Baskemont Chapter 15 - ...and Hello

When she woke up, Katherine’s first impression of the afterlife was that it was colder than she’d expected. She then wondered why she was covered by some kind of flimsy cloth thing that was very unconvincingly trying to pass itself off as a blanket.

The sounds of the afterlife began to enter her ears. She had been expecting the hums and soft voices of angels, or the agonised screams of tormented souls burning away in hell. What she hadn’t expected was the very ordinary sounds of a forest that had just woken up, accompanied by an assortment of mumbling groans.

And the thing that was floating just a few feet away from her vision looked remarkably like a flimsily constructed tent…

And then she felt her body, still hurting a little but quite tangible.

Apparently she wasn’t as dead as she thought.

And then another horrible realization sent a sharp shock through her system. She quickly threw off the scrap of cloth that was on top of her and began to examine her hands and her body. Her eyes looked for decay, for pieces of vomit-coloured skin falling off… and found nothing of the sort. Not only was she not dead, she was also not un-dead. And now, she was also thoroughly confused.

“Ah, it appears our guest has awoken,” rasped a heavily accented voice from somewhere to her right, “A very good morning to you, my dear.”

She turned around to greet her apparent rescuers and – oh God! She collapsed the shelter she was in by rapidly getting up onto her feet while inside it.

Zombies. Only about four or five of them, but they were standing there, gawping at her like she was some exhibit at a carnival. And the stare of a creature without eyelids is somehow several magnitudes worse than one that still has them.

And then the one in the middle spoke.

“Goodness me, girl, pray do not panic yourself so!” it said calmly, with that strange kind voice she could faintly remember the other Zombie having as well – the one which sounded like malfunctioning plumbing. “While it is a difficult battle we are currently waging against our instincts, we do not wish to kill you, contrary to what you may believe.”

After freeing herself from the shelter’s tarp that had wrapped itself around her when she had risen, Katherine pinched herself to make sure she was awake. It was a hard pinch, almost leaving a mark even, but the Zombies didn’t go away. But then she wondered if maybe the stories about pinching oneself in a dream were all that true to begin with…

“What… what do you want from me?” she managed.

“Well, nothing particularly at the moment,” said the Zombie, its half-exposed mouth drooping a little on the half that still had skin on, “Save perhaps for an introduction. What brings you here, Miss…?”

She stared at it, her body tensed in preparation for the surprise attack that was surely about to land on her. She quickly scanned the surroundings, and found more Zombies shuffling around what looked like a very basic camp. Any moment now, she thought.

“Perhaps we should introduce ourselves first, Captain,” said one of the other Zombies, “And if she still refuses to speak, then we really should introduce our teeth to that fine neck of hers.”

“Hush, Joseph you taffer!” scolded the first Zombie, as Katherine tensed up even more at the mention of teeth and necks, “Although yes, perhaps I shall start the introductions here. My name is Timothy Mossridge, young lady.”

Katherine was so shocked at this point that she involuntarily replied “Katherine... Kenway.”

“What? You’re not Indian?” asked the Zombie that was apparently named Joseph, “Timothy, she’s just another Super like the rest of them, we should – “

“I said shut that bloody trap of yours, Joseph, even if that may not be completely possible on account of a quarter of it having fallen off already!” said the Zombie named Timothy irritably.

“Joseph’s got a point though, Timothy,” said one of the others, “We only spared her because we thought she was an Indian, didn’t we?”

“Well let’s settle the matter once and for all then, shall we, Eleanor?” said Timothy, before firing a question at Katherine. “Miss Kenway, what does the totem you’re wearing represent?”

She may have been completely bewildered by what was going on, but Katherine could recognise a test when she met one. Especially one with life or death consequences.

“It’s the symbol of the bear, an animal spirit that represents strength, bravery and protecting others from harm,” she began carefully, “It can also be a symbol of leadership. And, like all other spirit guides, it appears when the person will need to use those qualities during the next stage of their lives. In some cases, it is the person’s chosen spirit animal, in which case that person has a natural aptitude for leading others and guarding them from danger.”

The Zombies were quiet for a while, as though digesting her answer. Then the one called Eleanor spoke.

“That sounds correct enough to me, from what I recall about Indian beliefs.”

The others murmured in varying degrees of assent.

“I have my doubts though,” began Joseph, eyeing Katherine with a stare that would have been narrowed if he had the facial features for it, “She could easily have learned that all from a book – “

“For God’s sake, Joseph, the girl looks at least part Indian, she has a totem for a necklace and she even knows what the damn thing represents!” said Timothy exasperatedly, “Are you so keen to have our gracious God heap even more divine retribution on your greedy soul?”

When Joseph didn’t answer, Timothy soldiered on.

“Good! Now, be useful and go fetch us some water for boiling, would you?”

When Joseph gave him a confused look, Timothy rolled his eyes. Katherine felt a slight chill in her spine as she realized how eerie the action looked when the person doing it lacked most of their face.

“Miss Kenway cannot drink the water in its current diseased state and expect to survive another day, can she? Now off with you and hurry back before we have to re-light the fire!”

As Joseph shuffled off, the other Zombies introduced themselves.

“I am Eleanor Raffles, my dear, and this is my husband Nigel Raffles. The other fellow is young Charles Hammond – well, I suppose he’s not all that young from your perspective, but he was only in his twenties, possibly around your age, when the Great Plague struck him.”

The others greeted her in similar amicable fashion.

“Um, hello, all of you,” said Katherine, still expecting to wake up at any moment from this bizarre experience, “I don’t really understand at all what’s happening here, but thank you for not killing me, I guess?”

“So why do you have the name Kenway if you’re Indian?” asked Charles eagerly.

“There’s no need to press her this early, Charles, I’m sure she will tell us eventually,” said Timothy, giving her probably the toothiest grin she had ever witnessed up to that point in her life, “Although that does remind me, I suppose you yourself must have several questions. All of which we will answer in due time, not to worry. Oh, God’s grace!” he suddenly slapped his forehead with an unpleasant squishing sound, “I must let the mistress know that you have awoken! Please, come with me!”

He had offered her a very withered hand, and withdrew it after seeing the look on her face.

“Ah, yes, you had better not touch,” he said before walking on in a curious mix of a shuffle and a walk that nevertheless managed to propel him in the right direction. As Katherine slowly followed him, so did the other three Zombies, all of them eyeing her with a morbid curiosity that was exponentially more morbid than the average onlooker could manage.

“I take it you’ve met the more violent members of our kind,” said Nigel, who had probably had a well-groomed moustache when he was alive, “And possibly killed them too?”

“I had to,” said Katherine, having decided that until she knew more, it was probably best not to mention anything Crusade-related, “I guess you know how vicious you - they can be.”

“But of course we do,” said Eleanor, “We were all like that ourselves, you know, a very, very long time ago.”

“You were?” asked Katherine with extra confusion.

“Right, of course you probably don’t know about the Phases,” said Timothy, “There will be time enough to – ah, there she is. Tabitha, dear! Our guest has awoken!”

“She has? Oh dear, and I only just finished stitching her a top!” came a voice from a small tent just ahead. As they approached the tent, a small figure shuffled out from inside it and bowed, her bones adding some unwanted clanks to the gesture.

“Tabitha Mossridge, my dear,” she said after straightening up, “Welcome to our humble little camp! And you are…?”

“Katherine Kenway,” said Katherine, not trusting herself to bow properly in return.

“Oh? But you’re Indian, aren’t you?” asked Tabitha, her one hairless brow raising up, “Ah, I suppose it’s from your mother’s side then.”

“She’s Indian enough though, we checked,” said Timothy, “I thought we might answer the myriad questions she must have for us over some tea, once the water has boiled.”

“Boiled? But Timothy, we cannot keep the fire burning for too long – “ began Tabitha.

“It will only be for a short while, dear, and we are far enough away from the roads that we should be left alone,” explained Timothy, “In addition, I have already asked several of our lads to patrol around the camp.

“Alright then, if you insist,” accepted Tabitha, “I must say though, it has been a long while since we had warm tea!”

“Well, we don’t often have living company these days, do we?” asked Eleanor.

“Certainly none as disinterested in bopping our heads off as Miss Kennedy here,” said Nigel.

“It’s Kenway, dear,” corrected Eleanor before Katherine had decided if she even wanted to.

A phrase that Katherine had read in a children’s book once suddenly came to mind: Curiouser and curiouser. If there was any phrase that perfectly encapsulated the current proceedings, it was this. She was beginning to wonder if she should pinch herself some more.

Or maybe she had inhaled some fumes from some plant that grew in these parts, and the fumes were wreaking havoc on her senses. But then, why was it that only the Zombies were behaving in such a surreal manner? The rest of the forest and the sky and the ground all looked just as dreary and muddy as they had the last few days.

Something was off here, but she decided to roll with it for the time being until she was in a better state to process things.

*

She was definitely not dreaming, she thought to herself as she tried to rub the hurt out of her hands, because if she had been, the little mishap would have snapped her out of it.

The Zombies had managed to procure a cup for her to drink the water from, but the sad little cup had very clearly needed to be washed in some of the boiling water to kill the germs in it. She had tried to do it without dipping her hands into the water, but the cup had slipped into the bucket, and in her attempt to quickly fish it out, she had scorched her hands.

Tabitha had tutted to herself, and had a look on her face that suggested she would have really loved to help or even do the washing herself, but sticking her festering hands into matters would have defeated the purpose.

Still, the tingling was starting to die down now as Katherine very cautiously sipped the water from the bowl. While they had been marching about, the soldiers had used some kind of filtration device to clean the water before drinking it, so it wasn’t her first taste of Mortanny’s rivers and pools. But there was something different about this water. It tasted like someone had added a drop of essence of mud to its flavour. But it was warm, and that helped overcome the taste issues.

“Are those really tea leaves?” she asked, pointing to the cauldron in the middle of their circle, in which the Zombies were brewing their ‘tea’.

“I highly doubt it,” said Eleanor, stirring the water with a stick, “To be honest, all of us here can no longer taste anything, so we simply put in whatever dead leaves or grass we can find that look close enough like the real thing.”

“And you drink it anyway…” wondered Katherine.

“It is the principle of it that matters,” said Nigel, “It reminds us of the days when we were more… ourselves.”

“And more importantly, it reminds us that we still have enough of ourselves inside us even now,” said Timothy, staring at the cauldron, “Even as we lose a little bit day by day.”

“We’re still dying, you know,” butted in Charles, answering a question which Katherine would probably have asked a few minutes into the future, “This Plague that we have just makes the process much, much slower. It is as though our deaths should have been a single page in a book, but the words have now been extended across several chapters.”

“And any day now, our books will come to an end,” said Nigel, accepting the cup of tea Eleanor passed him, “But there is no way we can know with certainty when that day will come. This Plague is an annoyingly unpredictable curse we have been afflicted with.”

“There is the Last Madness though,” pointed out Tabitha, and the whole group shuddered.

It may have been written in bold text on Katherine’s face at that moment that she very clearly wanted to know what the Last Madness was. This was probably the reason that Joseph jumped in with another question instead.

“So, tell us your story, Kenway: How does an Indian-looking girl like you take on an Anglish name like Katherine?”

Katherine’s mouth was already half open, so she simply had to pack up the Last Madness question for a later time and swap in an answer to Joseph instead before she opened it fully.

“I was adopted when I was too small to remember,” she said, her eyes dipping a little at the thought of her family, “I never knew or met my biological parents or family. I just knew that there was some amount of Indian blood in me because of the way I look.”

“Adopted?” asked Eleanor, “Do you mean to say they still take Indian children as slaves in Terra Magellar? God’s grace, if only they knew! We should warn them - ”

“Well, the blokes who come from there nowadays are hardly in a listening mood when they find us, are they?” pointed out Nigel.

“No, no, I wasn’t a slave,” corrected Katherine before the conversation derailed further, “My parents took me in as one of their own children. They treated me and loved me like I was their real daughter.”

“They must have been very rich then,” said Joseph, looking at his tea with an expression that was much harder to read without most of the necessary facial features, “Not too many poor families who would add more mouths to feed out of love and kindness and all that.”

“We were middle-class where I come from, so they weren’t particularly rich,” said Katherine in a bit of a rush, because she had a question she wanted to get out of the way: “Anyway, why is my being Indian so important to you? And what does your God have to do with it?”

The Zombies looked at each other for a brief moment.

“Well, it is the reason we are not going to kill you and convert you into one of us,” said Charles, as direct and blunt as a blackjack to the face, “So I would think it is just as important to you too.”

Katherine stared.

“Before the Great Plague, we were quite monstrous and cruel in our treatment of Indians,” began Nigel, as Timothy adopted a very pensive, faraway look, “Slavery was probably the least of the punishments we gave them. At the time, we thought them inferior beings to ourselves, and that our mission was to destroy their livelihoods and convert them to our own.”

“But then the Plague hit us, of course, and changed us into these hideous forms,” said Tabitha, “Not really living, and very slowly dying. Forever feeling the pain of our bodies shutting down. Eternally hungry since we are unable to eat anything other than rotted plants or living meat – “

Katherine recoiled a little at the statement.

“The point is, we believe that our God cursed us because of the inhumane way we treated the Indians back when we were truly alive,” said Eleanor, “and so we force ourselves to show them, and you, the kindness we should have done earlier. Perhaps then our gracious God will ease our suffering, or end it sooner.”

“Not everyone believes this though, or they don’t believe it strongly enough,” said Timothy, giving Joseph a dark look, “But when I think back to some of the cruelty we inflicted upon the Indians, and how we ourselves are now inflicted with this curse, it makes sense. We failed our God, and He lashed out at us for our sins; we should know better than to anger Him again.”

“It is not easy,” said Charles, after gulping his tea, “Even now, I have to fight back a strong urge to attack you and bite off your warm, sweet flesh. Something in the Plague also gives us this savage instinct to hunger for living animals, like fleas being drawn to a dog.”

“Yes, about that,” said Katherine, very eager to change the current direction of the conversation, “Eleanor said something about how you all used to be like some of the other Zombies I’ve come across; the ones that roam around in hordes and keep trying to kill me no matter how hard I attack them back in return. The really violent, primal ones. Were you all really like that once?”

“Ah, you speak of the First Madness,” said Tabitha, “When we first become Zombies, the urge to kill and eat living things overpowers every other thought and feeling in our bodies. The hordes you speak of are comprised of such newly created Zombies. Ever since the Crusades began, there have been many invading soldiers who have died over the years, and those who die here by our hands and teeth always become Zombies themselves.”

“The First Madness lasts for about twenty years on average, I would estimate,” said Timothy, scooping another cup of tea for himself, “After that, the urge weakens enough for the rest of our remaining senses and thoughts to take over. In that state, we are more like what you see now, more civilized and proper.”

“There are rumours that some of the hordes that roam out of Zyltravania are in a perpetual state of madness though,” warned Nigel, “I do not believe such a thing is possible myself, but I am not inclined to ask those hordes where they are from when I see them approach…”

“It makes sense, though,” said Eleanor, “Zyltravania was where the Great Plague originated, was it not? Perhaps the air there is so foul that they can never come out of the First Madness.”

“But those hordes come to these parts, where the air and the trees are almost as clean as they were in the days before Mortanny,” argued Joseph, “And they remain feral and bloodthirsty no matter how long they roam the Anglish plains.”

As the Zombies argued about the Zyltravanian hordes, a light bulb began to flicker inside Katherine’s mind.

“Wait a minute,” she said, interrupting the groan-flavoured debate, “so, every person who is turned into a Zombie will eventually become less violent and more, well, more like you?”

“They should, unless they died in Zyltravania, apparently,” said Tabitha, “Although, if there are any living people in Zyltravania in this day and age, I will be extremely surprised.”

Katherine was about to begin vocalizing her thoughts when another Zombie came scampering up to the group.

“There’s a group of new Zombies approaching the camp, Timothy,” said the new arrival, before goggling at Katherine. It was probably simply glancing at her, but its face was only capable of goggling with the remaining features it had.

“Well, why is that such big news to – oh, right,” said Joseph, also glancing at Katherine as the others all began to rise.

“If we moved only a little further to the South, they should pass us by, I think,” said the scout Zombie.

“Good, but I will need a few of you to hang around here and redirect them should they get wind of anything,” said Timothy, “Join us after they pass by.”

The Zombie nodded before scooting off to find other Zombies to follow it. Timothy announced to the others in the camp that they were moving, and in a very short time the shelters and items were all being packed up, the fireplaces were being scattered and the Zombies were beginning to shuffle away.

As they all ambled through the forest, Katherine caught up with Timothy.

“Do you remember the place where you found me?” she asked a little eagerly.

“Not exactly, but I can recall in which area of the forest it was, roughly speaking,” said Timothy, “why do you ask?”

Feeling excited after what had felt like an era, she then told him why.

Amanda Keller

I like Amanda Keller.

I’ve seen her around school for a while now, and I think she’s in some of my classes, but somehow our social circles have never really intersected. I plan on changing that after how she handled Trent Wallace.

Trent is one of the sexiest guys in Gendale High, but every time he talks to me, there’s this weird greasy feeling that starts to spread inside me like an oil leak. Most of the girls fall for him like toothpicks in a stiff breeze, but something about his superficial attitude really rubs me the wrong way. I don’t know why he went after Amanda – maybe he wanted a challenge, and she is pretty in her own way.

I saw them talking from a distance and couldn’t help but roll my eyes; she looked like she was falling just as hard for him as the rest of those airheads. Then I saw him lean in closer – maybe she wanted to whisper something to him, I don’t know – and the next thing I see, he’s balled up on the floor in pain from a knee to the crotch. And standing proud above him was Amanda Keller, adding a rainbow of well-worded insults to the injury to his crown jewels. The crowd that gathered around them soon blocked my view, but as I walked closer, words like ‘Chauvinistic boar!’ and ‘Slimy misogynist!’ rang clear throughout the hallways, supplemented with whoops of encouragement from the throng of students.

Trent will probably not want to talk to her ever again. And I can’t wait to get started!

***

I love Amanda Keller!

She and I have become lunch buddies now, and I feel so empowered and self-confident just being around her! She’s an engaging, charismatic person who’s made me realize just how much social degradation we girls suffer at the hands of the guys in the school. It’s like they think they have some kind of privilege that is gifted to them just because they have a dick. Trent may be the worst of the bunch, but he’s not the only one. I’ve realized how much I’ve numbed myself to the ‘male gaze’ when I shouldn’t be just accepting it as normal. It’s amazing how much Amanda has opened my eyes to, or given me good reason to be angry about.

She’s trying out for a role on the editing team of Gendale’s student newspaper – they have a weekly publication that’s not too shabby. It looks like she’ll clinch it, and I’m all for it – she writes some pretty good stuff herself, and I think being on the editing team will give her the chance to spread more awareness of the misogyny that’s become embedded in our school culture like so many splinters of wood under the skin.

As for myself, I’m auditioning to take part in the next school play – it’s one of the biggest theatrical productions of the year, and for this one the students come up with almost everything from the script to the props. It would be so cool to be a part of creating it and bringing it to life!

***

I admire Amanda Keller.

For her first major move as an editor for the newspaper, Amanda published an article highlighting how antics like Trent Wallace’s are a symptom of the disease of misogyny that all the guys in school suffer from. The backlash spiralled into madness faster than a plane with its engines on fire. The tsunami of death threats, rape threats and complaints against Amanda completely obliterated all the other trending topics on social media. 

Here’s the thing though: with all that hate and rage being spewed at her, Amanda is still brave enough to come to school and get through the day like normal. She has enough people on her side of course – people like me who are so glad that someone’s finally bringing the school’s dirty laundry into the spotlight like this. But still, there’s no knowing how the bullies against her will strike – imagine having to hesitate every time you open your locker because someone might have put something in it? Or to keep watching over your shoulder when outside class?

Even some of the guys in school are on her side – and one of them is Darren Milhouse. He’s one of those quiet types who mostly keeps to himself, and is kind of cute in a weird way. I met him through the school play – we’re both currently on the small committee working on the script. He has some great ideas, and at the same time he doesn’t try to push them into places where they don’t fit. It’s so refreshing to work with a guy like him – scratch that, it’s refreshing to just BE around him.

***

I doubt Amanda Keller.

It’s been a few weeks since her first article, but the rift between the people who support her and those who are against her has only grown wider. It’s gotten to a point where people are labelled as either supporting her or against her – and the spectrum in-between those two camps has been marginalised into a foggy oblivion.

I still support the cause of the girls in school having equal respect and freedom of choice as the guys, and at first I thought that’s what Amanda wanted too – but now I’m not so sure. For example, she’s started picking on some of the girls in school as well lately, saying that the kinds of outfits they’re wearing are demeaning to women as a whole because they’re too revealing – or too conservative. 

Shouldn’t they be free to decide what they want to wear? Isn’t that part of the point – that girls should be able to wear or do whatever they want without being judged? But I’m afraid to say anything about it because she’s the figurehead of the fight against misogyny, and I’m still a soldier in that army, even if I don’t completely agree with its commander.

The play is coming along splendidly, although Darren and I are starting to drift apart. I think he’s having a hard time dealing with all the hostility he receives from most of Team Amanda simply because he’s a guy – even though he’s also against misogyny. Once, when he was with me and some of the girls, he tried to talk about how most of Amanda’s articles aren’t actually all that well-written, even if her points are solid. The girls attacked him like a swarm of vicious bees whose hive has just been set ablaze – I don’t think he’s recovered from their stings even now. He’s square in the middle of that spectrum between the two camps, and that’s causing him to avoid the conflict and everyone involved in it altogether – including myself.

***

I hate Amanda Keller!

She wrote a scathing review against our play after seeing it on opening night, and now half the school is having second thoughts about even seeing it! If our play was bad, I wouldn’t be as upset, but it was one of the better plays the school has put together in at least the last five years! All the blood, sweat and tears that went into bringing it to life, and all she can do is fling mud at it for completely superfluous reasons! Rrrrrgh!

Her problem with it was that the girls in the play were either too scantily dressed, or in weaker positions when compared to their male counterparts. But she completely ignored the fact that the girls were some of the strongest characters in the play, and they were able to achieve so much despite the restraints the society in our play put on them! The subtlety of our script in terms of how it handled gender equality was as apparent to her as a fleck of dust inside that ridiculous handbag of hers. And she only sparingly complimented things like the amazing set design and lighting, as if that kind of thing doesn’t really matter compared to whether the girls in the play meet her approval or not.

I’ve also realized just how much more harm than good she has done in the grand scheme of things. Thanks to her, most people see the fight against misogyny as a girls-only club with their goal being some kind of twisted revenge against all the guys for the years of dominance they’ve enjoyed – which may actually be what Amanda Keller has in mind. I wouldn’t know – I thought I knew where she was coming from, but now, given how much her articles have become provocative more than well-informed, I think she might even thrive on making the divide even larger just to stay relevant rather than bridging it in an attempt to achieve a peaceful consensus.

***

I’m over Amanda Keller.

The realization hit me hardest when I saw the latest article she had written in the school newspaper – some fluff about how cheerleaders should be abolished because they’re a demeaning role for girls – and I didn’t feel angry or bitter, just mildly annoyed. We haven’t spoken to each other since the play, and I occasionally get dirty looks from some of her more ardent supporters even now, but it doesn’t bother me that much.

Amanda Keller’s vision of what a victory against misogyny would be feels far too militant, even bordering on misandry, to me – not to mention it would have her own biased ideas about how girls should be and behave stamped all over it – and I don’t want to have anything more to do with it. I can still have my beliefs without having to take part in the battle between her army and her enemies, and I’m perfectly content with that.

Darren and I are drifting closer together now, which is a relief – and all it took was a couple of lunches together to recover from all the drama with the play. I think one of the things that draws us together is how we both see feminism as a team effort – that to realize the dream of equal respect and freedom of choice, both guys and girls need to put aside their biases, and appreciate that even though we may be different in some ways, that doesn’t mean we should have different levels of privilege. We shouldn’t expect to receive equal treatment if we’re hesitant to give it in return. Maybe I’m naïve about this, but this is how I see the fight against misogyny ending – not with explosions, but with an olive branch.

Failure to Connect

A generation or so from now in the future, advances in technology have helped usher in an age where people communicate solely through texting, videos and social networks - even if they're in the same room. Life in big cities has adapted to this as well - services such as coffee and cable are ordered via text; self-driving taxis can take directions via text. Work, play and everything else in life revolve around the phablet, the smartwatch and the plasma screen. Verbal Communication is propped up in a hospital bed, dying a slow and painful death. Intimacy and Privacy are missing, presumed dead.'

***

Penelope landed clumsily onto the back seat of the taxi, and slammed the door shut. And then she exhaled. It felt like she hadn't done that in a long time.

"Destination?"

The voice was trying really hard to be human, but it couldn't completely shed its mechanical undertones. Then again, maybe that was the point; it was unsettling enough that cars could now drive like humans (and, in most cases, a lot better than humans) - it would be terrifying if they started talking like them too.

"Apartment Block 423, Theodore Street."

The car didn't take off just yet though. It started to hum like a seamstress preparing her sewing machine, and then stopped abruptly.

"A link to your bank account could not be established. Please switch on your mobile device."

Penelope thumped the front seat's headrest.

"I don't have mine with me! Can't you just take cash?"

The taxi took unreasonably long to reply with a very unhelpful "This taxi cannot function without a connection to your bank account."

Penelope then ripped open the door and stomped out into the light, only to find dozens of phablet cameras gazing at her, a swarm of one-eyed polymer-coated bees. She ran down the pavement, and the swarm eerily followed, accompanied by a buzzing laced heavily with curiosity.

When she finally lost them a few hasty detours later, she collapsed against the cleanest patch of wall she could find, and exhaled once more. It still felt like she hadn't done that in a long time.

All this because of that damned coffee.

***

Minutes earlier:

Penelope impatiently tapped the edge of the plasma screen inside the counter she was in. Somewhere behind the placid barrier, both her smartwatch and her phablet were being probed and picked at like butterflies at the mercy of an entomologist. She hoped her unseen helpers could hurry up.

The screen flickered on, promptly plucked at her hopes, crumpled them into a ball and flung them deep into a trashcan of apathy.

"Your devices cannot be repaired. The best course of action would be to transfer your data to a new identical pair of devices. The process will take an estimated time of 30 minutes to complete. The total cost of the service and the new devices will be $842.79 - this will be deducted from your linked bank account at the end of the process. Would you like to proceed with the transfer?"

As she tapped on the luminous green "Yes" button, she wished it had been an actual choice. She could feel the hole that would soon appear in her bank account, as though it was being dug into her insides as well.

The counter hatch below the screen popped open, revealing a buzzer. The screen was pointing her to the waiting lounge with suggestions for how she could occupy herself with the public phablet and touchscreen stations there. She gingerly took the buzzer and walked over to the lounge.

Ugh.

The waiting lounge was teeming with muted despair that Saturday morning. There were more people than stations, so some unfortunate souls were ambling about restlessly, their thumbs twitching and their eyes staring lifelessly at the carpeted floor a few feet in front of them. Either that, or they were muttering darkly to whichever working device they had on them. With some of their body parts chomped off and their listless faces doused in buckets of blood, they would make a very convincing zombie outbreak.

Penelope sat down for a bit, but immediately felt as though she had submersed herself into a pool of thick, stifling depression, with little waves of gloom lopping about her ears. She got up again abruptly and thought to herself, Screw this - I need some coffee, right now.

Somewhere in Brazil, a butterfly flapped its wings.

***

Later that day:

Kelly was idly surfing Facebook at work when a headline in her RSS feed caught her notice:

"This woman walked into a cafe. You will not BELIEVE what happened next!"

The attached video already had close to a hundred thousand views and typically colourful comments trailing along with it:

TheMatt4Sho: "Fuck that womans a fucking socipath!! #dontwannaliveonthisplanetanymore"

IAmAGentlemann: "@TheMatt4Sho It's sociopath, moron. Who the hell taught you English!"

Gangsta476: "Must have been yo mama, @IAmAGentlemann you twat #mamajoke"

TheMatt4Sho: "Hahahahaha nice one @Gangsta476!! #sickburn"

xDaemonChildx: "DAT ASS"

UnkleMacker3L: "Wow that chick really wanted some #hotcoffee huh ;) ;)"

She did a cursory sweep of the surroundings and found them suitably devoid of her superiors. She then clicked 'Play'... and promptly gaped at the screen when she saw the woman's face.

Penny! What the hell?

Her good friend Penelope had her spirited moments, but this was a level of fury hitherto unreached. Something must be seriously wrong.  Brimming with concern, Kelly immediately fired off a barrage of texts to Penelope.

Oh my God, I really hope she's okay...

***

At the cafe:

It was full of people having a late breakfast, but a blind person would have walked through the cafe thinking it was a museum just before closing time. Even the kids who had come with their families had their eyes glued to phablets in their hands; gaudily coloured headphones framed their frowning little faces, and their fingertips were a nimble blur as they tapped away at the screen. The occasional voice command and clink of cutlery nearly echoed as they popped out from under the blanket of silence that smothered the place.

The atmosphere (what little was there) left an unsettling feeling in Penelope's stomach - it wasn't long ago that she too was one of the people here, headphones and touchscreens yanking her attention away from the dullness of the immediate surroundings.

She found a seat, reached for her pocket before realizing it was empty, and then resigned herself to the arduous task of summoning a waiter.

The waiters bustled in and out of the kitchen with one hand holding a tray with food and drink (or remains of them), and the other being spoken to in bursts, as it bore their smartwatches - their heads jerked up every so often to get their bearings, giving them the appearance of squirrels high on energy drinks. Short of barrelling into them in a cascade of colourful drinks and overpriced food, there was no way Penelope could get their attention.

In a huff, she turned to the man opposite her. He sported a ponytail and a pallid face, both of which exuded a thin film of grease. His suit looked like he'd put it on by throwing some clothes into a revolving door and then running into it himself. It took several carefully positioned waves to drag his eyes from the screen.

"What?"

The look on his face, disdain with a hint of unpleasant surprise, was pure irritation distilled into a potent shot. It took all her effort, with some help from his glistening skin, to not punch him right there.

"I don't have my phablet or smartwatch with me. Can I borrow yours to get some coffee? Please? I'll pay you back."

He sneered at her. Whatever specks of likeability he had were instantly vaporised by that sneer.

"Use your own phablet or smartwatch or whatever."

Penelope felt her blood pressure rising.

"I just said I don't HAVE them with me! That's why I'm asking for yours in the first place!"

Another sneer, this one dripping with condescension.

"Yeah right. Hashtag cool story, bro."

The rage within Penelope was now a mad bull with a red blindfold held in a cage with plywood bars. In the time it took for the man to return to his phablet, the bull broke free.

She stood up with stiff purpose, grabbed the mug of steaming coffee in front of him and introduced his suit to it with a hearty dose of vigour.

As the phablet dropped onto the table from his trembling hands and his face twisted in pain, she grabbed the phablet and swiftly texted an order for a takeaway - and looked up to find an army of phablets gazing at her, a throng of miniature synthetic Cyclopes.

Oh no.

Somewhere in Texas, a tornado broke out.

***

The apartment door was flung open and slammed shut in a single breath. Penelope leaned back against the door, listening for the buzzing that had disappeared long ago, but seemed to linger around her like a confused lamb missing a mother.

When she had finally convinced herself that no one had followed her to her apartment, she walked into the main room and immediately buried her face inside her palms. The plasma screen in her room had automatically switched on when she entered, and her face and throwing arm were plastered all over the newsfeeds, with headlines such as "Woman Without Phablet Goes Berserk for Hot Coffee" trying to paint a gaudy picture with excessive shades of scandal.

One of the more popular Youtube celebrities (who, despite their only credentials being able to speak brashly and the knowledge of how to use a video camera, were treated as Purveyors of Truth) had only just commented:

"If a guy had done this to a woman, he would have been arrested by now! You call this gender equality, feminist bitches? Huh?"

The words had sizzled through the airwaves before setting alight the fuses in the vault of unstable explosives that was the Internet. And like dry twigs in a parched scrubland, the social media world was consumed by the flames and the fireworks.

When she couldn't take it anymore, Penelope nearly smashed the power button while switching off the screen. She then collapsed on a beanbag and glanced around, the sounds of the plasma screen fading into the silence that was rapidly rushing into the room.

It struck her then, more than any other time, how much she depended on her smartwatch and phablet. Her compact apartment without them was some cheap furniture, a fridge with smatterings of food and the plain faces of the walls - even the plasma screen could only be controlled with the smartwatch, and its current channel of choice was causing more calamity than comfort. Without her electronic devices and their entertainment to occupy her, her thoughts began to leak out and mix with the silence in the room, echoing off the walls and returning to her with more severity than when they left.

When she couldn't take it anymore, there wasn't a power switch she could shut down the frustration with. But there was one option.

The one that was always there, even if she rarely thought so.

Trying to ignore the feelings of guilt starting to rise within her, Penelope bolted out the front door.

***

The greasy guy with the ponytail was back in the newsfeeds, this time because he was threatening to file a lawsuit against "the crazy bitch in the cafe" for physical assault unless she apologized to him. Words like "lawsuit" and "religion" were juicy slabs of red meat lovingly beckoning to be gobbled up by the hordes of slobbering hyenas on Reddit and Digg who called themselves 'journalists'.

Reclined on the couch, Renard snorted. Leandra didn't share his cynical optimism.

"He might go through with it, don't you think?"

"He doesn't have the balls for it! - or the grounds. Physical assault? Psh! The only way that coffee could cause anything more than a badly needed change of clothing is if he had some weird skin condition. They've tested it scientifically after that earlier lawsuit, remember? Coffee shops are required by law to ensure their drinks cannot cause bodily harm now!"

"Still, he might be rich enough to do it just for the publicity. You know how desperate people are for their 15 minutes of fame these days, it's like heroin to some of them! And Pennyreally doesn't need the headaches that come with lawyers - and neither do we!"

"There won't be any headaches - anybody with enough sense knows the kid's only going to embarrass himself and his attorneys if he takes this to court. He can't be stupid enough to want the wrong kind of attention - then again, with kids these days, I wouldn't put it past him..."

The doorbell's guitar riff sliced through their conversation and immediately brought it to a stop.

Leandra walked over to answer it. Standing in the doorway was a young woman with Renard's warm brown eyes and Leandra's voluminous hair.

"Hi, Mum."

"Penny!"

***

Penelope found herself roaming the corridors of her parents' much roomier house, a mug of fresh hot chocolate and marshmallows cupped in her hands. After she had filled them in on the day's chaos, Renard had arranged for the repair centre to deliver her phablet and smartwatch to their place, and Leandra had helped her contact her more important friends and assure them that she was okay, and no, she was definitely not going to be admitted to a correctional facility.

Now, while the delivery was on its way, she was taking the time to de-stress, and let her mind lie down on a comfy couch, stretch its legs a bit and watch cooking shows. She wasn't fully aware of where she was going until she ended up in a room with a strangely welcoming feel to it.

It was her parents' recording room.

Renard and Leandra had met when they joined forces in a professional rock band during their college years. Some harsh doses of reality and surmounting responsibilities had taken them along less musically inclined career paths ever since, but like true musicians, they could never abandon their craft completely.

Her hot chocolate almost done, Penelope placed it carefully on top of a stray amp and inched towards a vocal mic next to an audio interface. She could hear it summoning her. Or so she thought.

The room wasn't completely in disuse, but even so there were thin films of dust settling in patches about the room. Penelope had to blow off a few particles, and briefly appreciated the way they danced gracefully off the surface of the mic.

She pressed the power button on the interface. A few lights on it woke up, and a faint humming seeped into the room. In her hand, the mic looked more ready than she felt.

A song she had heard a long time ago - before music had been taken prisoner by technological and cultural changes and been locked up in the dungeons by EDM, dubstep and other unsavoury characters - started crawling into her mind. The words were coming together, ethereal tendrils twisting into recognisable forms.

And then she took a crack at them.

We sit alone and watch your light

...no, that sounded terrible. She was croaking like a toad with laryngitis. But then again... she tried once more.

Our only friend, through teenage nights

...a bit better. Hints of a voice that could soothe a raging wildebeest were peeking through holes in the fences of disuse. She gulped down the last of her hot chocolate and tried the next two lines.

And everything we want to get

 We download from the internet

She could feel flakes of rust being chipped off her voice. The toad's laryngitis was fading away, and the toad was turning out to be a songbird in disguise.

"That sounded terrible honey. And do you know why?"

Renard had been standing at the doorway for who knew how long. He strode in calmly while Penelope looked at him askance.

"You've got great pipes, Penny. But if you're going to sing a Queen song, you shouldn't have to do it alone. Not in our house."

And as he slung an electric guitar on his shoulder, he called out to Leandra, "HONEY! You still remember the beat for Radio Gaga, right? Penny wants to play it!"

Leandra burst into the room as Renard was twiddling with the knobs on the amplifier connected to his guitar.

"Of course I do! I'm not senile!...yet."

She yanked a couple of worn drumsticks from a pouch near the drum-set and twirled them as she sat down in the middle of the mass of metal and membranes.

Renard turned to Penelope.

"Let's take that from the top, alright? Don't worry about us, we'll follow you. Just let yourself feel the music and the beat, and you'll be fine."

With his reassuring smile almost as comforting as the hot chocolate, Penelope's confidence continued to soar.

As the rich purr of the guitar and the snappy beats of the drum burst out, Penelope began once more.

We sit alone and watch your light

Our only friend, through teenage nights

And everything we want to get

We download from the internet 

Yes! She felt the music flow into her, a tingling sensation roaming about her nerves. She sang the next verse with added gusto.

No need to think, no need to feel

When only cyberspace is real

It makes us laugh 

It makes us cry

It makes us feel like we can fly (we can fly)

Renard and Leandra backed her vocals, their voices only barely scarred by age.

Hope to record our life online

Touch any key, the world is mine

We're lost in space

But we don't care

Without your light our world's not there

Complete control, you are the power 

Our lives are programmed by the hour

Internet (Internet)

All three of them were now firmly locked together in the zone, the outside world only a suggestion. Penelope belted out the chorus as the guitar roared and the drums crashed in agreement.

All we hear is Radio Ga Ga

Video Goo Goo

Internet Ga Ga

All we hear is cyberspace Ga Ga

Marketing Blah Blah

Always something new

Internet, all the world loves you!

Her parents were screaming words of encouragement during the musical interlude. Penelope didn't quite hear them, but she felt their effects, and that was enough. The rest of the song blurred by in a haze of bliss.

We watch your shows

We watch your stars 

Across our screens for hours and hours

We hardly need our eyes or ears

We just log on and dreams appear (dreams appear)

We're not alone 

We have our friends

On cyber love we can depend

So stick around cos we'd all miss you

We need our graphics

Need our visual

Complete control, you are the power

We use our lives up by the hour Internet (Internet)

All we hear is Radio Ga Ga

Video Goo Goo

Internet Ga Ga

All we hear is cyberspace Ga Ga

Marketing Blah Blah

Always something new

Internet, all the world loves you!

Breathless and ecstatic from that last chorus, the three of them stumbled into each others' arms. And in the tight (and slightly sweaty) warmth of that embrace, amidst the rush of love and joy and all those warm fuzzy emotions, Penelope felt something she had never realized she sorely missed until now.

Connection.

Proper, personal, human connection. Devoid of emoticons and hashtags. Something that couldn't be captured in selfies and Instagrams. Something that no amount of technology could ever transmit or tweet, on the airwaves or through the fibres.

The only kind that mattered.