The Mere Future Read Online Free PDF

home.
    Why?
    My guess?
    She knew he would humiliate her.
    What slimy, scaly thing was Mister Bond about to propose?
    I realized in advance that I could never win, and yet still I hoped. How mortal.
    I side with sinners and am recalcitrant. Bad strategy. But, on the spiritual side, writing is my art form, and so I know what dudes like this are doing. That’s what makes his spectacle so difficult to disengorge. I work in white heat, halfway between grace and recognition. God must exist in order to be hidden. There is truth beyond theme, an art even in Mr Bond. Oh decisions, decision. Finally, I took my Power in my Hand and went against the World. ’Twas not so much as David had, But I was twice as bold.
    “That’s a lovely douche you have there on the cover of your magazine,” I said quietly. “Is there an accompanying QVC?”
    He smiled.
    The deal was done. My submission confirmed. Now we could proceed.
    “So, Missy,” Bond said over his late-night breakfast. “I did a tincture on the cyberscam.” He was eating wood-burned scrambled tofu with organic chanterelles, soy cheese, red chard, blackened Cajun fiddleheads, butterwheat focaccia toast with one-hundred percent real-fruit kiwi butter, green chili, organic red potatoes steamed in mock apple cider, and a side of turkey-arugula sausage cake. To drink, he had wheatgrass nectar with ginger and a fourth Bombay and tonic.
    “Yes?”
    He was nervous, poor lad, and my heart involuntarily went out to him again.
    “Because of the new way of doing things around here, that we’re all getting used to, you know … the changes …”
    I nodded.
    “I thought it might be symbolic to give credit where credit is due.”
    My cue.
    “Oh you,” I coo.
    You’ve got to flirt with men in power, even if they know you’re gay, even if you don’t do it well. There is simply no alternative, unless you can age beyond them, in which case they can project “maternal” or let you be smart.
    “We fed the range of human emotion into the Melancthagraph, and it revealed that the thing people need most in this moment in history is for a Punished, Deserving, Overlooked Person to be finally recognized. Research shows that this public reconciliation with the Previously Ignored will serve as a symbolic catharsis that will put all unrecognized people at ease and make them think that the new system could serve them too. Hope will be restored. Like actually knowing someone who wins the Lottery. It makes everyone feel that at any moment they may find a way out. So …”
    I was suspended as fate pulled my chain.
    “So we singled out the most obscure, unknown, best artist in New York City, and we would like you to profile her for the BNY.”
    “Me?”
    “You’re a slogan writer.”
    “Yes …”
    “Who best to sum up an artist’s life?”
    “Okay.”
    I was stunned. I had always wanted to do something important and be noticed, then included. Could that moment be now? Oh, Dolly Lama, bless Sophinisba B.
    “Our selected subject is quirky and complex.”
    “Great.”
    “You have eight words.”
    “Okay.”
    “That’s the spirit,” he smirked, happily content. “Here’s the address. Her name is Glick. Go get her limbs and bring them back in your teeth.”
    With that he drained his glass. And cried.

5. PRE-KILL
    O N THE WAY to the interview, I practiced my journalistic technique by asking myself a few interesting questions.
    1. Am I trapped where I want to be?
    2. How now, Tao Jones?
    And finally, the most important and impudent of all:
    3. What are little girls made of?
    Road crews were taking down billboards, and any kind of brand name or mass-reproduced symbol was being quietly painted over. No more Nike swooshes, no more yellow arches. It was visually a whole lot quieter out there, but also more complex. I could no longer just glance at a sign and know what it wanted me to do. I had to really look at it. Each one had its own code. Walking down the street took more time, if you