One year. 100 articles. So we're having a Reader's Party. Come along to Upsidecrown.

Upsideclown banner

Fresh Mondays and Thursdays   ARCHIVE   US

 
 

ET

2 April 2001
Neil needs to see a doctor.

It had been loose in the box, a delicate metal sphere with the tell-tale glint of tiny lenses tracing a circumference. I knew which it was instinctively, the only imagiser not slotted neatly into the velvet-lined album my sister had bought me, and without thinking I balanced its indiscernible weight in my palm, the search for a working power cell suspended. I stared at the innocent-looking globe for a few moments then nochalantly flipped both switches with my thumb and took my hand away as the familiar snapshot of Paolo, looking over his shoulder with a half-smile of surprise, unfolded through three dimensions.

I reached into the centre of the image and began to turn the dial, expanding the projection, but then I's struck by the memory of when I'd first taken it, before I'd dared hope we'd become lovers, when I used to blow it up till he was almost life-size and I spun it back down to its default proportions. Five years was it now? Two since I'd so much as seen him. I reached out a trembling finger but it passed through his cheek and I felt nothing.

I'd first been suggested ETs by my on-line therapist as a means of getting over the guilt when my father died but I'd not taken its suggestion and so it was with a certain trepidation that I let the stairs carry me up to Dr. Gulikson's offices. I couldn't avoid noticing a certain degree of embarrassment, also, at the obviousness of my destination, twitching every time I met the gaze of any other occupants of the cases criss-crossing the atrium, longing for an enclosed elevator, almost as if I was accessing a pleasure parlour. ETs were, after all, closely related to the technologies which provided release from sexual inhibitions, hastily removed from the market after their commercial availability was swiftly followed by a spate of deaths, but still widely obtainable from back-street neurologists.

The implacable chrome of Dr. Gulikson's door, etched with her name and a string of letters, her masters of science, her doctorate in neurological alteration, slid back and the sharp-featured vision of Dr. Gulikson herself rose to greet me.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Ridley." Her dark hair was tied tightly back in a pony-tail and she met my gaze through entirely cosmetic pince-nez. "Please have a seat. Now why is it you feel you need emotive technologies?"

I started to panic. What was it that had brought me here? How could I express it? The quiet despair of numbness, the gradual realisation that the memory of how his hands had felt on my body had faded without me noticing, that all the sex had blurred into one, my recollection of the whole relationship had been reduced to a handful of totemic incidents and the love that was supposed to last for ever had gone, like a wilful cat that slips quietly out into the night and nobody registers is missing for a week. I felt dirty and empty and Dr. Gulikson was waiting for her reply.

"There's no need to be embarrassed, Mr. Ridley," she instructed as I flushed and stammered. "It's not at all unusual for a man of your" (she glanced at the screen in front of her) "Intellect to require our services. Forty-five per cent of our clients are Grade 2 workers."

"Sorry, I guess I'm just apprehensive about something that kinda amounts to chemically changing my personality."

"It's not about changing you, Mr. Ridley," she replied with a faint whiff of irritation, "Simply restoring a balance. You've allowed the passage of time to dim the intensity of the moment and your rational faculty to devalue what is no longer integral to your life. This is all about unblocking those channels."

"But didn't the STs make people do things they'd never have dreamed of, in normal circumstances?"

Dr. Gulikson's even tone was laced with severity. "I think you'll find that most people have a very plastic sexuality," the hint of a raised eyebrow, "Given the right conditions." I handed over my credit card.

Back in the apartment I fingered the port at the nape of my neck: Paolo hadn't had one, a memorial to his upbringing in the Third Corporation where they still inoculated with hypodermics. Dr. Gulikson had warned me that an ET needed to be used at an appropriate juncture, shortly before driving had produced some particularly unconstructive results; I smiled at the irony that contemplating the means of administration had brought such an instance about and carefully inserted and discharged the shot.

Paolo used to trace the port in fascination. He'd come without a word whilst I's reading, lie beside me and trace round its subcutaneous rim, gently, with his finger, with his tongue. To begin with it was a kind of distant fear, stirring in the pit of my stomach: butterflies, mere anticipation, perhaps? Then the floodgate burst and, the sudden rush almost overwhelming me, I felt it all, like the day he walked out, the anguish and the yearning, no longer formulaic, easily distracted but sharp and real; my organs tore themselves apart, my mind floundered vainly to latch onto a single, coherent thought and in misery, pain and sheer sheer joy, I wept.

 

 
     
Previously on upsideclown

top

Current clown:

18 December 2003. George writes: This List

Most recent ten:

15 December 2003. Jamie writes: Seven Songs
11 December 2003. Dan writes: Spinning Jenny
8 December 2003. Victor writes: Rock Opera
4 December 2003. Matt writes: The Mirrored Spheres of Patagonia
1 December 2003. George writes: Charm
27 November 2003. James writes: On Boxing
24 November 2003. Jamie writes: El Matador del Amor; Or, the Man who Killed Love
20 November 2003. Dan writes: Rights Management
17 November 2003. Victor writes: Walking on Yellow
13 November 2003. Matt writes: Disintermediation
(And alas we lost Neil, who last wrote Cockfosters)

Also by this clown:

17 June 2002. Neil writes: Cockfosters
23 May 2002. Neil writes: Siege Mentality
29 April 2002. Neil writes: Oh So Pretty
1 April 2002. Neil writes: Lost
11 March 2002. Neil writes: These Are The Days
14 February 2002. Neil writes: Bedtime Story
21 January 2002. Neil writes: Said She Was An Artist
24 December 2001. Neil writes: Here's All the People
3 December 2001. Neil writes: On Antibiotics
8 November 2001. Neil writes: Private Schooling
15 October 2001. Neil writes: Morning After
20 September 2001. Neil writes: Flightpath
27 August 2001. Neil writes: Tsarina
2 August 2001. Neil writes: Family and Friends
9 July 2001. Neil writes: My Fabulous Weekend
14 June 2001. Neil writes: The Sound of Music
21 May 2001. Neil writes: Lethal Injection
26 April 2001. Neil writes: Voter Apathy
2 April 2001. Neil writes: ET
5 March 2001. Neil writes: The Shadow Over Brunswych
12 February 2001. Neil writes: Bibliofile
18 January 2001. Neil writes: Suburban Gothic
25 December 2000. Neil writes: Many in Body, One in Mind
30 November 2000. Neil writes: Urban Regeneration
6 November 2000. Neil writes: In Extremis
12 October 2000. Neil writes: Obituary
18 September 2000. Neil writes: Your Mother Sucks Cocks In Hell!
24 August 2000. Neil writes: Parent Power
7 August 2000. Neil writes: Love Letter

Let meeeeee entertain you

top

We are all Upsideclown: Dan, George, James, Jamie, Matt, Neil, Victor.

Material is (c) respective authors. For everything else, there's it@upsideclown.com.

And weeeeeee can entertain you by email too. Get fresh steaming Upsideclown in your inbox Mondays and Thursdays. To subscribe, send the word subscribe in the body of your mail to upsideclown-request@historicalfact.com. (To unsubscribe, send the word unsubscribe instead.)