FREEDOM THROUGH CORPOREAL ANNIHILATION.

By ROHAN WIGHTMAN

Have you ever woken up inside an eggshell? Gleaming white walls in a boderless concave sweeping around in flawless perfection. That's what my home is like. An eggshell jammed in a carton, surround by a thousand others, all of them poking their tapered white asses out over the sparkling street. I wake up everyday with the walls shinning down on me like an exploding sun. Of course all this can change with a slight wave of my thin hairless hand, hovering over a series of pimple sized winking lights, the green one emits a shimmering light and the walls dissolve into a mosaic of colours and a rain Forrest explodes out of the walls. Great palm fronds stick out of the walls like a collection on nineties punk haircuts, thick vines wrap themselves around shrivelled tree trunks and a profusion of coloured flowers poke their heads out of dark crevices. Hums, screeches and grunts ooze from the walls vibrating life into the still air. Suddenly the cushion of warm air which suspends me two feet above the floor looses pressure and I float down, coming to rest on my back. I get up, my naked hairless body slightly bruised from the fall, obviously something is wrong with the internal air pressure control A palm tree to my left dissolves and a black screen takes its place. "Good morning Sam, its O eight hundred hours, the third working day of the week. You have food supplies for two more days, would you like to order more supplies?" "Morning Jimmy, I'll order tonight, remind me when I get home. Give me a list of specials now and I'll order a few things." A list of supplies flashes up on the screen, the normal prices in green, the special prices in red. I select some sweets and a tray of meat. "Jimmy the internal air pressure control isn't quite right, investigate it and rectify the situation." "Okay Sam". I walk into the kitchen just as my omelette is complete, the microwave turns itself off and the door swings open pushing the orange and green omelette to the front. It's hot and I burn my hands. "What's going on Jimmy, I just burnt my hand." "Sorry Sam, all will be fixed in five minutes, real time. You had a disturbed dream last night, the rapid variation of your body temperature caused a slight overload on the controls. I've book you in to see a dream investigator at twenty fifteen hours." "Okay Jimmy." That's news to me, I don't remember a dream last night. By now my omelette is cool enough to eat so I pick at it with my fork. The rain forest is annoying me both visually and aurally, so I wave my hand over a bank of flashing lights which resides on the control panel next to the microwave. The rain forest instantly dissolves to be replaced by a flat sandy desert, I can just see a craggy mountain range on the edge of the horizon. The air is dry and the silence brings a peace which I only ever find in sleep. It's getting towards time to leave for work so I bend over the small sink next to the microwave and smile at the single silver pipe. A short burst of high pressure water shoots into my mouth and removes any food debris which happened to have lodged in my teeth. "Here's your clothes Sam." A cupboard next to the sink swings open and a green set of overalls lunge towards me. I put them on, they are light, made of some sort of paper and have the company monogram engraved above the left breast. I don't know why as B.E.S is the only company that exists within a tree hundred mile radius. I guess it must be a hangover from the days when corporate competition was the norm and corporations swarmed like maggots over the city, devouring each other and people in an obscene feeding frenzy. That was before my time but I heard the B.E.S had created some monster virus which infected all it's competitors systems and created a huge crash. B.E.S. then waltzed in and took over everything. It was all rumour as history had ceased to exist at about the same time the crash happened. "You should be leaving for work now Sam." "I know Jimmy." Even if I'm about too leave Jimmy manages to tell me that, consequently I always feel like I'm late. I walk to the tapered end of my home and the wall swings open, "Goodbye Sam, have a nice day, don't forget your appointment with the dream investigator at twenty fifteen hours tonight." "Thanks Jimmy I won't." I'm standing at the edge of my home, around me are hundreds of other homes, all like mine. Together it looks like a massive collection of eggs stuck in a battery of cartons. My home is three quarters of the way up so there's a hundred and fifty or so homes below mine. The sky is a monochrome grey, the sun exists only in my memory. The hole in the ozone layer had become a rapidly collapsing web with only thin threads of ozone left. To walk outside was to be fried alive, millions of homeless people dies of skin cancer. The footpaths were jammed with people whose skin was shedding itself in great strips of yellowing corpuscles leaving snail trails of pus over the footpaths. An armada of spaceships was launched, the first wave bombed the stratosphere with a substance to substitute for the diminishing ozone layer. This worked only the ultraviolet rays and the ozone substitute combined to cause a gaseous reaction which blanketed the earth in a black fog. Six months later a second Armada of space shuttles was launched, they deposited a series of solar reflectors high in the stratosphere and the suns rays again illuminated the earth. Surprisingly the homeless people, the dissidents, the mentally deficient, the physically deformed, the terminally ill and drug addicted had disappeared during the six months of darkness. I was young during this time, living in a group home for post dependent, pre-working children, our trainers kept us inside the whole time. According to the news the streets were war zones where a multitude of militant groups were battling the authorities for control of the city. I never heard a gun shot or a bomb though. After the darkness had been lifted we walked outside to a new world. The streets were clean of all that we'd been told to fear, the blocks of abandoned buildings had been knocked down, the parks had been turned into new housing projects and new industries were making a new life for us all. At precisely 0900 hours long perspex tubes sprouted out of the footpath below and shot up to the top of the block. I walked forward and fell, the compressed air inside the tubes caught me and I began to gradually float, above and below me other people did the same thing, all of us floating gently down like oak leaves in autumn. You might think this exciting but even the exceptional becomes mundane with over familiarity. Once we have stepped clear the tubes sink back into the earth and our homes are out of reach until we finish work and the tubes again spring forth to take us safely home. I begin walking to work, this is the only exercise any one gets and I enjoy it as generally dormant senses get to briefly flirt with life. Sometimes I run or hold by breath or jump, if I could walk on my hands I would. I don't do this because I desire to get to work quickly, when I run or jump I get giddy, I sweat and it feels good. I get strange looks and was once hauled up before the committee for public behaviour. Three stern officials with pallid drawn faces and lips like razors questioned me in a grey airless room where a calendar clock dropped minutes with a clunk that resonated like thunder, each minute a lost credit. I was there for a quarter of a day and was told that I shouldn't be disruptive. I didn't loose any privileges or wasn't sent to get rechemicalised as I feared. Everybody was constantly monitored by the profusion of video cameras which sprouted out of every building and street corner like weeds. After I was hauled before the committee I felt like I had been marked and would be watched rigorously, for a while I didn't even trust Jimmy. That was a eighteen months ago and I kept my abnormal exercises to a minimum and I don't feel as watched anymore. It's a twenty minute walk to work and I walk amongst a stream of people all in similar overalls although the colours vary between green, blue and grey. No one talks because no one knows anybody, we're a silent mob all heading to the same place where our lives will transform into a credit bank which will diminish over time till we cease to exist. The only person I see regularly is Henry who I meet every month at the luxurious coupling condominiums. They are three times bigger than my place, the windows have real views, a telecommunicator that you turn off, a huge bath, a stereo with a selection of music and objects of art and other aesthetically pleasing things. I work for six years and finally got invited to a meeting event which is where thousands of people who have worked for six or more years come together for three days. You talk, dance, laugh with various people till you find the right person who then becomes you're coupling mate. Henry and I found each other on the second day and spent the third day in bed together licking sweat off each others bodies and releasing waves of sensual pleasure in each other that surprised us both with its intensity. I don't find our monthly meetings as intense or satisfying but it's all we have and I enjoy it because to feel something is better than feeling nothing at all and two days in a coupling condominium with a partner is a privilege and privileges exist to enjoy. Henry works at the in vitro plant, squirting zygotes into test tubes, he makes thousand of people everyday. The other people I know are my womb brothers and sisters, who I see once a year at the annual womb party. There are six of us, two other men and tree women, we all shared the same artificial womb, came into the world at the same time, lived in the same group house and had the same trainers. Our womb party is an event of stumbling conversations and silences which say we don't wish to be here. We all work at the same job, have the same homes and go to the same condominiums once a month and so have nothing to talk about. The company thinks it's important because we're a family and the family is the glue that holds society together. Henry says his womb parties are similar which reassures me because I wouldn't want our gathering to be unusual in case it was my fault and I was hauled before the committee again. The footpaths are ten feet wide, smooth and grey, my rubber soled boots slap silently down and make a slight sucking sound on the way up. The footpath never diverges, it's a long grey line with batteries of white eggs surrounding it all the way to work. As I get closer to work the bottom homes on the batteries have cracked open exposing their insides they are wide open, hollow, the shining white walls faded, covered in strange signs scrawled in bright colours, undulating lines, dots, triangles, large eyes, all different in each home. So many of the homes are like this that they form interconnected tunnels, a labyrinth of dark spaces where on one can see into weaving through the collapsing edifices we call home. I notice I'm passing the spot, I slow down to see if anything has been left for me. If places of spiritual significance are sites where trauma, either collective or personal has occurred therefore conferring upon the site a presence beyond the physical then this is my sacred site. Whenever I walk past here a cloud of despair washes briefly over me. It was two and a half years ago, I was staring at the strange symbols adorning the walls of one of the broken homes when I notices two small ovals emitting a lustrous glow, I stared, flashes of silver and gold winked back from the darkness. I looked around, saw no order keepers and went to step into the flat. Four work finders with bodies like mallee roots dropped out of the sky and flung me to the ground then stormed into the flat. They dragged out a women with long thick hair twisting down her back like jungle vines, her eyes burned like the long forgotten sun. She kicked and punched the work finders who were dragging her out by the hair. A flash of silver winked in the monochrome haze and one of the work finders stumbled backwards, the black handle of a knife trembling like a scared animal in his taunt chest. The remaining three work finders threw her against the wall, they seized her arms, one each and slammed them outstretched against the wall, the third pulled his holding gun out and nailed her to the wall. Her scream split me in two, she spat and kicked as they pulled her clothes off. I was transfixed, her body was covered in elaborate tattoos that swirled and followed the contours of her body. There were leaves and animals, symbols and faces in a variety of colours. Rings hung from her nipples, stomach, ears and nose like small flowers. Two white scars ran inward from her shoulders and finished as one line just above her pierced belly. The injured work finder ripped the rings out of her body and geld them in the air like they were trophies, blood meandered slowly down her trembling body. He picked up the skin cleanser, pointed it towards her and turned it on. A stream of sand expelled at high pressure sprayed across her skin, shaving layer after layer off until she was a red raw, like a bone from the butchers. her screams had been lost in the whine of the skin cleanser, now I could hear a low moan emitting from her. The work finders then bundled her on to a stretcher to be rechemicalised. As soon as they left I threw up, tears streaming down my cheeks, sobs tore themselves up from my stomach and rode through my body in unrelenting waves of despair. Exhausted I slumped against the wall crying softly into the crook of my arm, above me a huge painted eye stared magnanimously down at me. As the tears faded gold, silver, jade and ruby stars winked up at me from the floor. Furtively I knelt down, scooped up the collection of rings and studs scattered over the floor, stuck them in my pocket and ran to work. Ever since then I have regularly found pieces of similar jewellery in a small pile under the eye. The jewellery has all been of the type used to pierce with, long thin slivers of metal, small glowing precious stones, intricately woven pieces of metal as thin as cotton and occasionally a piece of bone, rubbed smooth and glowing with a vitality all its own. It's illegal to harm or mark your body in any way, jewellery, especially pieces used to pierce with are an aberration to the body, which is the perfect machine. To pierce yourself is an act of sabotage and is punishable by either severe rechemicalisation or death. I hide what I find carefully amongst the darkened ruins of the collapsing egg homes and pick then up on the way back from work. I'm sure the non workers are leaving them there, I'm not sure why. Non workers have entered the grey area of mythology, they are rarely seen but strongly believed in. There is supposed to be a whole community of then here and more in other places, they live in the collapsing shells, hiding amongst the dark. There are more rumours of huge underground tunnels, massive basements all buried under the rubble of the past where they live, some say they grow food using lights and water. They are people who didn't quite disappear during the time of darkness or who have somehow fled this work and its lifestyle to find a new world, where or how they exactly found this other world is the greatest of mysteries. I have thought about trying to find them, imagined myself stumbling through the dark tunnels into a world I've only ever imagined only the image of a women, nailed against the wall and her skin sandblasted off haunts me, paralysing me with fear. The work finders job is to find the non workers and capture them so they can be either killed or put to work, on one I know has ever seen one get captured despite the fact that there's always more and more work finders prowling the streets. The more work finders are seen striding around shinning their torches into the tunnels the more the mythology of the Non workers grows. I've heard people say they are posed to take over the city, that they are killing work finders, destroying surveillance cameras kidnapping workers to forcefully tattoo and pierce them then let them go to serve as a mobile graffiti statement. I really don't know about any of this, all I know is small piles of piercing jewellery regularly appears and I feel it's for me. Today as I quickly scan under the eye I see a knife, it's half as long as my forearm, double blade, its handle is wrapped in a soft black tape. I quickly pluck it from the ground and run my fingers over the blade, it's sharp and has a thin film of oil over it. I find a heavy cloth laying next to it which I wrap around the blade then I hide it under the doorless microwave which is slowly disintegrating on a dusty bench. A knife is quite a thing to have, for one thing they're illegal and if it was to be found on me I would get rechemicalised, I could justify piercing jewellery as curios I found, a knife is beyond explanation. I'm at work, the yellow glow of the lights cast a sickly hue on every ones faces. I work at a chip fabrication plant, making processing chips for the ever growing computer systems which keeps our world running. dirt is the enemy here, which is why I have no hair. The genetic strand which creates hair was removed from everyone who was chosen to work in the fabrication plant while we were zygotes. hair holds dirt and is a risk in our field of work. It takes me half an hour from the time I walk through the door to be ready for work. I have a shower and am blown dry, I put on latex overalls then a two piece suit which is tightly cuffed at the neck, arm and leg holes, then I put on fibrotek overalls, latex gloves and elbow length vinyl gloves. Finally I put on floppy fibrotek shoes and pick up my face mask which has been washed in pure alcohol then move to the air showers. I slowly turn with my arm raised high while a dozen air nozzles blast into me at different levels. My job entails sitting at a bench next to an electron microscope and a TV screen, the chips pass through the electron microscope one at a time, their image is put up on the TV screen a transparency appears over the chip and I check to make sure everything is okay. I do this ten hours a day, the only break I have is my once a month holiday with Henry at the coupling condominiums. The factory is a strange place, there are no flat surfaces, everything slopes downwards and there is a constant stream of air circulating through the plant. No one can talk as we are all wearing masks, the only sound is the hum of the air being circulated and the whir of the monorail overhead which carries wafers of chips to the cutting section of the factory. Sometimes when I leave work I have the urge to get dirty, I want to smear myself in my own shit just so I can feel dirty, I never do because the reality is a lot worse then the theory. I finish work at nineteen thirty hours and quickly change my clothes then run to where I've hidden the knife. I make like I fall over, slowly pick myself up and shove the knife down my pants as I do so. Walking home I feel exhilarated, I'm a criminal, I twist the nipple rings I stuck through my nipples after work, slight spasms of sensation caress my body and I feel small beads of sweat pop out on my forehead. A high pitched repetitive beep intrudes upon my thoughts, my video phone, I push the talk button, "Sam don't forget your appointment at the dream doctor. You are due there in ten minutes." "Thanks Jimmy I'm on my way." I start to run back the way I came, I had forgotten but I couldn't tell Jimmy, he would pass it on to the dream doctor and that's not the information I want to pass on. As I run I try and take my nipple rings out in case the doctor somehow sees them. I started to pierce myself the day I found a piercing rod amongst the jewellery left for me under the eye. I ran home euphoric with excitement holding the long thin rod tight against my thigh. Once at home I put my back to Jimmy an faced the wall then held my nipple tight in one hand, breathed deeply three times and slid the piercing rod through the nipple. Hot flushes saturated my body, my mouth dried up and my eyes flickered rapidly. The rain forest display on the wall became alive, the sweet smell of jasmine filling my body like a memory existing beyond childhood, the colours of the rain forest enveloped me and for a brief time I was there feeling the sticky humidity, smelling the humus and seeing the myriad colours in a way I had never seen before. Soon I felt myself being sucked back into my home, the colours and sounds took on their normal cartoonish quality and Jimmy was shouting at me that dinner was ready, not that I felt like eating. I wished that Jimmy would turn on the air valve for by bed but it wasn't time to sleep and to ask would be to draw suspicion to myself. Instead I watched TV which gave me the bonus of relegating Jimmy to idling mode and allowed me to wallow in the warm lethargy which had overcome me after the piercing. Ever since then I have continued piercing myself, putting the rings in on the way home, twisting and tugging them at home. Not even Henry knows I have piercing, it's my only secret and one I intend to deep which is why I'm frantically pulling them out now and hoping the dream doctor doesn't notice my knife. The dream doctor smiles at me, his teeth are as white as the walls of my home, his eyes are ice blue, I feel them cutting through me, I wonder if he can read minds. He's looking at a small screen while rapid firing questions at me in a voice that varies between being brutally inquisitive and overly concerned. "Do you remember your dreams?" "No I was surprised when Jimmy told me I had been having disturbed dreams." He frowns then smiles reassuringly at me. "If one fantasy you have could come true, what would you choose?" "I don't really have fantasies, I suppose I'd like to go to a different condominium with Henry." "Good, good", he smiles again. "You seem like a nice guy you know, I really don't know why they sent you here. Sometimes I want to go and demand an explanation from those people, they waste your time and mine all because you had a bad dream. "A con spirito smile peeks out from behind his stony exterior. I feel myself blushing, "I don't know, maybe they get things wrong sometimes but they are usually right." I hear myself saying this and the words seem loud and heavy and I wish I could take them back. He smiles and waves his hand over his glossy dark hair, the questions go on and on. I start feeling hot and can feel the knife, warm and solid sitting next to my leg, I want to show it to him to shock him so that the questions stop. "you have a regular pattern of disturbed dreams, none of which you remember. Are you happy with life?" He's perched on the edge of his chair staring into my eyes as if I have an answer to his own problems. I don't know what to say, I've never thought of happiness only of existence. "I guess so, I wake up and go to work everyday, I must be happy." He sits back in his chair and folds his hands over his stomach and stars to ask trivial questions as if we are two strangers trying to get to know each other. Finally he stands up, "Sam I think you have a small problem, it's easily fixed so not to worry. There's a slight chemical imbalance in your brain, somehow there's been an overprotection of one hormone which has slightly altered the way you perceive yourself in the world. It's not very bad yet which is why it only manifest itself in you dreams but it will move into your waking life, and that will cause problems." I feel like some part of me has been drained from my body when he tells me calmly that I'm going to be rechemicalised, I don't want chemicals injected into my brain. I feel fine, better than I've felt for a long time, I want to tell him all this but I know it will be useless so I calmly stand up and thank him. "Can I go home first, I have to organise a few things and organise my telecompanion to keep the house running and stop supplies from being delivered." "Sure, sure, I'll book you to go in five days from now, you'll be in for five days then you'll be home and ready to go, good as new." He smiles as he ushers me out, I smile back and run home. I walk in the door and Jimmy beams at me from the black screen, "How was the dream doctor Sam, I hope they can fix you, these dreams of yours cause chaos with the operating systems." Jimmy's flat unchanging face annoys me and I don't want to see it but I can't get red of it as there's TV hidden everywhere and they will turn on wherever I walk and keep talking to me. "It was good Jimmy, I'm going to be okay." I sit down and face the wall, I can hear Jimmy babbling behind me as I pull the knife out and tip my collection of piercing implements onto my lap. I breath deeply relaxing my body, the white walls become a tone brighter and I take my clothes off. The knife in my hand is heavy the blade catches the light in places and seems to absorb it, throwing it back out at me like a new sun. I place the knife on my left breast and start to slice, colours and light storm into my mind and I start to feel sick, blood warm and thick flows over my hand, running down into my stomach. My ears are ringing and I can no longer hear Jimmy, I flick on the visual display unit flashing scenes, rain forests, deserts, beaches, wetlands before me, I keep slicing and loose myself in the displays as I do so. I feel a lump of sticky warmth fall onto my lap and I pick it up, it's my left breast, I feel faint but mange to stand up, I see Jimmy, his lips flapping like two dying fish. "Jimmy I have a present for you." He is watching me, I put my left breast up on the white wall and push a piercing rod into it, it hangs there, blood streams down the wall and congeals in a pool under it. I stumble back to where I was sitting and start to slice away at the right breast, my body is sticky with blood, my right breast falls away and I throw it at Jimmys smiling face, it lands on his lips and sticks there, it looks like he's eating a steak. The white curving walls are pressing down on me, the brightness hurts my eyes, I pick up another piercing rod, dip it in blood and start to write on the walls. I write about my life without thinking. Sometimes I stop and read it, some of the words and images don't make sense, it's as if I am writing about a history I don't know about but which exists. In a detached way I wonder if it's really me. When I run out of things to say I pick up the knife and slice something else off and nail it to the wall. I tell Jimmy I'm redecorating. I laugh at his blood stained lips and ask him if he thinks I'll finish the story, go mad or redecorate the flat first. He tells me I should start to pack my bags to go to the rechemicalisation factory. Copyright ROHAN WIGHTMAN 1996