It Blinks, Therefore I Am

The motion detector on the security system picks up my movements, flashes a little, red rectangle to acknowledge it has acknowledged me, my presence, or, if not so personal, the animated motion of the mass that makes up me. This is the most acknowledgement I’ve had all day -- all week?

The poster of the bikini-clad beachgoer above my bed, the blonde bombshell with her wide, halogen smile holds impressive eye contact, it’s true. But that’s just a picture. Her mesmerizing, photo-enhanced eyes lock with my own only in illusion. A parlor trick, those baby blues stare me down, stare at anyone who studies the same photo, one of any copies mounted on any wall, anywhere. By comparison, the security device is attentive in its real-time authenticity. That red light, it’s warm. It’s responsive. In this moment it blinks for me, and me alone.

I don’t need convincing; I know the function of the device is automatic. I know that its sensor is attuned to the microwave pulses that its device emits outward, that when colliding with objects, those same pulses bounce back to relay information, communicating that something -- the particulars and nuance of what undetermined --  is present. It flashes for me. It’s true. But really, it flashes for the invading presence of anything in motion. I could, with the same result, throw a burrito across the room. So yeah, I know I’m not special. I know I’m just stuff, substance and vibration.

Even so, as I wave my arms, the puny rectangle of crimson light affirming my existence, I appreciate this token of acknowledgement that simulates something as close as I am likely to get to company while living alone on Lunar Base 2. Is there even a Lunar Base 1? I wonder. No one has told me. No one told me much of anything, really. And at the time, I didn’t much care.

I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you.
I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you.
I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you.
I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you.
I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you.
I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you.

The coffee on this base is better than anything on earth. Anything, anyways, I’ve sampled at my local Starfucks, those freeze-dried crumbs that turn water into liquid ash, caffeinated tar. The best part of the coffee houses back home were those bells above the door, the way they’d jingle, say hello as I entered, when anyone entered, really, but more to the point, when I did. That one-on-one I’d get from the little brass balls clanging against the metal, that cheery welcome that rang out with more life than the emo, undead stares and half-assed greeting from the barista boys, the coffee queens with their half-lidded eyes, as if -- of all places! -- they hadn’t had enough stimulation to kick-start their day.

It was the bell, its merry, out-of-season, Christmas jingle that kept me coming back, kept my lips on the rim of that cracked, clay cup filled with squid-ink or motor oil or what I’d be assured is “today’s blend,” Guatemalan, Colombian, or Ethiopian, but we all know it’s just the same old, synthetic shit processed at the plant like all the other foodstuffs, all the other facades that mask the near-death of our world.

I had been staring into the spiraling black hole of my drink, thinking about plunging inward, being torn apart by some unfathomable, gravitational blender, scattering my molecules like countless coffee grinds sprinkled into a mid-flush toilet. Then the bell rang. Two suits walked through the door, black shades the color of the so-called Nicaraguan blend. The overdressed chaps didn’t order any beverages, any pseudo-coffee or protein swill. They marched over to my table, men with purpose, dudes with a destination. They took seats on either side of me, sandwiched me like one of those sad, sort-of, might-be ham melts congealed in the wrapped plastic among the rest of the inedible counter food. They knew my name, congratulated me. They told me I got the job. What fucking job? But the next thing they told me had me forgetting that I may have forgotten something, that I might be being played for a fool when I already know damned well that I am one.

Forty-thousand credits, they promised. That’s what they told me, and after that I pretty much stopped listening. I mean, “forty-thousand credits” isn’t like all the other words that may have been said before or after. That five-digit figure meant something; something more emphatic, more celebratory than a high-five. Numbers like that translated to a clear, concrete premise, conveyed a tangible notion in ways all that scientific jargon and official mumbo-jumbo did not. Whatever we had discussed, whatever words came before, whatever may have come after, all those overinflated details fell flat. Trying to recall the ins and outs of our arrangement; it’s hazy at best.

Go to the moon. Get rich. Was it really that simple?

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
$$$$$$$$$$$$. 40,000. 40,000. 40,000. 40,000. 40,000. 40,000. 40,000. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$
$$$$$$$$$$$$. 40,000. 40,000. 40,000. 40,000. 40,000. 40,000. 40,000. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$
$$$$$$$$$$$$. 40,000. 40,000. 40,000. 40,000. 40,000. 40,000. 40,000. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$
$$$$$$$$$$$$. 40,000. 40,000. 40,000. 40,000. 40,000. 40,000. 40,000. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Forty thousand credits! It meant a decade of secure living back on Earth. It meant a nice, long, leisurely stroll down easy street. You know, when this, whatever this is, comes to an end.

One year, they told me. Go to the moon, they kept it nice and simple. Lunar Base 2, they said, and really, I don’t even know who “they” are. I nodded, eager and compliant, looping those select words, that juicy promise of forty thousand credits in my head, phasing out all the rest.

Lunar Base 2, I smiled. Sign me up, I agreed. I hadn’t even considered a Lunar Base 1, if it exists, and if it does, if it is any different. How about Lunar Base 3? How about what the hell am I doing on the moon anyways? I got the brief, I am sure of it. I skimmed over a laundry list of this and that, all sorts of forgettable, lawyer language, contract vernacular. That figure of 40,000 read nice and bold, plain enough, but the rest was like Chinese, may as well have been Martian or Lunar.

Like I said, I read the tedious thing, but my eyes were vacant as I signed the contract. In all honesty, I think that blue-eyed, beach babe above my bed has a greater grasp for what’s in front of her, now, than I did, back then, pouring over those papers. She may be an illustration, but she’s got that keen, attentive eye.

Glancing at her now, she sure looks good, I have to admit. But those cornflower eyes are dead. Her rosy-red bikini contains two-dimensional frauds, pixelated illusions. What’s beneath holds no warmth. There is no beneath, nothing to examine beyond the static image spread out over that flat plain flush against the wall. These days, the security light is where I flock to for comfort. In these cold, empty halls I luxuriate in its digitized beacon that signals warmth. Under the scrutiny of its blood-red, cyclops eye my existence is validated. I am alone, but I can pretend I am not.

They furnished me with booze. They -- the company. Who do I even work for? Why did they supply a man living on the moon by himself with so much alcohol? Why did they send a man to the moon? Why, perhaps the most perplexing, me? I love a good mystery, even if somewhat less when I am a large factor in that mystery, the main and only character in that mystery, so I drink to the mysterious nature of my situation -- my predicament?

Malibu is where I am certainly not. The antithesis, if anything. But looking through the haloed, port window out across the cold curvature of pocked, pale rock expanding to a horizon that ends in an infinite, black blanket, the white flecks of celestial dandruff scattered on the pitch bedspread of the cosmos, I drink Malibu Rum straight from the bottle. It is sweet, like nectar. Sweeter than the empty promises that are meant to be affected in the alluring gaze of that beachgoer babe hovering above my bed. Perhaps the photo was taken in Malibu? Either way, this saccharine sap isn’t half as sweet as the red glow blinking from the security device, its Morse code flashing benevolent assurances, simple, affectionate messages. We share this space, it confirms. We, meaning more than me.

I might vomit later, but for now this buzz is something to die for. In space, no one can hear you scream, but in Lunar Base 2, I can hear myself cry. In the kitchen, standing in the path of the motion sensor, I can hear nothing but my own excited breath. Hearing aside, I am seen. I am noticed. Not by the printout of some Earthling lady a world away on some beach that might be in Malibu, maybe Acapulco, Hawaii, Mauritius. Not by some flat woman, by which I mean nothing relating to her breast size, but merely her condition of being an image portrayed on a poster. Away from my bedroom, I am noticed by the bath of microwave pulses that I skinny-dip within. I pose, alluring as I can muster, as those pulsing waves bounce back, relay to a watchful machine not that I am nude, but that I am there. And that is enough. It blinks, and therefore I am.

In sobriety, some months down the track, I find the contract that I largely ignored almost a year ago now. The agreed-upon settlement had been printed in minuscule text on the backside of the poster of the human woman frolicking down a white sand beach. I only discovered this when I attempted to tear off the beachgoer’s bikini -- even in sobriety I had remained unrealistically hopeful. I scanned the almost illegible, tiny scrawl that officialized my legal bond to comprise, by myself, the entire population of Lunar Base 2.

I read what I do not remember having read before, having heard or discussed by those stuffy secret-agent types. I learn from the flip side of a Malibu beach, from tiny words as if scrawled in the warm, white sand, that as a contracted subject I am to measure the mental stability, or breakdown thereof, of a man living alone in space, me, one of many, variable, subjects to determine the effect of solitude on individuals over long-term durations.

One of many variable subjects? Once again, I consider Lunar Base 1. I tally the numbers, 3, 4, 5. How many? I look out the porthole window and see an endless stretch of acne-scarred bald, white head, a black, vacuous nothing beyond, like a bottomless cup of cold coffee.

The thought spurs a need for caffeine, a beverage better than anything on earth. I walk to the kitchen trailing grains of Malibu sand. I enter the occupied room. I twirl with my dance partner. The light blinks. Red and intermittent, it says to me as plain as if spoken in English, a seductive whisper on a warm breath an inch from my ear:

You are not alone. You are not alone. You are not alone. You are not alone. You are not alone.
You are not alone. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. You are not alone.
You are not alone. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. You are not alone.
You are not alone. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. You are not alone.
You are not alone. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. You are not alone.
You are not alone. You are not alone. You are not alone. You are not alone. You are not alone.

The joke is on them. Them -- the company. Whoever they are. The fools thought that I was alone.