The one about the homophone

I actually tried to write my own vows. Have I told you this before? I don’t know if you did yours, but I gave mine a go. I must have been on my third or fourth draft when you came to me that one night, crying your eyes out, saying that your mother would have none of it, that if anything other than the standard pledges came out of our mouthes, she’d leave the wedding and never speak to us again.

What a bitch your mother was— God rest her soul. But you know what? I’m happy she forced our hands. In hidsight, I’m grateful to her. Because I would have scrapped the “in sickness and in health” part. Who in their right mind wants to think of sickness and death on their wedding day?

Yet, here we are.

This is “in sickness”, right? It sure looks like it. It's not death, though. Not yet. Deep down inside, I’m still here. Right here with you in this hospital room. But at the same time, I’m somewhere else. Somewhere I can’t describe.

I can hear the words you’re saying, and by the looks of it, you can’t hear me. I can even feel the warmth of your hands wrapped around mine. But the rest of me feels cold.

I’m happy that you’re here. For better and for worse, right? Most people just say these things, but not you. You’ve never been like most—”

Ugh—there she goes again, on her phone, that rusty old crone.

Go on now, wander off.

Hey, it’s you again. I was just trying to telepathize the missus. Yes, she’s still visiting daily. But it’s only been three weeks, and that’s low by coma standards, isn’t it? How long did you say it’s been for you?

Right, you couldn’t remember.

Should we pick up where we left off yesterday, before the nurses’ ruckus interrupted our link? As I was trying to explain, he may not have struck me per se, that boy, but that doesn’t exonerate him completely, now does it? If I had given the impression that he physically assaulted me, it was by mistake. He didn’t. But his actions were the cause of this coma.

I reckon that legally, it wouldn’t be a clear-cut case, because there’s more to criminal law than the dictates of cause and effect, but if I were to take the witness stand right this moment, believe you me, I’d recount the events in as dispassionate a manner as I’m relating them to you. Because while I maintain that he’s the culprit of this shit stain of a situation that I’m in, I don’t begrudge the young man, nor do I wish him harm.

Before getting into the nitty-gritty, let me tell you that I don’t take for granted that we’re able to communicate in this here peculiar way. I think we’re quite lucky, frankly, and I ascertain by the look in your eyes that you agree with me. The thing is that, to my knowledge, everyone who’d been in a coma and later awoke—the very few that do—describes the experience as instantaneous. That’s if they could describe anything at all. Because you’re never the same after such a blackout, even in the best cases. Some of your cranial fuses get fried, you know. Fried beyond repair. At worst, you’re out of the coma only by strict medical definitions. One would need a couple of diplomas to pronounce you not dead: to declare that you’re still indeed among the living and out of your coma, because by God, it wouldn’t be obvious to the untrained eye, I’ll tell you that much. You respond to physical stimuli the way a pet iguana does, to the delight of your family, of course, who’s been on standby for a decade watching over your vegetable state. In that limited reptilian way, congratulations, you’re out of the coma. You know what I mean, don’t you?

I’m not talking about those people, bless their hearts, but those who awaken with enough sense left to recount their experience of having been in a coma describe it like they’ve been sound asleep, that’s all. And this holds no matter how long the coma lasted or what caused it. Good sleep too. It’s not like they’re throwing a fit because they hadn’t been woken up sooner. Because they’d missed a meal or a sports event.

You know that feeling, right? When some rogue nap gets inordinately long, that sense of disbelief mixed with shame, strangely enough. Why shame?

Anyway, if I had to guess, waking up from a coma is different. It’s more like, What time is it? I feel a little funny. Where’s Mom? Then, lo and behold, you’re almost as old as Mom was when you first went into the coma. Mom is colossally, unrecognizably old, if she’s even alive after all those years. Imagine the shock. Not to mention the shock that comes after—not the cultural shock, mind you, the kind that befalls a castaway when he gets rescued—but the shock of seeing your atrophied, limp old self in the mirror, flexion deformities in every joint, arms like a T-Rex, if you’ll pardon the comparison, nothing moving the way it’s supposed to. That must be jarring.

I’ll tell you what, even after just three weeks, I dread seeing what I’d look like if I woke up right now. We’re lucky we don’t have mirrors in this… What did you call it the other day, network?

Thanks, buddy. I think you look swell yourself.

Now where was I? Have I told you the boy was black? You’ll know in a minute the significance of this here detail, and that will neutralize this look you have on your face, because it’s not what you think.

The way I see it—hear me out—either this happens all the time, this comatose broadband internet. That it’s a natural state of comatose consciousness, but all memory of it is wiped out when the patient wakes up. Or, my preferred conjecture, is that you and I are special cases. It’s special enough to wake up from a coma, like I said, let alone to wake up in good health, but if we both wake up, knowing what we know? Well, even if just one of us does, let’s not speculate as to who—granted, I seem to be in better shape, but let’s for the sake of goodwill say that we both wake up. Then we’d have to tell the world, don’t you think? This must amount to a scientific breakthrough. We’d be on television, you and I. There’d be memes about us. Fame, buddy. Short-lived probably, the way things are these days, but for what it’s worth, fame. Not to speak of the metaphysical implications.

What do you mean? No, a dream is different. I’d know if this was a dream. Does this feel like a dream to you? Have you felt this much agency over your thoughts in a dream before? Besides, who’s dreaming, you or me?

Thought so..

Could you imagine it, though? People racking their brains over what this means—about the implications, the impact this would have on the zeitgeist in the very literal sense of the term. And to think I could have a say in it. Imagine if I intentionally, just for a little while as a harmless gag, pretended to have seen a divine being, one that I’d describe vaguely enough—you’d have to play along, of course —vaguely enough that all major religions would see it as their own. Someone or something had bestowed on me its wisdom, clearing all my neuroses and my soul’s ailments, and just about pulled the plug on my ego, flushing it down the skid-marked toilet of human sin, made me an enlightened man. A new man. Set me straight. That the light of truth came to me through the webbed wings of the perennial bat—I’d say that with an anodyne expression as if it were basic knowledge to me- bringing me this close, I’d gesture with my fingers and squint, looking off camera, not directly at it, this close to the capital-t Truth. That I saw the light but couldn’t feel its warmth or some spiel. That I wanted it too much, and that became my peril. That I was the gnat that binged on the bull’s tears before its eyelids closed and drowned me. That this awakening from the coma, grateful as I may be to see my family again, is by no means a second chance at life, a rebirth as it were, but precisely its negation. That I was denied rebirth. That the patagium I saw was in fact the womb that would have excreted me into my next life, had I been worthy.

Some gobbledygook of that nature, you know? Then, after I’ve had my fun, I’d come clean and tell everyone that I’d been under propofol and God knows what else and I misspoke—the coma internet, that part’s real, which you’d corroborate. The chiropteran God was just fluff. Sorry not sorry.

Mean-spirited and irreverent? You’ve got the wrong idea, buddy. In fact, I respect people of all faiths—deeply respect and revere them. It’s my fault for trying to cajole a laugh out of you under these circumstances. But you know something? They’d totally buy it. Not everybody, but weak minded people would. They’re fiends for anything that whiffs of transcendence. Anything that treads the line between life and death, and they’ll come rubbernecking. Whatever traverses the realms of con-

What do you mean it has nothing to do with it? It has everything to do with it. Have you been listening this whole time?

Ok, let’s split the difference on that one.

In any case, what had happened was that I was following the boy. Yes, me following him—please keep up—to give him something he’d dropped. I’d been sitting across from him on the subway train for a few stops, and I saw that he’d dropped his phone while making for the door. It looked as if he’d gone blank for a second and nearly missed his stop. Maybe that was it. You know how kids are these days, they don’t pay attention to anything. So I decided, and I’m not trying to sound boastful here, but my own split second brain stem response was to pick up the phone and go after him. I didn’t have to think about it. You could say that the same part of this black boy’s brain that panically jolted his ass off the grimy subway train seat, that same part in my own brain got me up on my inflamed plantar fascia to rush after him. Imagine the pain I was in. No, but also imagine the kind of anxiety this young man would have suffered once he found out he was phone-less, and God knows the kind of trouble he’d be in with his parents or whoever it was that took care of him- or didn’t take care of him, let’s be honest.

You know if there’s any bitterness at all to the situation, what lick of resentment I’ve got left that hasn’t been cleansed by this fine discourse we’re having in this heretofore unknown avenue of semi-conscious minds, and by this, yes, I do mean these conversations have helped a lot, and in no small part thanks to you, buddy, and your temperament, and how well you listen, truly; but what remains of my bitterness relates to the fact that I was obviously trying to do the right thing, right? It’s one thing to passively do well by people-to go through the motions of common quotidian courtesy-then get the wrong end of the stick from time to time, that’s just life— but when you go out of your way like I did to help a stranger, and that dominoes you all the way into an infratentorial coma. What do you say to that?

But the boy—and this is the part I’ve been afraid to think out loud, even to myself—the boy might have been gifted. Gifted how, you ask? Chess prodigy? Talented athlete? Maybe. I couldn’t tell. They say you can’t tell just by looking. I disagree, but that’s another discussion. No, the gift I’m talking about is parapsychological. It pertains to the forbidden arts of psychometry. It’s the kind of gift that, if you had it, you wouldn’t tell anyone about it until you’ve milked it dry—made sure you’d used it to gain every possible leg-up on your foes—before you’d even think of disclosing it to any—

Ok, psychic. There, I said it. I feared your judgement and that’s why I was twisting my words, but I don’t see the need anymore. You’re as trustworthy as they come. Or are you? The boy might have been psychic, yes, which I guess could make him a chess prodigy too, if he were so inclined.

It’s the only logical explanation as to why the boy got startled the way he did when I caught up with him. You should have seen the look in his eyes, man, all bulging and moist— his eyes were— like he’d seen something morbid. It lives rent free in my head, the shocked look on his face, and the shrieking pubescent gasp that came out of him.

What did I ever do to deserve that? Take a good look at me. Is this the appearance of a man that warrants such panic? Do I have fangs that I failed to notice? Are there horns coming out of my temples? In a way, I can’t help but feel guilty. Maybe it’s ill-advised to tap anyone on the shoulder in this city, the way things are these days, no matter the intention. Maybe I’m to blame after all. Do I sense from your silence that you agree with this interpretation? That it was my fault after all? Please don’t answer. I feel bad enough as it is. Still, I don’t think it’s sensible the way he jumped out of his skin and tripped me.

Unless, as I’ll explain, he was psychic.

There is another possibility, and I’ve come to this one by means of pure, undiluted empathy— empathy with that boy, who need I remind you almost widowed my wife; empathy with him because I too was once tormented by an eye-bulging startle. Now it so happened that my own ghastly startle brought no one to within inches of their grave, but that was before my luck expired.

But so what happened was that one evening, a few weeks before the coma, I was reading in bed while Beatrice— that’s my wife’s name— was in the shower. This created the perfect condition— her being in the shower did— the perfect condition for me to unwind. I was left alone with my thoughts, but not so alone as to get lost in them. Hearing the sounds from the shower and feeling her presence in it, anyone’s presence really— could have been you in that bathroom for all I cared. That did it for me. To be left alone. There’s something you’ve got to understand: You need to have someone in the first place for them to leave you alone. Otherwise, you’re not left alone, you’re just alone, and that’s one hell of a difference.

Don’t you think it’s as good a reason as any for a man to get married— that peace and quiet in the presence of someone who’s for whatever reason unable to talk to you or even like loom over you with the threat of a conversation? That’s what I personally like. That’s my happy place.

So content was I in that state of mind that I put the book down, grabbed a cup of herbal tea from the bedside table, which was hers, the cup of the tea was, and I went to stand by the window to look out into the sky. Me, a hardened man in his fifties, a rational man, not a man of sentiment, gazing at the moonlit sky. Can you believe it? But that was no ordinary moon.

You have to understand something. There are things a man can’t put into words. I’d tell you you would have had to be there to believe what I’m about to tell you, but that would amount to telling you zilch. Better yet, I should tell you you would have had not just to be there, but to also be me in order to believe what I’m about to tell you. But that would make even less sense, because you couldn’t have been me even if you were there, so what’s the point of telling you anything at all? You tell me—

But I’m out of options at this point, and for the sake of not coming across like the type of self indulging asshole who would tease a story for this long only to not tell it in the end, I’m just going to tell you what happened, plain and simple. Because that was no ordinary moon.

First of all, it was a waxing gibbous, which I prefer to a full moon, aesthetically speaking. A full moon’s too pedestrian, don’t you think? Everyone and their uncle likes a full moon. This moon was flaunting two thirds of its good side at me, and don’t get me started on how the moon has a side that’s photogenic, and that’s the one we get to see, the side that’s more terrestrial; instead of its so called dark side, which, as you know, is topographically a dud. Don’t get me started on that. Just don’t.

I felt the waxing gibbous stare at me, and so I squinted and stared back. What else was I supposed to do? I could make out more of its chasms and craters and whatever it was on its surface if I squinted is what I thought. I got subsumed by the tranquility that I was in and I craved more of it, and I thought I’d get more if I focused, and I’d focus if I squinted.

Turned out, I was in for a bigger surprise. Soon as I squinted enough that I could see nothing but the waxing moon against the dark of the sky— so clear was the sky that I could make out the outline of the part of the moon that wasn’t lit— soon as that happened I felt the germ of a dark thought growing in my gut. I felt as if there was nothing in this world but me and that moon, or maybe there’d been nothing at all ever but me and that moon. I was taken by it, awestruck, even frightened. For a moment that felt like forever, I was physically and mentally paralyzed. I couldn’t look away if I tried. The moon had taken over me. She, I should say, had taken over me.

Bear with me here— and I thought that if I had the mental fortitude of a trained monk, that if I stood there, palsied but focused, locked-in, watching nothing but the moon for three or four nights or however long it would have taken her to wax into fullness, then it would have been as though she was getting undressed, really slowly, at the rate she orbits the Earth. And that if that were to happen: if I were to ossify right there against the ledge of my bedroom window, barefoot, vulnerable, and dumbstruck, for seven or eight nights without so much as a blink until the moon was full, then I’d be overcome with all the sick ecstasy—

Hear me out.

—all the sick ecstasy that every accidental voyeur has felt when he’d seen someone fully unveil themselves, except this, it seemed to me, was no accident. I’d been chosen. By whom or for what reason I didn’t know, but I’d been chosen to feel this pinnacle of pre-coital mania. To be tormented by it. And believe me, by that point I was going insane with lecherous anticipation. I was soul bound to this moon and begging for it to get full—to be unclothed. The things I felt I could do to it or have it do to me were vivdid and they were depraved, like nothing I’d ever imagined.

And you’d have every right to question how this relates to the situation with the boy who tripped me, and don’t mistake me for someone who’s so tunnel visioned as to pretend that there’s a direct link. But do also consider what happened next before making your verdict. When my lunar fantasy was on the brink of a disastrous climax, Beatrice, who’d been by that point out of the shower for God knows how long, having a front row seat to my (unbeknownst to her) anthropomorphic peep show, called out my name in that barking timbre only she’s capable of producing, which luckily brought the whole situation to an abrupt halt, but not before I got startled to the point of flinging that mug of by then room temperature tea so hard at our bedroom ceiling that it probably still to this day has a Rorschach-shaped tea stain despite my efforts to promptly clean it.

Listen. If you think my theory of paranoiac guilt doesn’t explain why that black kid was startled, if you think it’s too far fetched to suggest that only someone who walks around harbouring some top-shelf malice could be so disturbed by a stranger’s mere tapping of his shoulder, then you leave neither of us any choice but to consider the possibility that he was psychic.

Twenty-seven years. That’d be the Guinness world record for comas if they kept one. She woke up and made a full reptilian recovery. I don’t mean to suggest you and I will stay in here for that long, but by God, if that woman could even move a digit after 27 years of shut-eye and take instructions with like the IQ of a talent show parrot, then I think we’d be in decent shape if we woke up any time this calendar year. Cross your fingers and knock on proverbial wood.

Picture what actually happened though: You’re an Arab woman in the backseat of an SUV. Behind the wheel is the Burmese chauffeur whom your husband intentionally forgot to pay his inflation-non-adjusted salary the past four months in order to secure the funds for his, your husband’s, other wife’s new chauffuer’s recruitment, which your own chauffeur has just learned by surname alone is also Burmese but with just the wrong kind of ethnic background that in a different century they’d have been legally obligated to mortally battle on sight. Plus the car’s AC would maybe stand a fighting chance against the blistering desert heat if you weren’t in full head gear, so you instruct your chauffeur to close all the AC vents in the front, your late father having reluctantly allowed you enough primary school education that you’re able to deduce that this would direct all the car’s AC power to those tiny vents in the back. But you’re one promotion shy of absolute tyranny, so you use the pretext that the boy - your three year old who’s with you in the back of the car - is crying because of the heat. Never mind the real reason he’s crying. Your Burmese serf is too preoccupied with thoughts of unpaid salaries and the incoming wrong kind of compatriot to protest let alone explain to you that like the crying child he’s also an endothermic animal, so he does as he’s told. Then maybe, just maybe, now in hindsight, if that’s even a mental faculty available to you after three decades of comatose, you think that if you’d considered how 120-degree heat, financial angst, and vestiges of tribal animosity might affect a man’s ability to swerve out of the way of an oncoming school bus, you’d have shared the AC’s power more equitably that one dreadful day twenty-fucking-seven years ago.

Relax! A camel’s as good as a horse, if not better, and we were riding the latter not long ago for transportation, so when I say that those people were riding nothing but camels as late as the year yours truly was born in, it’s not to disparage them but to give historical context. And do note that I didn’t use the known racial epithet that pertains to camel racing, because one, that’s not the kind of person I am, and two, they use robots for that now anyway, so that slur is due for an update.

Say what you will about those people though. They are a tough, no-BS kind of people. They haven’t let their instincts be fucked with by modernity like our people have. And our de-comatosed hero is a great example, because while the chauffeur’s survival could have been attributed to sheer luck or surplus Karma from his past lives, her own three year old’s unscathed condition after the accident, per the police report, was solely the result of her cradling of him, possibly triggered at the precise moment of impact. Talk about mother’s instinct.

What would your Janes and Karens have done? Nothing, that’s what. Because they would have had their toddlers strapped to a polymer booster seat designed and assembled proudly in the ol’ People’s Republic.

You mean does the fact that I work for an anti discrimination agency make me an expert on racial dynamics? I wouldn’t put it in those terms, but assuming that you’re asking in good faith, the answer is that it makes me privy to exactly the kinds of things that make ethnics tick— things the general public doesn’t know about. We’re alone in here, so I’ll give you a for instance: If a client reaches out to us alleging that their boss racially harassed them, and said client happens to be an 18-to-35 year old male that originates from a region of the world where precipitation is below 180 mm per annum— and believe me, I’ve looked at the numbers myself— then nine times out of ten, the complainant just can’t stomach being subordinate to a female.

And listen, it’s not my job to pass judgement. I was hired to help Ian Smith stay out of trouble. Ian’s the director of our agency, the Washington Holistic Institute Towards Equality, and happens to be an old friend. It’s the institute’s duty to seek redress even when the complaint is silly. That’s what the federal government pays us to do. In fact, the sillier the better.

Take for example the case of one bosomy woman who complained that some tech company’s recruiter was overtly interested in her bustiness (her word choice), evidenced by his conspicuous instructing of her to reframe her webcam before getting on with the online interview.

Is it possible that she had her laptop screen too over-tilted for the guy’s taste, and that he was obsessive-compulsive instead of perverted? It’s not our business to ask. And so we litigate as per SOP, only to find out after several months of back and forth with the company’s lawyer that the recruiter did in fact act inappropriately (the lawyer having reviewed the recorded interview himself) and that the bosom-obsessed recruiter was, beyond any doubt, AI-generated.

The lawyer explained to me how they’d fully automated their entry- to mid-level recruitment and that, due to a litany of NDAs, our institute wasn’t at liberty to disclose to the bosomy client that her harasser was in fact artificial: that there was no flesh and bone anywhere in that whole HR department to prosecute. I’m not even sure the truth would have made her feel better, the poor woman, to know she’d been harassed by a neural network. So I had the company write her an apology letter and pretend that the perverted simulacrum was to be placed on indefinite suspension.

Ian brought this up during our phone call, which took place moments before my run-in with that boy— the psychic black teen who tripped me, remember? Because we’d been discussing, Ian and I, our own institute’s adoption of AI tech. All of our intake specialists are now AI, matter of fact. You know the person who first answers your call and stalls, making small talk to make you feel safe and heard until someone with authority is available? That’s now AI.

But that’s not the problem, per se. Many organizations use that technology. The real issue lies with disclosure. Should the callers know they’ll potentially speak to a simulacrum? Yes, they should, and this is, in fact, already in the fine print of the Terms and Conditions you’re required to “read” and sign when you register in our system, which is a prerequisite for making a call. More dubious, Ian insisted on the phone that morning— while I was on the subway facing the black kid— is whether they (the callers) ought to know about the new feature.

He was referring to the system’s new ability to match the dialect and vernacular of the caller based on stored and real-time data, to a degree that’s calculated to maximize call retention.

“Imagine the things this system is capable of,” Ian was saying, getting increasingly tongue-in-cheek as the call went on, making jokes he and I could only make in private. “I met with the tech rep before we approved the upgrade, you know. She said the system’s especially good at producing African-American Vernacular English with all its rich nuance.”

“Is that so—”

“Yes, indeed. She said it can practically go from Lil Wayne all the way to James Baldwin.” He let out a chuckle.

“I’m sure she did,” I replied, getting slightly less amused by his crass humor.

“Yeah, buddy. Seamless transition from Condoleezza Rice to Cardi B. Milliseconds. It’s like a slang-factor. You could even assign it to a dial and adjust it manually.”

At that point, Ian was laughing out loud at his own jokes, and I was half-smiling, looking at that kid sitting directly across from me, unable to shake the thought of how offensive he’d find this conversation if he could hear and comprehend both sides of it. He, in turn, looked back at me with the mocking, dismissive look that teenagers specially reserve for older strangers.

I decided to cut Ian off and tell him that the answer was a resounding yes. We needed to disclose that feature if we were to deploy it, and by disclose it, of course I meant that I had to add some fine print jargon to the T&C— just enough to avoid violating a bunch of transparency acts.

Ian, catching his post-chortle breath, said, “So when it comes to the new feature, disclosure is germane, in your professional opinion?”

“Yeah, Ian,”, I said, parroting his pompous word choice, “I know for a fact that it’s germane.”

“Will you take care of it?”

“Consider it done,” I finally said.

It was in that moment that the boy got up and rushed towards the door, and then I heard the clank of his phone hitting the floor of the subway car. You already know what happened next.

And this is why— to get back to my original point— I’ve had the gnawing suspicion that he had the supernatural ability to listen in on the entire phone call I was having. Not only that, but to also sense my own personal amusement by the jokes Ian was making at his people’s expense. It’s no wonder he got so angry.

A simpler explanation? Go ahead, enlighten me.

Do I happen to know whose name?