And what I saw was worse than I’d imagined. A new era without a substantial revelation was a sobering concept, but I wasn’t prepared for its actuality. Everyone was embracing the end of innovation. It didn’t matter to them that everything had been done before. It could be overcome, they reasoned, by exhaustive repetition. The sterility of the radio reached a new low. Lifeless three minute sound bytes were the hymns of choice in the secret praise of creative impotency. In theaters, everything was a remake, a sequel, or an adaptation of an old TV show. Books were streamlined to pull us to the end more quickly; plot and characters were incidental. The mediums we used to put our pointless lives aside were corrupted. No aesthetic and no catharsis. Even language had become infantile—phrases like the C word, N word, R word, F bomb, a watchdog society taking on the role of that kid in first grade who couldn’t wait to tell the teacher you said a bad word like “shut up.”
Social networking, too. A world more in contact with each other than ever, and we chose to tell each other what we ordered for lunch.
I was forced to seek solace in my work. My job had always been a somewhat amusing distraction before, but now I was asking it to carry all the weight. The endeavor was unquestionably doomed, but there was simply nowhere else to turn. I was on the outskirts of the Information Age. I wrote the text to those pamphlets you find in doctor’s offices, insurance agencies, college campuses and the like. Very inspirational stuff with titles such as First Indications of Trichomoniasis and Do You Have Ovarian Cancer? I spent forty hours a week writing condensed prophecies of suffering for people who hoped against hope their symptoms were anything but. I warned students that unprotected sex was that first step on the road to painful sensations while urinating and the ultimate failure of the immune system. My office was adorned with a sign reading DON’T BLAME THE MESSENGER.
I developed a new fascination with my subject matter. Diseases were rather admirable. Once they realized they could be cured, they mutated. Sickness was the only source of originality anymore. The way it took control of you was essentially a form of possession. It altered your physiology and psychology, as well as how you were perceived by those around you. Your proximity became unbearable. Contagious, too, possibly; if not then, a few generations down the bloodline when the genetic remnants chose to activate, like a bomb hurled through the portal of a time machine. I wasn’t being asked to discourse on the skillful adaptation of diseases, however, and that eventually cost me my obsession. I was another cog to keep the post-1900s repetition machine rolling. Each pamphlet was more of the same: Because you failed to wear one of these or you ate too much of this or you have too little of that, you are going to feel marginal discomfort, suffer greatly, or consider contacting a lawyer about making out your last will and testament. The following procedures might increase the rather futile chances of your recovery, or prolong your pain beyond all sanity. Words like “agony” and “death” lost all meaning to me; they were just 12-point letters in a universal font on my screen.
When I abandoned all hope and interest, Ursula came into my life. The artist who had always drawn the anatomical diagrams for the pamphlets moved on. His big break had apparently come when his highly original comic strip featuring the daily “hilarities” in the life of a nuclear family was optioned for nation-wide syndication. Our man Murphy had drawn his last rendering of fallopian tubes and sauntered over to greener pastures. He didn’t bow out with much notice, so we needed a verrucose urethra in a bad way. I think they accepted the first person to apply, and it turned out to be her. “Hello, I’m Ursula,” she said by way of introduction. She was very stiff-postured, and her handshake would have made rigor mortis envious. She gave off no genuine warmth, and I think that’s what attracted me to her. I saw myself mirrored in her lack of enthusiasm. The women I generally worked with were perky types who would probably be wowed by flowers and stuffed animals. Ursula didn’t seem the type to ally herself with them, and seemed embarrassed for them.
I introduced myself and gave her the text for the pamphlet. I had to test her; had to know immediately. “At one point,” I said, “there was talk of using diagram templates instead of just having an artist. I don’t know what came of that.”
Ursula showed no visible reaction. “There are too many templates already, don’t you think? Just the same sources waiting to be dressed up a little, if at all.”
Her answer told me more than I’d been seeking. She’d echoed me even more strongly.
“When are you going to lunch?” I asked. Things began to evolve from there. I could give a synopsis of our conversation that day and not even have to tell you who said what. The answers would have been the same for either of us.
“What are your career goals?”
“I have none.”
“How do you feel about violence?”
“Quite good.”
“Do you foresee better things for the world in general next year?”
“Quite the opposite.”
And so on. We only deviated from this when I asked about her artistic talent. She said, “That’s a gray area. I think my work—what I do for myself—is becoming something very different.”
Something stirred in me. I immediately sensed she didn’t mean “different” as in different for her. There was an uncertainty in her voice tinged with hope, like that of an astronomer who believes he has discovered a new planet. I don’t know why I was inspired at all. The bases had to have been covered, from etchings on cave walls and pyramids to portraits, landscapes, images of Hell and soup cans. From stone to canvas to hologram. What was left to be different? Collective unconscious is a rather limiting concept.
But I was inspired, as I hadn’t been since my premonitions of 1999. I was no artist myself. I’d liked comics before they became less about mythologies and more about foil, gold, and holographic covers (I’d been so into The Uncanny X-Men in sixth grade that I demanded to know why adamantium wasn’t on the Periodic Table), but about the only character I could draw was one with the power of eternal invisibility. My masterpiece was a stickman rendering of Charles Whitman sniping students from the observatory tower. I felt like I had a real vision, but I wasn’t convinced that more talent would be enough to express it. I’d never considered a conduit before.
Section II
When I met Ursula, the signs returned almost instantly. They were like images congealing in a haze of static. Words seeping through my apartment walls from a neighbor’s stereo: I’ll make you yearn for the Apocalypse. A fragment of dialogue from the TV: There’s no tomorrow. You know why? It ain’t ever gonna get here! Cryptic abbreviations carved on walls in benches and bathrooms suggesting more than so and so was here or so and so gives a great ream: Axxon N, Z2K, EOTA.
Something was awake under the surface of things, something with a lot more momentum than another self-proclaimed reincarnation of Christ stockpiling assault rifles or pouring Kool-Aid. Ursula knew I sensed it, but I didn’t try to express it. I wasn’t sure I could. What I did talk about was sickness and my respect for its innovation. Even this wasn’t without its merits, as I generally couldn’t talk about Hansen’s disease over pastrami sandwiches and chicken salad with anyone. Ursula would hint at new art she was excited about, but she never elaborated. I doubted she was the type who believed that talking about an incomplete project would somehow compromise it, but I didn’t press her. I didn’t want to hear I was wrong about the significance of her work—a possibility I couldn’t ignore, not after the disappointment of January 1, 2000. It wasn’t until after another New Year’s that she said, “There are some people I really think you should meet.”