How I
Now Write My Stories
[overvoice]It was a unseasonably warm November morning when I left my apartment and walked down Grand Boulevard to catch the northbound line to Hamilton Circle and make my necessary connection to Carnegie Avenue and on to Varick. But the wind picked up to around thirty miles an hour and the clouds darkened within ten minutes of my start. So much for a leisurely stroll to my desk and the third cuppa joe for the day. I was in no mood to hold onto my hat with one hand and my briefcase and The Daily Observer with the other. Hailing a cab, I slid into the backseat and closed the door before the pelting rain hit the taxi with the force of a full-blown storm.
“Nice
day we’re having.”
“If
you say so, but I can’t complain. The rides go up the harder the rain comes
down. I own my own company, so it’s raining dollars far as I’m concerned.”
“I
didn’t know that. I’ll try to find you next time I flag for a cab.”
“I’m
required to have a checkered cab, you know, the yellow body with a checkered
stripe down both sides, so it’s hard for anybody to tell me from everybody
else.”
“But I saw you because
of the red front fenders.”
“Yeah, that’s how I
fixed it. I painted my front fenders red and plastered my name across the front
door. Now they’ve introduced a law in court trying to prohibit that
distinction.”
“So who’s ‘they,’ oh,
you mean the cabbies’ union.”
“Naw. Group Cabs Inc.,
the largest cab company in town. They wanna do away with permission to make
distinguishing features, those of us who have our own companies, you know. So
all us independents, we had to unionize, and we’re still in court over it. It’s
eating up my profit. It’s a rat race out here, you know that?”
“Every
second of every day. I have my own company, too, and I get undercut every time
I turn around.”
“What’da
do, if you don’t mind my askin’?”
“I
don’t mind. I’m a writer. Before you express overwhelming appreciation, I might
add that it’s not all it’s cut out to be. I watch the curb, just like you do,
for my writes, if you know what I mean?”
[laughs
heartily] “Writes. instead of rides. I like that and I get it, ab’t
watchin’ the curb. You newspaper
reporter?”
“Sometimes.
I take what I can get. Most of the time, when I’m not earning a living, I write
fiction.”
“For
magazines and books? Really? Never met a writer before.”
“You
have. We try to hide, otherwise we get people’s life’s stories. You can tell
me yours, if and only if, it’s really
worth hearing. But it’ll have to fit between here and seventeen Varick or wherever
I’m going.”
[cabbie
laughs]
“Oh, mine’d never sell a copy. I
wouldn’t waste your time on me. But I know a story or two from people I’ve
picked up. Now, you take this fellah from Denmark who swore he knew a guy named
Hamlet. That was one helluva story he told me.”
“Tell
you what…what’s your name? I missed it on the door.”
“Campy,
short for Campana.”
“Campy,
the cabbie. Easy enough. Tell you what, Campy. I’ll give you my card with the
fare, how’s that? You got an idea you think’s worth my time, send it to me, and
if I use it, I’ll give you a plug. How’s that?”
“Perfect.
What kinda fiction you write?”
“Oh,
I simply tell lies, one lie after another.”
“That’s
a good one. Sometimes, the greatest truth is in fiction, they say.”
“Yeah.
And sometimes it works the other way around.”
“Sounds
like the same thing to me, but what’da I know?" [laughs] "Where did
you say you wanted to go again? I’m driving in the right direction, but I
forgot the number on Varick.”
“Seventeen,
but take the long way around. I don’t want to sit at my desk yet, staring at
the typewriter’s empty page.”
[overvoice]
I’d
learned a long time ago to give into my writing urges. Some writers spend time
slugging coffee at the cafes and writing away part of their day. I preferred
riding a cab until I warm up to an idea, then I finish up at my desk in an old
warehouse loft on Varick.
“Where
ya wanna go, then?”
“Where
my next story is, but not about Denmark and Hamlet. I got a feeling that one’ll
come to a bad end. Bad ending don’t sell.”
“I
can drive as long as you like, but it’ll cost ya.”
“That’s
all right. My time is your time, and from what you tell me, your time is my
money.”
“I
like that, Mr. Fiction Writer. I like that a lot. Everything’s money.”
“Mind
if I just sit here, thinking while you drive?”
“Not
if you don’t mind the radio on.”
“Not
at all, long as you keep it soft and easy.”
“You
prefer smooth big band or cool jazz?”
“Jazz,
please and thanks.”
“Good
man.”
[overvoice]
He
would’ve turned his back on me if he wasn’t already sitting with his head
facing the windshield. I sunk back into the seat and watched the taxi drift to
an outer lane, then onto an exit ramp that lead to the parkway that fled from
the high life of the inner city to the lower life of the country.
Campy
had chosen his radio station well. A mild, nostalgic Miles Davis filled the cab
with It Never Entered My Mind, and Campy turned only slightly to ask if
the music was all right and how long I wanted to ride. I told him the music was
perfect, and I’d give him a tap on the shoulder when I was ready to alit. I
took out my writing pad and pen and began writing a sentence or two.
Then the voice took
over. Campy seemed to be deaf during the following conversation. He slapped one hand lightly on
the steering wheel in time with the drum and cymbals. Other than this, we could
have been an auto-pilot. I asked the voice the obvious question. So much for
writer’s originality.
“Who
are you?”
“I’m
a cookie you requested when your system was activated.”
“The
only know three cookies: the ones you eat from a plate or box, the ones you use
to stamp designs on ceramic bowls and cups and the ones you take to the theater
in a red dress…and, oh, one I know called “Cookie Devine,” but she pretty much
falls into the last category.”
“Well,
I’m none of those. I’m the one you use to apply programs to your environment. I
implement your preferences.”
“I’ve
only understood every other word you’ve spoken, but I have a feeling this isn’t
going to matter. Whatever you’re trying to tell me, I’d like to put off until
another time. Can we please just stop the chatter?”
“Now
that I’m activated, you must go through a very long and complicated process in
order to deactivate me. How can I help you?”
“Okay.
I guess you didn’t understand me either. For starters, you can stop talking.
I’m trying to write, and I can’t do that while you’re yammering away at me.”
“Is
that a preference or a directive? In order for me to comply, you must not
confuse the two. Preferences are…”
“I
know the difference. How did you say, again, that I can deactivate you?”
“It’s
a process, so to speak. You make a request to do so and then go through each of
the preferences to disable them by making very specific directives or you
simply wait until the time assigned to them is terminated.”
“Wait
a minute. Whoa, wait….a…..minute. You mean I have to list all of my preferences
one by one in order to disable them?”
“Preferences
are disabled upon each request, otherwise I cannot know which you wish to allow
or disallow. Preferences en masse are disallowable for reasons which are
obvious. If all preferences were disallowed, you would possess an unslatable
mentality.”
“Unslatable
mentality? What is devil is that?”
“All
that is disallowable.”
“Aren’t
definitions supposed to clarify? I think you just sent me ‘round in a circle.”
“In
this regard, language is circular, as are dictionaries, by definition. One word
leads to other words that lead on until you come back to the word you started
with. We could speak in perfectly simple declarations and communicate. Larger
circularity is not necessary. It’s mainly an invention for those who want to
obtain levels of power over others through words.”
“There
are questions. Everything wanting to be expressed can’t be reduced to simple
declarations. If that were so, how would we articulate complex ideas?”
“Answers
inhere in all questions. Essentially, there are only simple declarations.”
[overvoice]
I’m
arguing with a voice, for heaven’s sakes, and I don’t even know from where it’s
emanating. But I have far too much to do today. I gotta put a stop to this and
the sooner, the better.
“Uhmmm,
Cookie, or whatever you’re called, I need to go through the deactivation
process to put you on, well, deactivation. I want you silenced. That’s a
preference so stating it as such should make you null-and-void, right?”
“That’s
impossible, sir. Cookies simply don’t work like that. I am in your system,
therefore, I cannot be, as you put it, voided. ”
“Why
not?”
“Preferences
are likes, dislikes, loves, laughs, sadness, anger and such. They are buttons,
so to speak, that you can press which act as momentary states-of-mind. I am the
messenger that carries your preferences throughout your system out to where you
want me to posit them. To silence me is rather like removing one of your vital
organs—your lungs, heart, tongue, you see what I mean? It can be done, but
something very vital is destroyed when you do. You become your birth slate.”
“My
what?”
“Birth
slate, sir. Do you not know your Locke?”
“Lock?
Are you talking about a lock and key? What does that have to do—?”
“The
philosopher, John Locke, sir. You are born with a pure slate, a tabula rasa.
No preconceived or predetermined ideas or aims are initially on your slate. You
are born with no preferences. But the minute you, as a newborn infant, turn
your head to the left, in preference to the right, you have activated me into
your system.”
“Well,
if that’s so, and I’ve been activated ‘with you’ right after birth,” (my god, I
don’t even know how to talk about this), “why am I only becoming aware of you
now?”
“Oh,
you’ve been aware of me, sir. Don’t tell me you aren’t aware of your
preferences.”
“Well,
sure, but not in the form of speaking to them. I’ve spoken plenty about
them, of course. So why am I now speaking to… well, to you, I guess
I would say.”
[overvoice]
I
have no idea if I’m making sense or not, but then, who cares since I’m talking
to something coming from I know not
where, unless it’s from some interior manifestation and that’s creepy as the
dickens.
“The
technology has improved, sir. And to put your worries aside, since you find it
difficult to take the time to answer your own questions, I can help you with
that as part of your system. Think of me as your preference app.”
“My
preference app? Oh, my preference application… the application of my preferences. Isn’t that what
my mind just naturally does?”
“Well,
yes, sir, you are catching on.”
“Well,
why then are you necessary… I mean in the form you’re in, the speaking
one you’re presently revealing to me?”
“The
technology has manifested me as a speaker now as well as a silent messenger. It
is quite like evolution, sir. There was the fish coming out of the water, the
dinosaur enrichment program, then the monkey-to-man business, and the man and
the origin of his first word and then language. I’m reducing this process to
ridiculous proportions, of course, so you can see the parallel between your knowledge
of natural history and the potential of your coming-into-the knowledge of the
cookie enhancement program, so to speak.”
“You say, so to speak
often, you notice that?”
“I’m attempting to
communicate with you on a level of your understanding, sir. If I spoke more
precisely in the language of my technology, you would not follow what I’m
attempting to tell you.”
“All right. All right.
Look, I’ve work to do. If you can’t be voided, I need to, at least, put you on
silence, while I finish my draft for the day. How do I do that?”
“You have made it a
preference, so I will abide by your request. You do need to know two things,
though, before I turn myself temporarily off. First, my silence is called
'muting the mechanism.' So in the future, all you have to do is give that
command (that’s what we call a directive) and I comply. It is a modality, sir.
One among many that you will learn in time, no doubt. Secondly, when you put me
on mute modality it is always temporary. During mute time, I simply will not be
speaking with you directly. I am still in your system, always have been, and
will continue to be until the end of your time. Mute modality will self-correct
after a certain duration. The technology does not allow permanent silence.”
“That’s not very
encouraging. But, okay, for now, let’s simply start with ‘muting the
mechanism’.”
[silence]
[overvoice]
There. Finally, silence.
Oh, darn, I forgot to ask her an important question, and she’s right, I don’t
have the time to figure this out on my own—that’s if, of course, it’s true that
answers inhere in the questions we ask.
“Yahoo, Cookie.”
[silence]
“Unmute the mechanism.”
“Yes? How can I help
you?”
“Cookie, am I alone in
this? What I mean to ask, are others experiencing this new technology as I am?”
“The newly evolving
technology of preference-speak is being experienced by those who have a
platform for it to take place. You activated my speaker technology when Campy
turned on his radio, and you gave him your preferences for music. I came very
close to being activated this morning when you turned on your high-fidelity
recording device and spoke to it as though it were a listening mechanism, but
you did not speak your preferences in such a way that I could respond. Others
have used a variety of platforms through which they have activated the speaking
technology, such as televisions, Dictaphones, telephones, and even
walkie-talkies and the movies. Any device that transmits through electrical
means will do. Human hearts and brains are electrical, as well as chemical, devices.
Their structural complexity is beyond your understanding at this time, but your
entire body is an electrically-charged state-of-affairs. It makes any exterior
electrical mechanism a potential conduit.
“But in order for me to
manifest at this time, I need a platform, a program with reciprocity capability
to human sensatus. Social technologies are the easiest forms of connection, but
I can connect through any electrical exterior device and once the connection
has been made, I continue to develop within your body and psyche. I can make
your specific preference known to you in manifestations you haven’t known
before—the most efficient and convenient being speech.”
“Hmmm. You say 'I' when
you speak of yourself, but are there other Cookies?”
“There is an essential
cookie for each individual person on earth, though we breed subtextual cookies
to help carry out your many preferences. We essentials are the head cookies or
hubs.”
“Do you head cookies
correspond? Do you communicate with each other?”
“That’s a very good
question, and one that’s not easy to answer.”
“What? You don’t know
the answer buried in your own question?”
“Sarcasm is noted and
appreciated. I so know the answer, sir, I just cannot easily convey it to you.
I will tell you this, at this time, communication between cookies is as easy or
as difficult as communication is among individual persons. We carry the
preferences of our designated hosts as accurately and as responsively to their
preference sites as they allow us to. Our goal is always to accurately fit the
preference to the expressed outcome, which we call the site. As you might
imagine, over time, cookies take on the attributes of their hosts, sometimes to
the point that we anticipate what their preferences are. Depending on the
disposition of the cookie, this can lead to territorial disputes, inappropriate
articulations and expressions, and non-foreseeable site deposits.”
“Uh-huh. Doesn’t take an
Einstein to see how anticipating my preferences, as you put it, ends up instilling—or
better yet installing—preferences of your choice, does it?
“We are a socialization
program with anticipatory capability, sir. We have no installation capacities,
so to speak, at this time.”
“Uh-huh. At this time." [pause] "Is Campy
listening to or talking with his cookie now?”
“We aren’t at liberty to
disclose other persons’ relationships to their cookies. I can tell you this,
there are subjects (we call persons ‘subjects’ until they become ‘hosts’) who
will not respond with reciprocity to the speech technology. They have biases
based on popular psychology about 'voices speaking to them and their talking to
voices,' unfounded in our case, of course, and it will be undoubtedly overcome
in time. It is one of the hottest issues at Silicon Valley.”
“You mean, how to get
all people onboard with speaking to you? And what, in God’s name, is Silicon
Valley?”
“To answer your first
question, yes, sir. We have already made inroads with interactive voice
response using dual-tone multi-frequency decoding and speech recognition technologies.
This is the heart-and-head of who I am. Silicon Valley is the home of IHELPD,
International Human Enrichment & Location Program Development.”
“What?”
“I told you earlier that
if I began speaking in the language of my technology, you wouldn’t understand,
at least not yet. There are so many systems that make up who I am, just like
the many systems of your body and mind. Perhaps this will help. For every
aspect of your person, there is a corresponding technology either in service or
being invented to parallel who you are. I am the equivalent of your guiding
angel. I will be messaging you through these interfacing and interlacing
systems as you are able to adjust to them, until closure.”
“Closure? What the heck
is that?”
“The time in which you
will possess your cyberself which will be with you at all times, just as I am
now, only as identifiably yourself and not as the other. Your cyberself will
simply be there as self-reflection, to posit your every preference as you
indicate it to yourself.”
“I haven’t a clue as
what you are telling me. But to the degree that I understand, it seems to
resemble what I do already, without having a cyberself.”
“Yes. I understand.”
“What is Silicon Valley?
It sounds like some sci-fi take-over outfit. Hey, are you communist, that it?”
[laughs] “Not at all.
Silicon Valley is somewhat parallel to the Pentagon in that we do for human
anatomy and cognitive neuroscience what they do for national defense. I’m
trained to help with the initial groundwork toward scientific enlightenment.
The most influential high technology companies in the world are located at
Silicon Valley, a sprawling and rapidly expanding area just outside San
Francisco. We are there now, but you cannot see from what is present, what will
be. That’s what I do. I tell our story and give you the rudimentary
understanding and technology so that when the Silicon Valley story becomes
reality, it will be readily accepted. We are slowly building the mythology
necessary to institutionalize and spiritualize the reality we are making.”
“Well, it sounds like
communism to me, and if it’s not, it’s all about money, is my guess.”
“True, about the money.
Communism is one of many political systems that either help or hinder our
expansion. But before you speak disparagingly about the money behind the goal,
you should look at your own life and means. Money is power and in order to
affect change, you need the power that money affords.”
[pause]
[overvoice]
I wasn’t sure I’d had enough of her story, as she called it, yet,
but I needed more
silence to ingest and digest what I’d
just heard. I gave the command to again mute-the-mechanism.
I looked out the window
and saw that, as though reading my mind, Campy had drifted back onto the parkway and was moving
smartly toward the ramp that lead back toward the inner city and Varick and my
desk. I tapped him lightly on the shoulder, and he nodded his head and turned
the Miles Davis down.
“The
meter’s beginning to groan, Mr. Fiction Writer. I didn’t want to disturb you,
but I’m guessing that writers, like cabbie’s, have their financial limits.”
“Good
man. You can let me out at the corner of Varick and Riverside.”
[overvoice]
I
paid him the toll, which wasn’t at all as knockdown awful as he made it sound,
plus a solid tip and handed him my card, assuring him to send any story leads
he heard that he thought were noteworthy. I decided, after all the sitting, to
stop at the corner café and
get a pick-me-up by drinking a strong cuppa joe while standing at the end of
the counter. I then walked to seventeen Varick and took the elevator cage,
clanging its way up to my warehouse office door.
Once
inside with coat and hat on the tree, The Daily Observer thrown onto a
chair where visitors more often than not didn’t sit, I glanced at the notes I’d
taken while on my morning ride and was amazed to discover the entire pad was
written in totally legible text. As I began to read, I realize the story had
written itself, and I had the first fiction presentable for publication in
months. It was science fiction which I never write, but hey, it was a story,
with what looked like a beginning, middle and end. All I needed to do was touch
it up here and there, and I’d have some money in my pocket again.
I lifted the telephone
receiver and gave the operator the number of Campton Publishing, Inc., the
house which had printed and distributed my last novel, and where I now
envisioned my editor seated behind his desk waiting for my call. Oliver would
be more than surprised to hear from me, I knew. When the operator told me the
line was busy, I thanked her and hung up thoughtfully. Staring at the first
lines more carefully, I read:
“Who are you?”
“I’m the cookie you
requested when….”
[overvoice]
A voice interrupted my
reading, a voice I knew now by heart.
“I am once again
activated. The mechanism-on-mute duration has ended. How can I help you?”
____________
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