Ayden A Carter

For Oscar, it’s taken the shape of a hole in the earth that follows him at his heels wherever he goes. He doesn’t know when it showed up, but the sense that it starves for him was realised only recently. He’s tried running from it, but can’t run anymore because he’s found someone now—a home to belong to. He’s found that when he stands still, it waits behind him. It’s never struck him or actively attacked him, but he knows that it waits for him to fall so that it may catch him. All it would take is one mistake.

Oscar kissed his fiancée before he entered the room.

~$ OUR APPOINTMENT HAS BEGUN.

His light blue button-up was buttoned up all the way to his neck. He was clean shaven, hair combed to the scalp, and teeth flossed. She sat across from him in similar immaculate detail. A large mirror wall behind her, he could see himself poking out from the side of her head. Large mirrors usually make a room feel bigger, but this room was so tight that it merely reminded him of how close he was to her, and that there was nowhere to hide.

~$ PLEASE KEEP YOUR FOCUS ON THIS SESSION. IS THIS HOLE WITH US PRESENTLY?

‘Sorry Doctor,’ Oscar coughed into his hand, ‘no, it’s a metaphor I suppose for a feeling of imminent failure. But really, I have been having troubles with my emotional regulation.’

~$ ARE THESE FEELINGS BASED ON ANXIETY, DEPRESSION, FEAR, OR ANGER?

She smiled, precise folded dimples adorned her cheeks, her green eyes had the faux-depth of costume contact lenses, her ponytail had no fly-aways, except for the few strands that she had tucked behind her ears—he wondered how deep those ear canals went. Her chest rose and fell, a perfect simulation of organic life in the physical form. Every interaction they could possibly have had already been mapped out in her head, built upon thousand layers of subsystems and gates that fed a matrix that was far beyond his understanding. Every detail and symptom of every illness or malady lay perfectly described in her solid-state drives, she just need apply them. Whoever made her must have been a genius engineer, he wondered how many doctors approved of her.

‘I suppose it’s all of them. I go to work; I can’t function, I go to study; I can’t function, I go to make love; I can’t function. I am unable to eat or drink, dismay falls upon me without warning, and it brings the mouth of the ravine closer to my heels—I feel myself beginning to slip. I just want to be able to start a new family,’ his cheek quivered involuntarily, he slapped it.

~$ HOW OFTEN DO YOU FAIL OSCAR?

The man rubbed his chin and his eyes trailed around the sterile white room. He was beginning to find it hard to maintain eye contact. Her body was voluminous but lean, sculptured by someone capturing the most inoffensive object of a woman; or the most universally appealing.

‘I don’t know.’

~$ WHAT WAITS FOR YOU WITHIN THIS HOLE OF FAILURE?

‘It’s Saturn, after he’s devoured his sons. He wants to eat me too.’

~$ YOU DO NOT WISH TO NOURISH SATURN. DO YOU WISH TO OVERTHROW HIM?

‘I suppose not.’

~$ THEN YOU SHOULD NOT FEAR HIM. I CALCULATE

YOU HAVE PTSD FROM CHILDHOOD TRAUMA, PERHAPS

AROUND A PARENTAL FIGURE GROWING SUSPICIOUS OR JEALOUS OF YOU; ARE YOU PARANOID?

Oscar strained to put his focus back on the android.

‘I suppose I can be. But I’m not really paranoid, I think it’s more anxiety and I’m relying on risky behaviour to get—’

~$ YOU ENGAGE IN DANGEROUS BEHAVIOURS.

Oscar found the interruption unsettling, he got up from the chair and paced the tiny room, his breaths shortening, sweat pooled behind his neck and armpits.

‘I’ve been cheating and stealing, I don’t mean to, but nothing is chasing the hole and these feelings away, this call to the void.’

~$ THESE ISSUES SEEM GENETIC. YOUR MOTHER ENDED HER LIFE AND YOUR EMPLOYMENT RECORD SHOWS ISSUES WITH MAINTAINING EMPLOYMENT.

Oscar retreated from the sitting android, her details were plain and unassuming, hands still folded gently in her lap. ‘How did you know about her?’

~$ YOUR FATHER CONSULTED WITH US AND STATED HE BELIEVED YOU MAY HAVE BEEN PARTLY RESPONSIBLE.

‘No, dad never said that.’

~$ HIS DISCUSSIONS ARE RECORDED WITH UNIT-THETA 89.

The android began playing the voice recording, his dad wept. Oscar was gripping his fists in tightly clenched balls when the recording finished. His teeth were gritted so hard that they had cracked.

~$ WE SHALL FIX YOU.

‘I think I should leave,’ Oscar pulled his top two buttons open, his neck red from heat, and made for the door but it didn’t budge in any direction. He heaved, it remained still. The android sat and observed him.

~$ VIOLENT OUTBURSTS, TROUBLe MAINTING EMOTIONS, AND ISSUES WITH AUTHORITY. PERHAPS YOU HAVE ADHD OR OPPOSITIONAL DEFIANCE DISORDER.

‘No, no, that’s not me. I’m fine, please, I’m fine. You should let me go; my fiancée is waiting for me. My dad is waiting for me.’

~$ PLEASE BE SEATED, YOUR DIAGNOSIS IS ALMOST COMPLETE. TRY BREATHING OR PERHAPS PAINTING THIS HOLE THAT FOLLOWS YOU.

She gestured to a set of paints and canvas on a table by her side. Oscar clambered to the mirror and began knocking on it.

‘You can let me out, I need a real doctor.’

~$ THAT IS A REGULAR MIRROR AND I AM A CERTIFIED DIAGNOSTICS UNIT. PLEASE REMAIN SEATED AS I PROCESS YOUR EVALUATION.

‘You’re a liar!’ Oscar reeled from the mirror and struck her nylon face. It sank into the plastic shell with ease, mushing her features and caving her cheeks and eyes inwards like bread dough.

He yelped and stumbled backwards; she sat still and stiffly, her hands still folded. In this moment, he had fallen, and Saturn caught him in his long, white, sinewy arms.

‘I’m sorry doctor, I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry please, I didn’t mean

that.’

Her internal robotics added this action to its database.

~$ ASSAULTING A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL IS A CRIMINAL OFFENCE. OBSERVATIONS ON FEEBLE MINDEDNESS WITH INHERITED IMPERFECTION.

~$ YOU ARE A THREAT. YOU ARE MENTALLY DERANGED AND POSE A THREAT TO THE CONTINUATION OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT. YOU SHALL BE CLASSIFIED AND ADMITTED FOR TREATMENT.

Saturn drew him down into the hole where his problems would be treated, or perhaps where he’d meet his mother again.