“Doctor, doctor! The patient, doctor…I think the patient is coming around.”
Amidst the brilliant white light that enveloped, confusion and screams, passing out, screams, sedatives, screams.
---
11.40 Curious enters ‘the cd café’
11.41 Madame: if that’s what you’re looking for, hun, pm me.
11.42 Rosy_cd: lol. Madame, I didn’t know you were into that.
11.42 Madame: I’m feeling open minded, Rosy love. I’ll be anything you want me to be.
11.43 Curious: hello all, I’m new here. First timer.
11.43 Echoeing: Where did Rob go?
11.44 SlaveinTights: l337
11.45 Rosy_cd: hey curious! Welcome to our café!
11.45 HornyboyUSA: any girls with strap-ons wanting to cyberfuck me hard? PM me and lets get it on.
11.45 Curious: that was subtle. Hey Rosy. Hows it going?
11.47 Private message from HornyboyUSA: hey curious. m/f?
11.47 Rosy_cd: Ok, thanks. What brings you to our confused and beautiful love den?
11.55 Curious: I’m not wholly sure, to be honest. Something to satisfy my urges, to explore the possibilities of what I am. What do you come here for? Are you a regular here?
11.55 SlaveinTights: does anyone wants photos of me in my tights?
11.56 Rosy_cd: For the sex, mostly! I’ve been coming here for 3 years now, and I’ve made some good friends here.
11.56 Vixen: oh go on then Slave, you twisted my arm. Pm them to me :)
11.57 PetiteSuzy: I thought I was your special one.
11.57 Vixen: Oh lord, you see what you’ve done Slave?! Suzy, PM.
11.58 Curious: hehe. I’m glad there’s a sense of community here. A place for people to discover themselves and support each other. A place to escape?
12.05 Curious: Rosy?
12.10 Rosy_cd: sorry hun, I’m a little busy at the moment! Teehee! xxx
12.11 Curious: speak to you another time, byebye.
12.12 Curious: *show users
users online in ‘the cd café’
Amber_bi
Curious
Cybernaut
Echoing
HornyboyUSA
PetiteSuzy
Madame
Rob_in_stockings
Rosy_cd
SlaveinTights
StuckInLovelessMarriage
TiedUP
Vixen
12:35 Curious: Its quiet here. Ill be back another time.
12.39: Curious leaves ‘the cd café’
12.43 SlaveinTights: Vix you’re such a tease. I wanted punishment from you. You’re too sweet.
---
“Delivery for Diane, Flat 36a, Mont Clement road?”
Shaking the sleep from my eyes, naked but for a bathrobe, I took a while to answer.
“Diane?” – a pause, “my housemate Diane, she’s out at the moment. Can I sign for it?”
---
police witness report tape #4 11/03/05
*hits play*
Name? Aulie Hrestky
Age? 23.
Alright Miss Hrestky, would you like to tell us what happened at the flat today.
Ok. I left the flat at 8:30 in the morning and returned at just after 12. I had been working at the Electric Dionysus bar and was due to restart at 1. I had been shopping in Tesco for something us to eat together. We had planned to meet at lunchtime. He said he’d be alone, that he wasn’t expecting anyone. When I got back to the flat, I knocked the door…and noone answered. I thought he must have been asleep, or at a push had gone out briefly to buy some milk. So, I used my key and went in and put my bags in the kitchen. The house smelt of cigarette smoke, which he knew I hated. That was when I saw him, through the kitchen door, his back to me, sat at the computer desk. I thought he had headphones on. *begins to cry* I called out to him, but he didn’t respond, he didn’t even move. I went over to him; put my arm on his shoulder. His eyes were open, staring vacantly, every now and then blinking; he was twitching, his face, his cheeks. He only had one headphone in. I shouted at him; Wake up! Wake up! *sobs* wake up... But he didn’t. He just stared. I went to his other side, there were lights on the wire, it wasn’t a headphone, it looked more like a computer cable for sending information. I didn’t know what the fuck it was. I pulled it out. Is he going to be ok? I thought he was dead, thought I’d killed him.
---
Private Message Window for PM from Vixen
Vixen: Hey Diane. You seem like a wandering earnest heart, akin to my own. Theres so much vulgarity here that it is rare to find someone as seemingly sweet as yourself.
Diane: Thanks. It seems that most people just come here for cybersex and to post extreme close up pictures of themselves!
Vixen: Lol, yeah, unfortunately that does happen. People come and go here, change their aliases all the time, but a few of us just like to be here, for a chance at a freer existence, perhaps? I don’t know. Its hard in RL to feel comfortable, trapped in that body, here, people can be whatever they want.
Diane: Because we’re just using words here, right? The occasional photograph caters for those with simpler desires, but essentially, people can create identities for themselves here, so you’re never sure who you’re really talking to, it could be anyone, but that doesn’t matter, because ‘I’ and whoever im talking to, they’re just words on a screen. So, within that, are we free to exist as our imagination desires?
Vixen: Hehe, if we can create ourselves and recreate ourselves at whim, to explore the nature of our true self, namely the thoughts and the body sat at your computer desk, what about cohesion, if any, between multiple online personalities? Well, they’re rooted in the one body, fundamentally. But that’s not important here, rooms like these are about emotion and feeling, ultimately your inference.
Diane: Im enjoying this. You’re the first person I’ve really *talked to* here, tho I’ve only been coming a while. How long have you been visiting here, and what for, if not cybersex, I take it?
Vixen: Well, don’t get me wrong, hun. I enjoy the sex too, but its just one element of what’s to be found and embraced here. Some of us enjoy chat, friendships, each others company. Ultimately, you’re exploring versions of yourself, so to deny the sexual element would be to deny something intimately tied in to your sense of self, no? No preconceptions misread in our bodies. Wouldn’t you agree?
Diane: Yeah, I would. I’m being extremely honest now, more honest than I’ve been to anyone here before (but you seem like the most intelligent person I’ve met here). Everything we are, is rooted in language and our bodies, isn’t it? Here, we’re just language. We can be anything we write. In RL, everything’s fraught with conflict and confusion, the space between language and my body, and down to things like conversation, there’s awkwardness, insecurity and uncertainty. I’ve been coming here under various aliases, some characters I’ve built (I’m talking as the core self here, the cohesive I between the disparate experiments and I play with here), differing sexualities and genders, its like play.
Vixen: I understand, but I am talking to Diane now, aren’t i?
Diane: Teehee, of course you are. I’m opening up to you. We’re lying on a sofa hugging and girl chatting about this.
Vixen: Going on what you’ve said before you, what do you mean by ‘girl chatting’? If the implication is that females use a different language, by means of a feminine semiotic, and that through here, whoever YOU are, can tap into and explore this language within yourself, isn’t that a myth constructed by the space between language and your body?
Diane: I’m not sure I understand what you mean.
Vixen: Well, you’d just be dividing your self up into little parts like a conscious schizophrenic. But you’ve already been doing that, logging on as different personalities with different sexual interests and genders. Exploring constructions of intangible feelings within you through pure language. Have you heard of Grayson Perry?
Diane: the turner prize winner?
Vixen: yeah, a transvestite. He calls his feminine side Claire, and he’s always talking about her in the third person, “Claire likes expensive clothes,” and so on. I think that in doing that, he’s denying what’s essentially so intrinsically himself, so very uniquely Grayson Perry, and yeah, it’s ok if you want to polarise these genders within you, and clearly define masculine and feminine in you- but that’s just succumbing to language and myth, isn’t it? Ok, so he’s a man (he has a penis, is XY) but he feels incredibly feminine at times, so he constructs this alter ego for himself. Which is essentially what you’re doing, right diane? But femininity is a social construct rooted in language; it applies to clothes, colours, what car you have! Haha. I just think that by doing that, you’re not doing a great deal to demarcate transvesticism as a site for existence post-gender semiotics. There’ll always be conflict in you between what you define as the male, the female, the homosexual or bisexual, as long as you hold these words up as Truths self evident you forget that all these things exist within YOU, and its YOU and not language that is the cohesion.
Diane: omg, that’s so true.
Vixen: For years, I lived under the resolute belief that spiritually, I was a fox trapped inside a human body. But my only understanding of what a fox was, was through my physical interaction with foxes, the body, and language, the connotations and definitions I held about foxes, the books I had read, etc. I’m just me, and if I’m particularly feral, its not because I’m a fox or anything (but that one did hold me for some time, I must admit!) but that that’s the closest language can come to defining me, or a means to express myself through language.
Diane: This conversation has invoked such a gravity of feeling in me that I yearn for a dream which would render this imagination lucid, or a place I could exist how I feel, and not be caged in by either language or my body, where I could transmute myself daily.
Vixen: I can do this. Wait for a parcel to arrive.
Diane: What do you mean? You don’t have my address.
The user Vixen is offline.
Diane: Vixen?
The user Vixen is offline.
---
I couldn’t see the postman’s eyes, his sunglasses hid them. The staircase window adjacent to him (out of my sight, stood in the doorway) lit his side up glorious yellow and contrasted to the shade and dust which steeped me and the hallway in relative darkness. He was a middle aged man, with Florida orange skin and a moustache showing signs of greying. His heart was not here. He shuffled, made a low huffling sound under his breath and reached for his pocket.
“Sure. All I need’s a signature ‘says it’s been delivered.”
Brushing the door shut behind me, my eyes were fixed on the small brown package held in my hands. Curious and fingering the parcel, tied up in string, I took to my computer desk, with scissors undone, unfolded the parceline wrapping, and saw a box, a white box, its lid half open, as if to invite prying. Covering top of the inside was a printed note, torn from A4 and seeming to have been typed in haste, reading:
‘Diane’ I got yr address thru net searching ;) don’t worry
This will be the answer to your needs, we will meet again, inside.
Vixen xxx
I lit a cigarette, with the window open. Behind the note was a length of computer cable about 5 metres long looped and tied, on one end was a standard USB cable and on the other, a strange plug like an headphone jack but make of tiny, interlinking plates of metal, so minuscule were they that the overall effect was like snakeskin. It was soft, almost organic, it moved and bended with pressure, but only to a point. I didn’t want to apply force to it, it was fragile and intricate. The nib was clear glass, it appeared, the inside of which under magnifying glass revealed itself to be like a light bulb, two infinitesimal protruding wires, joined by a filament of sorts. I had no idea what this was.
I loaded my pc with the cd in, and waiting for my doddery version of windows to eventually load, made a cup of tea.
-----
-From a lecture given on 24/10/05 on Patient #243 at the Institute For Regressed Memories by Dr Atlinger
“…It appears that when the patient entered the sudden coma, the cause of which we’re still not exactly sure of, I will return to this later, that in this moment, a regression of everything that was defined, learned and relied upon as a certainty, or a knowledge about who he was, his relation to everything else around him, in contact and in language, occurred. This state remained prevalent in the 7 months prior to this lecture, and I am pleased to say that the patient is making evident progress in retrieving, with our help, this essential information from the deepest chasms of his brain.
We have, as you know, for some time now been exposing the patient to a series of tests designed to stimulate old memories, which in turn could trigger a reawakening of self. These tests however, have yielded absolutely no results, an unprecedented fact for one of our most tried and tested practises.
However, a suggestion from my colleague, Dr Fiona Moss, to experiment with EST, or electro-shock treatment proved to have immediate and baffling effects. I must reiterate, the patient has been absolutely silent and devoid of response for 7 months now and we had made absolutely no progress. However, upon the very first, most delicate charge of electricity, which was applied through the teeth and the palms of his hands, as shown on the board, he patient began rambling, quite uncontrollably. I remember those first minutes; the sounds were those of slurred words barked out, of animal instincts subordinate to linguistics.
Since last Tuesday, the patient has developed his skills in communication and is now very vocal indeed.
We are, however, far from saving this tormented soul. Dr Moss, if you would play the tape.”
*hits play*
I don’t understand why I’m here. No, not here in this hospital.. Here, in this. This! This body. What happened to me? I was floating, and this seems like a dream. In dreams you’re always tied down, to certain things, to rigid lines and definite objects precise and THERE! And never ever ever ever EVER changing, but when you’re awake I can, WE won’t be defined by single visions, by choices or opposites or skin! You’re not what you appear to be, Mr or Misses whoever you are. I can see her flying in the sky, with colours you’ll never see and a delicacy and grace that warmed me to my bones. I still feel it. Ha ha! Imagine being imagination! You can’t! Imagine being liquid! She said I’d see her inside, and see her inside I did. And outside! Free from physical form, like the air in the electricity of water! If I shut my eyes, I feel so sad. Where is she now? Where is she?
*tape stops*
“Thank you Fiona. Now, with regard to the computer technology we found with the patient. our laboratories in Florida have analysed the wire that the patient’s girlfriend found, connecting the patient to his computer through the right ear. It appears that the wire, the origin of which we have traced to a group of radical thinkers at an electronics lab at the University of Alberta in Canada, when used in conjunction with the software provided on the accompanying and unmarked cdr, enabled entrance and participation in a world of virtual reality. Nothing extraordinary there, perhaps, except in the apparent purpose of the wire. We haven’t been able to enter the VR ourselves, as the wire was in an irreparable state when it was found, and to the avail of our finest technicians, has been rendered quite useless. Moreover, those responsible for creation of the software and the stable running of the online network have since vanished but for a list of names and abandoned science degrees, the mainframe too, has been removed from the internet. From piercing together fragments of the patient’s speech, (though we are still trying to establish in him the importance of a fact/fiction differentiation), we believe this virtual world to be one that was entirely sensory. It was a place of electronic impulse, transmitted directly to the brain via the connecting wire, and neuro-emotional response. Online, users form a network of consciousness, communicating not through language or computer generated representations of physical forms, but through the digital encryption of emotional response into electronic impulse, a process which is enabled through the two way nature of the wire and processed in the software. It was not designed to be inhabited in, as the coding implies, it seems to have been designed as more a social experiment, an idea first suggestion in discussions with Professor Albert Hyman, a lecturer in Computer Sciences and Beth Holloway, lecturer of Gender Studies, both at the Alberta institute, into the stability of representations of self grounded in physicality and language, basing their thinking around notions that gender definitions were in some way fraudulent in their all-encompassing nature. Of the computer software itself, however, we found a finely tuned program. It utilised technology entirely unique, and the students appear to have engineered the infamous wire for this purpose. We don’t know what the patient experienced while he existed in this place, but we know that when his girlfriend pulled the wire out, she wasn’t to know, the patient fell into the coma and continued existence in this world, which became restructured in his mind, albeit in a limited sense, void of outside influence or external stimuli, a world not dissimilar to lucid dreaming….”
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