3.18/15

James Nehme

The Electric Balcony to a Cathodic God

Mrs. Eleanor didn’t want to go. The future wasn’t so good she thought. In fact, her mind

was set on not going. Nothing would change that for her. Not even the fact that she could get a

new “Vessel” or whatever they called it. She didn’t want one. She told her son Linus that that

was that. If she didn’t live another day in her life, she was fine with only living normally like

people use to – in fact, she would prefer a “natural” end anyways, just like her mother, she said;

although her father had died a terrible death to cigarettes, the doctor had told her. He said it just

like that “Your father has died a terrible death due to cigarettes.” Or maybe her mother had said

that to her. She couldn’t remember. Her father died many decades ago, and her hair now had

long since turned an ashen grey. It wasn’t the beautiful cloud white that her mother’s hair use to

be, back when she was still living, but still, you can’t have everything she thought.

She had her things too. She had a gorgeous antiquated garden with almost all the colors

of the rainbow, except for orange, green, and purple. That was nice she thought to herself, and

who except me had a garden in this day and year? Barely anyone did. Then there was her home,

cluttered and brim full of old goodies: like her books, and her box-like music player, and that

old-fashion oven that was electric. Those were the things that mattered to her. Not the new and

trendy, and ever changing. Linus walked into the room, handling a token from the golden age,

that’s what she called it when things were good way back when she was a young girl. “What is

this? What in god’s name is this woman?”

Eleanor scoffed at his ignorance, and tried to take it from him, successfully after a few

attempts. She shielded her face by turning around and returning to the couch. “I’ll have you

know, this is a vintage piece. Vintage. They don’t make these any more. Even those retro

companies don’t make something like this anymore. They don’t. It’s called a pocket watch.”

Linus’ face contorted in exasperation, and then like he finally got the joke. “What do you need a

pocket watch for, when you don’t even have any pockets?” He forced a laugh out. “It’s

impractical.” She let out a breath of air, but struggled to bring her lower lip back as ladylike as

she would have liked. “See, you don’t get it. I knew you wouldn’t. The only thing you

understand is all those no-name technologies. You think all my things are pointless. I know you

do; you say it all the time. But I like them.”

He put his back to her and his palms on the wall like he being desisted by the law and

searched; his wide bright green cap and dark golden, closer to a dirty yellow suit, ill-fitted the

room that had been drained of color for many years. “It’s called,” he turned back around,

“Nanotechnology. You see, this is why you need to come see the technician with us; To fix this -

all of this.” He motioned to her entire frame. “You’re falling out of society. This isn’t normal.

Mother, civilization is whizzing behind you like an air-train, its waving goodbye, and you are

just standing there, clutching your stupid trinkets.”

Eleanor huffed at this thought. “Well maybe if it wasn’t always changing every ten

minutes, if it knew what it wanted, like I do, it would be better off.” A blank stare replied back.

“Are you done? Can we go now? Mother. He’s been waiting for us. At least talk to him. Can you

do that? Can you talk with your lips and say hello to him.” She looked out into the wide window

that she often looked out. It was always dusty, she could never quite see clearly out of it. “Fine.

I’ll go.” She got up. “To talk.” She added. “Only that.” Linus swung himself around, unsure if to

smile, or push harder. “Just to talk then, I’ll drive.”

The holo-mountains always looked appalling she thought; the whiteness perfectly in line

with every picturesque mountain photo ever taken. It was always the same ones over and over

again. Never a different look she would always complain. Linus said she just didn’t get it,

“perfection doesn’t have to be different because it’s perfect just the way it is.” He would always

tell her in a scolding manner, like she was a child. She liked messy though. Patches of tree’s

missing for a good long while, some grimy mud on the top of the peak, just to make things

interesting, and no sun in the background, definitely. Oh, did she hate when the top arrow of the

mountain, the very peak bursted into the sun like, like a candy apple on a stick. She preferred the

sun where you couldn’t see it. Out of frame, or maybe gone altogether she. She giggled at that.

Linus swore under his breathe that these drivers all came out just to spite him, and make

him late to his appointment. “It’s a friend of a friend.” He said out loud. “I want to be on time so

he doesn’t think I’m a washout. Derrick told me that if he likes me, he’s going to invite me with

him and his VIP group to the Championship SkyGames, can you believe it? He’s got two tickets

left. They can be finicky about who they get along with, but I guess that just comes with the

power of wealth. This time however, they just want some regular folk to diversify and do

something nice. That’s what Derrick said. You know, to give them an experience, that sort of

thing.” Eleanor replied back that it sounded more degrading to be thought of like that, to be a pet

to another human. Linus went on. “Normal small city law pushers like me don’t get this chance

very often...” A slight turbulence set in.

Eleanor loved her son; she just didn’t understand who he took after. He was all the things

that she was not, and his father was quite a generous man as well. When they grabbed a bite to

eat at a diner to take with them, he made a noise and swept his hand over the money she left, the

money – a tip to be sure - left by patrons as a sign of curtesy and to show that there was still

decency in the world. What do you do with a child like that? She didn’t know, she thought. She

wished she had a daughter. Still, she loved her son.

Eleanor pointed upwards, her mouth developing a gap, “Is that where we are heading?”

The complex of buildings scaled upwards the size of a small city, with buildings stuck on

buildings and buildings hangings off buildings, although it all fit together like someone had

poured some steaming liquid over it all and it now blended together as one complex. Linus

happily replied as they turned off the ramp made purely of light of changing colors, which was

now a damp orange, “That’s us. You see? This is what civilization is all about, isn’t it beautiful?

It’s human – progress.” He said, emphasizing the last syllable with delight. Eleanor closed her

eyes. “It’s dreadful,” taking in the synthetic oxygen, only to shutter. Her pupils opened from

darkness to frame the lava caked structure that melted with grayness and disoriented the human

eye to the point where you couldn’t look at it for too long.

“They do great things here.” Linus piped in. “Great things, magnificent things. Why, I

can’t wait for the day when it’s my turn to shed this body. I have sores all on my back, they bring

me aching chronic pain…but they say…I’ll just have to live with them until it’s my time. Bloody

city insurance. It’s like they want me to suffer.” Eleanor had trouble relating. Her diet was a

combination of what she grew herself, and what she bought from a small farm – perhaps the last

true farm in the entire world, and her lifestyle was simple, the type where you avoid any

unnecessary exposure to anything unneeded; the newest technologies had yet to offer her a

modus vivendi, although it’s not as though she might accept it anyways. So past technologies

(simpler technologies), fit themselves into her life when she was a young women, and she never

had a notion to change. This presents the ‘problem,’ as her son put it of living in a bubble from

over thirty three thirty years ago, for her, it made things easier, and she was challenged with less

afflictions that the newer industrial science world gave. All her primal needs were unaffected by

the new no-name technologies, she echoed once again.

The latest science said there was no need for farms now that food was able to be

synthesized from anything and everything, a wide range that included the very dirt on the

ground, if one should chose, and in fact many did, or even dead animals, crumbs of diners, junk

yards, and even – as grotesque as it may sound - unborn peoples - all sanitized and dried of every

microscopic cell of bacteria, and then mixed with chemical compounds and thrown into a spinner

machine that did the rest, only the size of a small car. People were disgusted at first, many were,

almost all even, but then it came to be accepted and enfolded itself into the wove of humanity

and all children knew of it like one might know of the tooth fairy or past wars that had occurred.

Linus drove Eleanor into the beating heart of the volcano, and the vibrations got worse as

more cars poured into the never-ending greyness, all going to their doom, just like me, Eleanor

couldn’t help but think, almost saying to Linus. Linus, as if hearing this distressed mentalese,

stated “Everyone else who comes here thinks of this as heaven, mother. People wait many years

for this. All of civilization, half your age or three quarters, or one fourth even, wishes they had

your body, so they could be expedited in front of all of society - to go the very balcony of God,

who will grant you whatever it is you wish. What will you say to God? Eleanor moved her hands

into her lap, twisting her neck to look somewhere in between the windshield and Linus, and said

“I would tell God that I’m more happy where I am, and that he should leave me alone; I’ll take

my garden over what God has to offer any day of week – unless God can get me a new garden,

will he do that?” Linus cursed a reply back and they made their way through a long dark tunnel

until the light shot them out into the bleeding heart of the beast.

Eleanor spotted a place to park over there, she pointed to Linus and told him where. They

parked and headed from the 17th floor of parking to a half sized room metal concave, with a

white wall of light – that soon became a top-down hologram of the city - that transported them

down to the bottom of the double building, where they took the train that snaked through the

entire city all at once. The train never went anywhere; it just shifted in the same spot until

different people walked out at each stop. This reminded Eleanor of something, but she forgot

what. The beating and turbulence the grey city produced was causing her anxiety, she couldn’t

think straight. They stood in line, while Linus kept refreshing his Nano-technology powered

device for updated results on the latest SkyGames match. Eleanor had a headache. Her heart

pounded like she was being led by a celestial snake into a real live volcano.

She thought for a moment that she was being tricked and in some building in some room

awaited a machine that would dispose of her cleanly; Linus wouldn’t have to worry about her

while he went on to his matches and on with life, but more so, like society and civilization as a

whole, wanted to get rid of her, and there was nothing to be done now - it was too late. The city

experienced more turbulence as an announcement came on explaining what was happening, and

how it was quite common on a weekly basis. “Don’t worry mother, it’s just some ships passing

the city, it’s nothing.” Linus spoke. “Where are they, then?” Eleanor’s larynx became more

scared as she spoke. “I don’t see them.” Linus didn’t pause to refresh and refresh again his

device; he stared into the soul of his technology. “It’s below us mother.” This statement laced her

eyes and pranced in her pupils like a centipede finding out it was standing atop a scorpion.

“Under…us?”

The snake-train took them into the bowels of the city. Eleanor had tried to resist getting

on, but Linus made sure she went with him. “People are staring at us mother, will you stop this

foolishness? Everyone here’s all come for the same reason: to be healed,” he told her, as the

great iron clad beast clanked and scraped, and relocated to the next stop. Some people, seeing

them enter the train in strife, stood up to let them sit – and Linus squished into the spot. He took

his hands into his hair, combing it down after popping off his green cap, brushing some knots,

that had tangled; it almost looked like he was entering a moment of reflection, but he then pulled

back his hand to his face, staring at the screen that lit his eye region up even with the sun trying

it’s best to dominate all other light in the vicinity.

Eleanor stood, clutching a metal pole that was trying to become a rectangle, only missing

one bar until its goals were met. They hit their stop at last, finding the building that was centered

in the middle of it all. People who were walking into other buildings paused middle of step to

watch the pair enter, some jaws slacken, no one dressed slovenly – their attire: suits, for the most

part, or jaunty dresses, more than a few purple blouses flowing in the light wind – purple was the

trendy color for some time, always coming back into flavor. It was the color that represented

human progress and was brought back as a sign of pride in one’s region. A lady behind the

counter held her clothing and posture like she may have been the president, showed them to the

correct floor. They stepped into another concave, this time of different material, a shimmering

dark plastic type, and they rose like a bird until a green neon sign read: Electronic-Den. It was a

dark and damp cave like lobby where patients sat, so enormous however, that the patients rarely

met, and only when their technicians had come to collect them through the use of a locator pin

they had picked up at the entrance. Plants, holographs, light-greyish tables, intricate small

stations next to chairs, low-hanging ceilings, and air conditioning on an industrial high littered

the lobby half the size of a decent park. No board games or entertainment to be seen.

The old lady tugged at her jacket, watching carefully this new environment her son had

forced her into. She would have run if not for the floor system interface, which was as alien to

her as anything else she might encounter now-a-days. Not even Linus could help but stare into

the ocean of a lobby; it’s voluminous nature as if they were suddenly thrown into space –

emptiness filling their thoughts and eyesight, no planets for star-years upon star-years. A device

in Linus’ hands beeped mechanically, flashing a dangerous red. “You see, there is a – well…”

continuing his explanation of what they were going to see. “There is a technician.” He paused for

a moment to check a message he had received, eyes lighting up in a fiery sort of good way –

seeing a note from Derrick at last. Linus pulled his device back away, draining the light, seeping

back into his normal Linus eyes, a sort of tired look that a coma patient might have after waking

up. “Ma, I’ve tried explaining to you this thing that was found. A great great machine, one that

lies in this tiny city as it hangs with the clouds. Nobody knows where it came from, but-“

A voice popped up from in front of them, “We call it Job.” The technician smiled without

smiling, his pants shimmered a pearlescent white, without it being distracting, although it looked

plastic. His top matching, and a strange mask that laid in slumber on his neckline, ready to be

brought up to cover all his facial orifices at a moment’s notice. He held only a single tool that

stuck out of his left side, holding to a cloth belt that was tight enough to never let the iron tool

wiggle in the slightest. “We call it Job, partially because when we found it, it was the only

machine that could do the job. The ultimate job – of bringing the clock to a pause – and then

rewinding it, granting the human body what it biologically wants: more time.” The old lady’s

eyes were held open by her fear of what was being said – reversing time, stopping the death of

bodies, technology that just appeared, her skin tightened, although she might have reasoned it

was the industrial AC if not for the pains in her chest.

Linus followed the technician who was brought up in back by the old lady safeguarding

the exit. They walked through the lobby at last, finally seeing groups of people all huddled

together staring - some with anxiousness in their eyes, others relieved however. A young boy

with pale blue eyes shot the old lady a look. She couldn’t identify it until it opened up more

bravely; condemning her with those eyes that were framed with anger and hatred. She turned to

look at his mother who was in terrible shape, like a corpse a year dead, somehow un-decayed,

had come back for one last operation before returning to the grave. “The waiting list is-“the

technician turned around to joke, smileless “the same amount of time it takes to get into heaven.

That’s the joke at least- not everyone who comes here gets what they want, but many do.

Sometimes the machine doesn’t accept certain humans. It’s funny like that.” The pair and the old

lady walked up three flights of steps, escaping the park-sized lobby at last, and taking a room in

the far side of the three-laned floor, they took the left-most hallway past a receptionist and two

guards. The technician paused thoughtfully before entering the room, and turned to Linus, “So,

where did you meet Derrick?” he said, turning and instead of entering the room, guiltily tried to

pretend he was only pausing for a moment, and motioned them to follow down the corridor.

Linus went on about the SkyGames, and a funny incident where he got into a fight with Derrick

over the teams they wanted to win, but – Linus had to pause to let out a hefty earthly laugh as he

held onto his green cap – “you see, we were both fans of the same team – ha ha – isn’t that

somethin’ ?” The technician nodded, and made a curt polite laugh issue from his throat.

The old lady said nothing, the shock of nearly three decades worth of living in a place she

knew, she loved, and being put into the most accelerated technology-engrossed place on the

planet was causing her head to go wobbly. She brought her hands up to her temples, whispering

“Why? Why can’t my garden leave me alone? Let me sit inside my own house for once.” A heart

beat like it was ready to burst out and become its own entity, to be free of the sins of its owner.

They stopped at a door. “You all get the special treatment” he said in a voice that was trying for

a nice pleasing cadence, but only managed to sound like he was reading some machinery notes.

“Derrick is a good friend of mine, and he told me you-“he turned to the old lady “you were

having some anxiety about doing the operation.” Linus chirped in some scorn about the situation,

but the Technician continued. “That being the case, we wanted to make things easy for you, and,

well, I believe you are the only patient to receive this pleasure, but you will get to see Job from

above, isn’t that exciting?” The old lady whispered something about trinkets and her favorite

sweater with plants on them, which she was wearing, and how she didn’t know she use to be in

the golden age when she was a young girl, if only she knew, she muttered with a sign of regret.

The technician smiled lightly and opened the door to the main control room. There was a

slanted wide window that looked down into a machine so black that the human eye couldn’t see

into, and could barely register as an earthly object. “We call this the Pod.H-REstore. It stands for

Person Operator Damage:Health Restore. Although the RE we leave it capital, also for

Resolution,” he tossed a knowing look, “you know, because all the wars stopped once this thing

started working to Earth’s favor. Others call it Job though, for short. Like, ‘did you do the job

yet?’” he snorted a genuine laugh at this, “People love saying that around here…” The technician

looked to the old lady and suddenly straightened up “You see, many years ago, perhaps a century

ago, this here thing was found on our planet – well actually, no, it was floating in space, heading

directly to us. We picked it up and after many decades of attempting to get something out of it, a

heartbeat or whatever its purpose was, a man named Job Christensen – as I’m sure you know-

did it. He turned it on, and just like that, it started to cure the sick and every day it seemed like

we were discovering a new thing about it, another way in which it worked to humanity’s

benefit.”

The old lady couldn’t hear what the man was saying; her heart was beating way to fast,

her eyes twitching way too much. She got words such as “Job, restore, body, operator, and

possibly something that implied a machine that was made by a foreign species. Or perhaps it was

still living, and not a machine at all. She thought of a magazine she had read two decades ago, an

author who was not particularly young or particularly old spoke the foreboding words, written of

course, but spoken to her soul “The despotism of technology left little room for humanity.” She

thought, how true that is, how true is that now?” The whiteness of the man’s outfit reminded her

of the time when her mother got her life-threatening disease and in between her last days, told

her that she had gone to heaven, and then left her forever.

The technician looked directly at the old lady “Are you okay? My name is Nathan by the

way, if that helps.” He paused, and then looked out towards the machinery, warily of his new

patient. “The procedure is simply, in fact, we can do it right here. Typically we take you through

a lower terrace, and you stand in front of the machine, but today I thought I’d take you up here to

qualm your fears, by giving you a chance to look at the control room, not to the machine of

course, but of the balcony. See if the sun is like Job, the balcony is like a solar panel,

understand?” Linus smiled widely, as if he were the first to get it, and wanted to show it. Linus

spoke to his mother, “first you, and then soon enough, me!” he said into the roaring of the engine

beast, of Job. The technician had hit some buttons to awake the Pod.H-REstore, in all of its

roaring, and pulled up his full mouth mask, taking out his tool. He shouted over the machinery

“So, what do you say?” Eleanor said nothing; her eyes gleamed brightly from the light of the

machine and the knowledge and understanding what was happening.

“Here’s how it’s done: you stand out on the electric balcony, the cathodes shoot into the

Pod. H Restore machinery, and the room will go full of light. I do this by taking this,” he waved

his single tool wildly in the air, “and the light of the machine will cleanse you off all the dead

cells of your body, the organs that are slowly failing will become young again. We’ll have to dye

your hair afterwards as well,” he continued shouting through the Pod H howling in the

background. “You get a new body, do you understand? You’ll look decades younger instantly.”

He looked to Linus as the Pod. H Restore sat exposed for longer than usual. The technician

reached into a draw and offered up a one-piece of trendy purple that presumably would be worn

into the operation.

Eleanor knew what the man wanted; he wanted to fulfill that author’s words that she had

once heard. The ocean of despotism was at last reaching her feet, at the shore of her life. She was

the little humanity left in the world, with her garden, her box-music player, electric oven, her

goldenage. She still had a piece of it, the very last piece in the entire world, perhaps the universe

she thought. The vintage things – those were what she liked, and this meant the end of those

ways. A new body meant it would erase all the deal cells and failing organs, and love of simple

things was that last organ that the world wanted to get rid of so they all could finally move on

without her. They couldn’t live with all their devices, advanced machinery, and holograms,

knowing that she was living a free life with her real garden. She was a blight in the back of their

minds and they waited patiently until they could wait no longer, they had to get rid of her to so

everyone wouldn’t feel guilty any longer about that incessant glow in their eyes, that perennial

glow that chained them to time, trends, that was in constant disunion with the spontaneity that

was ingrained into the very DNA of all humans, a sort of free spirit.

She knew what she had to do. Linus opened his mouth, the technician turned, but it was

too late for them to kill off what they wanted to in the manner they wanted to. Eleanor flew out

of the room, grasping the handle and finding success with the door knob handle as she stepped

out onto the balcony made of a material light. She knew what she had to do to preserve humanity

the way she loved it; shouts behind her faded in the Pod.H Restore’s wake, as she threw herself

off the balcony. A screamless scream led Eleanor’s body into the fragile opened machinery, as

the insides of the center crumpled like plastic, and the hard metal shell shattering her legs and

upper torso; her back broken, but not as bad as the Pod’s. The black machine whizzed to death,

something inside dying for sure. So too did its protection over humanity, like a cathodic

protector letting corrosion set in at last, breaking the shield that protected a sacred processor. The

machine is dead, but humanity is saved her lips read, with a desperate deathly smile.