Sorry Please Thank You: Stories Part 3

"What are you talking about?" Janine says. "She's going to eat us. She's going to eat our brains."

"No, I don't think so. That's not what she's doing here."

"Then what is she doing here?"

"Um," I say. "I think she's getting ready for a date."

Before Janine has time to process that, I look up and see Pretty Zombie Lady's face on the giant HD screen hanging over Home Entertainment.

"Huh," I say, watching her try to figure out the camcorder.

"What?"

"Gotta go."

Janine can hear in my voice that something's very wrong. "What's happening?" she says.

"Our friend just discovered House of the Dead Two."

I approach carefully, stop a few feet behind her. We both stand there watching the demo for a while, limbs being blown off, exploding heads, and when she turns around I see that, in her blank-eyed kind of way, she looks hurt. Betrayed.

Janine comes marching down the aisle with a hand cannon. Her skinny arm can barely keep it level. She's got it pointed at Pretty Zombie Lady, right at her head. The zombie just looks at Janine, unblinking, almost as if she wants to get her head blown off. Which, I suppose, is understandable. She started off tonight excited for a date, and then she comes in here and sees this game, and now who knows what's happened to her self-image, to her picture of the world. Is there such a thing as a self-aware zombie? Can a zombie realize what she is? Maybe there are degrees of zombification, and she's not quite all the way there yet. Maybe I'm partway there myself.

I put my hand on top of Janine's and slowly lower the gun. Her hand is warm and full of blood and I should be excited to be touching Janine but instead I'm worried about Zombie Lady. She scratches her finger nervously until it falls off again and hits the ground. We all look down at it.

The House of the Dead demo is starting over. A bunch of zombie heads explode on-screen. Janine's still got the gun in her hand. I'm trying to figure out if this is the best day of work ever, or the worst. Why am I so self-conscious? What am I so scared of? It's now or never.

"Would you like to go see a movie on Thursday?"

"Are you asking me or her?" Janine says.

"Looks like she's already seeing someone," I say.

Janine looks at me for a long moment, like she's trying to look inside of me, almost as if she's noticing me for the first time.

"Yes," Janine says. "Yes I would."

I look at Zombie Lady, who is staring at us, slack-jawed. Whatever flicker of awareness I might have seen behind her eyes a moment ago isn't there anymore. She turns and drags herself toward the exit, and then, with a whoosh of the automatic double doors, she's gone.

"I wonder if she's still going on her date," I say.

"I'm pretty sure she's going to find Burt and chew on his brain," she says.

Janine and I stand and watch for what feels like a very long time, enjoying the mix of hot and cold air here at the boundary of the store, glad to be on the inside.

Troubleshooting.

1.

It's a device. A device like any other. It takes in inputs and puts out outputs.

2.

Acceptable inputs include: wishes, desires, thoughts, or ideas.

3.

You have up to forty-eight characters, including s.p.a.ces, so it's important to be honest with yourself. Punctuation counts, too.

4.

Be careful of sentence fragments. Stay away from vagueness. Avoid ambiguity. Be clear. Be clear with your intentions.

5.

It's like all technology: either not powerful enough or too powerful. It will never do exactly what you want it to do.

6.

You are wondering: how does your desire get projected out into the world?

7.

It is a kind of translation device. You translate the contents of your mind into words and then input them into the machine. The machine accepts those words and translates them into effects in the physical world.

8.

When you ordered this thing, you thought you would use it for good. Everyone thinks that at first. It's harder than you thought it was. For one thing, what does it mean to do something for good? Do you know? Are you the best person to judge that?

9.

Figure out what you want. Be honest. Put it into words.

10.

Is language all about desire? Is desire all about loss? Would we ever need to say anything if we never lost anything? Is everything we ever say just another way to express: I will lose this, I will lose all of this. I will lose you?

11.

Be specific. If you want an apple, will any apple do? Or will only a certain apple do? That apple, there, right in front of you, looking delicious. Is that what you want?

12.

Is what you want to obtain a noun? Or is your objective to verb an object? If you want to verb this object, how would you like to verb this object?

13.

There are objects you may desire but cannot explain. There are objects that are not nouns, there are actions that are not verbs. There are things we want that exist at the edge of the forest, at the rim of the ocean, just over the hill, just out of sight.

14.

Beware of unintended consequences. Don't mess with that b.u.t.ton until you feel comfortable with the device, its quirks and limitations. Cause and effect are tricky. Don't like what's happening? Does it not seem correct? Before you say it's not correct, here is a question: what is correct? Correct a.s.sumes there is some universal registrar, some recorder of your infinitesimal, momentary desires. Correct a.s.sumes that there is some perfect mind, speaking some ideal language, into some infallible translator. A perfect three-way dictionary: mind to word to world.

15.

You want s.e.x.

16.