DON

This text is part of Every Day I Put On My Silly Little Thinking Hat And Do My Silly Little Critique, a collective publication made and published by Critical Inquiry Lab in 2022. The project was guided by Danae Io.

“Hapibidi,” Don says to himself as he hastily blows out the candle on the screen. He never bothered celebrating birthdays, they’re just a waste of time. But he still takes part in this annual event whenever he is notified by his assistant–Hey.

Hey folds up the screen, then diffuses a whiff of strawberry cake as he dispenses a line of light pink powder onto a plate. “Enjoy your FC-4.3, Don. Happy birthday,” Hey says. “Would you like to change the cake price to a higher setting for your next birthday or would you…”

“Oemji, no!” Don shouts, then mumbles. “Why do you ask when I’ve chosen the lowest price option for all my expenses, enviem, whatever. Fucking machine. No.”

“Would you like to…” Hey hasn’t even finished the sentence when Don turns his head and stares at it, strong enough for Hey to sense the anger and silenced itself “I just said no, what’s happening to you. Didn’t I just update you?”

Don walks over to his bed, ready to call it a day. Right when he gestures to turn off all lights, Hey folds out the screen with a message. “I meant to ask if you’d like to open your birthday present.”

Don sits up, his indifference for birthdays is constantly clashing with his assistant’s programming. Now he remembers Hey asked him last year if he’d like to try a new service by Sir Prize, an app that offers pre-ordered surprises according to certain specifications set by whoever is paying.

“K, let’s see it.”

“But it’s almost past your final threshold for sleeping hours, if you sleep now you’re already three minutes below your suggested seven sleeping hours, consequently…”

“...decreasing your work efficiency tomorrow by 0.8%, and focus will be 87% of your full capacity.” Don says imitating Hey. “Just stifu and give me the damn present!”

Hey displays two icons on its screen, one for a video clip, and the other has the diffuser icon. Don taps on the video clip. It’s an old video. Don remembers selecting ‘history’ as one of his interests when he chose the specifications. The video has no sound. It shows an aerial view of a green land, with strange creatures moving around in groups. Then the video jumps to the next scene, where several men stand around a huge shiny metallic container, each holding a rod and stirring the while liquid inside. These men do not look like him or anyone in Wuropia, more like those that are described to be in Zone 4. Don clicks pause, and gives the picture a long stare, mesmerised.

Don suddenly sits up, remembering the other button on Hey's screen. He taps on the button with a diffuser icon, Hey releases a smell. “Oh, yes, this! Ah!” Don stands up in excitement, eyes wide open, raising his hands in an awkward position.

He makes a vague connection in his head. The diffuser has the smell of some kind of food. Not the kind of food that Don eats now, but the kind that he used to have when he was a child. He remembers the joy of tasting it, but can’t recall its name. Feeling exhausted from his lack of memory, he sits back down and falls into a long, deep thought.

Rows after rows of clear tubes hang from the ceiling, all filled with the same murky green liquid. The tubes are attached to an interminable overhead conveyor belt, slowly winding in and out of sight. The entire space has about a dozen men and women walking around in silence, each diligently inspecting different parts of the tube system. A soft chime breaks the silence, 5644 walks out of the space.

"Hey Don, I'm sorry. You scheduled a meeting? My system must be fucked up again, I didn't see the notification..."

"No. I'm calling to ask you about something, what would..."

"Oh cool, cool. Yeah I thought system fucked again man haha. I was checking the test batch we're making for Shell. They seem fine ey, those MAGIC people would be happy. Well I dunno I'm happy at least. You want me show you the tubes?" 5644 finally pauses, as he pops a bag of green leaves into his mouth.

"No. Would you just let me talk?"

"Ey man you know how it is in there, y'all made rules we can't talk inside, and you know me it's like I can't breathe if I don't talk for..."

"Just stifu k, wadafuk. Look, I need to ask you about something, unrelated to work. What would you do if..."

"Oooh you sure we doing this legally? You know we not supposed to talk about other stuff, right? But I see you paid for that hush-hush mode, okay, okay. What's this about, you never repeat yourself man. Go ahead..." 5644 hasn't finished his sentence, but Don mutes him and starts with his request.

"So my mind has been consuming too much energy the last twelve hours, 43% percent more than usual. I think it's because of this video I watched, it's nothing like what we have in Wuropia. So idikay, it prolly is from you or other places, or another time. But I just want to know, I feel like that video triggered something within me, I need to know. So I thought maybe I can ask you about it. If you can help me solve it I'd be oharzi." Don signals 5644 to talk as he presses the unmute button.

"Oh now you want me to talk? Not very nice man, but nice ain't what you transparent folks do. Ok, so you gonna show me that video or what?" Don sends both video and smell files to 5644.

"I have no clue man, that smell like my foot sometimes after work. Why you excited over that smell, you transparent people weird afuk. The video people don't look like me and you, maybe they in Bodegas or Zone 4." Then 5644 is muted again.

"I want to go there. Help me out. I'll mint you a transparency token if you help me. I know how badly you want to move here, and you know how that token will take off your greens." Don makes an offer he knows 5644 can never turn down. It would take 5644 at least one hundred twenty-eight more shipments to gain one token, a crucial requirement for residents of The Oasis–such as 5644–if they ever wish to migrate to Wuropia. Don then throws in an extra offer "Efwhyeye, that includes tokens for your wife and kids, too. Even though they'd mean nothing to you once you're here."

5644 has a rare silent moment, calculating everything he has. Should he tell Don about Kol? Does he really want to move to Wuropia? Kol can definitely take Don to any part of the world, but that would expose Kol to Wuropians, then any and every Wuropian can move around as long as they have something to trade with Kol. But by that time 5644 himself would also become a Wuropian himself. "Fuck it," 5644 says to himself.

It's not Kol's first time here in Bodegas, but she always gets lost. Every street and every shop look exactly the same. "Lack of personality" is how Kol describes Bodegas to people in other parts. Disregarding the fact that every shop here has different items, unlike Kol herself, invertebrate inside and faceless outside.

"This looks nothing like the video. Idikay how much longer should I pay you for. Do you even know what you're doing or where you're going? I can't sit around all day watching you wander around like I'm watching a gaming stream." Don shouts at his screen. "Esemetch, esemetch!"

Kol doesn't respond. She doesn't have to. She knows that Don can do nothing but complain at this point. She is physically where Don wants to be, while Don can only wait in his sad white cube and hope to see something that would resemble the video that fascinated him. If you ask Kol how she feels right now, she would spend hours telling you how she never chose to do this job, that this job chose her, and how much she hates the Bodegas part of her job routine but she enjoys the process because "hashtag blessed".

To be able to mingle around all the nutrition centres and ultimately cross into Zone 4, you have to look the part, just as in any of the four parts that make up the world. Bodegans are extremely corpulent, that's the only word that is legally allowed to use, although most people just say fat or obese. Regardless of their age and gender, Bodegans all have double chins, beer bellies, love handles and cankles. Physical appearance of the Bodegans is just one of many reasons why Kol despises coming here.

"These people are just lazy and filthy. They have no self-control. Hashtag lowlife. All they do is eat as much as they can, go home, fuck each others' brains out. Repeat. Look at all these little fucks running around," Kol rants on as she passes by little chubby children running in and out of nutrition centres. She's contemplating on which centre to walk into, they'd be suspicious of her originality if she doesn't eat something now.

She walks into Nutrition Centre AH87, it's empty so she doesn't need to interact with anyone. It's a long and narrow space, five double-door fridges with body-pay sensors standing on the right side, ten industrial microwaves fixed into the left wall, and four four-seater tables in the centre. Each fridge has a sign: 20's $5, 30's $10, 40's $15, 50's $20, 60's $25. She grabs a box from the 20's fridge, walks over to the microwave and heats it.

The smell of freshly microwaved food nauseates Kol, she holds her breath until she peels off the plastic cover, waving her hands to disperse the steam. She wants to finish eating before any Bodegan walks in, they're too friendly for her taste. The box has three partitions, the biggest one contains a slice of purple-coloured meatloaf in jelly-like gravy, the other two equal-sized rectangles contain white mashed potato and beige corn. Kol picks up her spoon, scoops up one corn and tosses it under a fridge. She repeats this and stops at the tenth corn. Scoops a bit of the gravy and licks it with the tip of her tongue, squinting her eyes in disgust.

"Don, still fancy coming here yourself? Hashtag iykyk." Kol whispers with a sigh. Then takes out a small pouch and draws it near her nose, takes a deep sniff and closes her eyes. She takes a second sniff but abruptly puts down the pouch and rubs her nose with her hand, she sees three Bodegans walking towards the centre. Picking up the spoon again after taking two sniffs of BGT-3.5.1 definitely feels different, she gobbles down the whole plate and walks out of the centre.

"You know you're not supposed to be here," one of the men says. "Your size should only enter AH50 and below, this is for certified Gluttons like us. Hey, show her your layers man." Another man takes off his top, and starts counting layers of fat around his waist. While the third man shouts. "Yeah, m-u-f-f-i-n-t-o-p! MUFFINTOP! Remember our name!"

Kol runs out to the street and she hears Don screaming in her ears. "Wadafuk was that? I'm paying you 50 grams of powders of your choice for your supposedly professional transfer medium service," Don's scream penetrates Kol's ears, she feels her head is hurting now. "And you walk into a centre that's way above your look? Esemetch, I can't believe I trusted you. Thank God they were too dumb to realise you're a medium. Can I really trust you to take me all the way to Poort? Efemel, I doubt if you can even take me to Zone 4!"

"Do you feel that gentle sea breeze? Indeed, it is a sea breeze with no smell of the sea. But that is what you get for all the desalination needed for the works carried out in The Oasis. And that is fine, we have many ways to work around obstacles. That is how our ancestors have survived the past millennia, by seeking guidance in books of knowledge. We have learnt to live with nature, instead of living off it.

Do you see the sun above our heads now? We are dark because we work in the sun. And that is fine, skin tones do not bother us, nor do we judge people with its opacity. Now before you try to defend yourself with any further statements, please hear me out. I know you are not from here. I know your kind. You go around the four parts without being noticed, because you have no shape of your own, because you take on others' shapes. But you also have no mind of your own, you simply float around being others. I know you are a medium disguised as one of us, you merely take the shape but not the life. You have not perspired even one drop of sweat since you set foot on my soil twenty minutes ago. And that does not happen to a healthy body, a body that eats and sleeps in accordance with the Sun and Moon, a body that survives on food that has not touched the soil.

I actually do not care for the Wuropians, the Oasians, nor the Bodegans, for they have never really affected me and my life. We provide for the Bodegans, so they can provide for the Oasians, who ultimately blow those precious powders into the noses of Wuropians. For years we have been at the bottom of this chain, but that is fine. I know we are looked down on, but it is always more comforting to know that they need us, and I do not need them to survive. I can live the rest of my life with this farm that I stand on right now.

But you trot onto my floating paradise with your ignorance and pretentiousness, you break the balance. It is you, mediums. Your criss-crossing between us, that bothers me. Your colleagues have taken enough bits and pieces of my land in the past. 'Chi, please, a potato for a Wuropian? Just one black pepper seed for an Oasian, Chi? Leave me half a peanut shell with one peanut enclosed for a Bodegan, please, Chi?' Sometimes I gave them, sometimes they took them, thinking I would not notice. How would I not notice my own feather being plucked away? Do you even know what a feather is, or where it is from? What do you do this for, what good does it do to your clients?

I used to think it is no big deal, our culture encourages exchange and interaction, but this has to stop. Is it not ridiculous to love an object deeply but know nothing of its roots? How do you just love the flavour of strawberry cake but not know what strawberry looks like, or that cakes are made of wheat that grows in soil? How is it that you are entranced by the smell of cheese but not know the existence of a cow?"

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