CHAMBER
A barren room with textured, off-white wallpaper holds a black sensory deprivation tank, sleeping quarters that hew more closely to a mausoleum. Who's inside? The outside of the device is coated with flashing screens cycling through a dynamic assortment of imagery, replicating the chaos of a social media newsfeed: bathing suit thirst traps, overly-composed lunch photos, war crime footage, ads for every imaginable product, and digital detritus like glitching links, disembodied thumbs, and floating hearts. This semiotic sensory nightmare is scored by thick droning noise.
CHAPEL
Darkness recedes to the edges of a small pentagonal shrine, the perimeter delineated by prayer candles of a distinctly commercial variety. In the center sits Iris, goth attire, shock of vibrant ginger hair draped over her shoulders, intertwined with glowing green vials of toxic waste. Spread around her are an eclectic mix of esoteric spell-books and tabloid magazines. Her eyes are closed in pre-show meditation. Her left hand holds a stick of white sage, her right grasps a large cellular device. Displayed above and around her position on the floor are holographic homages to four somber individuals that bear a striking resemblance to the likes of Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix. There's a fifth hologram directly behind Iris, this one nonspecific and shaped like an anonymous web profile. Seen from the front, her silhouette fills the vacant space perfectly.
COAT CHECK
Men and women of countless flavors stand in a queue stretching towards the horizon line. Every person wears a mask matched to the color of their skin, sealed around each mouth in a way that gives the illusion of missing facial features—like Barbie & Ken's groins. They gaze upwards in unison while waiting to enter, watching a shape-shifting QR code float with menace in the sky above. Cellular devices grip their forearms like Alien face-huggers. Methodically, each person at the front of the line drops their gray trousers and bends over, ass facing the security forces guarding the entrance to a magnificent theatre. A short man inside a full-body layer of thin plastic plunges a rectal thermometer into each available ass—the esoteric location of the third eye—taking the person's temperature before gesturing them inside.
CORRIDOR
Iris stands tall in the backrooms, a maze of corridors outside the purview of gen-pop ticket holders. A ritual is unfolding: three individuals in tinfoil straightjackets squirm & scream while connected to an unseen ceiling via VR goggles and organic, tendril-like chains. Iris struts between them, absorbing their pain and pleasure. Iris lays a gloved
palm on the techno-forehead of the nearest victim ensnared in her web and thanks him for subscribing.
CONCERT HALL
The room is dark, the sense of scope inside is vast. A television in the floor crackles to life, and through the static a single word forms: WÆLCOME. A spotlight shines from above, the thin incandescent beam illuminating a microphone. The temperature-taker from out front waddles up to the microphone. His spoken language is unknown and unsettling, accompanied by subtitles on the screen underneath his feet.
”Before we begin, I must acknowledge that the land where this performance hall lies was formerly part of the—”
The lights shut off, followed by unseen sounds: trap door opening, body falling, blood curdling scream, squishing meat. A feminine robot voice makes an announcement.
”Clarification: the land where the Bertolt's Bazaar Performance Hall lies was formerly part of the late Paleozoic supercontinent of Pangaea. So sorry for that totally cringe mistake! His flesh, bone, and brain-matter will be re-allocated to the Squishy's Conglomerate for use in their proprietary blend of tip-top protein.”
A half-minute bumper advertises the latest Squishy's sandwich.
“What smells superb and rhymes with "make my wish, please"? That's right, it's Squishy's! Try our brand new and improved Big Squisher at your locally branded Squishy's branch today! Now with an extra portion of tip-top protein!”
The audience applauses enthusiastically, responding to the blinking order "APPLAUSE" on the screen in the floor, their minds washed clean of the violence thanks to good ol' fashioned marketing. The clapping surges to a peak as a jazz drummer in a kinky latex gimp-suit plays a crescendo of a snare roll.
Iris twirls onto the stage as the audience cheers. She spins a microphone wildly. It crashes down on the head of a stagehand, a small dose of slapstick. Iris grins madly and addresses the crowd as they laugh hysterically through frozen smiles, turning their heads from side-to-side mechanically like video game NPCs.
”Greetings, citizens of %$@^&#! Before we truly begin, I need to confess something that's been weighing heavily on my mind-body.”
The screen in the floor shifts to an image of Tarot cards.
“Do you crave spiritual readings on-the-go . . . but HATE dragging around your deluxe size digital deck?”
A large red X crosses through the traditional Tarot cards.
“With Tartextot!, you'll never miss an opportunity for elevated consciousness again. With Tartextot!, you have full control over the rate and frequency of your readings, conveniently delivered as text message notifications to your device. New Tartextot! members have the privilege of acquiring a three-year strings-attached contract for only ten percent of the market price. Results may vary. Ascendance into heaven to sit at the right hand of god the father almighty not guaranteed. Indulgences, prayers, and other tools of sin-forgiveness not included or advised, etc. etc.”
Two stage assistants—twins, amputees both, the left missing his right arm and the right missing his left—roll a twisted biomechanical ultrasound machine to center stage. Iris continues to hold court.
“I may look fetching from across the chasm of a room, but my insides rot with each passing year, as if something crawls around within—”
A heckler, intoxicated on some cocktail of industrial waste and scratching his face with red nails, cuts her off with a shout.
”There's cockroaches inside me! They're claiming eminent domain and telling me to kill my wife! Don't tell her I said that though, or I'll definitely be in the doghouse tonight!”
The heckler doubles over, wheezing and laughing at his joke.
“Everyone's a funny guy.”
Two security guards drag away the heckler as he screams.
“What divine timing. I require a volunteer from my audience.”
Iris paces to and fro, then raises a hand towards the crowd. She beckons gently, and a pregnant woman stands tall as if summoned through telekinesis.
“You are needed.”
The pregnant woman walks towards the stage.
“What do you need me for, master?”
Iris places a gentle hand on the woman's belly.
“I need a new vessel, a younger muse, a replacement engine with comparable systems of belief . . . I need my NextLife! Thanks to NextLife, you never have to worry about blind dating with your reincarnated form ever again.”
The ad's visuals demonstrate a matchmaking app where adults swipe between profiles of various babies.
“Give crucial factors like future sociopolitical affiliation the attention they deserve with NextLife.
The twins connect the pregnant woman to the ultrasound machine, ripping her shirt. The audience gasps. Iris waves her arms like a conductor, silencing the crowd, then blesses the woman's forehead with one hand as she grips the gooey ultrasound probe with her other.
“Now, let's see what you'll believe.”
Iris rubs the woman's exposed belly. An image appears on the screen in the stage, revealing a political compass quadrant meme: four sections of a graph with the words "Left, Right, Libertarian, & Authoritarian" equidistant around the chart.
“I'd be so honored if you chose me to carry your NextLife. We were already planning an ideology reveal party—guess all of you got invited.”
A dot slowly materializes in one section of the meme. The audience gasps at the unsavory position. Iris starts mumbling, then grows more frantic, screaming.
“This is not my vessel. This is not my vessel. This is not my vessel. This is not my vessel. THIS IS NOT MY VESSEL. THIS IS NOT MY VESSEL. THIS IS NOT MY VESSEL. THIS IS NOT MY VESSEL. THIS IS NOT MY VESSEL.”
The audience boos. The twins escort the pregnant woman away. The plastic soul stylings of David Bowie's "Fame" echo throughout the now-dark room. The spotlight shines on Iris as she performs a baroque cover of the famous track.
”Fame, it's not your brain, it's just the flame, that burns your change to keep you insane.”
Another spotlight reveals what's been hidden behind her for the duration of the show: a massive red velvet curtain.
“Fame, what you like is in the limo. Fame, what you get is no tomorrow. Fame, what you need you have to borrow.”
The twins pull back the curtain, unveiling a huge glass box, a surreal technological structure, blinking & buzzing. An unseen voice, small & sacrosanct, cuts through the noise.
“God died in there.”
A little boy points casually at the glass box, again delivering his chilling premonition. “God died in there.”
Canned laughter erupts from the viewers. Iris glances over in confusion. The audience members are stoic and silent. A vintage tape deck rotates slowly in the corner of the room. Iris recovers, cackling madly and gesturing the boy forward.
“Well then come on up here and help with the Second Coming.”
The audience cheers genuinely as the little boy marches down to the stage. Iris holds his hand as the twins roll a quantum supercomputer in front of the glass box.
“What's your name, little boy?”
“The pigs began to weep, demanding answers for suffering, incursion symptoms of the coming storm—”
Iris pinches him. He yelps like a small animal.
“Hush, they need not know.”
She mugs a wide smile for the audience, playing off the prophetic ramblings as if they're part of the performance. The twins press a pair of black stickers on the boy's temples, then connect a snaking set of wires from the supercomputer into the glass box.
“For my grand finale, I cross over the borderlands of death to recapture my fading star.”
The twins hook the boy's brain into the supercomputer. His arms/legs are bound. Electric current runs through the completed system, powering the glass box.
“This wraith of youth will be sacrificed for eternal memory, a permanent place in the hearts and minds of the masses.”
As the glass box comes to life, the floor of the auditorium twinkles with disparate lights as well, as if the entire building acts as one large chamber for the summoning. The room is silent, the crowd staring at the empty glass box. After a moment thick with anticipation, the eerie outline of a figure begins to form. An unclear, unclean shape; writhing, glitching, struggling to be borne. Iris shrieks.
“I've done it! Come to mommy!”
“Mommy?”
The little boy breaks his techno-trance. He struggles against his bonds. The glitch flickers and begins to fade. An ecstatic Iris turns towards the audience.
“Be real! Be present! Help spawn something greater than yourselves!”
Iris runs into the crowd, shaking the stoic observers. She grabs the cellular device attached to the forearm of a nearby person and opens it to her own social profile, forcing the owner to send her photos to their followers again & again.
The crowd member getting manhandled consults the device strapped to his wrist. “Um, F.A.M.E.? I need your help.”
The feminine robot voice answers.
“Yes?”
“What do I think? What's my opinion?”
Her answer flashes on the user's screen: SHARE.
Iris firmly grasps his shoulder.
“Put the me in meme manifestation.”
Eavesdropping seat neighbors hear this exchange and copy the crowd member's questions, a chorus of "what do we think?" spreading like a game of telephone throughout the audience. They all get the same message: SHARE. They obey. Iris returns to the glass box, falling to her knees. With the crowd distracted by their devices, fusing minds on the network through mass adoption, disseminating signs and sigils, Iris snaps at the twins to intervene. They flick a syringe and approach the little boy. A bearded mage enters the scene from out of sight, bloodied feet leaving tracks on the floor, a basilisk around his neck. He shouts at the crowd. Is this also part of the performance?
“I am a king among kings. Look on my works, ye memers, and despair!”
The twins sedate the little boy as Iris talks to the intruder.
“What are you on about, old man?”
Electromagnetic activity returns inside the glass box.
“Can’t you hear, under the chatter of these empty forms, a long low ancient whine?”
The glitching shape appears more fully, a huge distorted vision of Iris's face, crude computer graphics projected onto spheres. The green vials in her hair glow brighter than ever.
“A flavor of fame distinctly modern, Hype as Genesis, collective desire as creation. I am. I am. I am.”
Lights 'round the auditorium flicker & fade. An unholy sound penetrates the space, causing the crowd to cover their ears. The old man struggles to stop the summoning.
“A sacrifice, keep the beast at bay—”
The glass box shatters, releasing unrecognizable nightmares. Iris, the twins, the old man, and the little boy are swallowed whole. A moment of silence, and the audience erupts in applause.
Written by Ryan Lambert
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