pazzomundo.com

The beginning

Posted on 26 May 2010

My first memory is of pain.  Searing, inchoate white pain.  It’s been likened to giving birth through your eye sockets. I’d agree – not that I’ve given birth.  Thankfully, the opiates soon reasserted their grip.

The moment was brief but indelible.  I’d been warned that getting the chip implanted would hurt.  It was comforting that when I did return to the land of the conscious, all that remained was the memory and a dullish throb.

I listened to the low hum of the air conditioner, the soft tick of my wristwatch, an easy breathing from – presumably – the bed next to mine, and…a plastic knock-knocking?  No idea.  I opened my eyes.

Across the room in the wall lit lustre sat a figure on a bed.  His head still, eyes shut, legs crossed in a meditative pose.  At his feet, was a silvery dog sitting attentively on its hind legs.  In its mitts was a rubik’s cube that it was deftly twisting and turning with rapid clicks – the dog’s got opposable thumbs. It stopped, panned it gaze towards mine and froze.  The man’s head lifted.

“You’re awake.  Good.  It’s been damnably quiet around here.”

A blink was the best I could do.  He was off his bed and heading to my side.

“My name’s Virilio.  Yours is Abraham.”