CHAPTER FIVE

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excerpt

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That was the crazy 48-hour period that ended when I suspended my disdain for social media and its corrosive effect on civilization. Fucking gave up and knelt down before my new phone. Took a big fat bite of the Blue Pill.

New York we changed planes and when our ship leveled off over the ocean they brought the cart around. I bought drinks for my new seatmates, emptied my plastic cup quick and rattled the ice like Yahtzee dice. Recycled the same schmaltz I’d spread heavy riding center seat from EUG to DEN, DEN to LAG and inquired whether anyone among our economy-row trio possessed special talents that might prove vital to our survival, if things got weird and we found ourselves in some kind of “LOST” situation.

Stupid but it always gets a laugh. Never comes across all nosy like asking What’s your name? What do you do? Data like that will be rendered useless once all the wrong planets line up in just the right way to send your budget flight slipping buttfuck-sideways through spacetime to crash-land on a spooky island in another dimension.

When you wake up flat on your back in a patch of bamboo to find the plane you boarded is now broken up and scattered across some beach? That’s the moment your job title, your place on a company org chart, your socio-commercial standing all wither and drop like the useless wings of an earthbound ant who will never be queen.

Now you’re on the starting blocks competing against every other survivor for excellence in a new economy of individual worth proven by contribution and performance. Running a race to transcend self-motivated participation and achieve true cooperation.

You used to be Phoebe, the pretty one with all the friends? Now you’re the tan one who’s really good at spearfishing.

You were the fat guy in Accounting hunched over a keyboard packed full of fast-food crumbs. Now you’re the genius who fashioned a novelty belt buckle into a cutting tool and built the best shelter on the island.

Or maybe you’ll wash out because no matter where you go, you’re always the one who can’t cope. Maybe you’ll wrap two slashed life jackets full of stones around your neck and stroll into the surf because your brand is hollow and you can’t generate a corporeal stream of subsistence income based upon you.