“Like it sees itself, and starts grieving and—”
“No, sir. No grieving. It doesn’t auto-deactivate. It auto-overloads. It sees itself in the mirror, and then commits suicide. Or tries to, at least.”
“I don’t…”
“You really gotta see it to believe it. Sir, you’re in for such a treat. You know, you could actually see some AOLs right here in the store, cause what I was starting to say before was that after the cease-and-desist came in from ABC? a few of us who worked here, we shot our own AOL vids, compiled them, and we’re looping those on the ‘Cure for Boredom’ monitors now. And, you know, not to toot my own flute, but I think the one I made’s one of the best of them, actually. It’s got some, uh…pretty wild twists. But I won’t spoil it for you. It’s the one with the special-rigged gallows, though. Anyway, the whole thing’s good. The whole compilation.”
The clerk seemed so proud, I told him I’d watch it.
* * *
—
And I did. Some of it. Though I didn’t mean to. Not exactly. First, I did a little shopping, however. I stopped in the WorkPellets aisle to buy a couple of six-month supply packs—they were nearly 30 percent cheaper there than at the grocery store—and then, although I’d given up on finding a toy or a game, I still wanted to get some kind of gift for Blank, so I chose a $90 PillowNest with memory-foam cushioning, full-spectrum interior lighting, a no-slip thimble, and a two-way-mirrored lid. It cost a bit more than I’d intended to spend, but, according to the sticker on the box, this nest had been a P.A.L. recommendation-of-the-month for six months running, back in 2011, plus Blank had been in the same PillowNest since infancy, I was short on gift ideas, and if this new nest were, as it appeared to be, as well made as the old one, it would last more than long enough to justify the price. It would, in all likelihood, outlast me. And maybe, I thought, Blank would like the lighting.
The shortest checkout line was five customers deep, and although I didn’t particularly want to see the compilation, there were three “Cure for Boredom” monitors per line—a large one that ran alongside the product conveyor belt to my left, a small one above the impulse-purchase rack to my right, and a medium-size one above the cash register ahead—so, ergonomically speaking, it was easier to watch than it was not to watch.
Nor was I entirely uninterested. My visit to A(cute)rements had convinced me that Independence—or AOL—was, if nothing else, something much of the world was fascinated by, and for me to willfully remain ignorant of either one would be, it seemed, to deny reality, which, for anyone, but especially a writer, isn’t generally considered a wise or admirable move. So I allowed myself to look at the screens, or I didn’t go out of my way not to look at the screens—or…whatever.
I watched the screens.
The line was slow enough that even though the clips were each sandwiched between a series of animated flyers for that week’s on-sale products and promotions at A(cute)rements, I had enough time to see two.
The first clip I saw must have, I thought, been the one the clerk I’d spoken to had made, as the Curio in it stood on the elevated platform of a gallows like the one in the display case. In front of the gallows, flush with the platform, was a vanity mirror. At the start of the clip, the cure wore an eyeless hood. Two fingers entered the frame and pulled the hood off. The cure, seeing itself in the mirror, went wide-eyed near-instantly, and covered its snout, as if pleasantly surprised, then uncovered its snout to stroke its own face with increasing pressure, then sat on the platform, staring into its eyes in the mirror and hugging itself so tightly that its breathing became short and it began to painsing, at which point it stopped hugging itself, got to its feet, ceased to painsing, and hurled itself, whole-bodied, at the mirror, instantly opening a cut above its eye and bashing its knee such that now it was hopping, bleeding from the cut, and painsinging at what looked like it must have been a higher volume than previously (the “Cure for Boredom” monitors were all set on mute). The cure sat down and hugged itself again, but just as quickly leapt back to its feet and hurled itself at the mirror, cracking the mirror, opening a second cut, over its other eye, and falling onto its back on the platform.
It sat up, hugged itself, and painsang, it seemed, even louder yet (its mouth was wide-open), then crawled to and knelt just in front the mirror. It straightened its back and cocked its torso, as if to deliver a powerful headbutt, but before it was able to do anything else, the fingers reentered from the top of the frame, to lift it by the shoulders and set it near the noose. The cure, still painsinging, tried to reach the mirror a few more times—at first upon its knees, then upon its feet, limping—and at each attempt the fingers reappeared to place it near the noose.
After the last approach, a hardcover book—I don’t know which book; there wasn’t a dust jacket—was set between the mirror and the cure. The cure turned around then, toward the post of the gallows, and looked upward. While continuing to painsing, it did the head-bobbing thing that a lot of cures do when their owner/user is speaking to them, and the fingers returned, pinched the noose, and shook it til the cure put the noose around its neck.
It turned back toward the book. The book was removed. The cure ran at its reflection, tightening the noose, but the rope prevented it from reaching the mirror, and the cure, leaning forward at the sharpest angle the rope would allow, began to strangle, but soon lost its balance, and its knees struck the platform, and the rope went slack.
Now it tried something else. It balled itself up: pressed its shoulders to its knees, and wrapped its arms around the backs of its thighs, squeezed tighter and tighter til none of its body made contact with the platform, and it tilted backward, and the rope went taut. Strangling once again, it pendulated slightly, just a hair’s breadth over the platform. After a number of seconds, however, it must have passed out, or in any case lost the strength it required to remain balled up; its torso unfolded, and it came to rest on the platform again, slackening the rope, relieving the strangle.
It opened its eyes, raised its head, got to its knees, found its reflection, and the cycle—i.e. the charging at the mirror, tilting, kneeling, balling, pendulating, passing out, recovering—repeated twice more.
Then the cure appeared to get a handle on the whole dirty trick—or maybe not the whole dirty trick, for it didn’t try to get the noose off its neck—and, rather than attempting to smash into the mirror again, it hurled itself backward into the gallows post, thrashed around at random, jumped side to side, and managed, accidentally, by way of all this jumping and thrashing, to kick a lever next to the post, which opened the platform’s trapdoor beneath it.
Dropped right through.
When this happened, at least two of the people who were standing in line with me audibly sighed, but the clip wasn’t over. Beneath the trapdoor was a stack of books (I don’t know which ones: the spines weren’t visible) that prevented the cure from falling far enough for the rope to go taut, and though the cure scraped its ribs against the trapdoor’s frame as it fell upon the books, it did not—could not—strangle, much less snap its neck.