Cyberpunk, page 16
Now I'm sitting in my apartment, crying, and thinking about my father. He died when I was four. I remember his wake. I remember crossing my arms over my chest and not letting anyone hug me. Everyone tried. I remember being bored and mad. I remember trying to hide under the casket presentation. An uncle that I'd never met before pulled me out of the mini-curtains below the casket. He pulled too hard on my arm and I cried. I think my tears were the equivalent of the four-year-old me saying fuck heaven, I want my daddy back, and I don't want to die.
I've turned off comments for this post. I've posted, and deleted, and then re-posted this a few times. I'm going to leave it up and as is. But no one else gets to say anything about Grant or me or anything today.
Grant Lee, RIP
Becca Gilman • May 10th, 20__
It finally happened. A very close friend of mine, Grant Lee, died two days ago. He was twenty-four. I have been unable to get much information from his family. I talked to his older sister, Claire. Grant died at work, at the Pizza Joint, two blocks from my apartment. She said his death was sudden and "catastrophic." I asked if he died from an aneurysm. Claire said the doctors told the family it was likely heart failure, but they wouldn't tell them anything specific. I then asked for information about the hospital he went to, but she rushed me off the phone, saying she had too many calls to make. I called the Pizza Joint, wanting to talk to the co-worker who had found Grant dead, but no one answered the phone. I'm going to take a walk down there after I post this. It's awful and terrifying enough that Grant died, but it looks like his cause of death will be covered up as well.
I met Grant in a video store a week after I'd moved to Brooklyn. We rented Nintendo Wii games and old noir flicks together. Grant ate ice cream with a fork. He always wore a white tee shirt under another shirt, even if the other shirt was another white tee shirt. Grant was tall, and slight of build, but very fast, and elegant when he moved. I'd never seen him stumble or fall down. He worked long hours at the Pizza Joint, trying to pay off the final four grand of tuition he owed NYU so he could get his diploma. That debt wasn't Grant's fault. His father was a gambler and couldn't pay that final tab. Grant had a crooked smile and he only trusted a few of his friends. I think he trusted me. Grant liked to swear a lot. He liked fucking with the Pizza Joint customers whenever he could. Sometimes he'd greet an obnoxious-looking customer with silence and head nods only. Invariably, the obnoxious-looking customer would talk slow and loud because they assumed Grant (who was Korean) didn't speak English. They'd mumble exasperated stuff under their breath when Grant didn't respond. Finally, he'd give the customer their pizza and make some comment like, "You gonna eat all that? You leavin' town or somethin'?" and his voice was loud and had that thick Long Island accent of his. Grant drank orange soda all day long. Grant would be too quick to tease sometimes, but he always gave me an unqualified apology if I needed one.
Grant was more than a collection of eccentricities or character traits, but that is what he's been reduced to. I love you and miss you, Grant.
4 Responses to "Grant Lee, RIP"
Jenn Parker says:
May 10th, 20__ at 4:47 pm
If you are telling the truth (sorry to sound so callous, but I don't know you, and given your blogging history, your agenda, it's entirely plausible you are making this up to bolster your position, as it were), I'm very sorry for your loss.
I don't know what to believe though. Look at your first sentence: It finally happened. Maybe this is just a throwaway phrase written while in the throws of grief, however it seems like an odd line to lead your post. It finally happened. It sounds like not only were you anticipating such an event, but are welcoming it so your version of reality could somehow be verified.
I find it impossible to believe that doctors would give the family of the deceased no cause of death, or a fraudulent cause of death as you are implying. To what benefit or end would such a practice serve?
And please see and respond to the links and aneurysm statistics I quoted in your earlier post.
squirrelmonkey says:
May 10th, 20__ at 7:13 pm
I'm so, so sorry to hear this, Becca. Poor Grant.
Take care of yourself and ignore that Jenn Parker troll. Call me if you feel up to it, okay?
beast says:
May 11th, 20__ at 3:36 am
sorry about your friend its so scarey that were all gonna die
anonymous says:
May 12th, 20__ at 10:56 am
I've spent the past week doing nothing but reading obituaries from every newspaper I can find online. I read Grant Lee's obit and followed links to his MySpace and then here to your blog.
My son died last week. I was with him in the backyard when he just folded in on himself, falling to the grass. His eyes were closed and blood trickled out of his ears. He was only six. I suppose that his young age is supposed to make it worse, but it can't be any worse.
I'm afraid to write his name, as if writing it here makes what happened to him more final than it already is.
Someone else, not me, wrote my son's obituary. I don't remember who. They did a terrible job.
When we first came home, after leaving his body at the hospital, I went into his room and found some crumpled-up drawings under his bed. There were two figures in black on the paper, monstrously sized, but human, small heads, no mouths, just two circles for eyes, but all black. They had black guns and they sprayed black bullets all over the page. The bullets were hard slashes, big as knives, black too, and they curved. I have no idea what it means or where it came from.
Was it a sketch of a nightmare, did he see something on TV he shouldn't have, was he drawing these scenes with friends at school? Why did he crumple the drawings up and stuff them under his bed? Did he think that they were "bad" that he couldn't show them to me, talk about it with me, that I'd be so upset with him that I'd feel differently about him if I were to see the pictures?
It's this last scenario that sends me to the computer and reading other people's obituaries.
A Grim Anniversary
Becca Gilman • April 12th, 20__
The Blog at the End of the World has been live for a year now. I thought it worth revisiting my first post. On March 20th, 20__, in Mansfield, MA; a fourteen-year-old boy died suddenly during his school's junior varsity's baseball practice (Boston globe), and two days later, a fifteen-year-old-girl from the same town died at her tennis practice (Boston Globe). The two Mansfield residents both had sudden, catastrophic brain aneurysms.
So why am I bringing up those two kids again? Why am I dragging out the old news when you could open up any newspaper in the country, click on any blog or news gathering site, and read the same kind of stories only with different names and faces and places?
Despite the aid of hindsight, I'm not prepared to unequivocally state that the teens mentioned above are our patient zeroes. However, I do think those reported stories were mainstream media's story zero concerning the cerebral aneurysm pandemic and the first of their type to go national, and shortly thereafter, global.
And, finally, a one-link Link roundup:
New York Times reports widespread shortages on a host of anti-clotting and anti-seizure drugs used to treat aneurysms. Included in the shortage are medications that increase blood pressure, with the idea that increased blood flow through potentially narrowed vessels would prevent clots and aneurysms. Newer, more exotic drugs are also now being reported as in shortage: nimodipine (a calcium channel blocker that prevents blood vessel spasms) and glucocorticoids (anti-inflammatory steroids, not FDA approved, controversial treatment that supposedly controls swelling in the brain). The gist of the story is about the misuse of the medications (many of which are only meant for survivors of aneurysm and aren't preventative), of course, leads to a whole slew of other medical problems, including heart attack and stroke.
6 Responses to "A Grim Anniversary"
revelations says:
April 24, 20__ at 10:23 am
Your a fear monger. You spread fear and the lies of the Godless, liberal media. GOD will punish you!!!!
Jenn Parker says:
April 24, 20__ at 1:29 pm
I have no doubt the Times story is true, but only because of the panic.
This story does not prove there really is a pandemic of aneurysms, only that a segment of the public believes there is one.
The reality is that on average, since 2010, 50,000 Americans die from brain aneurysms (spontaneous cerebral hemorrhaging) per year, with 3–6% of all adults having aneurysms inside their brains (fortunately, most are so small they're never noticed). There is no recorded evidence of that 50,000 number swelling to unprecedented levels. Please show me my error!
There is no conspiracy. It's the 21st Century Red Scare. Our zeitgeist is so preoccupied with apocalypse we're making one up because the real one isn't getting here soon enough. Yes, 50K is a small percentage of the population, but it's a large enough number that if a preponderance of aneurysm cases were to get press coverage, as they clearly are, it gives a multimedia appearance of a pandemic and a conspiracy to cover it up. Unless you can provide some hard data/evidence—like our government and the W.H.O can provide—please stop. There're plenty more real threats (economic, environmental, geopolitical) that sorely need to be addressed.
grant says:
April 24, 20__ at 10:10 am
Has it been only a year? Fuck a flyin' fuckin' duck.
I was at the CVS pharmacy on Central Park Ave. today--just picking up "supplies" ;)--and there was a huge fucking line in the pharmacy section with two armed policeman wandering around the store. Muscles and guns and sunglasses. Some good, hot, homoeroticism there, Becks.
My fuck-headed fellow shoppers were shuffling all around the CVS, wearing hospital masks and emptying the already empty shelves of vitamins and who the fuck knows what else. Most of them were buying shit they'd never need, just buying stuff because it was there. It was surreal, and I gotta tell ya, they got to me! I ended up buying some leftover Easter candy. Fucking Peeps. Don't even like them, but you know, when society collapses, I just might need me some yellow fucking Peeps!
Stop by the PJ tonight, Becks. I'm working a double shift. I'll bring the Peeps.
tiredflower says:
April 24th, 20__ at 11:36 am
I'm one of those fuckheads who wears a hospital mask when I go out now. I know it doesn't protect or save me from anything, but it makes me feel better. I know it scares other people when they see me in it, so I tried to cover it up by drawing a smile on the mask with a pink sharpie. I'd hoped it would make people smile back. I'm not a good drawer, though, and it doesn't look like a smile. It's a snarl, bared teeth, the nanosecond before a scream. It's my only mask.
grant says:
April 24, 20__ at 2:15 pm
Drawing mouths on the hospital masks is fuckin' brilliant!
Becks, bring some masks (I know you have some!) to the PJ tonight. I'll help you decorate them. I've got some killer ideas. I'm serious, now, bring some masks. I want to wear one when I go out tomorrow.
bnl44 says:
September 23, 20__ at 2:34 am
I saw someone die today. We were part of a small crowd waiting for our subway train. She was standing next to me, listening to an iPod. It was loud enough to hear the drums and baseline. Didn't recognize the song, but I tried. When our train arrived she collapsed. I felt her body part the air and despite all the noise in the station, I heard her head hit the concrete. It was a hard and soft sound. Then her iPod tune got louder, probably because the earphones weren't in her ears anymore.
I don't know if anyone helped her or not. I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't help her. She fell and I raced onto the train, and waited to hear the doors shut behind me before I turned around to look. The windows in the doors were dirty, black with grime, and I didn't see anything.
end
MEMORIES OF MOMENTS, BRIGHT AS FALLING STARS
By Cat Rambo
The bright orange boxes lay scattered like leaves across the med complex's rear loading dock, and my first thought was "Jackpot." It'd been hard to get in over the razor wire fence, but I had my good reinforced gloves, and we'd be long gone before anyone noticed the snipped wires.
But when we slunk along under the overhanging eaves, close enough to open the packages, it turned out to be just a bunch of memory, next to impossible to sell. Old, unused stuff, maybe there'd been an upgrade or a recall. It was thicker than most memory, shaped like a thin wire. So after we'd filled our pockets, poked around to find anything else lootable, and slid out smooth and nice before the cops could arrive, we found a quiet spot, got a little stoned, and I did Grizz's back before she did mine. I wiped her skin down with an alcohol swab and drew the pattern on her back with a felt-tip pen. It came from me in one thought, surged up somewhere at the base of my spine, and flowed from my fingertips in the ink. Spanning her entire back, it crossed shoulder to shoulder.
I leaned back to check my handiwork.
"How does it look?" she said.
"Like a big double spiral." The maze of ink rolled across her dark olive skin's surface. A series of skin cancers marked the swell of one buttock, the squamous patches sliding under her baggy cargo pants. She sat almost shivering on a pile of pallets. We were at the recycling yard's edge. This section, out of the wind between two warehouses, was rarely visited and made a good place to sit and smoke or fuck or upgrade.
I uncoiled a strand of memory and set to work, pressing it on the skin. I could see her shudder as the cold bond with her flesh took place. The wire glinted gold and purple, its surface set with an oily sheen. Here and there sections had gone bad and dulled to concrete gray, tinting the surrounding skin yellow.
She shrugged her shirt back over her skinny torso. Her breasts gleamed in the early spring's evening light before disappearing under the slick white fabric. Reaching for her jacket, she wiggled her arms snakelike down the sleeves, flipping her shoulders underneath.
"Is it hooked in okay?" I asked.
She shrugged. "Won't know until I try to download something."
"Got plans for it?"
"I can think of things," she said. "Shall I do you now, Jonny?"
"Yeah." I discarded my jacket and T-shirt, and leaned forward over the pallet while she applied the alcohol in cool swipes. The wind hit the liquid as it touched my skin and reduced it to chill nothingness. She drew a long swoop across my back.
"What pattern are you making?"
"Trying to do the same thing you did on mine." The slow circles grew like one wing, then another, on my shoulder blades. She paused before she began laying in the memory.
I don't know that you could call it pain but it's close. At the moment a biobit makes its way into your own system, it's as though the point of impact was exquisitely sensitive, and somewhere micrometers away, someone was doing something inconceivable to it.
"Tomorrow are the Exams," she said. "Could see what I could download for that."
I started to turn my head to look at her, but just then she laid down a curve of ice with a single motion. My jaw clenched.
"And?" was all I managed.
"One of us placed in a decent job would be a good thing."
She laid more memory before she said "Two of us placed in one would be better."
"Might end up separated."
"Would it matter, a six-month, maybe a year or two, before we could work out a transfer?"
I would have shrugged but instead sat still. "So you want to take that memory and jack in facts so you can pass the Exams and become an upstanding citizen?"
She ignored my tone. "Even a little edge would help. Mainly executables, some sorting routines. Maybe a couple high power searches so I can extrapolate answers I can't find."
The last of the memory felt like fire and ice as it seeped into my skin. She'd never mentioned the Exams in the two years we'd been together.
You're not supposed to be able to emancipate until you're 16, but Grizz and I both left a few years early. My family had too many kids as it was and ended up getting caught in a squatter sweep. I came home and found the place packed up and vacant. The deli owner downstairs let me sleep in his back room for the first few months, sort of like an extra burglar alarm, but then he caught me stealing food and gave me the boot. After that, I made enough to eat by running errands for the block, and alternated between three or four sleeping spots I'd discovered on rooftops; while they're less sheltered, fewer punks or crazies make the effort to come up there and mess with you.
