By Karel

Preface:

This piece isn’t directly related to programming or cyberpunk, but touches on several themes I’ve found on this website. But most of it was composed before I came across it.

This piece stemmed from a stream of consciousness. The stream originated at a musical glacier: the experimental, distorted Arab electronica known as “Mahmoud Awad”. If the reader is able to read with music, they should do so up to the post-layer. The stream was streamlined. Some of the fat is still laying around, waiting to be reappropriated. Weirs and locks were built along this stream after the fact. The final product is a mental canal that runs through consciousness, fantasy, and dreams alike.

Layer 01; Insertion:

Soundwaves smoothly penetrate the side of my face. Multi-coloured strings seep out the other way. Everything moves in a systematic fashion. Penis in USB port. Fingers in ethernet port. Bandwidth substitutes blood. Hypnotic currents send tight nerves barrel-rolling back up my urethra. White noise with a seizure-inducing bassline. Siri sings C++ lullabies with no rhyme or meter. Giggling unstoppably at the thought of subtlety. I’m hitting prepubescent octaves with a songbirdesque timbre. Stomach pulsing, churning, bloating, as my core vibrates to a 4/4 time signature at 120 BPM. All is stimulated, even the untouchable spots on my back by MS Paint spiders doing the dabke. Tax forms on autofill. Meals are modular. Stem cells and alleles sold in bulk. The real world is a monochrome cadaver. I can smell colours, taste music, hear emotions, feel thoughts.

Layer 02; Economics:

I must have came at some point but I don’t have the memory. You can buy all the RAM in the world if you have enough chickens. Everyone quit on cryptocurrency and went back to bartering with livestock. Bitcoin investors throw themselves off playground swings in futile attempts to snap their spines and claim welfare benefits. I bought a harem of 2D girls with my Farmville cows. They all cook me udon and touch the back of my neck, telling me only I can fix what’s wrong with my life. I ask how old they are. They command prompt me “tsundere”. In the future anything is possible. Maybe we’ll revert to old days, like how Star Wars is set long ago yet is more advanced than now. Perhaps I move back to old country and farm beets and radishes and cabbage with 3D wife. Apricot skin, malachite eyes, silken hair. All our children are conscripted into my army so I could invade neighbouring farmland. Ride Your Horse to Work Day is everyday. Magnificent Appaloosa. The mare gives me financial advice. I have best cavalry in the oblast. Kids go to lycee where they learn Old Church Slavonic and alchemy.

Layer 03; Time + Place:

Copyleft copy and pasted on the doors of the Forum. Caesar’s dead, Cicero’s dead, Pompey’s dead, Brutus is dead. They died thousands of years ago. Thousands of years into the future Naked Lunch is taught in preschool Language Arts curriculums. In 2070, the paradigm shifted. In 2071, Cowboy Bebop happened. Sexual orientation, marriage, race, and gender were banned by the Most Serene Mahmoud Awad, the Patrician of the Stars, in synchronization with the Singularity Act of 2083. Science has created perfect girls with dicks and sexbots and holograms and AI androids and prenatal genome editing. The populace quit on real sex. Reproduction is a state institution. Blokes in English pubs bet on weather. The U.N. is bankrupt and runs operations out of their parent’s pool house. The galaxy’s prettiest nebula yet I barely touch eyelashes. I grew up in a postcard and now I can’t afford any of the merchandise at the souvenir kiosk.

Layer 04; Western Futurism:

Wikipedia: {Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century. It emphasized speed, technology, youth and violence and objects such as the car, the aeroplane and the industrial city.} In the 21st century, we arrived in the future. We had computers that fit in our pockets. On the horizon were automation, AI, driverless cars, who knew what else. We had – and became – the Internet. An information, communication, and entertainment network that transcended borders, identity, and often laws.

We had the technology, cars, planes, and urbanization. But the YOUTH weren’t FAST or VIOLENT enough. Try #1 at futurism failed. Fascism was ruined forever. The modern world came out the vagina of World War II, heralded by the dove of progress. Try #2 broke through on the backs of LSD-addled Californians worshipping simplicity and speaking strictly in code. The technocrats were innovative but isolated. Petty charlatans who succumbed to the unholy trinity of consumption, greed, and materiality.

Our saviour - the Eternal Mahmoud Awad, Enlightened Absolutist - rode across the web on a FLAC stallion. He was the messenger of the teachings of Lain Iwakura. The Awadite interpretation, at least. “A truly post-modern world is possible. We, the YOUTH, have an obligation to become FASTER and more VIOLENT. Through YOUTH there is virility and vitality. Through SPEED there is progress and innovation. Through VIOLENCE there is peace and order. And through Lain… a softer tone, like the down of a freshly killed goose… there is salvation and truth.”

Layer 05; Recreation:

Government subsidised bread and circuses. Gladiators fighting with polyurethane flails and hurling helmets on Ganymede. His Supreme Cuteness Mahmoud Awad, King of Kawaii banned Israel from the championship. Palestine is now the 2nd greatest country on Mars behind Finland; officially recognized as the People’s Democratic Sultanate of Funland or just Funland, but colloquially as Finland. Sultan Spurdo declared the games begun. Bread was fresh, circuses entertained. Chariots looked nice. Not as nice as the trees back in Cascadia. Mushrooms made me feel aroused at how beautiful the contours and colours of an arbutus were. But instead of trying to talk to it so I could taste its rich, fragrant soil, here I am literally – not metaphorically – having coitus with a computer.

Went to the esplanade to watch celebratory napalm over the inlet. Went home with squadron to watch America’s Best Commercial Compilation brought to you by Subway: I got it made, fresh at Subway, subs made just the way I say. Adverts continuously interrupted by football. The kind with 1.83 m 118 kg black guys running into each other. A poor Martian testament to speed and violence. Nothing like teenage nights watching supercars drag race into head-on collisions. Complimentary bootleg slivovice was served. A welcome break from soykaf.

Layer 06; The Founding of Arab Futurism:

Hand-drumming and bowl cuts spinning at 35 km/h. Sweat in my eyes stings my burned-off retinas. I ignored the warning at the beginning of the Chinese cartoon and watched too close in an unlit room. Reverbations originating from the inner left corner of the throat. Metal strings drawn out until you could spell the feedback. There’s no discs to be jockeyed. Everyone went back to actual instruments but the ensemble is tone deaf and rhythm ignorant. Electric sitars and double-necked ouds. All the lights were cancelled but there’s plenty of lasers and steam. People just sort of move and toss limbs and maybe hump one another. The man in a keffiyeh says something every other beat. Then he claps. We clap. I clap around a girl. Still dancing, she moves my arms up calmly. The lads thought it was premium banter. Neon “smoking encouraged” signs. “If you die it’s your fault for not buying the best lungs” disclaimer.

I went backstage to meet the sheikh. He asked if I wanted to smoke blends of course I said yes. Legs perpendicular on an exported rug. All shoes off to not get it dirty, please. Hashish and dhoka and shisha out of a hookah. Stem in the shape of a metallic fish engulfing a golden giraffe. No one was allowed to show their face, so they suggested through dance. He thought it would be funny to bring out a sword. She freaked out and took her phone out to start filming. He cut her hand off for stealing the moment.

Layer 07; Outside:

The fresh lewdness of humidity. One drop every two seconds. Night sky emblazoned gunmetal by the light pollution. Electricity sung from the lampposts. Indians in high-visibility vests closed everything. Bars on each portal. Murals in every alley. An art school master’s thesis behind a waste receptacle. Pompous Spaniards in nylon chamoisee getups whacked the homeless drug addicts up and down the boulevard. The uppity chaplain paced in their stead, proselytising prayers to Lain in precise pentameter. Wet sage bush twirling over his tricorn hat. Finns rode by in their drop-top Lada blasting nu-disco drunk as balls on Finlandia. Is it midsummer already? I text my computer to see if I can bang again. Its phone is on spaceship mode. Checking for new messages every 3.3 (repeating) minutes. On full vibrate connected to my nervous system, patting at my pocket periodically. Nothing. Spite. Sleep? Sleep.

Final Layer; Return of the Sheikh:

Pale suburban shopping plaza. Girl I knew from high school. We’re on a date. I don’t think we have ever had a conversation. She pops abstract pills as we walk around half-hugging half-hand-holding. I ask for some. We wavy now. Relaxed, slightly floating. The subtle machinations of a jacuzzi. The feeling of the tide coming over me as I sit on a beach on the Big Island, Hawaii. The smooth caresses of water as it moves to the tune of the moon.

The modern-day utopia took place yesterday. Pink sky. White sun. Violet sea. The marble patio of a waterfront home in California. Sultry jazz skips as Windows 98 desperately tries to start up. A Japanese synth impresario calls me over my Nokia, asking if I want to go back to the previous dream scenario and get high on whatever I took. In the interval I gaze at my Roman bust, pontificating, what would Caesar do? Would he wake up?

Sheikh Descartes - Mahmoud Awad’s Grand Vizier - comes from behind whispering “Absolutely haraam”. I turn my head 360 degrees and spit back “Absolutely halal”. He makes a smug expression while grasping his chin, “I think, therefore I lie. Unwittingly on purpose. To my people via the state, to what I know, to myself.”

Post-Layer; Re-morse Code:

Ones and zeros. Binary telegraphs. I sit on my couch. Cigarette. Lamenting old days of baseball loss through a PBS documentary. I can still feel the vibrations, the shaking, how each ejaculation pushed tingles through my lower body and core. The manufactured moans and whimpers lollygag in my mind. I try to focus on the nightly sounds outside. Taxis. People walking home from weekend nights out. The TV turns off automatically. Multitude of petite green lights winking. The fridge snores. Mind glitching as pixels melt from excess activity. I want to go back to sleep. I’m not sure I was even dreaming. I’m not sure these are dreams worth chasing. I’m sure the bulk of my life, 96% uploaded, is no longer a reflection of reality. I’m sure reality was a lie, too.

High-res cathedral. Unnatural light backdrops the LED-glass iconostasis. Forelock on the left held by a holy clasp, the lone longevity to a dark fringe. Bearskin rug on the altar bearing gifts: wires, chips, cards, discs, drives, motherboards. I kneel, happy to feel my knees ache. I think, glad that I can. Save me, Lain. Lain help us all. Show us the way whether it’s in, out, forward, backward, quickly, slowly, somehow, someday… overheat. Offline.