Do Androids Dream of Electric Cigarettes?

for jenny

Beauty and the Beast.  The French one.

Oh, the Jean Cocteau film.

Yeah. Maybe.

La Belle et La Bete.

Yeah.

You like it?

Yeah.

I suppose you are Beauty and I'm the Beast then?

:-)

 :-)

:-I  

?

I was sweating over the computer in nervous anticipation of her reply.  We'd managed to get over the awkward introduction and she had now indicated a willingness to respond, though it wasn't  exactly a free pass to smileytown.  My emoticons had so far landed on a blank screen and lay by themselves desperately hoping to be joined by a companion.  Meeting people for affairs or relationships online was not as easy as it had been in the entrance days of the internet.   That world was now bigger than ever, a sleazy modern metropolis, over-populated, horribly polluted.  The sleazy joints were the best places to pick up chicks.  Www.chickschickchicks.  That kind of shit.  So it was more difficult to get to the next stage with young women who were constantly picturing you with your hand down your pants as you typed with the other. 

Noooo, you're not a beast.

Thanks.  But how do you know that?

:-)           (she smiled..........;-)

I might be doing beastly things right now. You would never know.  You are halfway around the world.  You don't really know me.  And you don't know what I'm doing at this moment.  I could be cutting my toenails and chewing on the shrapnel right now for all you really know. :-)

I don't think you're doing that hahaaa

That's very confident of you.

But you are right.

Pardon?

I don't know who you are.  I can't see you.  This doesn't seem real right now.  You could be doing beastly things.

Yeah.

I don't think you are a beast. If you were a beast, I wouldn't be talking to you.

What does it take to be a beast? Maybe I can live up to your standards. :-)

I don't know.

Come on, describe your perfect beast. Ugly - check.  Weird - check.  haha

;-)

A fake.  A sleazeball who wants to scam you out of your money?

Maybe.

 A wretched misogynistic social mistake taking out all of his anger and frustration on unsuspecting members of the cyber community?

Hmmm.....

A filthy old man in his hovel indulging in all the sick fantasies he missed out on before the internet came along?

Eh...perhaps.  Well, I don't know.  There are many beasts online, but it's the simple things that someone might do in real life that I consider beastly.

Simple things?

Yeah.

Like what?

Like smoking.  I think people who smoke are beasts.

I remorsefully eyed my bag of tobacco, the glossy packaging glistening in the shine of the laptop screen.  I was just planning to roll another one.  I didn't know how to reply to her.  Didn't know if I should just tell her immediately that I was in fact her ideal.  Her ideal beast.  I rolled the cigarette anyway to deliberate on the next comment.  She wouldn't know.  She wouldn't be able to see this beastly act.  And my deception was safe, so the beasts would have been proud of me.

:-I  Smoking?  Yeah, it's bad.

I hate it.

Me too.

Do you smoke?

Eh, yeah. Well, I used to. 

What?????

Not anymore.  I use the e-cigarettes.

E-cigarettes?

You know, the electronic ones.  They are not real cigarettes.  Not real tobacco.  They emulate the sensation of smoking.  It's not smoke.  It's 'vapour.'

E-cigarettes?

Like E-mail.  It's not mail.  It just exists in another place.  An electronic place.

What was real anymore?  The smoking.  The beauty. The beast. We prayed in our hearts to invisible gods for it to be real.  But nothing seemed material.  Everything in a dark foggy cloud.  No.  No, a vapour.  Yes.  A vaporous mist.  Modern being is the nightmare of the solipsist.

The last love story goes like this:

So Beauty and the Beast is your favourite film?

Yeah.

Great.

You may be a beast, and I may be a beauty.  But come what may, in reality or in fantasy, we may at 

least each have this day.

The Keepers of Magic Time

He would love the reeds hissing now in this late Summer breeze and the sky blue and the fields wide awake.  The butterflies dancing with the light.  But that's not my job.  I must wait.  Wait until the light slows and the land cools in the ginger fall.  

I've made a bed of the warmest brown leaves my homestead these days of paid grace.  Lying in the fields studying a canvas of quiet variation.  It may be the greatest job I have ever had.  The farmhouse etched into the furthest edges of my shot has been the only sign of civilisation for the while.  It sits in silent opposition to my world, a thumbnail on nature.  My society is the cricket, thicket, crow, and crop now.  

'Mr. Malick wants magic hour.  Your job is to capture it.  Each day for three weeks.  Wait for it.  Catch it.  Then you can go home.  He'll pay you 5000 bucks for your images.  Got it?  Good, now go get it!'

When magic hour comes, I'm electrified by the spell it casts over our landscapes and the interaction it has with the living.  All the world's passivity collapses in this seemingly somnambulant moment.   Birds sing louder.  My camera shoots faster.  Wind blows wilder and freer .  My heart beats harder.

A grey sparrow appears at my side each day in the seconds before the red indigo shower.  I've heard the renowned director has his spies.  I become more industrious in the sparrow's company.  Something is watching over me.  The sparrow stands and waits.

'Mr. Malick always shoots at magic hour.  Every day, all around the world, there are a select group of cameramen in place, ready to seize the moment, to  secure a place in Heaven.  These people are his keepers of magic time.  You are now one of them.  You are now a keeper of magic time.'

Here it comes.  The silver beams of daylight's abstraction slice through the frame and the world above glows in a dark orange mask.  Clouds are pink then yellow then green.  The structure of our universe is for a moment dissolved in a manic miasma of change.  Creatures of nature long hidden become visible in the sparkling vision, revelations of shape and colour.  A festival is brought to the soil from above and the earth sings unintelligible songs of joy in a flickering instant.

And then it's gone.

And the sparrow too.

I gather my equipment together and make my way back to the hotel, happy that I've done well for Mr. Malick.  I've kept his magic time. 

I really hope he uses this stuff in his film about sparrows.

The Slots

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