text: Part one How does a summer like that get forgotten? And what on earth makes one remember? Perhaps it’s coming back. Just passing through like before. A breeze on a creek flowing to a shallow grave, maybe. Either way I need juice, so I pulled into Cumberland Farms and aligned my Subaru’s Energy block to the magnetic receiver. The console of the meter drones with an advertisement for gas station coffee - as if I needed the nudge... I was unpleasantly surprised to find myself face to face with Emily Decker when I checked out with my coffee and 3 breakfast sandwiches. The same Emily I had known 34 years before as a young man, but morphed as if time could break down a person like fermented cabbage. “Hello” I said with a smile, hoping that my oversized sunglasses were enough to conceal my identity after so many decades. “Just the coffee and sandwiches?” Emily inquired lazily. “And a pack of Fatline Blues” I croaked, pointing to the light blue cigarette box behind Emily and to her right. She bent down and reached for a pack of cigarettes. My coffee fumed silently on the checkout counter, filling my nose with an intoxicating smell whose promise was a disappointing lie. I looked forward to it. “Have we met before hun?” Emily drawled, squinting as she rang out my breakfast and smokes. “No, sorry.” I lied apologetically “My first time around here.” I straightened the collar of my jacket and reached for my wallet. “Uh-huh.” Emily emoted, clearly unsatisfied, but by nature too lackadaisical to pursue the matter further. “Comes to 24.09.” I tapped my palm on the pay point and followed the prompts to enter my passcode. 24.09 credits were transferred from my account and Emily bagged my printed food and real cigarettes. She transferred the receipt slate to my Profile and nodded to me as I gathered my breakfast, declining the paper receipt Emily half-heartedly proffered to me. “See ya hun.” She grumbled with a certainty that belied finality. I gulped dry air down a grainy throat and stumbled out of the gas station to my car. The red paint on its body seemed to glow intensely in the hot September sun, my eyes watered as I unlocked and entered my vehicle. I inhaled and let out a long slow breath, blowing out through pursed lips for ten seconds or perhaps more. I sipped my coffee, grimacing as I burned my tongue on the too-hot brew, attempted putting out the fire with a bite from a too-hot breakfast sandwich - further coating my tongue in it’s synthetic napalm of cheese and eggs, and finally just tried to cut off the oxygen to the flames with some smoke. This kind of thing went on for a while, my 10AM orchestra of breakfast and cigarettes blared silently in the Cumberland Farms parking lot of Lower Indigo, Caterwaul. It was all much how I remembered it almost 3 and a half decades before. The fueling station stood lonely in a vast patchwork of fields unclaimed by man for years and showing signs of reclamation with their tall grass and snarling treelines. I thought of the first time I had been to this gas station. I thought of the farm a 5 minute walk, a 2 minute drive down the road. The long driveway that snaked through a forest encroaching on the fields lying not far east and south of the gas station. There was time to think, there was time to digest. My phone buzzed in the center cupholder and entoned the sound of a received text message. I picked up my phone and opened the message from and unknown number: Feast on the bones of your desire Lick clean the sweet marrow of your opulence Your dripping smile, a reflection of us all. There was something about working at a job so intangible that sucked the spirit from me. At 23 years old I felt frozen in the monotony of my daily routine - Wake at 6 am. Sentinel greets me with breakfast in bed and reminds me of my hygiene tasks. I eat my breakfast of printed sausage and eggs, with a glass of real mushroom elixir tea, and watch the morning news in my mind’s eye. I should say, I set lofty goals for my hygiene - mental, physical, aesthetic - and I credited it greatly for my success. After breakfast I practice aesthetic then mental hygiene, completing the tasks of bathing, drying, pruning, shaving, dressing, and sitting in silence for 30 minutes. While I complete these tasks Sentinel makes my bed and cleans up breakfast. I then go to the recreation room of my dormitory and practice physical Hygiene. I am there early so I am most often alone while I do this. On occasion I have enjoyed the company of another dormitory resident, but her profile was marked with a do not approach signal of which I abided. I believe her occasional appearance was the biggest anomaly in my banal existence. I will spare you the minutiae of the various exercises I employed in my physical hygiene practice - suffice to say, they made me strong indeed. My greatest pride was marked front and center in my profile, the bright red badge that declared me a certified Powerman. It may seem arrogant, and I suppose it was but as I said before - I owe my success to my excellent hygiene. When another person sees that big red badge in their mind’s eye, I get their respect. After my hygiene tasks are complete it is 8 in the morning. I settle into a body-form cove in the wall of my residence, and travel through the implant fused to my pineal gland to work. In my mind’s eye I am floating in a dark abyss, alone except for a slowly crawling assembly line and several green chutes surrounding me forming a half circle. A calming radiant sound buzzes from the surrounding darkness, filling me with a hypnotic bliss. I look to my left down the assembly line as it speeds up. From the point of infinity where the conveyor belt disappears in the distance, I see forms approaching. Large, blocky, colorful - with a foamy texture that seemed to roil and boil with anticipation. I reach out and grab the bright yellow starfish shaped form and throw it into chute C, behind me and to the left. I reach out and grab the purple rectangle and throw it into chute D, directly behind me. I reach out and grab a purple spiky triangle and gingerly toss it into chute A, directly to my left. I reach out and grab a dark green circle with a hole in the middle. Doughnut doughnut doughnut. The thought echoes through my perception as I well up with internal laughter that crashes through my mind in symphony with the ecstasy of the steady, low tone surrounding me. I drop the form into chute G, directly to my right. Data sorting was a high status job in the Union, and I was paid handsomely for it. 2 hours of real time seven days a week - but in sight-time that was 20 hours. At the end of my shift, after 20 hours of painful euphoric monotony I went to bed in my day clothes, completely drained. Because of this harrowing routine I have just described, I did not enjoy my life - I truly hated my existence. Alas it wasn’t always like that. When I first had started my position in data sorting, I had enjoyed the trade off of long virtual-hours for having almost a full day of real-time freedom. At first I had the energy and the passion for life to socialize and make use of my considerable wealth and status. I flaunted my Powerman badge on my profile at many Union Celebrations, our local dormitory cluster congregating in the center courtyard to caper with politicians, influencers, and entertainers of all breeds. Women swooned at my power and prominent local men gave me nods of respect. I danced with the loon weavers and spent my generous salary with an easy hand in the busy markets and cantinas. I had a beautiful mushroom garden in my residence with Reishi, Lion’s Mane, Jack-O-Lantern, Hairy Panus, Welcome Blues, Tjork Sevens, Hogwart, and several other genetically composed varieties. It was automated of course, but it still gave me great pleasure to watch the fungi grow from a tiny spore, to a matrix of mycelium, to fruiting body. At night I dreamt I was floating in a bright blue sky grabbing at radiant clouds and throwing them into a raging river below me, my face plastered with a grin that I could not make go away.