H(A)PPY Page 2

  Because I sensed that he liked music and that it would make him H(A)PPY – and therefore more productive – I improvised Kite a short piece on my guitar which I spontaneously called ‘Watching the Dawn Break on the New Delta’.

  Kite was astonished at how nimbly my fingers plucked away at the guitar strings. It made him H(A)PPY to watch this and to listen. Yes, it did make him H(A)PPY. H(A)PPY and refreshed. Although he was already perfectly H(A)PPY. Kite is In Balance.

  ‘That rapid movement with your right hand,’ he murmured, once I’d finished. ‘A tremolo?’

  I nodded.

  And then, just to be on the safe side, I quickly told Kite about the little girl who I had seen on the margins (although of course I didn’t need to tell Kite anything. Kite already has open access on The Stream to all my thoughts and my movements and my transactions). Kite was, nevertheless, quite surprised that anything marginal should be in focus. He aimed a tiny laser into my right eye and peered around inside for a few moments, wondering aloud whether there might be something slightly off-kilter in my Oracular Devices. He scratched his head. He made a mental note of it. I told him that I had been idly looking at an article about a precious guitar and that I didn’t entirely understand why my Sensor had called it up in the first place.

  ‘You must’ve asked it to,’ he said, matter-of-factly, then added, without any prompting, ‘I like most stringed instruments, but not the violin. For some reason I find the sound of violins rather sad and unsettling. Too emotional. Even jigs. Even jigs make me feel uneasy – as if the riotous surface of celebration masks something underneath, some kind of . . . of emptiness or . . . or inadequacy.’

  He shuddered when he used these words: unsettling – emptiness – inadequacy. Kite is so sensitive that the words scratch up against the smooth surface of his calm psyche and pucker it; disarrange it.

  ‘But don’t you think there might be a special kind of sadness that is almost a form of happiness?’ I mused. For some inexplicable reason (and as Kite so astutely observed slightly earlier in our exchange) I have been thinking a great deal about the tremolo of late – those wavering high notes: so sweet, so sad. I have a powerful urge to play those notes, although without the familiar fixed-chord positions so typical of the classical and the flamenco traditions (using an independent melodic line instead). This is difficult. It means great stretches of the left hand. It’s challenging and uncomfortable. Hence my interest in the cutaway guitar. The cutaway provides much greater flexibility to individuals with smaller hands and shorter fingers.

  ‘Are you referring to the state of melancholy, perhaps?’ Kite hazarded a quick guess.

  ‘Ah. Yes. Melancholy.’ I nodded. ‘Isn’t there often a bright azure tinge of happiness to be found glinting away quietly inside the deep shadows of its murky-grey waters?’

  ‘By my reckoning, that “special” kind of happiness sounds suspiciously like an EOE.’ He chuckled. ‘An unproductive form of self-indulgence.’

  (Kite is obviously very wise. I can see him receiving information and then only holding on to it just as long as he absolutely needs to, but no longer. He doesn’t grasp on to it. He just receives it and then pushes it away. He gives it away. He is enviably Non-Attached.)

  ‘It permeates music.’ I shrugged, almost resigned. ‘It lives in the minor keys.’

  Kite called something up on his Sensor. ‘Your star oscillates,’ he muttered, leaving a quick, mental note about this in his brand-new Mira A file.

  ‘My . . . ?’

  ‘Mira A, your star, the star you are named after, it oscillates. Sometimes it is visible from our planet, from Mother Earth, but at other times it vanishes from view. And there is a Mira B. Another star. A sister star. A less well-formed star.’

  ‘I wonder if I’ll feel still more H(A)PPY – still more complete – when I finally transition into a Full Neuter . . . ’ I pondered. ‘Like you.’

  I gazed up at him, admiringly.

  ‘False aspiration.’ He smiled. ‘Happy is Happy is Happy.’ Then he flipped on the laser and peered into my right eye again and made another mental note of something. I suppose I could easily call it up on my Information Stream if I really wanted to know what it was. But I trust Kite completely. So I don’t care.

  I asked Kite how long he had been in My Orbit. I haven’t encountered Kite before. Kite began to answer me and then I interrupted him to ask if he would consider joining my Community of Friends. Kite was H(A)PPY to oblige me, although he said that he never refused friendship and that he considered the whole world to be his Community.

  Kite is so Well Balanced.

  Now I come to think of it, I somewhat regret not waiting to hear Kite’s answer to my question about how long he had been in My Orbit. I would’ve liked to find out the answer. I suppose it was rather rude of me to interrupt him like that. Of course I could call up this information on my Stream if I wanted to, but if I do that then Kite will automatically be informed and I don’t want to distract him (or anyone else) with my excessive – even inappropriate – levels of interest. I need to turn these impulses inwards: first, to the self, then, to the Community, and finally, to The Graph.

  Balance.

  I regret my rudeness. I regret it, then I push it away. We cannot live in regret, that would be self-defeating. We can only live in This Moment.

  Kite is so friendly. He is so Well Balanced. He’s great. I really need to spend more time around positive people like Kite. But I also need to counter this desire with a sense of calm resignation, of deep renunciation and of effortless self-control.

  For your information:

  EOE

  An EOE is an Excess of Emotion. To stay In Balance we must avoid Excesses of Emotion. All excesses. Any excess. Extremes are deeply unproductive. They are dangerous. Even the word ‘dangerous’ is potentially dangerous – and only to be employed with immense self-awareness and caution – because it is an extreme word and words carry suggestions the way the wind carries pollen and leaves and dust particles. And music. And Kites.

  I am an oscillating star.

  Who is Mira B?

  Gosh!

  I recently discovered . . .

  There is a way of sidestepping the gaze of The Information Stream. I have only recently found this out. By staring into bright light. I came upon this information purely by accident. And I asked that question (the one you just read) – Who is Mira B? – staring into bright light. Blinding light. I am staring into bright light as I think this. Of course if I stare into blinding light too often it will become apparent on The Graph as A-Typical Behaviour. And I do not want to negatively affect The Graph. Already I can see that my numbers are higher than they should be. There is a purpling effect at the edge of the Colourmap. I must be open. I must be transparent. I must walk a Path of Light instead of being . . . of slipping . . . of becoming . . . I must not . . . I must avoid this strange urge to be Blinded By The Light.

  Blinded By . . .

  Blinded By The . . .

  Why is that phrase capitalised on my Information Stream?

  Like a song title?

  How perplexing!

  Of course I shouldn’t want anything too much. That’s the secret. That’s the key. I should not strain. I need to let these thoughts go and Move On. I am Free From Desire.

  I am H A P P Y.

  Yes. Yes. I am H (A) P P Y.

  H(A)P P Y

  H(A)P P Y

  I am In Balance.

  Oh why does the A keep on disambiguating?

  The A in H (A) P P Y?

  Why does it keep on parenthesising like that?

  What can it possibly mean?

  All our fabrics are intelligent now. We grow them in laboratories. Our fabrics are self-cleaning and self-maintaining and they interact with our bodies to gauge things like size, density and temperature according to the specifics of the conditions in which we find ourselves. Our fabrics – our shoes – are alive. They are sensitive and so we – The Young – are sensitive t
o them. Appreciative of them. In situations of stress or duress or jeopardy our clothes will modify to protect us. They are fully breathable. They will change colour on request. We can wear any style or pattern that we choose, but mostly we choose to wear plain, loose, non-gendered styles and the colour white because we are The Young and we are Clean and we try not to complicate things too much by engaging The Ego in mundane or insignificant day-to-day decisions. Choice, fashion etc. are the pointless and outmoded preoccupations of The Past. And colour often represents The Ego. The Ego and difference. So we can choose to wear whatever we like, but we always choose to wear white, because it best expresses how calm we are, and how free we are, and how whole we are and how H(A)PPY we are.

  H (A) P P Y

  I really, really wish it would stop doing that.

  Separating.

  Oscillating.

  And yet even though our fabrics are sentient, and our food is carefully prepared in laboratories where levels of power and water and waste etc. are all minutely controlled – we eschew the old Capitalist Modes of Production and quietly consider them the greatest human evil (please note that I employ this provocative word with a combination of calm and regret and disquiet), The Young still choose to spend time In Nature, at regular intervals, to keep in touch with our dear Mother, Earth. Mother Earth is our sustainer, our source, our root, and we love her. When we touch Mother Earth something fundamental is stimulated within us and we feel an intense sensation of Actuality and Belonging. Because we live in The System it is sometimes easy to forget that at the root of everything is Mother Earth who sustains us. We live in The System but we must look behind it, the way a child in The Past might watch a puppet show and then – once the performance is over – run to the back of the box and lift up the curtain to squint into the darkness at the hunched and mysterious (and no doubt heavily perspiring) figure of the puppeteer.

  In The Past our ancestors forgot to love (and love is a strong word, a dangerous word, a word The Young are discouraged from using if any other word will suffice) Mother Earth. They created Gods in their own image and worshipped these images instead of Mother Earth. They told themselves that the creator of the universe had chosen them and made them rulers over all things – all the plants and the animals, all Mother Earth’s many riches and resources. Soon they invented their demi-gods of Growth and Progress. They forgot that Mother Earth sustained them freely. They were arrogant and self-serving. Their philosophies were both physically and intellectually flawed. They worshipped the number. They became an unsustainable parasite on Mother Earth. They stole from Mother Earth. They abused her and all her many glories. Their ignorance and vanity were insupportable. They forgot how to feel gratitude. They forgot how to see, how to empathise, how to reason.

  Yes. Oh yes. That is who we once were. The Young must never, ever allow themselves to ignore what has brought them here. The Young must never, ever forget the debt that they owe to Mother Earth. Insofar as it is helpful and fruitful, The Young must feel a measure of shame and embarrassment (even consternation, even disgruntlement, even astonishment) at the chaos and destruction their own race has unleashed against Mother Earth. Shame. Embarrassment. Sharp words. Dangerous words. And, as such, it is only appropriate that The Young should embrace them for a moment – a brief moment – then push them away and move on. It is a lesson. It is why we live by The Graph. We cannot be self-serving. We cannot be individual. We are one consciousness fractured into a multitude of forms. We cleave to what is good and, still more importantly, what is feasible. Our survival is dependent upon our unity. We must be dispassionate. The System is our unity. The System is our dispassion.

  But The System is not our God.

  We are our own Gods.

  The farm . . . The farm . . . Oh, yes.

  I am currently on a farm tending to a herd of cows. Lorca, who I am working alongside, has been encouraging me to pat their flanks as we lead them to milking. Lorca is a masseuse. She specialises in touch. I – in turn – encourage Lorca to listen to the heavy, panting breath of the cows, and the chop and thud and rhythm of their hooves against different surfaces. We especially enjoy the sound the jets of warm milk make against the side of the steel pail when we stretch out our tentative hands to gently squeeze their soft and wonderfully pendulous nipples.

  Such an extraordinary thought: that our ancestors once drank this strange, warm liquid and felt themselves to be sustained by it, even though many of them lacked the correct enzymes to digest it properly. We are naturally overwhelmed by the cow’s rich, heady smell, its stolid unknowingness, its immense mass, its easy heaviness. And the way that their patient flanks steam so gloriously in the cold, morning air. At first I was afraid of the herd, but the cows are not dangerous to us. They are simulacra (cows were viral minefields in The Past, and when farmed industrially were contributors to the depletion of Mother Earth’s precious Ozone Layer), but they are utterly lifelike. And for every Human there are three Neuro-Mechanicals, ensuring that The Young are always kept safe from harm – even though there is no prospect of harm – because that’s how very precious we are – to each other, to the world. I say precious, but of course we are not precious at all. We must not think in that way. We must always remain humble. We must strive (but not too hard, never too hard) to be Ego-less. Our value is, of course, purely negligible and entirely contingent upon the tiny mark we make in the immense pattern of The Whole. In a time of True Clarity, we are that oft-derided pixellated dot. That is all. And we must never forget it. The Young are an Impressionistic Masterpiece, a perfect Art Form, a gloriously Open Composition. But Mira A? Who is she? Mira A is just a small, individuated brush stroke. A tiny, insignificant splash within a giant, glowing canvas of Light.

  I am H(A)PPY with that.

  H(A)PPY.

  I am . . .

  Oscillating.

  Move on, Mira A. Just let it pass.

  Inhale. Exhale.

  Forgive yourself. Forget yourself.

  That’s right. Yes. Yes. That’s better.

  It is always good to have a short break from The Sensor, although we can never really have a break from The Sensor, just the idea of a break, just the semblance of a break. The break is supplied and managed and supervised by The Sensor to give us a break from The Sensor. It is almost like experiencing pangs of thirst while swimming in a bottomless ocean of water.

  The irony of this situation is by no means lost on us. The Young have a well-developed sense of humour. It is necessary. We are wry, but we are accepting. We are the inheritors of something almost destroyed, something virtually ruined, something tragically despoiled and bruised and limping, but we will not – no, we will not – allow this tragedy to undermine our hopefulness, or our determination to work hard to improve, piece by piece, inch by inch, increment by tiny increment, this brave and clever planet that we love so dearly. Our Mother. Earth.

  Sometimes, on the farm, I gaze into the ‘sun’ and think illicit thoughts (I am doing just that as I think this). I am not even entirely sure what these thoughts are, what they amount to – they are so quick, so fleeting – but it feels good to release them – to unburden myself of them. Afterwards my mind vibrates like a metal string.

  The image of a dog, emerging from a river, standing on the green bank, pressing its four paws into the soft soil, securing itself, and then shaking its fur free of any excess moisture – just shaking itself – is how I best like to conceptualise this process.

  An unburdening.

  I will not allow myself to regret this strange weakness, because regret is counterproductive. I will just allow these thoughts to form, ponder them for a moment (the way one might ponder a healing mosquito bite on the skin of a smooth arm) and then calmly push them away. I will not allow these unhelpful formulations to compromise my time on the farm. The Graph at the farm is very stable. I observed this to Lorca after the dawn milking and she said, ‘I believe that’s a pun.’

  I did not know what a pun was, so she explained it to
me. A pun is a kind of internal joke connected to language use. Farm/stable. That was the pun.

  Pun.

  How did I not know that?

  Surely I knew that?

  Oscillating.

  I enjoy being around Lorca. She often massages my hands and my feet. I value her touch. There is no awkwardness between us. The Young are unafraid of intimacy. Because everything is Known. Everything is Open. Nothing is hidden. And we are no longer sexually driven. There is no need. There is no urge. No desperation. Just calm. We are untroubled. We are Free From Desire. Over time our bodies have become smoother. Our reproductive organs have shrunk and become neutral. Some of The Young choose to advance this process chemically if it is considered appropriate by The Graph. If it is considered better for them to do so. Others are encouraged to wait for this to happen naturally. This is good, too. It is nice to be smooth. But we do not idealise smoothness. It shouldn’t be considered a ‘goal’ – the ‘apex’ of anything – a state of ‘perfection’. It is simply an evolution. Evolution is not a moral conundrum – a challenge, a dilemma. Evolution is not an emotional issue. It is a drab fact, a necessity, an inevitability. That is all. It is something natural. When a snake sheds its skin it does not consider the skin it once had or the skin it now has. It just accepts the process and moves on. It does not dwell on these things, because it is not good to dwell on these things. It is not useful or fruitful to dwell on these things. Because The System is perfection. It was made perfect. It expresses us perfectly, and we express it perfectly. We are a Whole. So there is no need to worry, or to gnaw, or to swerve . . .

  Ah . . .

  Look . . .

  As I thought gnaw . . . As I thought swerve . . . the tiny graph that calibrates my language choice pinkened, ever so slightly, and a small light flashed. It said volatile. The Graph does not approve of my choice of language. The Graph thinks I am verging on an EOE. Volatile. I call up an explanation of this word on The Sensor – volatile – and the Oxford English Dictionary tells me that my language choice was ‘mercurial’. Mercurial? The dictionary tells me that to be mercurial is to be ‘of lively temperament’.