles, Verve, you better slow down.” Hal faked concern.

“Nahh, man. I’ve built up a tolerance, I can pop like six of these fuckers and my toes will barely tingle.”

“Pass me the bag.” Hal said, coldly. He needed a good high. He wanted to feel everything and nothing, complete reprieve from this shithole.

“I don’t know, man. This isn’t your usual hash and shrooms, this’ll send you to space. Do you want to be spaceman? Not sure if you got the sack, man.” Jesse chuckled, his eyes rolling back lazily.

“Pass me the f*****g bag.”

“Alright alright, you’re wound up tight tight, man. You better loosen up or you’re gonna pop.” He passed the bag reluctantly. Hal removed three pills and threw them back dry. Jesse shook his head and laughed.

He opened his eyes wide and made an explosion with his hands. “Pop.”

Hal felt the electricity in his veins. He knew it hadn’t hit him yet but anticipation is a powerful drug. He laid on his back and followed the blades of the ceiling fan around until the rest of the room faded into a dream. Verve laid down next to him and followed Hal’s eyes to the fan. His lips popped quietly as they separated and fell into the default gaping position. Hal heard the pop like it had been blasted through a microphone. He jerked from his trance and looked at Verve. His brain dropped from his skull to his stomach and the steel floor began to swim away from him.

F**k

The couch in front of him wriggled and jerked, ascending the wall slowly, towards the fan. Hal struggled to his feet and dove onto the flying couch, clinging to the cheap upholstery. He heard Verve’s muffled voice but couldn’t distinguish anything from the slur. The ceiling erupted into a brilliant kaleidoscope, colors swirling and swimming between each other. Hal clung to the couch, white-knuckled and sweating, as his vessel approached the mass of color. Without fading, the celestial trip disappeared. He was sitting on the couch staring at the ceiling fan and Verve still lay on the ground. Hal’s hands were moving without his consent. They jerked around like a ragdoll’s, slapping the couch and occasionally himself. He stared at them. For a moment he saw the room through a pinhole camera. Distant and still. The blackness around him was quiet. He breathed in the black and let it fold around him and cradle him. Verve’s words echoed through the void. “Pop… pop… pop”

               Hal awoke, alone, to cold sheets and fluorescent lights. His tongue felt like scratchy hemp. He rubbed it against the roof of his mouth and found the feeling foreign. There was a worm writhing in his mouth, and it wasn’t his tongue. Too rough and dry. His attention then turned to the walls surrounding him. Sharp white everything. He made an effort to swing his feet off the side of the bed but thick brown leather held him to the bed. Hal struggled with the straps, twisting his wrists frantically. His struggle stopped when the sharp white door burst open and in came a worried nurse.

“I’m so sorry, you must be terrified.” She said earnestly. “We had to restrain you, you had a seizure last night, we couldn’t have you hurting yourself.

“A seizure?” Hal’s tantrum had ceased but his heart kept beating like a gong.

“Yes, it seems you consumed an almost deadly dose of 6-Cat. Your friend Jesse called the MedTechs and we brought you here.”

Hal’s memory burst out of the recedes of his brain. He remembered the flying couch and the darkness. He wanted to be cradled by the void again, still and silent.

“What facility is this?” Hal questioned

“This is Med Center C in F-Wing, do you have anyone we can intercom? Your friend left before the MedTechs got to the apartment.”

“No, I’ll be fine. When can I leave?”

The nurse gave a motherly frown. “We want to keep you here overnight and make sure there are no residual symptoms. You can leave tomorrow afternoon if you feel better.”

Hal harrumphed. “Can you take these f*****g straps off?”

The nurse scowled deeper and freed him without a word. She walked to the sharp white door and said before leaving. “If you need anything you can press the red button beside on the food tray to your left, I’ll tend to whatever your needs are. Also, there’s a TV on the wall in front of you, use the remote also on the food tray to control it.”

He felt like a puppy who had torn up the apartment while his owners were gone. He felt bad for being so mean to her, she hadn’t done anything.

“Thank you.” He said, his head hanging down loosely.

She closed the door and he was alone again.

               Hal watched the news for a while but was quickly turned off by the constant updates on the rioting in D and E-Wing. There were always riots on Urhel Gordon Day, but today was the 25^th anniversary, and that was big s**t. The Sophists loved to riot. They stomped through the corridors ripping down ads and chanting about the walls.

Down with the ads!

The walls can’t breathe! Down with the ads!

What color are the walls!

Mostly made up of power tripping teenagers paving a war path, they weren’t taken very seriously by the Techs and the Entrepreneurs. But rebellious teenagers could still tear down ads, and that’s what Techs and Entrepreneurs were worried about. They could stand the noise for a few days, as long as the Sophists went back to the ineffectual brooding soon after. But the ads were where they took a stand, and they were coming down all over the place. The Techs and Entrepreneurs sent out scouts to replace them but the Sophists had grown. The corridors were peeling like bad sunburn. With every layer the Techs and Entrepreneurs anxiety increased. Scouts sprinted along the corridors, covering bad spots with more ads. Hal had heard some of the Sophists marching down the F-Wing by his apartment yesterday, but most of them were sticking to D and E-Wing. Hal flipped off the TV and sat in his bed, annoyed and put off.

His sulking was interrupted by shouting outside the sharp white door. Hal sat and listened. The shouts were unintelligible but they sounded harsh and commanding. They grew louder and louder until there was a bang on his door. Hal jerked in his bed. He could make out a few frantic shouts in-between the roar

“Grab his... He’s too… don’t let…!”

Hal swung his legs off the bed and walked to the door.

“What the hell is going on?” he said to himself.

His hand wrapped around the steel door knob and pulled. His first thought was “Wow, this door must be greased up the wazoo, I barely pulled.” He didn’t have time for a second more adequately conceived thought before the door slammed into him and threw him back into the room. An old man with fire in his eyes rushed in. He scanned the room and fixed his blazing eyes on Hal, dazed and perturbed lying on the floor. He lunged at him, arms extended. Hal screamed as the old man violently grasped his shoulders and pulled him to his feet. His breath was pungent and spittle flew from his yellowed teeth. Hal stared at the bonfire in his eyes, full and raging. Hal was terrified and intoxicated by this old man’s fervor. It erupted from him, something that had to be seen, and something dire. Hal was paralyzed in this man’s arms, unable to move a muscle. The old man spoke with power but didn’t yell.

“Listen to me, look me in the eyes and listen. The doctors believe that my brain is infected and that I am not myself, but I am more myself than I have ever been.”

Hal heard shouting outside the door. The man shook him harder.

“We have forgotten, our direction has faded, a film covers our eyes!”

His voice rose to a desperate shout.

“I tried to show people but I have been contained! We’re adrift! A schooner left to the wind! Show them, please!”

Three doctors in stark white scrubs burst through the door. The old man jerked his head around then back to Hal. It looked as though the old man’s entire soul was ablaze in his eyes.

“Show them!” He yelled as the doctors converged on him. His arms were torn from Hal’s shoulders and his legs swept from under him. He fell to the floor, hard. He cried to Hal as he was dragged from the room.

“G50!”

               Hal sat on the end of the hospital bed, the nurse tending to his precarious mental state. Checking his vital signs and apologizing pervasively.

“I’m so sorry about that. We tried to restrain him but he was so powerful, I don’t understand how someone of his age could be so strong.”

“His eyes.” Hal mumbled

“What?” The nurse questioned, a nervous look flashing across her face.

“Nothing.”

“Ok well, your condition requires lots of rest. Press the button if you need anything.”

She closed the sharp white door behind her, giving Hal a slight nod. He was too lost in his head to see it. He shuffled the old man’s words in his mind. They were heavy, sopping wet and hard to handle. He knew they were more than senile ravings. He saw the fire in the man’s eyes, it was too real.

“G50… G50”

               The corridor outside Verve’s apartment was a commercial graveyard. Torn ads rustled like leaves under Hal’s feet. Crumpled ads lay strewn about like tumbleweeds. Hal had to get his backpack from Verve’s place, it had his nicest hash-pipe and a few hundred units of emergency cash. He pounded his fist against Verve’s door.

“Hey Verve, it’s Hal!”

He waited a few seconds then pounded again.

He must be out protesting with the Sophists

“Dumb s**t.” He thought out-loud.

Hal tried the door knob but it was locked. Hal raised his fist to pound again and the door swung open. Verve stood in the doorway wearing a pink plush bathrobe looking like he had just woken up from centuries long cryo-sleep. His greasy blond hair lay pasted to one side of his face while the other side stood straight up. He started in recognition.

“You’re alive! You’re f*****g alive!” He shouted, extending his arms toward Hal.

“Yeah, why so surprised?” Hal questioned

“You started freaking out, man. I thought you were gonna croak. You just couldn’t handle those nasty blue m***********s.”

Hal nodded quickly, avoiding conversation. He had too much on his mind to talk with this dumbass.

“I just need my back-pack, Verve.”

“Alright man, you want some of those blue m***********s? Just don’t take three this time, man.”

Hal thought of the pinhole camera, and the quiet.

“Yeah, sure. Do I owe you anything?”

“Nah, it’s on me, man.” Verve said with a smile.

He handed Hal his back-pack and a small dime bag containing five blue pills.

               At home, Hal’s TV buzzed and flickered and FGK6 anchorman Gary Greenwood squawked.

“Corridors in C, D, and E-Wing’s remain unsafe due to rioting. Investors in wallestate grow angry as Sophists litter the corridors with their ads. The Tech’s and Entrepreneurs efforts to stop the rioting and replace torn ads have been abandoned, and the Sophists run ram-“

Hal flicked off the TV and looked at the blue pills in his lap. They shone in the fluorescent light, his thighs cradling them like an oyster does its pearls. His hand hovered in the air grasping the TV remote. Hal’s mind was not on the couch, neither in his apartment, it was in the sharp white hospital room. The old man’s spittle buzzing by his ears like missiles missing their target. But the old man’s words slammed into him, peeling back his skin and setting his eyes ablaze. Again, the man’s final words did laps in Hal’s head.

Why the hell can’t I stop thinking about it? Get out of my head! It was only an old man!

He could quickly forget the words alone, but he could not forget the fire. He grabbed at his hair and rocked back and forth. He still felt like s**t from the night before and he couldn’t focus on anything.

I’ll never find solace in this f*****g steel pen! I’m crushed and contained. The fluorescent lights…. Oh f**k, the lights. They flood into every corner, seep under every door. They crawl behind your eyes and strangle your f*****g brain! I can’t stand it!

Hal stood up and threw the remote in his hand at the long slim bulb that hung from the ceiling. The remote bounced off the plastic cover that surrounded the naked bulb and flew back down at Hal. He flattened himself against the floor and felt the remote land on his back with a thud. He lay there and felt a twinge in his nose as a few tears rolled across his eyelids. The two blue pills lay a few inches from his nose. Capsulated reprieve, fiction, escape, no more fluorescent lighting. He grabbed them greedily and swallowed them with a smile.

Electricity again. It arced from his arteries to his skin, making it crawl. He shivered with pleasure. The room around him faded, leaving a comfortable black. He swam in the fluorescent free vacuum. Suddenly the black was illuminated by a bright flame. It approached Hal at a blistering speed, whizzing through the incalculable black to Hal’s face. It stopped only inches in front of him. The huge ball of flame churned, small pockets of flame leaping out into the black momentarily only to be dragged back in. Hal stood, mesmerized by the spectacle. The circular shape of the flame suddenly shifted, taking on the form of a face. Hal screamed in terror as the fiery mask opened its mouth wide as if to swallow him.

We’ve forgotten! Please! Finish what I could not!

Hal floated, paralyzed in the black as the conjured mask screamed at him.

G50!

Hal clenched his jaw, feeling the emotion of the old man under his skin. He felt hot tears roll down his cheeks. They felt alien, as if coming from an undiscovered cavern deep within him. The hallucination blinked out of existence and Hal was standing upright in his apartment, his face only inches from the solitary picture hanging on the wall. His eyes ran over the two figures in the painting. The man stood tall holding a frail but beautiful woman in his arms. His eyes always drifted to the stunning painting whenever he switched his TV off. The room spun around him.

I have to find G50

Hal jammed his fingers down his throat in an effort to expel the hallucinogens. His abdominal muscles convulsed and vomit erupted from his throat, spewing all over the steel floor of his apartment. He did this until his throat was raw with lingering bile. He bent over to catch his breath, then he staggered out of his apartment for G-Wing.

               In E-Wing an angry Sophist howled from his waste-bin pulpit at a gathering crowd.

“We deserve to see these walls, not the perverse filth that covers them now! We deserve the colors that our ancestors had! Down with the ads!”

The zealot raised his fist in the air, eliciting a cry from the crowd.

“Down with the ads!” they echoed.

Hal pushed through the mass. The blue pills lingered in his system, turning the faces in the crowd into terrifying creatures from his imagination. He nudged and pushed his way through, ignoring the devilish masks around him. The mass bobbed as one, raising their fists and chanting. Hal was squeezed, pushed, and groped until he finally reached the other side of the crowd. He burst through, breathing a sigh of relief. The chanting from the crowd grew to an unintelligible roar. Hal looked back and saw a protestor being lifted by the crowd and carried to the trash-bin zealot. The protestor held something in his hands but Hal couldn’t discern what it was.

“G50.” He said aloud as he turned from the horde.

               Hal’s every movement was amplified in the vacant corridor. Over the last few years G-Wing had emptied all of its tenants for consolidation into the other wings, now it was mainly a refuge for junkies. Hal had come to G-Wing to meet up with his dealer before he met Verve. It hadn’t changed much since then. Yellowed ads clung to the walls, their products long since outdated. Blue reserve lights flooded the corridor with a deep ocean. Hal clopped down the hall, the floor twisting beneath his feet like quicksand. He shook his head, trying to shrug off the hallucination. The floor lay still. Hal sprinted down the hall, apartment doors buzzing past him.

44… 45… 46… 47… 48… 49

Hal stopped. He heard the old man’s words, even more real than when he had first heard them. He stared at the plaque reading “G50”, his mind flipping furiously through ideas of what could lie behind the door. It opened with a squeal. Hal stood dumfounded at the normalcy of the apartment. Cold steel floors, a small walk-in kitchen, a living room, and one bedroom. It was an exact copy of his apartment in E-Wing. The steel pen felt even smaller without any furnishing. It was cold and stolid, an unforgiving lockup. Hal walked around the perimeter of the apartment, looking for any differences from his own. He ran his fingers along the frigid steel counter, gathering dust on his fingertips. He furnished the room in his mind, placing his couch and TV in the living room, then his QuickOven on the counter along with his refrigerator. Hal looked back at the imaginary TV and went to place his imaginary painting above it but saw that there was already something there. Something that wasn’t in his apartment. Hal walked up to the grey square and ran his dusty fingers around its edges.

It’s attached. What the hell is this?

There was a small lip on the bottom of the square, he lifted it and winced as it screeched in protest. He kept lifting until it was flush with the top of the square. Hal felt weak. His body was rejecting the information his eyes provided. A blackness so deep he felt as though he would plunge into it at any moment. It was inside him, surrounding his organs and clasping his heart with an iron grip. It was the darkest thing he had ever seen. But there were specks of white light within the void, as if the blackness was only a sheet covering a light so bright it could only be seen through tiny holes.

Stars. He gasped.

Tears fell from his gaping eyes. They were new tears he had never felt before, tears of reverence and hope. The steel box he was in was no longer confining, his world expanded for the first time in his life. His heart exploded into a drum roll.

The people! I have to tell them!

.  .  .

               “I’ve come to finish this! The colors will show today!” screamed the trash-bin zealot.

“Open your eyes wide, you are witnessing history today!

A man was brought to the front of the crowd. He held something sinister in his hands, an ugly makeshift device. The trash-bin zealot snatched it from the man’s hand and thrust it into the air. The crowd screamed giddily. They began to back up as they realized what he held in his hands.

They cheered louder, screaming. “Burn the ads! Burn them!”

The zealot gave one last shout before flipping a crude switch on the device.

.   .   .

Hal sprinted from apartment G50 but only made it to H43 before the explosion. It rocked the vessel, sending a shockwave along the corridors. Hal’s ear drums ruptured from the sudden loss of pressure. He screamed, the sound waves clawing at the escaping oxygen, only a faint yelp was audible. The efflux was so rapid it killed the youngest and oldest in only seconds. The trash-bin zealot was the first to be sucked into the void. He zoomed out into the black, no realization or regret, only confusion. The rest of the crowd followed shortly after, scattering hundreds of thousands of miles apart. Some colliding with debris, some drifting peacefully in the void, some still wondering what color the walls were. And Hal died quickly, swaddled in the dark blanket, comfortable and reverent.

 

 

              

              

 

              

              

              

              

 

 

 

 

 

              

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

              

 

 

 

Reviews

[Jordan]

Well that certainly took a turn. 10 points for Gryffindor!

I'm not sure if it's a statement on our culture or just a simple sci-fi story. Either way it's an interesting thought. I can't see anything to really improve. It seems finished to me.

[Kerberos]

Thank you for reading!