"Erickson" by R.G. Vasicek
Erickson. Bald-headed & intelligent. A genius? Hardly. Smart on his feet. Spontaneous. Quick reactions. Jill is typing up an index card. Erickson is the subject. Every agent must be indexed. Paper and electronic. Jill is in charge of index cards. Eyeglasses? Sometimes. Height? Fluctuates. Weight? Thirteen stones. Give or take a stone. Jill types too fast. Makes mistakes. Index cards are index cards, she thinks. Big whoop. The Machine thinks otherwise. She will be punished. Jill will be punished. If not today, tomorrow. Machines do not forget. In the meantime, Erickson is solving a case. Or so he thinks. He is an optimist. Too optimistic. Smiling. Grinning. Who can keep up with Erickson? Certainly not the criminals. Whoever they are. The metropolis is bigger now. Bigger than ever. People are surviving. Not always. Sometimes. Inhabitants are thriving. Sort of. Not really. Not everybody. Erickson thinks too much. Needs to slow down. Jill is still typing. Who is the storyteller? Jill giggles. The Machine frowns. Raises an eyebrow. Speaks in “scare” quotes. Please “scan” the index card, the Machine says. Sure thing, Jill says. She is sassy, the Machine thinks. Everybody is making salad. The hydroponic gardens of the metropolis are pumping out lettuce. And spinach. God I love spinach, Jill thinks. The Machine opens its maw. Jill inserts the index card. Erickson breathes a sigh of relief. Not knowing why. He is on patrol. Undercover. It is raining. Which is unlikely. The metropolis has a dome. Artificial rain. Makes people feel “normal.” Still a pain in the ass, Erickson thinks. His undercover hovercraft struggles to get enough lift. Piece of junk. What is the ancient jargon? Jalopy. Yep. Erickson flies a jalopy. “Fly” perhaps exaggerates it. Skips & hops. Like Gerridae. Water striders. Water skeeters. Pond skaters. You get the picture. Erickson scratches his bald head. Why do I exist? He mouths the words. Fog. Checks the rear-view mirror. Nothing interesting. Super block towers. His radio crackles. His windshield wipers go berserk. Smears on the plexiglass bubble. His ass hurts. His back. He needs a sandwich. A submarine sandwich. Erickson lowers the hovercraft at an automatic bodega. A tube fires an ersatz veal parmigiana sandwich into his tube slot. Erickson eats. Not bad, he thinks. Signal & noise. Drift. The melancholy hours Erickson spends hovering around the metropolis. Eating veal parmigiana. Is my ass getting bigger? Erickson says. Nobody is listening. Not even Yahweh. Is there a Yahweh? Erickson is not too sure. His police training did not prepare him for this question. Infinite gloom. Pallid light of October. Depression is for criminals. Not good police. Erickson struggles with his feelings. Am I feeling a feeling? His sex partner Liz sometimes wonders. She is a mechanical engineer. She sometimes gets kickbacks from subcontractors. Erickson looks the other way. We are a corrupt society, he says during 69. Speak for yourself, she says. The metropolis has a symbiotic relationship with its inhabitants. A biomechanical bubble. Asteroids trying to penetrate the atmosphere. Meteors getting ablated. Oceans no longer support life. The metropolis is an aquarium. Look at the human beings. If that is what they are. Liz says: You are so pessimistic, Erickson. Fuck me. She is waiting for an adventure. So is Erickson. Police work is not what it used to be. People behave. The Machine makes sure of it. Every biorhythm is recorded. Human thoughts are deduced by algorithms. Liz guesses when Erickson is going to come. She guesses right. She comes first. Preemptively. Erickson calls his mom afterwards. She is 106 years old. Liz gets up and gazes out a big elliptical window. There is an electrical storm. Nymphs and sprites. Get off the phone, Liz says. Erickson says: in a second. The Machine is processing Erickson’s index card. Processing Jill’s punishment. Her typing skills will improve. She is young. Nineteen. Erickson & Liz are older. They have less time. Whatever that means. Yahweh has yet to speak. In the meantime, the Machine has words for everybody.
R.G Vasicek is the author of the anti-novel THE DEFECTORS. He has texts in Surfaces, Ligeia, Harsh, Expat Press, Misery Tourism, Nauseated Drive, Wigleaf, and elsewhere. He lives in Queens, NYC.
