Henry Hinley
Volume 4
Oliver opened his eyes to the beige ceiling above him. The unwashed comforter covered him halfway to his abdomen, fell to the side of him, then down off his bed. He slept on the leftmost side of his mattress, a habit he had formed from his early childhood. The bed was much too large for himself, yet he found the most comfort anchoring his body to one side. Oliver slept like a dead man in a coffin, his eyelids to the ceiling after he had gone to sleep, and he remained that way through the night without movement. He liked it that way, it made him comfortable. His sleeping position allowed his nightly mask to form firmly on his face, eating at his blemished skin while he slept. Oliver was a man of order, of purpose, of practice, at least that is how he justified himself as a man. It made him comfortable, and like many, he lived for that very reason.
The beige ceiling above Oliver was discolored and blotched. The dark spots on the ceiling gave Oliver the impression of a disfigured face in the paint, much like how many see figures in the clouds. Oliver hadn't cared to paint over the dark spots, and he didn’t need to. Oliver reached over to his bedside table as an innate response to the movement of his mind in the morning. Turning his head to the left, his eyes met the wall. The small window that allowed him to see out over the city was shaking, the wind making the weak glass quiver. Oliver sighed, already he was overwhelmed by what was out of normal order.
Before any more of his senses could be afflicted by the unpleasant sights in his room, he waited no longer before reaching for the object on his bedside table. The one small object at his side was a teal green rectangle with two circles, equal parts away from each other. Both circles protrude outward from the body of the object, and it was clear they were both compartments of some nature.
Oliver sat up in his bed, cracking the cap off of one side circle, then the other. The popping sound of the compartments being forced open serenaded Oliver's ears, and with each waking moment he became enthralled by the object in his hands. In the two circular compartments were two pools of water, about a fingernails width in size. Both compartments held a translucent film in the pools of water, and Oliver was enthralled at the idea of using them.
Like a child with a gift, Oliver scrambled to turn on the lamp above his bed so that he could see his prize in a pleasant light. He held the container tenderly and wasted no time in ripping the rightmost contact from the pool of water. With a swift hand, Oliver lifted his head to
the sky as he had done thousands of times, and dropped the precious contact into his widened eye.
There was an immediate rush of comfort, and now Oliver was completely awake.
Looking up at the ceiling still, Oliver blinked rapidly to adjust the contact in his right eye. He closed his right eye, then his left, then his right again, switching sides every couple of seconds. Looking up at the ceiling from his bed, he closed his right eye once more. Through only his left eye he could see the ceiling. the dark stained face in the ceiling stared back at him, as if it were judging him, and Oliver did not enjoy that. Oliver now closed his left eye and opened his right. The contact he had placed on his right pupil had adjusted, and the face in the ceiling had vanished. That made him comfortable.
Oliver quickly put the left contact in his eye, and the things that troubled him no longer existed. The window that quivered to his side ceased its shaking, and his walls and ceilings were now a flush, beige color. The saturation of his room turned from a cold, dark corner of his world, to a bright, new life. He had no need for his lamp to be lit above him, the contacts now provided him with light. Oliver justified this behavior because the contacts took less energy to charge than the lights took to operate, so with the contacts in, he no longer needed to pay largely for artificial light in his apartment.
Years ago, Oliver was skeptical of the new product market for “financial spurs.” He was there when the contacts he now wore were pitched and introduced to his company, he even sat in the boardroom when they were approved. Every company needed a way to survive in that time, and it seemed the only way through was to spur the economy themselves.
After the technological boom of the 2000’s, wires became a part of society’s bloodstream, and digitized media flowed through society like a plague. Life became a luxury, and needs were made so easy that what would have taken hours of mortal time to prepare a list and travel for food became a task not done yourself, but which could be accomplished on technological dime.
Food became delivered by air, water came through pipes pumped by plants that no longer needed human intervention to operate their valves. Work became online, and past hubs of activity on land became land for more hardware to serve its purpose. Companies with not enough income to adapt to the robotic change closed down, and human work became a cost they could not bear under the cheap labor of electronics. Stores became obsolete, social infrastructure
crumbled. In all the scurry for advancement, we left ourselves behind, and the economy collapsed under the weight of how expensive flesh was to hire and maintain. Humanity had driven themselves from their own market.
With the physical economy crumbling, large companies needed a way out, or a way through before they too went under. To spur the human economy into motion, people needed to connect. But after so much time spent coddled by effort not exerted by themselves, and having their needs met behind closed doors, humanity had become reluctant to work outside. Many whined about what they were asked to do. Why would they work when all they needed was at an arm's length, well within their comfortable reach?
“financial spurs” became a term used by companies who caught a whiff of the success of the idea. The term was pitched with the hope of making the outside so much more appealing than the indoors. The visual contacts would be a device, like any smartphone of the early 2000’s, but rather than exploring an already existing reality through the lens of a screen, the contacts would allow for the user to see a better reality through their own eyes. Rather than creating an escape from reality, the technology would be used to enhance the appeal of the reality individuals already lived in. It was a way to move forward without tearing anything down.
It was perfect, and the people loved it. Soon, companies started to enter the market selling this product after its initial success. As popularity grew, prices went down, and the human economy started to sputter to life. People began to leave their homes, and consumption started to flourish once more.
Oliver fluttered his eyelids to make sure the face in the ceiling had disappeared from his vision. The caffeinated rush from putting his right contact in had left him, but the tingling feeling from inserting his second contact still had his mind in ecstasy. Oliver whipped the bed sheet off of himself and jumped upright out of bed. His world was now bright, and nothing more could trouble him, he was ready to go to work.
Oliver came out of his bedroom to a clean kitchen with hardwood floors. It was perfectly pristine with overhanging lights that activated upon his entrance. He opened his fridge to grab an apple and a bag of cold cooked bacon to eat on his way. Oliver brought his food into the bathroom and started to eat small strips of the bacon as he wiped away the lotion from his face
he had applied the night before. While doing this with his right hand, his left hand reached down to grab a hanging apparatus on the wall.
The object Oliver took from the wall looked like a small extension cord with two, bulky, odd shaped ends. As he kept wiping his face, Oliver stuck one bulky end around the outside of his ear like an earpiece with his left hand. He then took the long string attached to the other bulky end and strung it around the back of his head to his other ear. Oliver then took a sticker-like object off of his right ear piece, and stuck it on the right side of his nose where the cartilage and bone meet. He did the same with the left earpiece, leaving him with two earpieces, and two pill shaped stickers on his nose.
Oliver tapped a button on the earpiece, and all three sets of objects lit up in a flash, the contacts, the earpieces, and the stickers. Oliver could now not only see pleasant sights, but hear pleasant sounds, and smell pleasant things. The earpiece and the nerve stickers were a gift given to him by his company. Oliver accepted them with skepticism, but now appreciated them with gratitude. He didn't buy them himself, they were a gift, why shouldn't he use them. At least, that is how he justified it, and that made him comfortable.
Oliver was brushing his teeth when he realized one of his teeth was out of place and slightly yellowed. It was a beacon of imperfection in his world of beauty. That meant his grace period was over, and it was time to leave for work.
Oliver left his newly painted apartment building into a bustling street with bright cars and blue skies. There was a mechanic across the street working on a bright, glossy new convertible beside a family of four enjoying their time eating ice cream on the sidewalk.
Oliver boarded the train to Tempest, and quietly found a seat in the back of the middle car. His stop was the first of many on a bustling route to the center of Tempest. Oliver predicted his luxurious carriage space would grow crowded with many people, but he knew he wouldn't mind because he quite liked his journey. With his earpieces in, it was obvious Oliver was not a man worth talking to on the train. Oliver had a routine and he stuck to it, if that involved no distractions, then that was what he needed most.
The train came to a screeching halt at Raleigh Station, the next stop on the path. Many people got on at this time, including an old man that sat across from Oliver. Oliver didn't much care to look in the old man’s direction, but did so only to see out the window behind the old man once the train had started moving again. The train took a path through the sky, and at some parts,
above the clouds. Oliver especially loved the cloudless parts of the journey because he could see the rising sun in all its saturated glory, and it would sometimes bring a tear to his eye.
His view of the sun out of the window was, however, interrupted when it passed behind the old man’s head across from him. Only then did Oliver realize the old man was speaking to Oliver.
Obviously this old man was just an idiot, Oliver thought. Oliver was wearing earpieces, he could not hear the old man who was so intently speaking to him. The old man must not have seen the earpieces and the nerve paths around his nose, Oliver thought. Or maybe the old man was using contacts that blocked out all other artificial devices to where he couldn't see Oliver’s devices at all? That was probably the case, so Oliver continued ignoring the man.
As the sun went away and the train plummeted back down from the clouds, the old man was still speaking, looking directly at Oliver. The old man looked intently at Oliver, as if Oliver was receiving what he was saying. The old man had a gray beard and large hat on. He had the posture of being wise but his eyes made him look insane, they were wide, staring directly at Oliver. Oliver did not want to, but figured just once he would take his earpiece out so at least the man could see Oliver had not been hearing him the entire time. Oliver hated to break from his routine.
Oliver reached up and tore the bud from his right ear, and the man stopped speaking at once, like a vehicle that had suddenly been halted.
Oliver was perplexed, and slightly annoyed. The man had been speaking to him for a good five minutes, and only now decided to cease speaking when Oliver took the effort to take his earpiece out? Oliver looked at the old man with a raised eyebrow, visibly confused, but the old man just smiled and stared intently back.
Oliver slowly put his earpiece back in and returned to listening to the sounds that pleased him. Oliver looked up to check if the man was still staring. Not only was the old man staring, but he was speaking again.
Now the old man had managed to irritate Oliver, and worse, the old man had made Oliver uncomfortable. Oliver took the earbud from right ear again and stared at the old man. The old man stopped speaking at once, again, which irritated Oliver further. The old man was ruining his routine.
“Are you playing a game with me, sir?” Oliver stated.
The old man simply stared into Oliver's eyes like a dog, silent. “What are you getting at with this?” Oliver asked again.
Silence, again.
“I think you should know that you have wasted my time,” Oliver said, still annoyed, “I will not take out my earpieces again. You should speak now if you want to be spoken to.”
Still the old man said nothing, and Oliver slowly reinserted his earpiece as he stared directly into the old man's eyes.
The moment Oliver’s earpiece hit the inside rim of his ear, the old man started talking again, more fluently and with more hand gestures. As much as Oliver wanted to ignore the old man again as he said he would, he took out both earpieces and held one up to the old man, speaking in an elevated tone.
“Sir, I cannot hear you! Can't you see I have tw-”
“Why did you take them out again?” The old man said calmly with a furrowed brow.
Oliver was perplexed for a moment, and said nothing. Oliver was a bit deflated from feeling taken advantage of by the lack of conversation, so he let the old man speak again, which the old man did.
“You said you would not take out your earpieces again,” The old man said as he tilted his head and lowered his voice, “yet you did. Why lie?”
Oliver decided to defend his actions, and spoke to the man in a condescending tone.
“I wanted to let you know that you were wasting your own breath on speaking to me, I cannot hear you.”
“I received that impression the first time you took your earpieces out to berate me, but why take them out to repeat it again?”
Oliver wondered that himself, but knew.
“I was angry at you,” Oliver said, “and I was wondering whether you were blind, deaf, or stupid.”
“Angry? You were angry at me? You have the perfect way to ignore me. You could use your earbuds and block me out of your consciousness entirely, yet you chose not to. Why?”
Oliver had had enough of the old man's riddles, and wanted to end their conversation with an angry comment.
“Is this a job interview? Are you my parole officer? Are you a genie? What will these questions do for you that a conversation couldn't, a conversation we could have had if you weren't playing a game. Now if you don't mind, I am going to return-”
“-No, it wasn't anger.” The old man said.
Oliver was now officially fed up. Not only had the old man wasted his time, but now seemed to be telling Oliver how he felt. Before Oliver could retaliate, the old man began to explain himself.
“I was intriguing to you. You were curious.”
The old man paused to chew on his tongue, then continued.
“Not only did you open your ears once, not only did you open them twice, but three times you opened your ears to try and hear me.”
Oliver did not want to agree with the old man, but the old man was, in fact, intriguing, and Oliver was, in fact, curious. Oliver sat back in his chair a bit slouched this time, with a slight visible frown on his face he couldn't hide.
“What were you talking about earlier?” Oliver said curtly.
“Mystery,” The old man stated as a fact, “mystery is what drew you to open your ears to try and listen to me. Mystery is what caused you to lapse your own judgment and words. You had a perfectly good way of living in silent bliss, yet you chose to ignore that, and tried listening to me.”
The old man’s eyes lit up as he paused, then spoke again.
“Mystery is what did that, not anger. You ruined your perfect peace, for mystery.”
Oliver was still annoyed. The old man was ruining Oliver’s favorite part of the train ride. “And how is all that important to me?” Oliver said.
“It’s only important to you.” The old man retorted.
Oliver made an attempt to return to order by putting his earpieces back in, but the moment he tried, the old man began to question him again.
“Those things in your eyes, what are they?”
The old man was referring to the contacts in Oliver's eyes, and out of all the questions, Oliver was happy to oblige this one. Oliver pulled an amused smile, he thought the old man was playing another game.
“These are my contacts from Evervission, you must have a different model. It's funny actually, the company that created this had a specific department devoted to color. I would know.”
The old man was staring at Oliver blankly with a sort of strained look on his face, so Oliver stopped speaking. The train had halted at the next station, and few people entered the train.
At that moment, staring back into the old man’s eyes, Oliver realized the old man was not wearing any contacts.
“Sir, where are yours?” Oliver said, pointing at his eyes.
The old man drew back a bit, as if they were speaking of something that emitted a foul
smell.
“I don't wear anything like that,” the old man said through a slight smile, “they are killing
the people.”
Oliver felt the old man was insulting his line of work, and now felt obligated to argue. “And you choose to not indulge?” Oliver said.
“I choose to see the world how it is. No more, no less.”
“And because other people can't operate how you do, you find them lesser?”
Oliver could sense a crack in the old man’s facade, a crack of emotion, perhaps a crack of ego. The old man spoke.
“I think of no one lesser than I, but I can clearly see with open eyes that your product takes away mystery from intrigue. With your product, we find mystery everywhere but in reality. Take your fake eyes out and you’ll see the world, but you've never thought to entertain that mystery, have you? You would take the noise from your ears to speak to me but you won't take the mask from your eyes to live.”
Oliver thought for a moment in silence, and lowered his voice beyond the calm tone of the old man.
“What kind of clothes do you wear?” Said Oliver to the old man.
The train pulled to a stop at the next station, it was the third to last stop on the way to Tempest.
“You can see for yourself if you take out your fake eyes.” Said the old man. “Are you religious?” Oliver said, squinting his eyes slightly.
same.
“How would you want me to answer that?” The old man said, squinting his eyes just the
Oliver finally gave in to the old man’s wishes. He took one contact out so that his right
eye saw the raw world, while the left saw what the contact wanted him to see. Oliver closed his left eye and opened his right to reveal the real world. The train had little light, and was not in the sky but, in fact, below ground.
Oliver knew what the old man expected, he wanted Oliver to have a eureka moment, a conversion, a revelation on his past ways. The old man wanted Oliver to see what truly was behind his eyes, what life truly looked like and why he was the enemy. But Oliver did not think that, he did not mind, and he did not care.
Seeing the old man across from him in a much less flattering light on the train, Oliver singled out the man’s coat, shoes, and watch he was wearing. Oliver examined the old man, who wore much of what reminded him of himself in the past. Oliver ignored his surroundings out of spite and lectured the old man.
“The coat you wear on your back only exists because of an economy spurred on the backbone of technology like that of which are in my eyes. Your shoes are a kind of work boot sold years ago, when people were starving on the streets because the technology I help sell hadn't been invented yet. And finally, your watch…”
Oliver looked at the old man's watch, then back to the old man's face, which was now sorrowed at the unexpected response. The old man surely wanted Oliver to see something new, to see something he hadn’t, but Oliver chose to attack what made him uncomfortable.
“Your watch is dead.” Oliver said bluntly.
Oliver fiddled with his own watch under his own jacket, then continued.
“Not many can live like you can,” Oliver said, “But the ones that cannot are at least alive to try. Without my product, society dies. Whether you like it or not, my product will stay no matter what I do or what anyone else does. This is how people work, this is the way society thrives, this is the way society lives and breathes. This is the way it will always have to be if we are to live.”
The old man and Oliver sat across the aisle from one another in complete silence. Some passengers that got on the train heard Oliver rambling, but summarized that he must be on a phone call, or that he was simply talking to himself.
After some time, the old man spoke.
“This reliance is a death sentence, Oliver. How many more creations will we become dependent upon before the world has no use for our legs anymore, or our arms, or our bodies. How much more artificial bliss do we need to drug ourselves with before reality becomes tolerable again after your creation fails to entertain the next generation of minds?”
Oliver crossed his arms and said nothing. In his own head, he had millions of reasons not to give up his creation, his work, his wealth. In his own head he justified their use, but couldn't seem to form words defending it.
“Luxury makes men weak, you know.” The old man said. “It also makes them proud.” Oliver shot back.
The old man looked down, disappointed in how little Oliver was willing to change or realize how dreary raw life was around him. Oliver, on the other hand, was proud of defending his work, and his way of life.
“Someday even your technology won't save you from your own greed.” Oliver leaned his head back, he did not want to look at the old man anymore. “And when that day comes, you can have your victory.”
The next stop came, and the old man left. Oliver was left in silence again as he popped his right contact back into his eye, and soon after, his left earpiece, then his right, in routine fashion. The train was in the air again, and his ears played pleasant sounds as he smelled the fresh wind around him. He felt alive, and that made him comfortable.