litlinks 2019

Escape from Eternity

by Amy Theakston, Radford College

A mound of metallic mess collapsed on the outer edges of the garage. From car batteries, to fridges, to old pay phones. An old radio cassette player hummed in the metallic madness,

“Forever young, I want to be forever young.”

A circular saw placed within a table, hurled blood red sparks against the garage door. A man glared directly at the moving blades and placed his bold head against the accelerating saw. The sound of a butcher’s shop, blade against bone, echoed back and forth between the labyrinth of past objects. The muffled music played faintly under the screeching, “Don’t you want to live forever? Forever? Or never?”

The man shut the saw’s switch off, and wandered to a mirror resting against an illuminated barber shop light. The blue light casted colour from his dimpled chin to the middle of his forehead and the red light illuminated his sliced open pulsating brain. With a microscopic scalpel, the man cut into his frontal lobe, pressing and pressing against the synthetic tissue. Although, no incision could be made, as the magnetic field created a barrier imprisoning the brain. The radio let out a wavering static and repeated the crackling sounds of,

“Live… live… live…”

The top part of the man’s skull dangled on synthetic fibres. He grasped the radio, turning each knob and button, but the radio would not shut off. He knew he was running out of time, only 42 seconds until the transmission device within his frontal cortex would notice the oxidising matter within his brain and alert The Community. He pressed the top of his skull into the edges where the saw had met his forehead, and melted the seams together with the blue flame of a blow torch.

***

Hexagons coated the inside lining of the apartment dome like honeycomb, with each pod an individual residence. The centre of the dome towered with mahogany trees, reaching up into the open centre of the roof. With the old cassette player clasped beneath his arm, the man descended the escalator that connected each pod like a vertical maze. Reaching the ground, he moved along the main street, which was covered in a green sea of vines and ivy, with plants cascading from the roofs of buildings in waves. The man joined the convoy of worker bees, walking in unison to the electronic train station. Single file, approximately one metre apart, The Community members walked seamlessly with electronic pads in hand. Billboards lined the streets, with one stating, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body. As they who attempt shall be banished to H.E.L.”

The man left the conveyer belt of members and stopped at the corner drug store. Each shelf of the store was lined with thousands of jars of pills. From the top right corner, with a section labelled “orgasm,” to a lower shelf titled “joy.” The man searched and searched for anything that would cause him to go unconscious. That’s all he wanted, the bliss of sleep, the bliss of nothingness. Although, no one could shut off these days, “everyone was part of the cycle”. Turning back onto the street, a sudden crash collapsed ahead of the man. A body twitched on the sidewalk, its head cracked open like a chestnut with transparent liquid seeping from its eyes. A man had jumped. Sirens and alarms hollered as The Community monitors grasped the flaccid man and took him to the Healing Electromagnetic Laboratory.

***

After the incident, the man ducked down an abandoned side street with the radio under his arm, finding his way to a tiny junk shop. A small bell dinged when the man entered the store. He placed the radio before the shopkeeper. “Hello, Friend.”

“Hello, Friend. What can I do for you?”

“My radio seems to be broken, Friend, as it will not shut off.”

“Let me have a look, Friend,” the storekeeper stated, pulling the metal box closer for inspection. After moments of fiddling, the storekeeper peered above his spectacles, “It seems, Friend, that the radio will only shut off if the electric component is taken out from inside. I’m sorry but the radio is finished. If I take the part out, it will never come back on. Do you want that?”

“Yes, that is fine…, Friend,” responded the man certainly.

“Very well, Friend, this should only take a few minutes.”

The man nodded and moved around the cluttered store, observing the collection of past objects scattered in mountains of metal. Browsing the piles of knickknacks, the man came across a magazine. A paper magazine. “Wow,” he mumbled to himself, as paper had been eradicated fifty something years ago. “Reduce, reuse, recycle,” he uttered. No waste was created these days, only recycled matter circled the system. Inspecting the magazine closer he realised a synthetic body ad was on the cover. Live forever with synthetics! We extract the soul and place it in any body of your choice. “It had been what… 100, 150 years since the flesh men died from disease,” the man recollected mentally.

“Friend!” the storekeeper bellowed. The man awoke from his daze and moved towards the counter.

“Thank you, Friend,” the man voiced, scanning the display case behind the storekeeper, until something caught his eye. “Friend, could I have that small white box behind you?”

“Ah, yes of course, Friend,” replied the storekeeper. The man opened the thin cube revealing two white plugs.

“What are they?”

“I believe they’re called Air pods. They played music back in the day.”

The man left the store, grasping the small box tightly. He found the answer or at least he thought he found the answer to the magnetic field paradigm. Some way to disrupt the flow of atoms in the electromagnetic barrier. The man scratched his head in satisfaction, although, he noticed an opening on his scalp. A place where he failed to seal the skin. He turned quickly back onto the street, weaving between the stream of “Friends”. The dome was in sight just slightly above the ivy-covered buildings. Although, he heard a shout from behind him.

“Friend!” a Community monitor bellowed, “Friend!”

The man sprinted and bounded up the escalator leading to his pod. He slammed the door to the apartment and switched the circular saw on. He knew that this was his last chance. His final chance to extract it. The soul. The saw screeched and screamed as he cut open his head.

“Open up, Friend!” the Community monitors shouted, banging on his door.

He placed the Air pods within his ears and hoped. The electromagnetic field that was emitted by the connection of Bluetooth within the earbuds, confused the atoms in the electromagnetic field that surrounded his brain. He delved deep within the synthetic mush, searching and searching for the apparent grain of sand that would end his existence. He felt something as delicate as a shard of glass between his fingers and pulled. His eyes closed and darkness slivered its way into what was now nothingness.

***

He followed the bright light that filtered through his eyelids, opening each lid one by one.

“Welcome!” a booming voice echoed. “Welcome to H.E.L.”