Chike Shaken Not Stirred

>> THE_MOMENT_YOU_BECAME_SELF_AWARE.trau

There is a baby swaddled in blue cotton gurgling flat on its back with hands groping the air. A girl, Sister, enters frame right, creaking the crib as she leans over to examine the newborn. The baby stops. Its eyes rumple upwards to hold this strange face from whose central hole poured lyrical coos. What is it looking at? the baby wonders. Me? Me. Me? Meeeeeee.

Chike clicked the little ‘x’ seated in the browser’s upper-right corner and the baby disappeared. A message popped open on the screen: We’re sorry we showed you a memory you didn’t want to see.

*

>> S_AD_EXILED.trau

Chike strode into his group therapy session rocking dew brown eyes and clinical depression. They all swooned for his sadness, loved him for his sadness, wanted to touch his sadness. The therapist had to quarantine Chike to a chair in the far-back reaches of the room so the other patients would cease peeling off their clothes and sobbing at Chike’s feet, stroking his dingy sneakers with their tongues, beseeching him for communion in coitus.

Every now and then during the remainder of the group therapy session, one of Chike’s depressed compadres would turn to stare desperately towards his seat in the shadows, would wink or lick their teeth and fire lonely shivers up Chike’s spine.

*

>> GODS_WILL.conv

____: Why haven’t we devised a way to kill mosquitos yet

Chike: What do you mean

____: I mean what good do mosquitos do for anyone anyway they are just parasites are they not

Chike: That’s a little unfair isn’t it

____: No seriously all they do is suck blood and spread disease I mean what good are they for from an ecosystem’s perspective you know

Chike: Animals and other natural phenomena do not have a purpose how narcissistic would someone have to be to assume meaning in their life—

____: I just looked it up on my phone mosquitoes are significant in many avian diets especially in the arctic tundra

Chike: Touché mosquito touché

____: And anyway according to this article they’ve finally found a way to make male mosquitos infertile so

*

>> CONCEPT_OF_MIND.mem

First week of classes first semester of college Chike sat in the upper echelons of a cheaply lit lecture hall. He chewed on his fingernails still believing that ‘cognitive science’ would be about like, emotions and shit, like, the human psyche and deep thought stuff, you know? Then the professor waddled out and began talking about like, ‘this chemical goes on this receptor’ like, real ass science, and Chike stood up and yelled ‘no no no no no, nah-uh man, no’ and was out, that was not what he signed up for.

Chike received a 1.56 GPA that semester, just .04 points shy of the institution’s 1.6 GPA requirement, and was promptly suspended.

*

>> LACAN_YOURE_LATE.mov

And here was the scene where Chike triumphantly rides an ex-police horse bareback beneath an otherworldly solar eclipse.

It was some cheesy action flick, his cinematic debut from years ago. He had always refused to watch himself in anything but today lacked the motivation to change the channel. Chike blobbed across the couch, absorbed the flashing lights, the punchy colors, the glamorous violence. Chike watched his younger self, pixelated and reconstructed with every frame, over and over again, at precisely 90 frames per second. Not a wholly pleasant experience, Chike thought, but definitely an experience.

*

>> PRE_LIFE_CRISIS.conv

Chike: I’ve been paranoid lately that I’m a shallow person

____: Chike you’re like the least shallow person I know

Chike: Why because I use a lot of big words

____: No

Chike: Also I don’t think I know what pain is

____: Chike you’re twenty-two

Chike: I think it robs me of something but I don’t quite know what

*

>> BENJAMIN_DAS_KUNSTWERK_IM_ZEITALTER_SEINER_TECHNISCHEN_REPRODUZIERBARKEIT.pdf

“The stage actor identifies himself with a role. The film actor very often is denied this opportunity. His performance is by no means a unified whole, but is assembled from many individual performances. Apart from incidental concerns about studio rental, availability of other actors, scenery, and so on, there are elementary necessities of the machinery that split the actor’s performance into a series of episodes capable of being assembled.”

*

>> MOMMY_WHERE_DO_EXPECTATIONS_COME_FROM.trau

There stands a young boy in a loose blue cardigan, paused suspiciously still in the middle of an overcrowded living room, anonymous family members jostling one another, wafts of potluck spices and toddler squeals, convection oven heat. He watches Mom respond with polite nods to sounds of oh my what a beautiful boy he has become and wow what a strapping young boy sure to turn into a strapping young man.

What is ‘boy?’ the boy wonders.

Chike clicked the little ‘x’ seated in the browser’s upper-right corner and the boy disappeared. A message popped open on the screen: We’re sorry we showed you a memory you didn’t want to see.

*

>> WANE_POETIC.conv

____: Today we’re lucky to have up and coming actor Chike with us on the show so Chike can you tell us how you’re so good

Chike: I’ve never considered my morality much

____: No I mean how you’re so good at acting

Chike: Oh well I do my best in every role to capture that empty emergent moment just before you actually figure out what you’re feeling

____: That’s all very interesting but tell us do you sponsor alkaline water

Chike: No

____: That’s all very interesting and we’re out of time now thank you

Chike: Thank you

*

>> BODY_IS_IN_THE_EYE_OF_THE_BEHOLDER.zip

Chike had been feeling exhausted constantly but was on a mission to kick his coffee addiction and so decided to switch over to matcha. Matcha, purported to fight cancer and cholesterol, to boost memory and concentration, to detoxify the body, to antioxidant-ize the body, to taste great, but what is this body Chike asked, gazing into his full-length bedroom mirror and clutching the matcha tin with palms clammy from caffeine withdrawal. The fleshy manila folder that contains files concerning my biological and social histories. Matcha, purported to contain half the caffeine of a black cup of coffee, was not enough. Can I exorcise an entire history Chike asked, lifting the open matcha tin to his nose. He snorted and felt the green powder attach itself to the back of his eyeballs, yes yes I can.

*

>> WHAT_FORCE_IS_IT_THAT_ANIMATES_THE_HUMAN.mem

First week of classes second semester of college Chike sat in the upper echelons of a cheaply lit lecture hall. He chewed on his fingernails still believing that ‘psychology’ would be about like, the soul and shit, like, the human spirit and life essence stuff, you know? Chike was no dumbass. He knew his fucking Greek, you know what I’m saying? Then the professor shuffled out and began talking about like, ‘cognitive science’ like, back to square fucking one, and Chike stood up and yelled ‘no no no no no, nah-uh man, no’ and was out, that was not what he signed up for.

Chike dropped out once and for all and found his calling as an actor.

*

>> WELTANSCHAUUNG.conv

____: Here take this I think it will help

Chike: What is it

____: It’s a drug that allows you to enter the astral plane

Chike: What does one find on the astral plane

____: A world generated purely from your storehouse of subjectivity

Chike: Okay why not

____:

Chike:

____:

Chike:

____: So how do you feel

Chike: Everything feels the same

*

>> L(OVE)_C(OMMUNICATION)_I(NTIMACY).trau

When Chike could re-enter the group therapy circle, he was bombarded on all sides by things like Bottom-Line Behaviors and Cross-Talk and Group-Conscience. Chike made himself as inoffensive as possible, silent and slightly slumped in his plastic chair. But when it came down to discussing Moral Inventory, the therapist had to force Chike to go into Isolation; that is, to withdraw from the help and healing process of others, program support, or our Higher Power.

This was because Chike believed that good and evil were luxury concepts created by civil society, as were things like Moral Inventory and Group-Conscience and etc. etc. That’s not to say he would ever harm anyone, just that maybe we’ve got to start thinking like individuals.

Chike carried out the remainder of his life in Isolation.

*

>> TOUCH_ME.mov

And here was the scene where Chike leaps and lands wide-legged, elbows elevated and forearms swaying side to side as his weight shifts left and right. He faces another man performing this same dance. They grunt.

It was some cheesy mockumentary flick from the more exploratory phase of his career. He had begun to take pleasure in watching himself, so did not change the channel. Chike blobbed across the couch, absorbed the dense foliage, the rainforest noises, the primal choreography. The males of this species, the mockumentary’s narrator intoned, create elaborate rituals in order to make physical contact.

*

>> DROPPED_CALLS.conv

Chike: I’ve been doing a lot of research on relationships falling apart because I’m interested in that

____: Mmhm

Chike: Like you know the misunderstandings that happen between people everyday

____: Yuh

Chike: They happen all the time

____: (taptaptaptaptaptap)

Chike: Are you recording what I’m saying

____: No

Chike: Then what’s with the phone

____:

Chike:

____: I’m sorry what

*

>> WHEN_THERE_IS_NOTHING_LEFT_WHAT_ELSE_IS_THERE_BUT_LIFE.trau

There lies crumpled a grizzled man in nothing but old swim trunks by the rim of his balcony jacuzzi. He is crying. He spreads his hand towards a modest pistol lying on the tile just an arm’s length away. He sits up, squeezing the pistol’s grip between both palms, fingers overlapping each other as if in prayer. He presses the the bore to his forehead. His finger grips the trigger.

Confetti flies out. A forgotten leftover from his spaghetti western-themed birthday party long ago. I’m a lie this gun is fake like everything else in my life.

Chike clicked the little ‘x’ seated in the browser’s upper-right corner and the grizzled man disappeared. A message popped open on the screen: We’re sorry we showed you a future you didn’t want to see.

*

>> SLOW_BURN.zip

Chike was drinking tea before doing anything. slupslupslupslupslup. Tea in the morning. Tea before heading out the door. Pre-lunch tea break. Tea with lunch. Digestive post-lunch tea break. Tea in the late afternoon. slupslupslupslupslup. Tea before dinner. Tea during dinner. Digestive evening tea. Tea with supper. Second digestive evening tea. Sleepy time tea. slupslupslupslupslup.

Chike drinks with his fingers. He pinches droplets of hot hot tea and sprinkles them on his tongue. He is careful. He is tender, delicate. He dabs his eyes with it. His nostrils syphon up its steam. He sighs and opens his pores to it.

just one thing

he wanted to be just one thing inside and out

*

>> GET_PSYCHED.conv

Chike: Gotta have an ordinary everyday mind Chike gotta have an ordinary everyday mind

____: What

Chike: Oh sorry I didn’t think there was anyone here

*

>> A_THIRD_SPACE.mem

When Chike’s mother died Chike was in charge of sorting through the traces she left behind. Tucked away in a slim notebook found in her bedroom vanity set’s bottom-most drawer was a scrap of paper. Scrawled on its crinkled surface was a poem dated around the time Chike’s mother would have been the same age as Chike now. It was titled, ‘On Limitations.’

found in the extremities

of subjectivity or style

(or recursion, saturation)

it is like our own world

Chike had always found his mother a bit cryptic.

*

>> WHAT_IS_LOVE_BABY_DONT_HURT_ME.trau

There lies a young man in pajamas. He leans upright, propped against overstuffed pillows, legs spread out long and exposed. Another man hovers above him. The young man mouths the words I’d like to touch you to let you know I feel close to you. The other man nods, but the eagerness in his eyes betrays his deafness. I just want to touch nothing more. The young man catches whiff of the dissonance between them, it makes his bones feel funny and he mouths more clearly I don’t want to have sex with you tonight I can’t. The other man nods in the affirmative but his face is hungry, he hooks his fingers firm and inarguable between the younger one’s elastic band and goose pimpled skin, rips the pajama shorts downward with a blind violence and he dives, puckers his lips around the younger one’s penis and grunts into its frank and flaccid disagreement tell me what your cock likes tell me tell me tell me oh. His breath pools the younger man’s crotch—a breath that reeks of greed, it enters the pores and paralyzes the bloodstream—and the younger man cannot do anything but laugh a laugh that causes the whole bed to tremble then proactively bite the corner of a pillow to bear his helplessness.

What’s so funny the other man wonders.

The younger man wants to say nothing is funny, in fact, everything is terrifying and this is all wrong but instead says

Chike clicked the little ‘x’ seated in the browser’s upper-right corner and the two men disappeared. A message popped open on the screen: We’re sorry we showed you a memory you didn’t want to see.

*

>> THE_ENTROPY_QUESTION.conv

Chike: I think I’d like to trade in my laptop for a chameleon

____: Can you even do that

Chike: Why not money is a construct anyway

____: Well alright but why a chameleon

Chike: Have you ever seen a video of a chameleon

____: No

Chike: Well let me tell you chameleons have fine hands splendid hands and anytime they go to use those hands the total focus in their pinhole eyes tells me that they are completely wrapped up in using those hands that they are their hands

____: So how is this a replacement for your laptop

Chike: The idea isn’t to substitute objects it is to transform my life

*

>> PIRANDELLO_SI_GIRA.pdf

“The film actor feels as if exiled. Exiled not only from the stage but from his own person. With a vague unease, he senses an inexplicable void, stemming from the fact that his body has lost its substance, that he has been volatilized, stripped of his reality, his life, his voice, the noises he makes when moving about, and has been turned into a mute image that flickers for a moment on the screen, then vanishes into silence…. The little apparatus will play with his shadow before the audience, and he himself must be content to play before the apparatus.”

_________

Summer Koo would prefer not to share any information about themself here save their hope that you enjoyed the read and find wonder in many more.