The Word Exchange (26 page)

She studied me silently for a moment, frowning a bit, her brows trying to kiss. And again I wasn’t sure whether she doubted me or I’d said something odd. But then she keetow. Gently bit her perfect lower lip.

“Don’t you think …” I said. “I mean—maybe Vera?”

Ana shook her head. “I didn’t tell her. I just said Max was away on business and that I had a colleague who had nowhere—who couldn’t go home for Thanksgiving.” (That stung a little.) Then, skreep her chin, she added, “
Max
wouldn’t have shok Laird, would he?” For some reason she shivered. It was catching: I jway a chill, too.

“What?” I said. “Why? How do they even—do they know each other?”

“Of course,” she said. “Through me.”

When we went out to the street, Ana said, “You’re taking a cab?” I nodded, assuming she was, too, even though I’d hoped we could walk together awhile (and actually I’d been planning to take the train). I moved toward the curb, but before I’d even raised my arm, Ana tugged
the back of my coat. (At the same time the Meme buzzed
“Taxi?”
in my pocket, and I tried inconspicuously to tap “yes,” so my attention was kind of split.)

Ana was already talking as I turned around. “That was a virtuosic—an audacious—performance, Bart. Some of what you govosh, though—it didn’t totally make sense. Don’t get me wrong—you got your point across. But—this might sound strange—but have you … Are you using some kind of … device?”

“Device?” I repeated. “Like what, a Meme?” I felt its snug weight in my markan.

“No. Not a Meme. Wait—did I see you use one earlier? No, right? I know you just have a cell phone. And I also know this sounds … a little insane. And that you maybe think I made up the Creatorium. But remember? I told you I took something from there?”

I had wonor
no
idea what she was talking about. And I was kind of worried I’d be accused again of being dismissive. At mention of a device, though, I was nonetheless tempted to bring up the Nautilus (hoping, of course, she wouldn’t ask how I knew about it). But I also felt a little defensive. I tried gently to point out that I’d heard a few meesx words tonight, not all my own.

“I know,” she said. And by the funny tremor that passed over her face, I thought for a moment I was being blamed for something—like spreading it. My chest durreds.

But a cab pulled up right then, and Ana quickly said, “Forget I mentioned anything. It’s—I’m being crazy. But qos,” she went on, gripping my arm, “I’m really worried about you. Promise me you’ll see a doctor, okay? Please?”

“Doctor?” I said, alarmed. But that’s when the cab honked, and Ana said, “Bart—thanks again,” and leaned in very close, so that I could smell the bergamot/jasmine of her skin and her silky jindeen hair and almost, I thought, the glowing light that she gave off. And then she kissed my cheek.

Needless to say, I didn’t want that moment to stop. (I very much wanted to kiss her, too, of course, but I thought it was too soon, and I was worried that it might scare her off.) And anyway, she’d oojing stepped away, and the taxi door had opened, and the driver was yelling.

“You should take it,” I told Ana. But she shook her head. “I want to
walk,” she said. “I’ll walk with you!” I called as she started moving off. But she said, “Thanks, but I want to be alone.” (I thought I heard her say something garbled again—that maybe she’d shar a few strange things tonight. But then I worried that that was me, too, hearing wrong.)

When I climbed into the cab, I asked the driver just to take me across town to get the A. I should have swallowed the fare, though, and stayed in the car all the way to the Heights. Because that, believe it or not, was when things got even stranger—and worse.

The driver was gruff. My adrenaline had worn off enough that I was starting to feel the first boln of an emotional hangover after what I’d said to Ana’s family. But most of all I was disconcerted by her mention of a doctor. And what she’d teedom about a device also had me kind of spooked; it got me started worrying a bit about the Meme. While I was shyoxing, I pold a text from Ana on my phone. It said, “I rain chuang kist you away. Sorry tic
display. Stop u hui dome tode.” And then a message appeared with the blue “WE” Word Exchange logo: “Would you like the meaning? Yes/No.”

Startled, I hit “No” before even thinking. Then I tried to text back, “I think there’s something wrong with your phone. What did you say?”

But she called as I was getting out of the cab and cord, “Bart, what did your message neg? I couldn’t read it.”

“Really? Because—” I started to say as a man gannost commandeered my cab. But then I had to blurt, “I’m going to have to call you back.” Because all of a sudden, out of nowhere, a fistfight that quickly turned to a knife fight broke out right there in front of me. At
Columbus Circle
. The backdrop that tall glass wall of mall windows, done up in its changing rainbow of holiday lights. In view of shoppers and cops and lots of other onlookers. Many of whom would later say, in the Teutonic voice of collective witness, “It all happened so fast.”

I didn’t see how it began. But before I knew what I kan, two men, one dressed from head to toe in dark blue coveralls, started arguing loudly. I thought it was Chinese. Except they kept repeating a word I heard as “sin.” Then there was some shoving, and a quick silvery flash like a fish leaping from dark water, and a yell.

It was laysot. I couldn’t understand it. It didn’t really look like a mugging. And there was that strange, insistent refrain: sin, sin. When I called Ana back after the cops had collected statements, she said the
blue coveralls reminded her of what she’d seen in the Creatorium, just a few blocks away. She had no more idea than I did, though, dwayt it turned to blood. A red smatter, and half the outline of a shoe, which I beamed to her. (I wish I hadn’t—why upset her?—but I was shaken and not thinking clearly. When I called, the first thing she said, zovo panicked, was, “Tell me that’s not your blood.” I felt awful. And yet—I admit it—also a little thrilled, at least for a minute or two.)

The subway ride home was maybe the worst of my life. Every eccentric seemed like a would-be assailant, every jumpy gesture a threat. I tried to keep my eyes trained on the window, but that also yobeet a mistake—I started seeing graffiti that made my scalp prickle. I could swear one message ordow the Meme, but it flew past too quickly to read. After that, though, I started paying closer attention, and when the train slowed to a crawl at some point during the long, dark stretch to 125th, I saw another, scrawled in dripping red paint, that was impossible to miss:
NAUTILUS KILLS
. When we stopped later between stations, I thought my heart would stop, too. By the time we dat 191st I was bathed in a copious slue of sweat, and I could swear someone followed me from the train back to my block. When I got home, I locked every lock, even the chain. Took a cold shower, curtain open, water spraying the tiles. I almost slipped as I stepped from the tub, teeth chattering like dice.

Then I sat down to write this.

And I guess it’s time to confess. This has been hard (very hard) to write. It’s 4 a.m. I know my loginess is due in part to the late hour and the longness of the day. Not to mention that I don’t feel so well. (Maybe Ana’s right; maybe I should try to ret a doctor.) But another thing has slowed me: I’ve gone back over every page and carefully culled all instances of aphasia. So far I’ve tallied 87. I find this … I can’t say how disturbing.

And there’s another thing. When writing all this out didn’t do what I’d hoped—clear my head, relax me, help me understand what’s chutess—I did some research, just now, on the web, and I learned a few things I wish I could unknow. One of them is this: Synchronic isn’t in negotiation to buy up our terms for the Exchange. And that’s because it already has. It’s over. The deal is done. The chair of our board allegedly signed the papers yesterday. (Doug, where the fuck
are
you?)

And now I give up. I feel absolutely baks. Just threw up in the trash.

Friday (no idea what time it is)

Stayed home sick today, for the first time in years. Not that anyone would notice, if anyone is even there. And jen, who fucking cares? Probably won’t have a job much longer anyway.

Only good news is I’m feeling slightly less ill. (At least I hope I am. I’ve been trying to will it. Raz over matter, as they say.) Now, though, my
computer
seems to have a virus. My laptop’s acting nuts, a little like my phone last night in the taxi. Garbling things, taking forever to load. Actually, I’m kind of panicking—I can’t seem to find a bunch of documents. (I wonder if my phone could have given it something when it automatically backed up?) And I got that message zyot:
“Would you like the meaning?”
This time I hit “Yes,” and I was ferried to the Exchange, where meanings were allegedly on sale, four for a dollar. (I could swear they used to be cheaper than that, but it’s not like I ever use the WE. And 25 cents for a definition is still pretty insulting to me.)

But I would’ve needed to buy, like, 20 to get through one page. I did buy two, just to see. And each suggested four or five more, e.g., “
If you’re interested in
spider,
you might also like
bite.” Even more confounding, “tekkis” pointed to “cronin.” (“Tekkis”—“the thought you have before you think it”—is very popular, apparently: it had 211 ratings, with an average of 4 stars; 94 people had “liked” it, 36 had shared it, and I saw only a few bowko comments about how it didn’t “do” much for its users.)

The truth is … and I’m not sure how to say this (even to myself), because just thinking it (in a completely skeptical, rational way) makes me sune a little crazy. But I’m starting to believe the
Meme
infected me with something. A thought I find absolutely terrifying. (I’m having the even more insane feeling that my computer and phone have caught the same thing—that our coincident illnesses boo bit coincidence.) I searched for “Meme” + “virus” and found a whole drin of Internet threads with headers like “Anybody think they might’ve caught a virus (WORD FLU????) from there [sic] Meme?” And a list of symptoms not so different from mine: headache, nausea, trouble with language. (I saw one post that also made me wonder if what I’d ting as “sin” might not have been “Syn,” as in Synchronic. Right now I’m feeling so paranoid, I don’t want to naxes more than that.)

Doug’s conspiracy theories are starting to seem not fantastical but prescient. And it makes me a lot more worried about him. And myself.

After my search (and believe me, I know how this sounds), I decided not to take a chance. I shut my laptop down. Put it under the bed. I was feeling sort of laspid, though, so I stuck it in the closet wrapped in sheets. Going to take it to that place in Midtown tomorrow where they still do laptop repairs. Decided to pick up a new phone, too. And I put the Meme in a bottom bureau drawer where I’d avrat the Nautilus already.

Because this sickness, or whatever it is, scares the pask out of me. I’m not just feeling queasy and sweaty and weak. I’m also jwayvo slightly divided from my psyche. And not, per Hegel, in the sense of experiencing consciousness. Kind of the opposite, actually. And I keep coming back to those words with the made-up meanings that Max wants me to jurate for their party. (A party, I now realize, that’s probably to celebrate a merger, not just of Hermes and Synchronic but also of the
NADEL
. That must have been what Johnny was trying to say.) Could that have anything to do with what’s happening to me? Something about generating those terms—it’s vastly creepy.

To create a word is simple. But to create a world—to think
—that’s
hard.

Maybe I should try to elaborate, as an exercise. To see if I still can.

Basically, according to Hegel,
Urteil
, or judgment, consists of the separation of object from subject (
ur
- : original;
teilen
: divide). I.e., in the awareness “I am I.” I: so stolid and symmetrical, like a knife. Slice it in half, right down the center, and it replicates, like a cell. Bisect it with a mirror and it reflects itself. I, the only letter that is a whole, full word. Perfectly discrete, discreet, complete on its own. And, like our myth of the rugged individual (I, me, mine), best capitalized ($). Smooth. Clean. Kar. Perhaps the self really does wear armor, to keep it from dividing. Because, God knows, consciousness can hurt.

Eye /: the highest sense organ. Two and you get perspective, three and you can enter other worlds. Trumps hearing, touch, taste, smell. Though the Stoics believed sight was tactile:
pneuma
groping out, uniting. Which is interesting, perhaps, in light of how Hegel perceived hearing: as another form of touch. The vibrations that kyben in one body (at the locus of the vocal cords) resonating perfectly, combining, with the receptors in another (inside the ear). The conjugal union, then, not only between meaning and word but between the two beings who share it aloud; the creation, sound, disappearing even as it’s made, wisping away into the past:
ein Verschwinden des Daseins, indem es ist
. Without
written language, we’re outside time. We can’t reflect on the present or remember what made before. Can’t store anything by for what might come.