The Transition. Luke Kennard

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СКАЧАТЬ large glass screen. There were rows of designer chairs. The chairs were spindly, improbably supporting fleshy orange pads which, when you pressed them, took a while to reshape, like a stress toy. Karl sat down, expecting to feel hung on a strange apparatus, but it was more like a hug. As the orange pads cupped his buttocks, moulded to the small of his back and pressed his shoulder blades he realised he was sitting in a modern classic: Eames meets Brutalism in contemporary Norway, an alien catcher’s mitt. He drafted five-star reviews in his head; it was unusual to actually experience the product first.

      Genevieve sipped her coffee.

      The rows filled in around them. A man sat on the corner of Karl’s anorak and didn’t notice, pulling Karl slightly to the right. Karl leaned towards him, then back. His coat was still trapped. He cleared his throat. He tried to make eye contact with Genevieve, who was eating her apple and cinnamon muffin. He leaned in again. He couldn’t look at the man’s face without putting himself uncomfortably close to it. He looked at the man’s shoes. Brogues, a slight residue of shoe polish. He stared ahead at the empty stage. Now he had left it too long to do anything about it. If he pulled the corner of his anorak out, the man would wonder why he hadn’t done so immediately. You actually sat there for two minutes without telling me I was sitting on your coat? What’s wrong with you? Karl tensed his right shoulder and cricked his neck so that he appeared to be sitting more or less straight.

      ‘It’s Stu,’ said Genevieve. ‘Karl, it’s Stu.’

      ‘Yep,’ said Karl, looking up to see a tall man with a Mohican approaching the podium.

      ‘Why is it Stu?’

      ‘Shh.’

      ‘Is he the boss or something?’

      ‘Genevieve, shh.’

      Stu put his hands on the lectern, cleared his throat and looked at the big glass screen which was hanging to his right, seemingly without support. It flickered and a white oblong, off centre and barely a quarter of the size of the overall screen appeared. It was a clip-art image of a man with a briefcase taking a big step. Stu looked at the screen. Slowly the words WHAT’S STANDING BETWEEN YOU AND SUCCESS? appeared in Comic Sans by the side of the clip-art businessman, who had a perky smile. There was a wonky blue parallelogram behind him.

      ‘What’s standing between you and success?’ said Stu.

      Karl, to his surprise, felt disappointed. To the extent that he yanked the corner of his anorak free from his neighbour, who looked startled. It doesn’t matter how you dress it up and how good the free coffee is, the medium is the message and the medium is fucking PowerPoint. It was a dismal feeling, like the moment when a delayed train is finally cancelled.

      But then the lights went out completely and the clip-art businessman smeared and flickered into a dance of glitches up the glass screen. Karl’s knee-jerk delight at something boring going wrong was hijacked by an orchestral overture via invisible speakers, and a long, low cello improvisation. As the soundtrack dissolved into electronic pops and gurgles, the image left the screen, a jagged mess of pixels, and bounced over the panoptic window, bursting into smaller copies of itself, a screensaver taking over the world; it covered the whole room, morphing into clip-art houses, clip-art office cubicles, cups of coffee, ties and cufflinks, clip-art strong, independent women, clip-art harried-looking commuters. The seats by this point were vibrating and Karl’s laughter was distorted, like a child in a play fight. The images seemed to peel off the glass and float along the rows. The room was swimming in obsolete icons and logos, slogans and mangled business-speak – push the change, be the envelope – clip-art Filofaxes and aeroplanes, shoes and computers duplicating, fanning out like cards, whirling and distending, blittering into fragments. The cello piece was melodic, abrasive, fearfully attractive, and the windows resolved into operating systems and programs Karl remembered from childhood, a museum of dead technology, single ribbons of green text, and then the music stopped and darkness was complete – until a spotlight picked out Stu adjusting the point of the second spike of his Mohican.

      ‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘Bit gimmicky.’

      Karl was one of the first to start clapping.

      ‘All right, all right,’ said Stu. ‘There’s no getting away from the fact that this is a lecture, and I know there’s not a single couple in the room who’s chosen to be here so you can’t blame me for falling back on special effects. I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to talk to anyone else yet?’

      Silence. Aside from discussing the scene with their partner, none of the couples had exchanged more than a resigned nod, a hello which could have been a hiccup.

      ‘You all have something in common,’ Stu smirked. ‘I’m kidding. It’s true, though. You’re all feeling a little bruised, I’m assuming. You’re all here under duress, expecting to count out the minutes, endure the insult to your intelligence. You were probably expecting …’ He rubbed his right eye. ‘You were probably expecting something like a speeding awareness course, right? I know what they’re like – I’ve been on three.’ He looked at the floor in mock contrition then glanced up. A ripple of laughter. ‘Well, I’m biased because I love this company, but it’s more like being given a new car. Take out your tablets.’

      A mass shifting in the orange chairs. Karl slipped the computer out of its fur-lined pouch. It was a black sheet of glass, eight inches square. The words HELLO, KARL! in the middle. He looked at Genevieve, who was already moving a glowing white orb around hers with her index finger.

      ‘Your copy of the Transition handbook is on there,’ said Stu. ‘It has everything from the FAQ – constantly updated – to the history of the scheme, to the complaints procedure, which we hope you won’t be needing. But aside from that, you just write on them like a slate. Try it. Write Hello Stu.’

      Clusters of Hello Stu!s appeared on the screen behind him.

      ‘Good,’ he said. ‘We’re going to look at three articles. Use your tablets and just write down your reactions. Whatever comes into your head. Be completely honest.’

      The screen faded into a photograph and a long headline. A young woman in an old-fashioned floral-print dress posed by a spiral staircase. The headline: WHEN THIS DESIGNER’S FAMILY GREW SHE BOUGHT THE APARTMENT DOWNSTAIRS AND MADE THEIR HOME A DUPLEX. After ten seconds she was replaced by a man with a beard stirring an orange crockpot: HOW GREG’S POP-UP RESTAURANTS BECAME A PERMANENT CHAIN AND MADE HIM A PROPERTY MAGNATE. Next a shiny man who looked about twelve adjusting his tie in the mirror: WHILE PLAYING WITH HIS TWO-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER, THIS TWENTY-SIX-YEAR-OLD HAPPENED UPON AN IDEA WHICH REVOLUTIONISED THE WAY WE SEE PUBLIC RELATIONS OVERNIGHT. All three appeared together with their headlines.

      ‘I remind you that this is a completely anonymous process,’ said Stu. ‘We’re interested in your frank, knee-jerk opinions. You have ten seconds.’

      Gradually the magazine clippings disappeared from the screen and a selection of comments scrolled across the glass and around the windows:

      I want to kill them all.

      HOW A PRIVATE INCOME AND MASSIVE INHERITANCE MADE ALL THESE ASSHOLES’ DREAMS COME TRUE!

      oh fuck off just fuck off fuck off fuck off

      seriously a designer who can make enough to buy TWO FLATS fuck you what does she design nuclear weapons?

      ‘Good,’ said Stu. ‘This is all good.’

      Karl СКАЧАТЬ