Kaley had been working for six months. It was
long enough that she didn’t feel the need to appear busy all the time, so
in between cleanings and feedings, she would sit in the office and rest.
The Editors usually didn’t come in until four, working all night to prepare the
next day’s showings. This was the only reason she brought out her notebook that
Tuesday. As she wrote, she felt herself relax, felt the gentle excitement in her
throat at seeing her images converted into words. What she wrote was rarely
“real”; it was the same sort of thing the Imagineers saw. Kaley often wondered
how her thoughts would look, up on those screens, pouring out of her, while the
Editors hacked and shaped them into an understandable stream. Would people
watch? Would they like it? Or would she be the channel people kept on in the
background while they folded laundry?
Kaley glanced up through the office window. The
sterile, blue glow from the lights cast a peaceful air on the hundreds of
booths laying head to toe that filled the building. To Kaley, they looked like
white coffins. The coffins of purist martyrs, or maybe soldiers of some future
battle. All perfectly clean, white, pearlescent. Kaley could have been
inside one of those. She had fallen for the lie.
The first time she saw the Imagination Machine,
it was an exciting day. She was thirteen. The whole school knew what it meant
to be chosen: that you were the best and most creative of your class. Everyone
wanted to be the special one. Kaley even prayed about it, though her parents
didn’t believe in God. To be an Imagineer meant your life was galvanized; you
could spend the entirety of your years doing what you loved. Never having to
work. Being praised for the greatness of your mind.
The day before the Machine came, all the
students were made to write a story or draw a picture. They were given stiff,
starched paper, something they’d heard about but never used. Many children
found the pens given out hard to use, that the process of dragging them along
the paper was difficult and messy. A few had never been taught to write, and
whined that the test should be typed. Only two students in Kaley’s class
turned anything in. Kaley wrote a story, and Caki Buckthal drew a picture.
Kaley knew she would win. She knew she could
imagine better than anything that was streaming those days. Her dreams were
much greater. She certainly didn’t want Caki Buchthal to win, Caki got
everything. Kaley wrote exactly what came into her head, just the way she
pictured it. It wasn’t hard. Words spilled from her fingers as visions flooded
through her. Her mind was usually filled with images. They bustled and clamored
within her like storm clouds. She didn’t need the TV to see them; she couldn’t
stand to be hooked in like everyone else. Neither did her parents. She’d been
to her friends’ houses, seen their parents sitting and watching whatever was
streaming at the time. Some liked certain channels. Some just watched. Her friends
often sat for long hours, staring at the screen, forgetting to speak. Kaley
sometimes wondered if they couldn’t see things the way she did, in their heads.
When she told people her dreams, they seemed confused, surprised. But she
wasn’t supposed to talk about her dreams. Her father had warned her.
The next day, the whole school assembled to see
their contributions fed to the Machine. Kaley stood in the back, but she
was tall for her age, so she could just see the principal walk up to the
Machine, holding the thick papers. The Machine itself was impressive. It was as
tall as the principal, cylindrical, with a slit in the front that looked like a
mouth. Someone had painted eyes above the opening, big friendly looking,
puppy-dog eyes. When the principal fed the machine, strange and wonderful
sounds issued out. The papers were sifted into two trays. When the machine was
done, he reached for the smaller pile.
“We have three finalists!” the principal
burbled excitedly into the microphone. “I am very proud to say we have one
eighth grader, one seventh grader, and one sixth grader.”
Kaley’s hands had been clammy. One seventh
grader. It had to be her.
“From sixth grade, Marcus Makey. From seventh
grade, Caki Buckthal…”
Kaley hadn’t heard the other name. Her breath
had caught, her stomach clenched. It wasn’t fair. Caki got everything. This
should have been hers. She wanted to go to the special high school. She
was supposed to become an Imagineer. She could imagine better than
anyone.
When she got home, her parents were waiting for
her in the living room. They held her story in their hands. Her mother was
crying.
“Do you know what could have happened?” her
mother sobbed. “What if they had read this?”
“You must never, ever do anything like this
again,” he father seethed. “When they test you, turn in nothing. When they ask
you what you see in your head, tell them nothing.”
Kaley learned what happened, how they had gotten
the story.
That day her father gave her a journal, a small,
black book. She found her father’s journal years later, and her mother’s years
after that. The one her father gave her had one hundred pages.
“This is where you put your stories,” he told
her. “Try to write one for every page.”
Over the years, Kaley had gone through four. Her
fifth journal she brought to work . Her fifth was different than the others. It
had dark in it. Her mind had turned dark recently. Her fifth was the one Erik
found.
“What’s this?” Erik asked, holding it up. He was
early. Editors weren’t supposed to be in for another hour. Kaley had left it in
plain sight while she was on second feeding rounds. She cursed herself for it
now. How could she be so stupid. She froze in the doorway, her
eyes on Erik’s face. She wouldn’t look at the journal. Perhaps she could say it
wasn’t hers.
Erik brought it to his face, peering at
the writing. She realized he was holding it upside down.
“It’s notes,” Kaley said. “So I can remember
the order to feed the Imagineers. And if they have any allergies.”
This seemed to be enough for Erik. He tossed
the journal on the table, and Kaley fought the urge to run to it. Seeing it
flung so flagrantly aside, it felt as if something inside of her had been torn
out and set before her to look at.
Erik sat at his station, turning his monitor on.
Erik handled the violence channels, levels one through five. He seemed like the
repressed type that would enjoy streaming these channels all day. He
clicked open his live feed, but only one of his Imagineers was dreaming. While
Erik was watching the screen, Kaley slipped her journal back into her pocket.
“It’s cool that you can handwrite,” Erik said,
not glancing from the screen.
“Why are you here so early?” Kaley asked,
moving slowly to the door.
“Halloween,” Erik chuckled. “People are going
to be streaming on overdrive this week. I wanted to put together some extra
stuff so none of my channels are blacked out.” He whistled at the screen,
obviously seeing something whistle worthy. “I wish all my Imagineers had a
brain like this guy. Hey Kaley, can you do me a favor?” He swiveled in his
chair to look at her, tossing his bangs out of his eyes. “Can you give my
Imagineers a double dose tonight? I want to make sure they’re all dreaming.”
“No,” Kaley said immediately. “They have
different tolerances, they could go into shock.”
“C’mon, the last guy used to do it,” Erik
pouted.
Kaley said nothing, hoping he wouldn’t push it.
Erik continued to stare at her, appearing to work something out.
“You feel bad for them,” he stated.
“No,” Kaley snapped. “They could leave if
they wanted. They choose to be here. This is the life they chose.”
Erik pressed his lips together, considering
this. “I guess,” he said. “But I hear Mescalith is a hard drug to kick. You’re
addicted from the first time you use it. They don’t tell them that the first
time they go under. They don’t know they’re going to wake up with an addiction
at the end of their contracts. And, I mean, you see the stuff they dream.” He
revolved around in his chair to face the monitors again. One Imagineer was
streaming a dream about some sort of animal with four legs running through
thousands of trees. Nowhere in the world had that many real, live trees
anymore.
“If that was the world I lived in, I wouldn’t
want to wake up either.” Erik continued to stare at the screen, hooked on the
ethereal, vibrant green. Kaley watched for another minute, her breath caught at
the beauty of the vision. She’d seen places like that in her dreams. Places
that existed once, or would exist someday, or maybe never existed at all.
She turned and clipped down the stairs to
administer rounds.
She always seemed to start at the same booth.
She couldn’t help it. Kaley bent forward and pushed the lid up. Again, the
vision of these beds as coffins flitted through her mind as she stared down at
the sallow, emaciated body of Caki Buckthal. Tiny blue veins spider-webbed
beneath Caki’s papery skin, across her eyelids. Her eyes were moving
rapidly. She was dreaming.
Kaley checked the IV tubes, the feeder tubes,
the monitor connections that covered Caki’s shaved head. She made sure the
needles hadn’t slipped out, that there were no signs of internal bleeding. Then
she inserted 750mg of Mescalith into the IV feeder and depressed. She imagined
she heard Caki sigh with something like relief. Kaley closed the booth, sealing
Caki away to her own world.
As Kaley walked home that night, her shoes
crushing trash along the sidewalk, her nose stinging from the smog, she thought
about Caki. Caki who had been the victor. Caki who had spent the remainder of
her school life studying art, painting, writing, reading, dreaming, while Kaley
rode the tram to a crowded community college. Caki, who’s mind had blossomed
while Kaley’s shriveled away, poured into pages of hidden notebooks.
When she got into her apartment, her five
roommates were hooked in to Caki’s channel. She was dreaming about the ocean.
***
Katherine Thurmond Clark has written commentary for the Sun, a newspaper that serves Austin,
Texas, and she is now seeking a publisher for a first novel called Shift. She is form Irvine, California, and
received a degree in Creative Writing from Chapman University.
