"Paul Di Filippo - Daydream Nation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Di Filippo Paul)

Daydream nation
Issue 4 of COSMOS, October 2005
by Paul Di Filippo

Illustration by Nigel Buchanan
Just when you thought you had it together, a random dreamcast can upset your day.
Alone again, damn it. Cirri Beausoleil carried a twist-tied plastic bag filled with random, trivial
possessions Ken had left behind down the corridor to the fifth-floor garbage chute. A pair of smelly gym
socks; several Chinese takeaway cartons filled with remnants of that noxious sweet-and-sour chicken he
adored; a key-fob USB device big as dime containing terabytes of possibly-important-but-screw-him
files. And assorted other grimly everyday reminders of another affair that had ended before it had really
even begun.

Unlatching the stained, scratched metal door, Cirri launched the emotional ballast downward into dark
basement oblivion, and instantly felt a little better.

She and Ken had been basically incompatible. Matters were as simple as that. She wasn't a bad person,
and neither was Ken. (It cost Cirri a twinge to affirm this latter statement, but she immediately felt
big-hearted for doing so.) They were just two different types who had grown to grate on each other's
nerves in daily proximity.

Of course, she had been blinded to Ken's annoying features and habits for the longest time by his original
seductive iDreams presentation. God, how strongly that parasensorial burst had hit her, some six months
ago! She recalled those moments as if she were undergoing them again right now.

She had been sitting at an outdoor caf├й in Union Square at lunchtime, not far from where she worked in
New York's Toy District as a sales-rep for a line of kawai Japanese designer vinyl toys. Her bestseller
was a hedgehog named Hinoro who resembled a fat jagged pincushion with an adorable babyface. She
had just come off her year-long, live-in affair with Mark, and was still emotionally vulnerable, she realised
now. Perhaps she had donned the bindi that signified her receptivity to iDreams before her heart had fully
healed. But she was so lonely after Mark left, and wanted to feel that she was back in the game right
away. Her various girlfriends had counselled her to go slow, but she hadn't listened.

But all her doubts about playing the dating game, 2015-style, so soon after her latest breakup had
vanished in the hot milliseconds after the tight, intricately modulated pulse of ultrasound from Ken's
iDreamsCaster hit her skull.

The environs of Union Square vanished instantly under a wave of thrilling emotions and vivid slide show
of imagery. Flitting glimpses of a lush tropical beach and a handsome male companion flashed before her,
accompanied by impressions of comfort, satiation, adventure, security, love, and erotic beguilement.

Cirri had been in the process of lifting her cup of espresso for a sip. The cup was only inches away from
her lips when the iDream hit. But the whole dreamburst came and went in the tiny interval needed by her
hand to close the gap between cup and lips.

Stunned by the artful, alluring tenor of the dreamburst, Cirri was too experienced a player to
acknowledge her honest reaction naively and quickly. Imperturbably she finished her sip of espresso
(although, truthfully, her hand was shaking a bit), set her cup down calmly and slowly, and then, as if
manifesting an idle impulse, took out her own iDreamsCaster, a recent Daewoo model with the
programmable cosmetic skin.