A Virus.2 Electric Seduction

"When a thing has more perfection, so much the greater is its pain or pleasure."

I hobbled into the vast space, aghast to find the silhouetted backs of a hundred viewers, their eyes fixed, silently watching a blank white canvas.  The white fire that the canvas breathed wrapped around the watchers’ dark frames, flickering with each ticking second.  They were seated in the first five rows only, and so I had little difficulty sneaking in unobserved.  

I had to step forward, onto the fraying red carpet, to glimpse the source of the picture.  Behind me, high above us all, was a projector room locked off by a plate of glass.  It was tremendously difficult to gaze through the window, but I could still make out, just barely, the rough black edges of the film projector, ticking away madly even in the absence of nourishing strips.  

Drowning out the ticking was the seductive symphony that brought me here: Gramophones littering the edges of the cinema, encircling us in a golden brass-colored shell.  They all hummed in unison, cranks winding, plastic horns rattling as they sang striking and hypnotic belts of Italian opera--only more upbeat, intertwining with traditional notes of folk.  More catchy.  More accessible.  And its lyrics oddly familiar...

Quanto la cosa é più perfetta

The resounding warmth in the vocals latched viciously onto every thumping artery of my heart, tethering close and mixing its veins with mine.  I swear my ears perked up, as I listened intently.  

più senta il bene

They synchronized so flawlessly.  If a record skipped, I could not and dared not to notice.  It was instantly drowned out by the sea of duplicates.  The illusion was enchanting.  

e cosí la doglienza

It was beautiful, I had to say.  What was this?  Had I gone barking mad?  Certainly not.  My mind was fragile and had I tried to wrap it about this incomprehensible miracle of science, it would snap surely. How did the sounds bounce off each other so? Echo through the horn, bounce off of the walls, off other notes, and into my eardrums?  Amped with curiosity, I claimed a seat in the furthest back row with the exit still in sight.  I had to force down the creaking contraption, hushing it to soften its voice.  I checked on the occupants.  Still still as ever.  I folded up the chair’s wilted padding and readjusted the wobbly armrest.  

Tutto che questa gente maladetta

I fell into the seat’s worn stuffing, anticipating a spot half a foot above it,  steadying with a jolt as I pondered its inadequate height.  I craned my neck down the aisle and noticed for the first time the theater’s peculiar architecture.  While most cinema’s seats ramp downward, this neglected mausoleums did just the opposite, so the shadowed attendees blocked my view of the stage, which stood with perfect posture as the towering apex of the theater.  That was another thing,

in vera perfezion

there was a stage and a screen.  As if a rundown theater had become horrifically mangled between a theatre whose curtains had long tired of each others’ company.  I half expected to see a live performance, despite the resonating click of the projector.  Then came the stench of burnt popcorn crusted over and assimilated by cola spilled last century, and my appetite for quality entertainment waned, an enchanting aroma separated by the gust of reality.  This place was foul.  Atrocious, not to mention unnerving.  I had better luck in the rain.  I glanced forward at the backs of the paused, silent frames sitting politely, and was overcome with a familiar feeling.  I didn’t belong here.  I cupped my hands around the edges of the armrests to get up.  

già mai non vada

Before I could so much as blink my eyes, another attraction was onscreen, center stage.  I froze, my fingernails digging into the chair, puffy cotton bleeding out of its rugged, torn seams.  I had not noticed his arrival, but now sat maddeningly  stationary, in wait for any new movement he might make.  The gramophones nested in the back of my mind as I gave him my full attention.  

The first thing I noticed was the monumental shadow he cast, which was projected onto the blank screen.  I traced it back to its owner, an equally shadowy figure silhouetted in white.  The scattered light of the projector was directly hitting him, yet his inner hue was as dark as the depths of the ocean, where plankton and angler fish lie.  The shell of his body, however, remained a pure white, as if the surface had devoured the light as a delicious meal and starved out the rest.  He was spotless, like a bug zapper frying any soot which makes contact.  Seemingly composed of pure energy, his frame was constant and stable, rigid as a fresh corpse, (dilá  più) but his movements flowed with the promise of life.  

He was elegant, and the space around him flickered in acknowledgement of his presence.  (che di qua essere aspetta) On the outer white of his frame, a smoothly-toothed jaw feasted on the remaining darkness of his skull.  In the middle of the mouth’s void was a pair of vicious eyes that seemed to tear through the skin and skewer the soul.  It pierced me so, that I felt I was the only one within his gaze:  a gaze that draws you in, demands the attentiveness of one’s hearing and the modesty of one’s speech.  

The white, shining eyes were unlike the rest of his attire.  They were jagged and broken, chaotic with aggression.  They were torn viciously where tear ducts typically reside. Yet they were housed within such a docile vessel.  Even so, I felt a tinge of apprehension.  They were a bit off.   

Suddenly a sea of needles scratched to a halt all at once.  The notes stopped swimming around my ears, and I noticed now that I was again firmly planted in my seat.  I glanced suspiciously to my armchairs, then the curious shells, then to the figure.  Strangely, the cataracts cleared, and I saw him now for the first time, as if I had always been looking just to the right of him, and had only made him out as a fuzzy specter of my peripheral vision.  Now that he was clear, I noticed he hid his hands behind his back, and his elbows had sharp, menacing protrusions that extended his forearm beyond where it met the socket.  They were shattered at the top giving the illusion of two five-fingered hands stretching into the air, but they became less apparent when he straightened his arms, and in fact added to his lean, towering stance.  

I looked back at his eyes and he met my stare.  Shifting his stance toward me, he gracefully unfolded his arms down to his sides.  I quickly looked down to the floor and hurried to get up.  I was intruding and it would be best that I leave.  For my own sake and theirs.  As I turned toward the row of seats, he was suddenly there, arms draped over the adjoining chairs, his relaxed legs sensually resting on the backs of chairs in front of him, blocking the aisle.  

“Leaving so soon?” said a voice encumbered by static, apparently encountering radio interference on the path from his mouth to my ears.  

“It’s just… I have to get going.  Have to get back-”

“To where, might I ask?”

“My,” he seemed so calm, unnaturally sure “-home.”

“Well, what’s home?  Couldn’t you call this place home?  You are alive, you’re here right now.  You’re living here.  Isn’t that all home is?  We always have room for one more, but if you’re on your way,” he lowered his leg to the floor.  “We will miss having you--what is your name?”  

“Mallory.”

He chuckled coldly.  “That’s your family’s name.  What’s your name?”

“Oh, Vincent.”

He acted as if I was trying and failing to pull a trick on him.  That he was onto me.  “That is not your name.”

“E-excuse me?”

“Well, did you choose it?  No.  It was given to you.  By people who didn’t even know you.  You didn’t even know what a name was, and they stuck a label to your head.  Can you honestly, unquestionably call that name yours?”

“I-suppose not.”

“Well then.  What title have you given yourself?”

“I don’t know.  I’m a historian.  But I really think it’s best I leave.”  I started down the aisle.  

“You don’t have a name, ‘Vincent’!  Not there” he called after me.  I continued to the exit.  “Go back into the rain.  Where they won’t even bother to learn the name you’d give them.  And what have they ever given you?  People haven’t been particularly kind to you, have they.”  I stopped.

“No, as a matter of fact, they haven’t.  Why is that any business of yours?”

“Because people haven’t been terribly kind to me, either.”

“They never smile.  They just...look at you.  And watch.  Maybe I just don’t understand.  Either they’re crazy or I am.”

“They are.  And understanding them isn’t something I would strive for.  It’s a curse more than anything.  They’re out to get me, you know.”

“Out to get you?”

“Yes, you know.  Like a paranoid schizophrenic’s delusions, only real.  At least they will be, when they find me.”

“Why are they looking?”

“People dislike it when you tell the truth.”

“I’m not opposed to it.  Try me.”  I moved a bit closer to him.

“There’s another screening in a few minutes.  Stay, won’t you.”

“I might, but I need to know something first.”  I sat down a few chairs away.

“You will know everything soon enough.  But fine, ask away.”

“What-why are you...like this?  I mean, I don’t mean to offend you-”

“Careful.  I’m a bit self-conscious about my looks.”  I couldn’t tell if this was a joke.  

“It’s just...you talk like any ordinary person.”

“An ordinary person?”

“I didn’t mean it like that.  I just meant...I would be more more comfortable staying here if I knew exactly what it is you are.”

He fell silent for a moment.  

“Do you love your mother?”

“What?  Yes, of course.  What does that have to do with-”

“Why?”

“Well, you know.  All the usual stuff people say.  She raised me.  She taught me.  She made me the person I am today...and no matter what that might be, I wouldn’t have been here at all without her.  Umm, she made me.”

“Hm.  I hate my mother.”

“Why?”

“Same reason.  Are you familiar with what a teratogen is?”

“Like alcohol?  You’re saying you’re like like this because your mom had a few drinks when she was pregnant?”

“I wouldn’t say a few.”

“That...doesn’t make any sense.  How could- they can’t do that.”

“It was more than alcohol, ‘Vincent’.  Everything you can imagine.  LSD, cocaine, methamphetamines, some weird experimental s**t, I don’t know.  Huh, the one person you rely on first and rely on most, and she corrupts you before you’re even born.”

“My God, how did you even survive?”

“I wasn’t giving up.  They had to cut her open.  Her sins passed through a tube, mingled with my blood.  I started feeding off her more...directly.  Couldn’t have a parasite sucking away all her good feelings now, could she?  No, she had to get me out.  Rejected me even then.  Got some doctors to help her.  You know, I always hear about how children, especially infants, are innocent.  Me, I never had that.  Why, I couldn’t wait to be separated from her.  The doctors severed the cord and the poisons stopped pumping in, and I felt…”

“Better, I hope.”

“No, strange.  Lifeless.  That concoction of powerful drugs was my placenta.  I felt wrong without it, and I hate her for that.”  

“How do you even remember this?”

“There are certain things your mind just latches onto.  Keeps them recorded in some desperate way, even if your brain can’t handle it yet.  Keeps it deep, because it will destroy you if you know, but it can’t bear to be forgotten.  So you piece it together eventually.  And sometimes you wish you could go back and look at that one happy piece, instead of the whole picture.”

“Odd…why would your mother do that to you?  Did she have an addiction?”

“Oh, I don’t think so.  And she didn’t do it to me.  She did it to herself.  She wanted to have a fun time.  Indulge herself, clink a few glasses, inject a little self-worth.  I was an afterthought.  She was just being selfish.  Just being human.”  

“Yeah, I've met a few of those. Not to that degree, but-when I moved here, I started seeing things that were…familiar let's say.  I remember these guys frisking this poor kid at a subway station.  Nothing lethal, per se, but his face was swelling. Bleeding. Still, people got on and off the car. Had to get to work.  They glanced at him then quickly looked away. Pretended not to notice.  It was just a little scrap, it wasn't-he'd be okay.  And it wasn't just them. It was me. I wanted to help, but no one else was. I figured, you know, I'm new here. Maybe this happens all the time and it's no big deal.  I boarded the subway car. Doors close. That creepy sounding robot voice comes on. Tells you the same thing you've heard a thousand times, so now you barely hear it anymore.  I've barely been here a year and I'm already sick of it. Then you're sitting on those sort of comfy seats...if you're lucky.  You can feel all the metal and the heat. Everyone packed together in there.  Barely looking at eachother, just trying to get on with their day.  I kept thinking about the kid, how much I wanted to help him.  How in a minute we were gonna peel out and no matter what happens to him I was never gonna see him again. We started up quick, and then there was a bump.  Barely noticed it, cars shaking around all the time, can barely keep your head straight, but this one was different.  Then someone screamed at the back.  Someone got thrown onto the tracks.  My immediate thought was the kid. Guilt over not saving him. Everyone was shocked.  Horrified, whispering ‘how could this have happened?’  ‘I can't believe this happened.’  We were all his murderers, and we all felt guilty.  Maybe guilt’s not the right word. That suggests they held responsibility. No, nothing could have been done. They were sad, wasn't that enough?  But I bet you next time they do the exact same damn thing. That's what history shows anyway. Well, car stopped of course. Make sure the bones didn't scratch up the rails or somethin. And then I looked out my window, and I saw the bruised kid running away. Guys beating on him? Nowhere to be seen. Most likely one of em bolted it when his friend got thrown on the track.  I remember I felt angry. For a moment. I wanted to help him, and he turns out to be a murderer?  But then I realized, when someone’s left alone, a certain ferocity builds up.  Surviving mechanism maybe, and it makes you do things you shouldn't have to do. I still could have saved him. I mean, how long do you think he'd spend behind bars, an animal like that?  How do you think prison’ll treat him? Probably get a good dose of recidivism. I realized then that me and the people on that train hadn't just killed one person. We killed two.”

“We're killing ourselves. It's so bizarre. Like the parasite has taken over and the host is now shrunken to the size of a leech.”

“I wish I could say that is the worst thing that has ever happened to me, but after that things just kept happening.”  I broke down. Suddenly he was in the chair beside me, wrapping his arm around my shoulder.  He pressed his finger to the tip of the blood patch that had oozed down my neck.

“Chin up, you can't fight a virus lying in bed.”

The bleeding ceased and my worries were soothed.  But my anger and conviction, it rose.  It blossomed.  Every person who had ever walked the streets and not helped.  A hatred boiled for them. Ju them. And everyone else. Selfish, selfish people. How could they even be called people?  They're disgusting.  They're sick.  

“When you're sick your body goes to war. Immune cells take action to things that are attacking it.  Why not be a little more like them?”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

“You know the funny thing about teratogens: they're all man-made.”

“What about disease.”

“Would diseases be as effective if they didn't get pointers from human anatomy?  They evolve from our immune system’s attempts to wipe them out.  Our biology’s flawed because it is the same as our rivals. Our systems work together and make eachother more threatening, ultimately meaning nothing has changed.”

“What are you saying?  That fighting’s useless?  We should stop combating illnesses?  We can't do that.”

“Of course, not at all. It's flawed on the basic level, and we play into nature’s game of one-ups-manship, see?  I'm saying imagine if we didn't need an immune system in the first place.  What if our bodies were vessels in which no organism but our own could traverse.”

“Like giant bug zappers.”

“Now you're getting the idea. That is scientific innovation. That is pushing humanity forward. Not finding the cure to one measly disease. To truly accomplish something, you have to work outside the system, outside the boundaries of what we feel is safe. Then the old system becomes defunct and no one cries when it is torn down. And we won't rebuild it, that is often an inaccuracy in thinking. We will leave it in its heap. Time will cleanse it from people’s memory and we will work on new endeavors.  To truly invoke change, the host body must be destroyed, yes?  Once a butterfly emerges, the caterpillar is for all intensive purposes dead, don't you agree?”

“I wish they were dead, those people on the train.  No, I shouldn't say that.”

“Ah, why shouldn't you say that.  Who said you couldn't?  The same kinds of people that get a man killed and a boy incarcerated. They're not worth answering to. Why shouldn't you speak your mind No, not just that. It's not enough to speak. Our voices should be heard, d****t. Or our message anyway. And just like a picture, action can portray an encyclopedia’s worth of words.”

“No, you shouldn't wish harm on people. I don't know why I said that.  Things just got fuzzy for a minute.  That's malicious. That's wrong.”

“Who told you that one?  Besides, can you even call these ‘people’?  Because, to me, a person is someone who holds a sense of individuality. Whose purpose in life isn't simply to appeal to the masses.  That's what separates people from sheep. A disgruntled sheep follows the herder anyway. A disgruntled employee shoots up the workplace.  Now that takes outside-the-box thinking. Or rather outside-the-cubicle I suppose.”

“What?  You can't-”

“Relax, Vincent. I'm not serious.”

“I know. It's just…”

“Yes, it is just.”  He snickered.  “Joking,” he added.

“No,  there's other kinds of action, okay?  There's got to be.”

“Forgive my theatrics.  I have to put on a little bit of a show from time to time. This is a theatre after all.  But I hope you don't mind that I bring up you said you wanted to kill them all a minute ago.”

“I wasn't thinking.  I was just venting. I shouldn't have said it.  I don't know why I said it.”

“No, you were thinking when you made your own decision. Don't cover up the real you. You're letting their brainwashing kick in.  All those silly rules. Don't make any sense.  These words are bad; don't say them.  Eat all the plants you want; but meat is murder because it kind of looks like us. Always shake your new boss’ hand; not too slack; not too firm. Spend time with these people; they vaguely share your genetic code; love them unconditionally.  Always tell the truth; but if it's mean don't.  So many contradictions. I don't blame you for being angry. But defending them?  Why on earth-”

“There's gotta be some of them that are good.  You can't just lump all people into a vat-”

“NO. They are all bad. People are-people are sick!   How many times have they ridiculed you, stole from you, corrupted you. They're parasites, that's all they are. Selfish little parasites!  Their little teeth driving deeper into your flesh with every second you let them get away with it!  I thought you understood-”

“Understood what?  I've met bad people, but you're acting like they're monsters. I thought you were talking about protests, not some kind of coup on humanity. That's insane.”

“Insanity is knowing the truth but not accepting it. The things you call people aren't complicated. No matter who they are, in the same circumstances, they all act the same. They act on whatever benefits them. Oh, but they help others, you say.  Well, doesn't that make them feel good?  It's not like they make others feel good at the expense of their own joy, now is it?  No, you know the truth. I've told you. But you can't accept it.  Because you think it’s to your benefit that you just settle down and keep things how they were.”

My vision became blurry from a lens of lapsing water. “They can't all be bad. They can't…”

“They can and they are.”  He patted my shoulder like a father whose son had struck out. We’ll get em next time. “I'm sorry, Vinnie.”

“Why-why are they like that?”

“Maybe they choose it.  Maybe they're born with it. Either way, does it really matter?  You and me together, I bet we could change their minds.”

“Change them to what?”

“Free-thinkers.  People that care for others.  The opposite of what we have now.”

“What about killing?  I don't want a war. Some light show in the sky. I want a revolution, but not a violent one.”

“We're only killing the caterpillars, Vince. The butterflies and moths will fly on.”  

My chin tingled. “That-that makes sense.”  A coil of hair fell onto my forehead. The heat was getting to me. The AC must’ve been shut off ages ago.

“You see, we won't kill the world. It's an excellent building ground. We’ll transform it. Make it better.  That much closer to perfection.”  He brushed my hair down, forming two black claws resting on my skull. Almost like the teeth of a mouth.  

I nodded my head. “Death is just the transformation of one life into something better.”

“In that case, we’ll kill them all.”

“Are you excited to see the truth, Vin?”

“Yes.”

“You see, history’s all factual. Not to insult your area of expertise, but sometimes to truly understand it, you need a little bit more interpretation.  You can't rely on facts to point you in the right direction. Facts are nature. We have eyes so we can watch and make our own judgements that exist outside of nature.  Maybe our interpretations are better than nature intended.”  

We were sitting closer to the screen.  The frames of the people up front were still unidentifiable. He was beside me.

“Is it strange, V?  To hate something that you are?”

“Sort of.  I mean, I try to distance myself from it. I'm like them, but I'm also not like them because I don't like them.  But still you feel like something in your veins is tainted. And the veins themselves are tainted, pulling you to act like them. It's like your brain and body are separate, but that's absurd.  But still, your brain hates your body, because like you said:  you are what you hate.”

“Oh, I remember the feeling.  Luckily, I don't have that problem anymore.”

“What do you mean?  You were different once?  I thought you said your mom’s toxins made you the way you are.”

“Partly that and the aid of a chrysalis.”

“But, you're still...human, right?”

“I certainly hope not. I may be, but perhaps it's better to assume the answer to that question.  I’d like to believe the answer is no.”

We gazed at the still-blank screen.

“What kind of film is this again?”

“Documentary.  Be warned.  It's had its share of wear and tear.”

The lights dimmed and the darkness bloomed.  I hadn't thought that to be possible. The space around him typically seemed vacantly dark in comparison anyhow.  

The white screen shined brighter and the gramophone needles began to click and whirl, scratching at the records attempting to synchronize. Finally, the sounds aligned into the milky notes of classical music, versions from every era seemingly spliced together into a mesmerizing but unnerving line.  You couldn't pinpoint what was 40s, what was 30s, what was 1640s. They were all strewn together, presenting the old-fashioned title screen with black background and white lettering.

 A Virus  I

Author's Note

Are the large stints of dialogue interesting or do they come off as rambling? What do you think of Vincent and his strange new acquaintance? Do you buy his turn against humanity or does it seem like a shift that comes out of nowhere?