Silicophage

by Julian Quaglia

Look—I ain’t crazy.

I ain’t one of them masochists, and I’d sooner keep fillin’ my lungs with dirty air than give them worms somethin’ to chew on. I mean, yeah, I closed my eyes, and yeah, I’m keepin’ ‘em shut, but crazy’s got nothin’ to do with it.  

I made it fifty-two hours before I swallowed them sleep meds. Thing is, passin’ out ain’t the same as a good night’s shut-eye. I emptied my pockets for them self-lubricatin’ implants and I played lab rat for OLAS (Occipital Lobular Auto-Stimulation. New kids on the block. Don’t bother.) I even thought about lettin’ ol’ Hacksaw go to town on my eyelids, but he ain’t been right since the virus hit, neither. Lucky if he can bring a cup of coffee to his lips without wearin’ half of it.

Point is, you could splice him up with the steadiest hands this side of the river and it still wouldn’t do me no good. The real world’s too much. Too much light, too much noise, too much everything. Ain’t that why we plugged in, anyway? Somethin’ about takin’ the brain off the burner?

They say they’re workin’ on a fix. They say it’ll be ‘safe.’ Know what that means? Means they weren’t there. Means they never closed their eyes and heard them claws clatterin’ across the cobblestone; they never smelled that carcass breeze and they never felt its breath—cold, like ice—against their skin. If they’d seen it, if they’d stared into that black, bottomless mouth even for one second, they’d know that pluggin’ back in would be like survivin’ a crash landing and hoppin’ on the next plane home.

Safe.

Right.

Suits like throwin’ that word around like the damage ain’t already been done, like it matters one iota whether I’m plugged or not. They don’t see that it’s livin’ between my ears. Every time I shelter my eyes against the neon glare, I hear the door creak. Take too long scrubbin’ the soap off my face and it slithers in next to me. Even on the train, stuffed inside a box with a thousand other people, you’d think I could let them lids fall. It ain’t real, I tell myself. Just a bunch of ones and zeros trapped in the cloud. Ain’t no way it’s sittin’ at the next stop, twiddlin’ its gangly black claws, waitin’ for me to pull in. You know, logic.

But the docs say logic don’t cut it. They say that once I block out all that light, somethin’ up here just… snaps. An ‘intrusive thought,’ they called it, gobblin’ up logic like a three-dollar meal.

So what do you do? How do you go on tryin’ to sleep knowin’ it might be standin’ right next to you? Hoverin’ right over you? If you ain’t got logic, all you got left is a pair of eyes and a switchblade.

Ol’ Hacksaw—man’s never been known for his wit, but damned if he didn’t say one thing them white coats never thought of: Why stop at the lids?

There ain’t no shadows in the dark.