Dissonance

I am woken by a bird in the sycamore. The night was balmy so I left the balcony door open. Dawn enters our room followed by the scent of lavender and the low hum of the smog condensers.

I turn gently to avoid waking Yuki. The sheet sticks to my back. I lay my sleep mask on my nightstand. My phone blinks green and charged.

My toes squeeze into my soft dry flannel slippers. I pad over to my closet. A fresh shirt hangs on the door. Yuki likes to hang it there for me. It is a small gesture which I appreciate.

In the kitchen a silhouette of foliage dapples the tea maker. The machine detects my presence and purrs into life. My tablet screen similarly awakes. There are three news items. None of them unduly perturb me.

Yuki enters. She gently wraps her arms around my waist. I hand her the fresh hot sweet tea. She kisses my left cheek then my right cheek. She goes to sit on the settee in the sun.

*

The city is peaceful even though it is Monday morning. I walk between tenements ten stories high. They impose order but are not imposing. Sun bounces off the light grey concrete. A custodian drone vacuums a neat line through fallen leaves.

My journey to work is between 22 and 25 minutes. I walk at the pace of the pedestrians around me. I use the middle lane designated for those not jacked into the metaplane. I like to observe my real surroundings. I see parakeets flocking on the signal towers. I see the tops of plane trees over the wall of the Nature Preservatorium.

*

When I arrive at my office my boss is standing at my module. I feel a knot of urgency in my stomach.

He invites me to sit down. He has already pulled the chair out. I take my seat. He looks at me kindly through black plastic glasses. They are a design that would be retro on a younger person.

He congratulates me for completing the six-week trial period stipulated in my contract. He says that he wishes to confirm that the management would like to continue my engagement under the full terms of employment.

I stand quickly and thank him for telling me this information and apologise for the inconvenience it must have been for him to come to my module to give me the news in such a timely manner.

He taps his phone to mine. The screen displays my upgraded security clearance.

I bow slightly more than 45 degrees then stand upright again. His kindly eyes narrow. He touches my shoulder and says that today I should leave at 6pm.

I do not understand because 6pm is the correct time that I should leave. I bow again more shallowly but he has already walked away.

*

At one minute past midday I step inside the elevator. It detects my new clearance. The capsule door closes. The elevator accelerates imperceptibly.

Previously I was hesitant to come up to the employees’ terrace. My status was still undetermined during my trial period and I did not want to prejudice my employment.

Now the capsule opens. A current of air catches my ankles. I step onto a dustless marble floor.

Before me is a geometric grid of polished marble reaching towards the horizon. The daylight is stark and clear. The terrace stretches across the sky. The space is white and warm and dotted with my colleagues.

At the centre of the terrace is a sycamore.

It is large for being so high.

But it belongs.

*

At 6pm I pick up my briefcase and my work phone and head out.

The streets are busier. Office workers wear their ties loosened. They swig from bottles dripping with condensation. I navigate these groups with ease.

I arrive at an old-fashioned building from the 1990s. White-tiled and low-rise. I slide open the aluminum door and shut it behind me.

Kage bows when he sees me.

He offers me tea or beer or saké. I always choose tea. He smiles. He already knows. The small pleasures of routine.

I take off my tie and my shirt. I hang them on the rack provided. I have a bandeau of transparent plastic wrapped around my upper chest.

Kage returns with a pot of tea and a smaller pot of syrup.

I lie face down on his linen-sheeted bench. I begin to apologise for the stubborn laundry our sessions generate. He tells me not to apologise for giving a thing a purpose.

He busies himself preparing a sterile workspace. I pour my tea and add a lot of sweetener. We are not alone. A tattoo needle buzzes behind an adjacent curtain. I hear the customer give a deep endorphin-imbued sigh.

Kage picks up a pair of safety scissors. He places the blunt blade under the plastic wrap. It slides through cleanly. The plastic opens for him like a book revealing my bare back and his work in progress.

He picks up a small foil sachet. In a single movement he breaks the seal of the sachet with the empty tip of a scalpel handle and installs the fresh blade.

He places his hand on my shoulder. I feel his warmth through his latex glove. I slow my breathing. With a blink from me he brings the tip of the scalpel to my skin.

The first incisions in a session are the most intense. I am flushed with adrenaline but my hypothalamus has not produced enough endorphins yet. I forcibly relax my teeth.

He traces his design on my back. My lips curl.

The aim is to inhibit the natural healing process. Repeatedly recutting the wound prevents keloids and rough scars. A multiply-sliced edge retains more definition after it heals. This will be his focus today.

This is our ninth session.

Kage moves across me. The blade scores into a slit nearer my spine. I must keep focussed to avoid moving my scapulae. The outline spans my upper back. It does not extend above the line of my collar.

The pain is extreme. Endorphins release on a cycle of roughly 5 to 7 minutes. Each cycle creates a new plateau of pain tolerance. But the pain does not stop. And it is only barely tolerable.

I find it helps to meditate on the design. The lacerations are brush strokes. It is an art of subtraction. A collage made by cutting away. It cannot be washed off or painted over. It will not fade in sunlight or run in rain.

It has been an hour now. Kage dabs my back with gauze. He cannot stop rivulets of blood flowing down my side and saturating his linen. He only needs to see whether the wound is even.

Next he will work on the fill. The bare flesh within the incisions must be scraped raw for the design to stand out.

On the first pass the epidermis and dermis were peeled with an angled blade. Now only the delicate partially-healed layers need to be removed. A ball of fine wire wool is sufficiently abrasive. In this way Kage removes any burgeoning scabs and creates a pristine plane of my flesh.

This pain is unpredictable. It jars and snags. It yanks the lacerations or pinches them closed. I find this harder to focus against. The lack of pattern is disruptive and uncomfortable.

After another hour the blood no longer flows. Instead it suffuses the area. Kage seems satisfied that the tissue is evenly exposed.

He unscrews the lid from a small glass bottle. The bottle contains salicylic acid. He picks up a thin paint brush and dips it into the bottle. He begins to paint it on my open wound. The acid irritates and gently cauterises the dermis. It deepens the scarring. The design will be more visible and long-lasting.

The pain of acid is different again. It is a slow scalding. A burn that builds slowly. A fire which heats beyond its margins.

I can move a little more though every movement stretches the open gashes. I reach for my tea. The liquid is tepid and intensely sweet.

Kage picks up the plastic wrap. He tears off a length long enough to cover the patch of my barest flesh. It is thin and not comforting as a blanket but necessary to avoid infection.

Later when I leave he will wrap my upper torso fully. At this moment I must rest. The pain will not subside for many hours but the dopamine will make me sleep.

So I close my eyes.

And then I can see.

I can picture it. The pattern. The design.

Five-fingered. Palmate. Veined. But not a hand. A leaf.

A sycamore.

The design is part of me.

I am part of the design.

*

When I return home Yuki has been waiting for me on the balcony.

She enters and gently wraps her arms around my waist. She kisses my left cheek then my right cheek. She hands me a hot sweet tea.

Together we sit on the settee. We watch the sun turn orange and then purple and then black.