Matrix

TEXT VERSION OF A COMIC STRIP : THE MATRIX : DE JA VU : Well, this story that I’m about to tell you may make you feel like you’ve heard it before. It is kind of familiar. Like the pre-bed routine I was running this midnight. Naked, except for my long, dark silk boxer-shorts, my muscular arms apply aftershave in front of our stage dressing-room style mirror. In the room just next to, my wife sits, propped up with pillows, long, black television remote in one hand, her raven black hair, centrally parted frames her pretty face, bathing in the flickering television light.

My wife is sensitive. She’s not cut out, in some ways, for the real world.. the mildest criticism cuts deep. Salesmen love her; she falls under their spell.. its even physical...her eyes are like 20/10, hyper-acute. Cold gets to her. Badly.

Linen sheets scratch.

It was a book on nightmares ~~ she has nightmares ~~ that helped us to understand. It explained the concept of boundaries. Most of us build shields as we live, more-or-less firm boundaries.

The television flicker flickers out now, the picture delineating into a single pin-prick of phosphorescence, as if being sucked through a black-hole back from whence it came, back far away to its own illusory dimension ?.. “you needn’t turn off...” I said “no, it was a rerun. And I’m tired” my wife’s hand gradually reaches for the bed-side lamp, one jet-black hair curtain covering up half of one of her eyes. “how tired ?” I ask. Yep, more or else firm boundaries, hers are permeable. Other peoples feelings, and the physical world are hard to shut out. So are nightmares.

Its what makes her so special, too. Incredibly empathic; kids are drawn to her, they want her nurturing. And when I make love to her, I know that this is real, that were alive, that this is really happening. And when she’s making love, she’s all there.

Molten souls, the real thing. “what...what is it ?” I ask.

The moonlight seeping through the curtains causes our facial outlines to silhouette, were in black and white now, twisty spiralling white light bannister between our lovers gazes, shimmering, glimmering ripple over our inky black sea of love. “its okay...” she mutters.

A very large boulder splashes into our love-sea. Its ripples are violent and disturbing, fractionalising the unity of our ocean of love-making. “no, I lost you. I’m stopping.” our universe unmade. The big bang stops.

"I’m sorry” she’s sorry... “did I do something ?” I’m wondering it, so I ask it... “no,no...its strange... ...I just had an impression of sudden impact. Violent death.” sometimes negative impressions fly in at the most inopportune moments. I think I asked if it was like a flashback. Her fingers jerk tensely as she yanks her top down now. I don’t remember her answer.

I’m a stockbroker. Rows and rows of us; we sit, each in our own little partitioned booth, screen flickering in front of me, picture of my wife in her swim-suit propped near next to the vertically stored records held in binders. My headphones are strapped on, thin wiry mouth-piece mic curling down from one ear. I spend my day speaking to disembodied voices...voices in my head....about glowing, ever-changing numbers, representing potential values agreed upon by people I don’t know and wont ever meet.

Sometimes it doesn’t seem very real. As we did the dinner dishes the next

evening she told me what happened during her run that day.

Telegraph pole after telegraph pole she passed, telegraph poles and fir trees. Dressed in black and white exercise-gear, she didn’t notice at first as a robin swooped swiftly by....it was all over so quickly, a “rrrrrr” and a “thunk”, a little “screech”, purple rectangular box-car made connection from out the corner of one eye. Poor, unfortunate robin...dying with a sickening thud. My wife halts abruptly, shocked. Unfortunate robin in a cloud of grey exhaust fumes, laying twitching, she turns and swiftly crouches down, almost instinctively. Almost as if the robin were a person, she gently scoops the robin into her palms. She felt its life depart as she held it. Thick, salty droplets of tear well up in the corner of each of my wife’s pool-like eyes. She frowns intensely as one of the tear-streams rolls all the way down to near her nostrils, as she sees the poor, unfortunate robins little orange feet stop kicking. Its little orange beak remains open, its upturned body laying lifeless now in her hands. She said words over a grave a bit later she dug with a stick like a child. She'd used the two-pronged stick-shovel as the vertical part of the wooden crucifix she had created, and planted atop the unfortunate robins final resting place. Another stick wedged into the other one made the horizontal beam of the robins cross. My wife starts to run again now. It had been the thing her premonition foretold. We talked about it and other intuitions she's had. As my dishcloth-covered hand continues to sweep around circularly, my wife’s hands are wrist-deep in soap-suds, rubbing at the dishes like she’s trying to rub away grief.

Then I tried to lighten things.

“Remember that character, Butterfield ? The Texan ?” I say – – her hands pause now for several instants their purposeful rubbing as she tries to remember... “today he had a great rumour – – really wild – – that Pfitzer, you know, the pharmaceutical company...? has an amazing new pill coming out.” her face creases up a little in that cute, funny intuitive way she has as she tries to access her memory “combination aphrodisiac and just before contraceptive.” were both grinning now as our glances meet – – “That guy !” I exclaim. “its true !” my wife exclaims. “what, you heard – – ?” “no, I just know.” my wife seems certain. “it will be a phenomenon” she continues. “a national mania.” she’s yanking at my shirt now. I’m stroking her chin. She’s got my undivided attention. “global” “you mean you had a psychic...you know...”

“I’m always getting things.”

I grip her wrists and she grips mine now as she stands in front of me. I’m sat on an orange dining chair. “this moment, all the time, I’m feeling de ja vu” she explains. “but trust me, this is something that will happen, and be a huge event.” strangely, I find that I do trust her. Open boundaries...open to time itself. I open my mind and give her the benefit of the doubt. It made a strange kind of sense. And so I took the greatest risk of my mostly prudent life. As I bathed in the green glow of my monitor screen, I scratched my nose just a little anxiously. Pfitzer was a solid company, I told myself, and there’d be no great run-up in its share price. I bet the farm. I’m sucking salt with intent now from my palm as I stare ever more intently at the flickering screen. I margined out our brokerage account, our Airs, my 401K....I just had such a feeling about this...I maxed out all our credit cards. I was going for it. I borrowed thirty grand from my brother at 5% a month.

And for the longest two weeks of my life, I sweated and tossed all night. My eyes sank into charcoal shadows as rows of computations, nine digit figures, pie-charts flickered

before me...Pfitzer inched up as the rumour spread. Now, will this pay off or have we gone mad ? When fast track FDA approval was announced, it spiked. At least if this is stupidity, suddenly I’m thinking, we can both share the blame. When sales started, it exploded. No wait, this is really happening...we were rich. Yes. Rich !

We had a most pleasant conversation about many things. As I poured the sweet stream from the green champagne bottle, posh chocolate box lays with its lid in front of it, wrappers untidily on the bedclothes. We talked about our future. It looked yet even more ravishing almost than the way my wife looked right now, in her orange satin night dress, bare legs curled around her, hand outstretched holding her champagne glass. The worlds future. The conversation trail continues to move...power, responsibility, the nature of reality. I trust now. Luck exists...it can be nurtured. Only problem right now...what to do with this gift ?

It was almost too good, almost too nice this feeling. This gift, plus the gifts of each other to each of us. We made love full of hope, and fell asleep, entwined.

My wife then had one of her nightmares. Bolt upright she sits, washed in stripes of moonlight, her hair glittering and scraggly, her eyes and mouth wide open with sudden, contentedness-ceasing panic. It was the one with the machines again. She had dreamt that she had suddenly woken again, immersed in viscus red jelly, mechanical tubes sucking at her nose, mouth and eyes, she had somehow struggled one of them loose so that she could see. See them.

The eyes. Hideous mechanical, robotic red circular eyes surrounded by a wall of machinery. They terrified her. She always has trouble shaking this one off, as if the waking and the sleeping realities coexisted. She’s laying down paralysed amid humming and clicking machines.

She doesn’t know it, but on this plane, reality, she is one of many many. If her awareness could expand from her localization here she would see technological fields of people, each immersed in their own red jelly pods as she, unconscious human eggs held by monstrous metal slugs, sickly hideous mechanical tentacles protruding from a gigantic moving wall-sea of living machinery.

She senses I’m close, but cant see or touch me. Our love is powerful enough to reach across realities. Its vivid. Our love is so vivid, that it exists despite the illusion, the control-lie, the matrix. But unfortunately so is her nightmare. Our reality, and it too, is so very vivid. I always have to talk her down, bring her back to reality.

Later that week, I saw something cross her face. We were in the convenience store.

She just had that look. That look. “what ?” I began to exclaim, “what ?” “everyone ! Back from the window !” my wife suddenly shouts. “a drunk drivers going to crash through !” she’s dashing about now, her arms flailing wildly – – “run !” she’s shouting, “run !” if they didn’t they really would of been for it. Thank god they did.

Right again. It was an orange open backed van. The front of the shop just caved in before bits momentum. The tinkle-tinkle-tinkle of tightly shattering glass. The till, the fridge, different shaped stands displaying different consumables sent flying, magazine racks moving; pages of swim-suit models littering the air.

When the T.V. People came, my wife insisted on giving them an interview.

She’s sat now, looking smart, sophisticated and sexy in black and red, on the comfy television-setsofa next to the beige suited presenter. So extrovert. So unlike her ! “yes, I know things...I experience them...” she’s saying, her eyes toward the camera...”before they happen.” she’s emphasised the words “experience” and “before”. “the whole Amourtin business.....we made a fortune buying Pfitzer stock.” but I wondered, I wondered why she had to say that ! Then I learned why shed been so adamant. My wife’s pretty, sophisticated, sure face fills most of the screen now, fills the best part of the controlled void in peoples perceptions. T.V. let her good magic shine, briefly.

“Sunday night at ten 'O' clock, San Francisco will have a major earthquake.” her warning voice pours from the speakers “people should prepare. Bottled water, medical supplies, food.” as viewers gazed into her eyes with their screens, they believed her. “and step outdoors, away from falling glass !” ten 'O' clock, the quake did happen. She saved hundreds of lives !

Were in our darkened bedroom now, she sits on our bed, bare legs and feet crossed, me knelt behind her, giving her some tantric massage, we felt a rush of hope and love more now, but there was a different feeling underneath it. A feeling of something watching us. It seemed like the eyes of the world were on us.

“I feel like everything is my responsibility now” my wife says, still sat at the end of our bed, gazing into the tube. Its screen is showing smoking wreckage in disaster areas, and solemnfaced reporters.

“I’m going to have to disconnect this if were going to sleep !” I’m saying, reaching for the telephone, I haven’t finished my darlings massage, but somehow the atmos has evaporated.

All of a sudden the 'phone has rung yet again, its some joker, and it sounded like the same one I had dismissed earlier. “what'd I tell you pal ?!” I’m gritting my teeth now. “good bye !” I shout into the mouthpiece. Then I make sure I pull the plug on this clown. In one brief, flushed jerk I slam the receiver down and pull the line out of the socket on him. “enough !” and then the weirdest thing happened. My wife grips herself in a bearhug as she suddenly realises how absolutely freezing cold she is. The phone rang. I checked the plug. The phone rang ! It was in. I picked up. Oh rising panic, how can the phone have reconnected and rung ? I get the same question, asked the same way. Now I was scared. I feel dark and empty, like the silhouette of me on the wall, the one slamming that receiver down just now. The one saying to my icy-cool wife “lets go for a walk.” we walked a long time, past windows without curtains, backlit, shadows sliding across them. Like some shadow-puppet play. Illustration, metaphor for the real world. A hidden world behind each one. Each one of those windows.

We knew in our hearts we weren’t mad. It was an instinctual feeling more than anything, even. Of course reality had different levels. Just consider dreaming compared to being awake. It wasn’t so strange, not to us. We had stumbled onto some hidden, underlying structure of the world. “did we pass that house already ?”

I’m feeling the chill night air now as I stand on the corner of the block with my wife in her greygreen overcoat but I cant concentrate on it long enough to remember to button my collar.

“I guess” says my wife.

It had something to do with the machine nightmare, its lingering reality. I could sense how real it was to her. We swore we'd get to the bottom of it. We never felt so close. “aaauh !” my wife is rigid, bolt upright sat, duvet stuck by cold sweat to her legs now. She’s just been molested by the mechanical tentacles again. Somehow I’m led next to her. Did I just awaken too ? I guess I must have..? “stay with it baby...” I say. The darkness is taped across me in stripes. “...tell me what you see...”

I’m trying to send my love, soothe her, calm her now by rubbing her shoulder, but her wet skin is quivering in a hard tense fever. “tell me where we are...” “there are different machines.” she’s still half there. “moving away” it all, though it doesn’t, seems to make sense to her. Somehow, to me too. “as if they’d just finished some task.” I feel my wife’s body twitch, it feels like the strain

of trying to remember is taxing her. “its fading...” she’s come back to me. “fading...” but I wish we could be happy again. She looks so incredibly tired. A tear is rolling out the corner of one of her eyes.

“I'm sorry.” “hey hey...” I tell her. “...we'll get to the bottom of this.”

I'm gently tracing her facial contours with my calming hand now. I mean what is say. “we wont give up.” weird thing – – how'd we get in bed ? Somehow both of our consciousnesses have slipped off the tracks in experiencing events linearly. Yet still were together. Neither of us could remember even walking home. A gap. Scenes change though. Priorities change.

Threads slip out of your clasped hand. But we sort of did give up.

There’s two people besides me here now. My hands are full. Life’s gotten busy. My wife got pregnant, and its medically difficult. I rest my chin on between my two sets of knuckles, my elbows on the table, staring in intent gloom at it, at work. The S.E.C. Is investigating me and Butterfield for insider trading...or conspiracy...or something. So rather mysteriously, the dollar is evaporating like it came to us. I don’t really understand it, except that I'm paying lawyers everything I made on the stock. And there’s other reasons why those glowing numerals are reducing.

After a weird flirting campaign, a woman at work is suing me for harassment.

She’s a dizzy little blonde, and I don’t want her to, but she makes me dizzy. She’s crazy, but it could ruin me.

And when I returned home, things were just as bad. We even had to move – – because of an infestation of lady bugs...bizarre !

The darkness is again stuck across my face like stripes of black tape, my vacant, staring, sleepless brown eyes between them. So much coming at us...a query into the nature of reality seems less important than coping with it.

Black stripes like strips of unconscious sleep, intersecting my fluid awareness. My wife still occasionally has nightmares. Still awakens in the night, stuck to the bedclothes. But the “repeats” ended with that night walk. Sleep offered no solutions, and became elusive.

I’m so tired all the time. Tired like I'm tired of life now.

My wife gift seemed so full of possibility at first. Somehow she knew, somehow, she, we, knew something. Saw something, something we weren’t supposed to, like biting into a poisonous apple, for Christ's sakes....its like somebody decided we were too powerful, too free...in some way, some way I cant even mentally consider; like for a while we kind of swerved off the track, swerved off a pre-determined route, away from the line...and we had to be put back – – oh, this is crazy ! Placed back on the rails, or back in some kind of cage. For the first time, it had felt as if our lives were actually our own; briefly, when we knew we'd had the gift ( the error ?

An error like the cyber-tentacles which still stretched throughout our tortured ids, it was just we could no longer remember them ). we'd stumbled onto something, we'd had a sense at the same time, though that we weren’t really there. Although our lives finally felt our own, at the same time our lives weren’t really us. There was no time had and no inclination felt nowadays to think things like that any more. But I wonder.