Stacy Pills Lore - #26
Part I
The heavy muffled thud of the club’s heartbeat climbs its way out of the floor, through the stool, up Liz’s spine, and into her skull. It’s a metronome for the passage of time without a beginning or end, on late nights like these; moments that seem endless. Things change meaning every time the DJ downstairs shifts the BPM, and sets a new cadence for her mind.
Liz takes another drag on her joint, and puts down her media-pad. Mindless doom scrolling can only keep her occupied so long, as she waits for the delivery. She gazes out over the dance floor below her office, through floor-to-ceiling panes of two-way mirrors. Lasers and spotlights create geometric patterns above the heads of a multi-colored sea of people dancing with abandon. Waves of ecstasy roll over the crowd, visible in their faces and movements.
She feels some contentedness in the knowledge that she can contribute to their well-being, even if most of it is chemically induced. She leans on her private bar, accidentally popping up an AR display for club stats. The holostream shows a steady stream of ledger connections, with no failed transactions. Business is good tonight.
Liz thinks back to her years of meaningless jobs in Old City, and New City alike. To the abusive behaviors of bosses and patrons, regardless of industry. To the anger and frustration of the daily grind. To the overarching pressure of expectations from strangers. To the sense of meaningless day-to-day routines with no end in sight. She muses on the meaning of humility, and what a privilege it is to own one’s own business.
The door buzzer snaps her out of her ruminations. Exhaling another cloud of dank ganja, she gets up and quietly walks over to the door. She taps the viewport, the screen suddenly coming to life, the microphone icon indicating readiness for her input. “Who is it?”
A hooded figure tilts their head towards the camera, an invisible face in the shadows. “It’s me.”
Liz freezes for a second. She was not expecting The Founder to show up in person. She thumbs the green “unlock” button on the viewport.“Come on in.”
The door slides open, and The Founder glides in like a wraith. Their bright yellow hoodie with geometric purple highlights clashes with their subtle presence. Liz looks into the void in the hood to catch a glimpse of their face, but can’t make out anything distinctive. The idea of facial features present themselves, but she can’t seem to pinpoint any specific details.
They turn away from her as they grab a seat at her private bar. They speak with a voice clear and crisp, that is simultaneously laced with what feels like digital noise in a tunnel.
“How’s it going Liz?”
She sits across from them and offers them the joint.
“It’s going. Didn’t expect to see you in person today.”
Smoothly accepting the joint in one fluid motion, they speak.
“I have something very rare for you today. I worked with a very unique artist recently. I wanted to give it to you in person.”
He raises the spliff into the shifting void in his hood, its fiery end suddenly brightly visible in contrast to the darkness around it. As they take a puff, a shifting tapestry of human features is illuminated in ember-light, eliciting a gasp from Liz. Amidst the chaos, two infinitely deep eyes of swirling colors stare out at her. They reach out and present an open palm with a tiny purple package in it.
Gently picking it up, she holds it up between them. She can’t help herself and blurts a series of questions out: “How do you do it? How are you bridging realities? Is it all chemistry?”
Offering the joint back, The Founder rises to leave. Their voice sounds like it is traveling from a great distance to reach her.
“Everything is chemistry. Reality is here for us to explore and shape. Do not forget who you are.” Gesturing around with one hand, “This time, this place - none of this defines you. Thank you for your help Liz. I will see you again soon.”
Before she can respond, or ask about the delivery, they drop a smallish, neatly wrapped, and nondescript container on the floor. Without losing a beat, they make their way to the door.
Liz squeezes in a few words rapidly.“Thank you. What is this rare one you gave me called?”
“It is the Natirupe Pill. Remember what I told you.”
Once they are gone, Liz watches the crowd downstairs dancing for a bit. She finishes the joint, wondering who, or what exactly The Founder is. Maybe the real question is who she is. She opens the tiny purple package and discovers the most absurdly kawaii looking pill she’s ever seen. It is even wearing what appears to be cat-ear tipped headphones, and a little HUD displays 8-bit game stats. The container is adorned with what appears to be gaming controls and stickers of anime characters. A purple glow emanates from within, drawing her in slowly.
She presses on one of the buttons, and the container opens silently. She plucks the pill from its tethers, and looks at it closely. She speaks to the empty room, “What in the fuck am I about to get into?”
Liz tosses the pill in her mouth.
The transition is immediate.
Part - II
The heavy beat stream of the live DJ set resonates its way out of the floor, through the stool, and steadily into Liz’s soul. Like a pendulum swinging endlessly, the tempo indicates the passage of time, without any markers tying it to a time of day. As the beats shift through moods, she flows from one thought to another.
Taking a long drag on her spliff, Liz lays down her media-pad. Thoughts of feeding boredom with meaningless drivel remind her of the desperation of the masses. Looking at a sea of elevated souls dancing below her, she is reminded of their need to hurry towards the next exciting, stimulating thing available to them. They are always racing towards anything that can make them feel better.
In sync with the beat, bodies move both fluildly and erratically. An audio-visual machine made of a million organic parts, it feeds on a frenzied factory of dopamine and endorphins. As the swarm picks up momentum and energy, time starts to slow down exponentially. Liz holds her breath as she realizes the temporal shift unfolding before her.
At first the dance is visible like a hive of bees working in unison. It then transforms into a series of mechanical movements triggering each other; a domino effect of motion from one limb to another. Suddenly, the causality turns into a testament of will, as the intentionality behind all movement becomes inexplicably apparent to Liz.
She can feel the frenzied resolve in every single person before her, dedicated to escaping time by stopping it as best they can. This overwhelming realization hits Liz with great force, and suddenly the scene before her is drained of all color. She sees a dance of the dead before her, their inevitable mortality suddenly on display, like an x-ray for their souls.
The dance stops. Every single person looks up at Liz. She staggers backwards in fear, feeling a wave of desperation, realizing that she exists to feed their boredom. She trips over a neatly wrapped container on the floor, and falls backwards.
And falls, into a landscape where color is melting away. Eyes peer out from shadows, their bodies formless. Deep down at the core of things, something breaks, like a spring popping loose. Liz feels unhinged and she falls.
And falls, into a tunnel lined with iridescent cables around her, light pulsing with a beat that thumps along with unstoppable force. The sound feeds her soul and fills it with color and life, and strands of electricity begin to surge through what was once her body. The sense of falling morphs into a sense of floating, and she finds herself one with a multicolor void around her.
Reaching out with her mind she gives shape to her body. She looks down at her familiar hands, and looks up to find herself in a very busy cityscape, surrounded by people. As she observes individuals, she can see their lives unfolding before her. She can see their hopes and desires, and their futility and sadness. They are on tracks made of electric currents, propelling them from their irreversible pasts, towards their inevitable futures.
Realizing she is not on such a trajectory, she takes a big inhale of air. Everything around her slows down drastically. She exhales, and things speed up again. She tries it again, and watches a person in a trench coat slow down in front of her. The further she decelerates things, the more she can see aspects of the person’s life. They are in a hurry to get to work, in a hurry to get a project finished, in a hurry to be free to jack into a metaverse drama stream. So much urgency.
She lets go of the reins and everything returns to a normal cadence, the deeper details once again obscured in the regular pace of society. The horde of humanity continues to chase itself towards its inescapable end. Turning away from the scene before her, she dissolves back into the colorful void, uninterested in the predictability of life.
Feeling a sense of euphoric clarity, Liz allows herself to evolve above the notion of expiration, and reforms her corporeal self into a serene scene in nature. A vast ocean lies to her right, an enormous range of mountains to her left, both running down the coast before her into the horizon. She turns around and finds herself at the entrance to a beautiful Japanese Temple, steps leading up through an archway. Beyond this, ridged tiles cascade elegantly above lotus shaped windows, and big open spaces with well kept gardens.
Monk-like figures tend to the details, some gardening, some engaging in carpentry. She walks up and into the Temple, taking in their actions, learning what it means to be patient. Filled with a sense of hunger to know more about everything around her, she follows a pathway to the center of the complex. Here she finds a little girl playing a video game on a holoscreen before her, with an early 21st century controller in her hands.
Peering over her shoulder, Liz realizes the game is a puzzle, where she is matching a series of shapes and colors. Looking at the stats on screen, she realizes the girl is on level 1111 of the game. She asks her, “How long have you been playing this game?”
The girl puts down the controller, and looks up at Liz with galaxies swirling in her eyes. “Forever. You can never die in this game. I am still learning how to play it better.”
A little hamster pokes its head out of her shirt, and looks at Liz curiously. She feels something gentle brush up against her shin, and looks down to find a gray and white cat passing by.
The little girl holds the hamster out to Liz and says, “You can take Tito with you for a bit if you’re feeling lost.” She gestures at the cat and says, “And Michu can help lead you out of the Temple if you like as well.”
Liz accepts Tito, and watches the girl go back to her video game. Looking over at Michu, she realizes the cat is already walking away. Looking up, she realizes she cannot find the way she came in. She starts walking after the cat, and Tito suddenly says to her, “Do not forget who you are.”
Startled, Liz drops Tito, who in turn runs back to the little girl.
Turning back towards the cat, Liz finds Michu staring at her. He says to her, “This time and place does not define you.”
Abruptly, she is aware of her full potential. A sense of infinity swells up inside of her, and the Temple around her begins to resonate with a steady, rhythmic vibration. Michu blinks at her slowly, and Liz blinks back to show gratitude. She finds herself in a weightless void of iridescent color. She blinks again and is staring at the soulless gaze of a million eyes. Blink. She is back in her office, looking down at rave culture. She shakes her head and takes a hit of the joint in her hand to make sure she’s really back.
The beat drones on, and the crowd below dances into the night. Liz pulls up her table-top AR displays, and jacks into her neural interface. She is ready to redesign her lighting arrays, and enhance the acoustics in her club. She has so much to offer her patrons.