—for Tristan Fabriani—

DECADENCE. CHICAGO STEAMED in the sour rain, the cloud cover offering no protection from the astringent twilight rays of the triple sun. It was decadence that had brought it on and now it was too late.

The Meester Faes & Luerequack Corporation (“Devotional Materials for the Mystic, Research Equipment for the Psychic”) was the highest-grossing private company in the world. Established and controlled by Mad Mona, an aged Afro-American who had started out baking gospel candy, it was now an empire with a turnover which eclipsed that of Sega and the Real World Theme Parks, Inc. 

MFL still operated from the modest Lakeview Bible House on North Wabash Avenue, a short walk from Brightdream and Eviva’s apartment. Their best-selling products were their Diamond Talisman ring (“one-carat diamond set in a yellow gold mounting — please ask for Pocket Radio No. 556B with built-in link to the Tripstar Teleological routing satellite, sent free with this ring”) and their Tantra Personal Prayer Kit No. 963 (“set includes prayer burner, MFL temple incense, charcoal, prayer blanks and a psalm pen”). These products were in worldwide use and even their touchscreen catalogue was considered to imbue the owner with paranormal protection.

Brightdream watched the freeway bullets and the bugs with monster wheels passing the balcony window; heading for the Zone or the motels and drive-thrus of Five Zoos. The rain appeared to sizzle on the heated surface of the intersection and the sky was a hopeless ashen mantle. 

“I don’t see why we can’t order it on the touchscreen. Everyone’s got one,” said Eviva for the hundredth time as Coltrane’s re-dimensioned A Love Supreme upholstered the room in surroundsound.

“What’s it for?” said Brightdream absently, still gazing out at the silent traffic.

“‘MFL’s Apotropaic Urn’, it says here, ‘turns the tables on the rascals and blocks that curse. When someone has cast an evil eye on you or brought down evil forces, you’d better let our urn rescue you’.”

“It’s an electric kettle, Eviva. It’s nothing special. They probably found a warehouse full of that stuff that didn’t get looted in the darkness of the Eclipse. We don’t need it, Eviva. No one’s put a curse on us, anyway.”

“How do you know? And it’s only twenty bucks.” Brightdream despaired, remembering that he and Eviva had once been enthusiastic lovers; long, long ago. Not a spark of that ancient lust remained, although they continued to sleep together.

Brightdream walked to the bluescreen, pressed power, picked up the remote. Eviva was still trying to persuade him that they needed the urn as he put on his goggles and the headphones. He let himself fall into microspace, moments later feeling the familiar weight of Eviva’s shoulder and arm as she cuddled herself up against him. She too had put on her receptor and, in the 3D screens of their goggles, two females had been recreated in the virtual space of a bright white room, sunlight highlighting the cushioning of cobwebs in its corners. The P.o.V. sensor was a new addition; until recently they had been able to explore only their own past romances. This thousand-dollar add-on enabled them to relive those of other people, too. Today it offered three choices: Viewpoint—Female 1; Viewpoint—Female 2; Third Person—Objective. Simultaneously and unwittingly, Brightdream and Eviva both chose Viewpoint—Female 2:

I know it’s her from the diamond and gold ring on her finger, glinting in the sunlight. Outside, the crater shelves away sharply. She’s looking at the broken trees at the crater’s rim through the window; beyond is a tantalising view of the pale grey sea where once gulls arced and wheeled. She’s dreaming again. On Key Plantain, in a cobwebbed room at the back of this Spanish-style house — of all places — I see her again. Amy the horn player! I have to think back to that day, our lunch with Donald and that Jamaican dude, Amy dressed up in leather and silk, perspiring in the Florida heat. It was Donald who gave her that ring. I loved him. He was on his way north to take collection of his crazy Scottish car — a vegetable patch on wheels. I loved him, and she took him from me. It doesn’t add up. I’m not normally a vengeful woman, but now I want — I expect — satisfaction. When I smell dahlias I have to throw up, they remind me so much of Amy’s perfume.

Brightdream felt Eviva pulling away from him clumsily, dropping her Receptor on the sofa. His concentration disturbed, he pulled his goggles off and shifted the phones from his right ear. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh God!” said Eviva, throwing her Vogue diskmag across the room. It dislodged one of her china duck collection, sending it shattering to the floor. “That was so depressing. I need to feel something cheerful.”

“She got the wrong girl. Mistaken identity. I called-up the synopsis.” Brightdream replied in his customary deep monotone, hardly parting his proud lips. “There was going to be a happy ending. You’re supposed to interact with it. You’re so impatient sometimes.”

“Why won’t you buy me the urn?” Eviva didn’t wait for an answer, moved instead past the grim rain beating at night’s window and went into the kitchen. She was wearing her MFL Horn-of-Plenty good luck charm; its accompanying prayer-sheet tucked into her pocket. She was frustrated by Brightdream’s stubborn pride. “We’ve got plenty of credit left on our MFL card. I don’t see what the problem is. Just because you don’t believe we might be cursed!”

“Eviva, look at the photograph in the catalogue. It’s a fucking kettle. It’s for boiling water. We don’t buy drinking water any more so we have nothing to boil in it. Rep Tea is what we drink, and you can’t boil that in there, it’ll clog up the element.”

“I don’t want to boil water in it, stupid. I want to stop the curse. ‘Don’t delay,’ it says in the catalogue. ‘Every minute counts when you’re dealing with the forces of darkness.’“

“Forces of darkness? What makes you think that they would bother putting a curse on us?” mocked Brightdream.

Eviva knew there was no point persevering. “Let’s go bowling. We haven’t been bowling for years.”

“Where the hell are we going to go bowling? We’re in downtown Chicago, remember?”

“Oh, come on. For old time’s sake. It’s a countermoon tonight, it’ll be too depressing to stay in, you know how we get when...”

“Where’s the nearest alley?”

“Skyway, exit Lake Nostalgia, Route 5 to Laughing Pines, get off at Funway West, drive into Springtime...”

“You realise that’s about a hundred miles?”

“So what do you suggest — sit here in the cold, crying in the countermoonbeams?”

So they put on their thermasuits and, sealed up tight with visors down, crossed rain-glazed Avenue A. Taking the lift down to the car deck, they climbed into their Bubblecruiser. Out on the street it was minus-ten. After a few minutes with the heater on, they were able to remove the thermasuits. Brightdream was wearing his scruffiest, most crumpled overall but Eviva (who people claimed had a touch of a particular long gone movie star) had her hair in a French twist, was wearing Ambush and, after pulling her shorts over her dancer’s legs, had slipped into her highest heels with their azure bows, although she knew they were totally impractical for bowling.

“You’ll freeze,” said Brightdream as he started the Bubblecruiser.

They headed uptown, joined the intersection to the Trans-Island Skyway, arching up to the flyover. Brightdream played one of his ancient DAT tapes: a stereo of a song called Daddy’s Gonna Pay For Your Crashed Car, by a legendary stadium act from the 1990s. It sounded flat and terribly dated to Eviva, who had grown up with surroundsound and digilog Twenty-bit Mapping.

“So, what about the MFL urn then, baby?” said Eviva, cajolingly, as the song ended. The tail-lights were a red blur in the rain and a Shark-de-ville with a woman at the wheel passed them on their left, whipping up a veil of grey water. The Skyway skirted the SEGA megatemple, which dwarfed the blocks on the edge of Lake Michigan.

Brightdream lost it; his temper shortened by the rapid changes in temperature. He had been sweating profusely since pulling on and off his thermasuit. He felt uncomfortable, awkward. This was the last straw. Taking his eye off the road, he turned to Eviva and bellowed, “I’m sick of hearing about the urn. The hell with bowling! I’m going to the Metroplex for a psilocybin omelette.” Ahead was the DOWNTOWN exit, forking back the way they had come. The eight-lane was full of late traffic, dawdling in the rain. Brightdream pulled out sharply into the second lane, accelerated. Just at that moment, the Shark-de-ville, which had been cruising in the car-pool lane, went into a rear-wheel skid. “Damn it!” said Brightdream and pumped the brakes. Too late. The car in front of the Shark-de-ville had careered across into the second lane, too; its driver distracted by the action in the rear-view screens.

The last thing Eviva remembered before the Bubblecuiser came to a pulverising halt was a squeal of tyres, a whine of horns and the pattern that the tail-lights had made on the rain-dappled windscreen, suspended in freeze-frame. When she came-to in the wreck, she was fingering her Horn of Plenty charm, saw blood and broken glass. The paramedics were already there, hoisting Brightdream into their white cruiser; blue light strobing the Skyway, buildings and passing cars. She’d been strapped into her seat, had lost the preceding twenty-minutes of her life, but was otherwise unhurt. Brightdream had bypassed his airbag, the collision inertia propelling him out through the side window.

“Looks like he’ll make it, Mizz, but he’ll need a transfusion — he’s pretty cut up. We’ll take you home, if you like.” The police-officer was standing in his bright-blue thermasuit, helmet light glowing into the vehicle, staring at her legs through the broken glass. Just then, a custom-tooled, steam-driven Kamakiriad roadster with self-sufficient vegetable biofarm passed them. The police officer looked up, momentarily distracted. It hissed by almost silently then pulled over into the emergency lane in front of the Bubblecruiser.

The driver climbed out and walked towards them in his white thermasuit, glancing back at Brightdream as he was loaded into the Paramedics’ cruiser. “Don’t I know that guy?” he asked, gesturing towards Brightdream. Eviva was still in shock. “Why don’t I get you out of here. Come on, it’s all over now.” He came around the wrecked Bubblecruiser to Eviva and helped her through the mashed door.

The police officer shrugged, “You don’t have to go with the guy, Mizz. We’d be pleased to take you home.” But the guy was already helping Eviva into the Kamakiriad.

“My name’s Donald. Slip off your shoes. Make yourself at home. I just took delivery of this — the frame’s out of Glasgow, tech’s Balinese. It not fast, but the hydroponic farm is useful when you get hungry. Relax, put some sounds on. How about I brew up some decaf?”

Eviva selected the first minidisk in the rack. The car-surround started up: Duke Ellington and Bubber Miley’s East St. Louis Toodle-oo in antique mono! It sounded tinny and much too cheerful to her ears, but she soon forgot the mood of the crash and her argument with Brightdream. Donald reached back for the coffee, placing a heat-degradable sachet in each cup. “I didn’t get to try this out yet. Hope it works.” He reached for the kettle.

Eviva looked at it suspiciously. “Isn’t that an MFL’s Apotropaic Urn?”

“This? No, it’s just a pre-Eclipse electric kettle hooked up to run from the Tripstar screen’s power supply. Cream and sugar? Those candlesticks back there are from the Quacks though, solid brass from India. A present from my friend Amy Khan. She’s a horn player up north.” Eviva had never heard MFL referred to in this way before; it had always been plain MFL to her. “Amy works the Teahouse. Hey, what do you say we take a drive up there? We could stop off at the Metroplex, or call in at Club Hi Ho on the way — there’s a new exhibit by Charlie Tokyo. The hacks say it seduces us with light.” Donald smiled and flicked off the power switch next to the biometer on the dashboard.

The kettle was boiling as the Kamakiriad came to a smooth but definitive halt on the hard shoulder of the flyover, opposite Lakeview Bible House on North Wabash Avenue. “Why have we stopped?” asked Eviva above the rapidly expiring strains of big band jazz.

“Damn it,” Donald murmured, turning a key as various indicators lit red. “I think we just ran out of steam.”

—0O0—

 
(“In the Last Light of the Triple Sun” first appeared in print in Britain’s The Zone magazine, number 4, summer 1996.)

Email me the title of this story and I will send it to you as a PDF file, free of charge: chrisb[at]xtra[dot]co[dot]nz

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