by Alain Robbe-Grillet is an excellent 2nd person narrative.YOUR SPACE
Each stage as you (your eyes protected by prescription sunglasses from the harsh sunlight and your body protected by air-conditioning from the enervating heat) drive closer to your home makes you feel more comfortable. The entrance ramp from your office district onto the expressway tells you (trying hard not to notice human forms like shadows under the overpass) that work is finished for the day. You touch off the cell phone for the drive home, touch on the CD-player with your favorite artist, and look ahead through your shaded lenses. Your electronic expressway pass waves you through the no-stop lane. Your neighborhood exit sign has you reducing your speed and bearing right. You turn onto the main drive that takes you to your neighborhood, to your gated community, through whose gate you pass with touches on the gate’s keypad.
Like you have many times before, you park your necessary vehicle, the machine that takes you wherever you need or want to go and protects you like a mobile metal cocoon, in your usual parking space. As you exit and walk to your apartment, the heat of summer beats down on you carrying a fast-food package that you picked-up at a drive-thru window. You press your keypad once and the car clicks and beeps, signaling you that the doors are locked and security systems are activated. Your neighbors aren’t home yet, their cars are not in their parking spaces, so no one (except the eye of the security camera) will see you as you stride down the concrete walk past the greenish-yellow bushes and the dark-trunked trees with furry pinkish flowers.
With the ease of practice, you slip your electronic key into your front door lock, and the door clicks open. You push in, out of the heavy heated air, into the air-conditioned coolness of your apartment. You flick the lock closed on the door and bolt it (in case one of them should be out there) before you move into the carpeted interior.
As you pass through the living room, among the bookshelves (self-help books dominate); the prints on the wall; the entertainment center with the television, stereo CD player, radio and library of movies and disks and artistic displays of knick-knacks and vases and flower arrangements; the easy chair; the sofa; and the coffee table, you sense safety. You drop your bunch of keys (office, desk, file cabinet, auto, safe-deposit box, storage, mailbox, front door) onto the fourth level, hip high for easy retrieval, of the bookshelf closest to the kitchen. Next to it, you place your cell phone and turn it on in case anyone you know and trust should call.
Next to the keys is a remote control where you left it that very morning. You pick it up and press a button; your favorite music comes from the entertainment center. You enter the kitchen and place the fast-food container on the counter next to the stove. You hum or whistle to the music or maybe you mouth the words to the song.
You go to your bedroom, where you shuck your work clothes and your shoes and socks (no machine has been designed to do this for you yet). You pull on a large cotton T-shirt and slip into some soft nylon shorts and a pair of flip-flops.
You return to the kitchen, remove the contents of the fast-food package and place them onto a plate, which you put into your microwave to reheat the food before consuming. You pour the drink from its plastic container into a tall glass and tinkle in some ice from the refrigerator’s ice-maker. You like seeing the food on a plate and the iced drink in a glass; the layout makes you feel civilized as if the meal had been prepared and served to you. You eat the meal, the same meal that thousands in your city, millions throughout the world are eating this very evening. You taste the food, chew quickly and wash every bite down with the drink. The taste is comforting because it is so familiar, and your stomach is full, so you can enjoy the evening.
After the meal, you scrape any food remnants into the garbage disposal and push a button. The disposal whirrs and slurps. The paper and plastic you put into a trashcan. The plate and glass you put into a dishwasher, but you won’t turn it on tonight, saving the process for the end of the week when the rack will be full.
You go into the second bedroom, which is your home-office-gym that holds a computer, a printer, a scanner, and attachments for camera and audio instruments. You boot the computer, which glows and hums, and soon the monitor shows the background screen that most appeals to you.
You sit. Click. Click. You have via the computing machine entered the World Wide Web, a connection to the rest of the world, your access to a plethora of information from professional, commercial and personal sources. The computer speaks to you. “You have mail.” You check your email, deleting junk, aligning bills, opening the message from your mother with its reminder of an important family holiday upcoming. You go to your favorite chat room. The people with whom you have become familiar (although you have no idea what they look like or where they live or even how old they are) are discussing something of interest to you. You type in “Hello.” and give your opinion on the subject. Each of the chat-room members reply in turn and seem happy to have made contact with you again. You type “Got to go. Goodbye.”
You have remembered that you need certain articles (clothing, sundries, and a piece of electronic equipment). You find websites for each needed item, compare prices, add your selections to your shopping cart, go to the checkout site, enter the payment method (charge card because your credit is good) and click off, knowing that the items will arrive by messenger within three to five business days. Then you go to your bank’s home site, log in, and move some money from your savings account into your checking account to be sure that the cost of the items purchased will be covered. Then you log out.
You have avoided any news sites because you find them depressing. (The sites will show them, and they make you uneasy.) You turn off the computer and return to the living room.
With the remote control you turn off the music that has soothed you and helped you relax and turn on the television, another source of information and entertainment from the greater world. You have a dish antenna which allows you to receive more than 200 channels through satellite connections, although (because of your preferences) there are only a dozen that you regularly watch. You check the programming index channel for anything that might interest you. You see that a celebrity who appeals to you will be starring in a movie later that night and that your favorite sport has a contest that will be broadcast, also. However, this is not a quandary thanks to split-screen technology. You will be able to watch the movie while following the sporting contest. However, those are more than an hour away. Many channels are showing news programs at this hour, but you avoid those. (The news will be about them, for whom you have no interest, and will only annoy you.) You also avoid talk shows (because they and their problems will be displayed).
You must exercise; you take an energizing vitamin compound that will increase your stamina and propel you to greater effort. You return to the home-office-gym (much better than being out in the humid heat) because it also holds your exercise equipment. Before you get on any of the equipment, you put on an earphone dialed into your favorite FM radio station playing your favorite kind of music. Then you mount a treadmill and start it. The tread turns at a rate designed for your running pace and tracks the distance that you cover. You watch the digital feet pass on the small screen as your legs move forward and backward, your stomach and back muscles pull in, your heart beats faster and your breathing keeps pace (another screen – if you remember to attach the instruments – shows pulse and respiration). Once the machine registers an appropriate distance and heart rate, you click it off, dismount and move to a machine that is a seat surrounded by series of cables and weights with two grips for your hands. By pulling on these grips in various positions, you can force your muscles to work and build strength. You do a series of six exercises with fifteen repetitions of each one. You stop and rise, feeling the tightness of your body. You take out the earpiece.
Now sweaty, you shuck all of your leisure clothing, throw them into the clothes hamper and go to your bathroom. You brush your teeth with your rotating electronic toothbrush and swish some mouthwash around your gums and teeth. You enter the shower and set the temperature the way you like it. The water pours over you, refreshing you. You wash yourself thoroughly, enjoying the soft, fragrant lather of the soap. You rinse and then turn off the shower. You dry yourself with thick, soft towels and hang them to dry on bars.
You return to the bedroom, select a new T-shirt and a new pair of shorts and put them on. You feel like a monarch in your kingdom.
You pour yourself a glass of liquid refreshment, but before you can go to the easy chair to watch your chosen shows, distracting sirens shrill in from outside and blue and red lights strobe onto your blinds. You step to the blinds and pull up one to peek out. Beyond the gated community in the street are police cars and flashing lights.
You mutter, “Them.” You think, They are smelly and messy. They are always out there, robbing, raping, hurting one another, killing, taking drugs, cursing and fighting, arguing noisily in a hundred languages, passing diseases to one another, crashing into one another, heating the planet, pushing and shoving, getting drunk, smoking, carrying weapons, falling down and struggling up, arousing themselves to passionate intensity with some hair-brained religion, having babies, going into debt, wailing and laughing, sucking in air and emitting carbon dioxide. They are disgusting.
You move away from the window and click on the television. You become absorbed between the movie and the sporting contest and take occasional drinks from the glass. Your team wins. The movie ends to your satisfaction. You click off the television. You check the door locks one more time. After setting the second glass in the dishwasher, you put on your night clothes and go to bed.
You take a pill that will help you sleep soundly until morning. If you don’t, you might dream about them and wake sweaty and wide-eyed into your dark air-conditioned apartment lit only by the electronic glow of the ever-ready machines standing by.
End.
This short story comes out of the perception that a middle class person in the United States can live a very sheltered life if he or she chooses, islolated from the hullabaloo of social interaction. It was published in 2008 in the short story collection A Collection of Nickel-Plated Angels. Follow this link to see other books that have been published. http://www.jerrycblanton.com/
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