Plastic Gods Chapters 13 & 14
"Home"; "Fame"
Table of Contents
[ Chapter 1 ] | [ Chapter 2 ] | [ Chapter 3 ] | [ Chapter 4 ] | [ Chapter 5 ] | [Chapter 6] | [Chapter 7] | [Chapter 8] | [Chapter 9] | [Chapter 10] | [Chapter 11] | Chapter 12]
13 - Home
This started Soma’s three-month waiting period. It was March; Paradigm wanted to wait until June to release the album.
Nothing truly notable happened during this time. They played some great shows at Mark’s. They also appeared at some new venues that Marty Blaise put them in touch with. The places were small (and thus willing to take a chance on a no-name band with an album), but the shows sold fairly well.
Behind the scenes, they were thriving. Riding a high. Nathan simply couldn’t stop making music; he was averaging about a song a day, and all of them were good (although not all met his impossibly high standards). He and Mona were always working, practicing for hours a day in the little basement apartment. In fact, some of the best songs that would eventually appear on Soma’s next album came from Mona. They met up with Simon and Craig regularly to practice and perfect. They came up with dozens of different incarnations of songs they’d already written which they would use in their live performances. Their second album, which remained untitled, was mostly completed before the first one even came out.
By this point, Aios had left work. He wished he didn’t have to—he would’ve slept in his office if he could. But the lights would go out and the doors would lock and the motion detectors which were built into each panel of the building’s ceiling would turn on. Professors were contractually required to be paid for any hour they spent in the office past 7pm, and therefore weren’t allowed to do any unsanctioned overtime. If Aios was found in his office after hours without special permission, his job would be on the line. So each night, though it pained him to not be able to bring his Microcosm with him, he went home and retreated to his studio apartment.
Aios didn’t like being home. He hated his apartment’s white walls and worn, gray furniture. He hated the way the too-bright lights embedded into his ceiling reflected against the walls, giving everything an agitating fluorescent glow. He hated that his kitchen cabinets, also white, had yellowed into a kind of off-white that contrasted awfully with the white of the walls. And he hated that it was just too big—there was just too much space in between his bookshelf and his couch and his bed and his small kitchen counter that he felt like the apartment was unfinished, somehow.
There wasn’t anything to do there—not since he began working full-time on the Microcosm, at least. He had his personal computer, of course, which offered games, movies, television, companionship. But using the device made him anxious. The games and movies and other ‘passive entertainment’ bored him, and he always felt guilty after spending upwards of an hour wasting his time. Aios’s sharp mind was his weapon, and he’d long ago turned its pristine maintenance into an obsession. He ate healthy foods with lots of protein, stuck to a strict sleep schedule. And he didn’t engage in activities that made his brain go soft.
Every night, upon his arrival at home (at approximately 7:05 or 7:15, depending on if he had to stop at the grocery store), Aios would put a small amount of water in a pot and place it on his stove’s electric burner to boil. While waiting for the water to boil, he scanned through his computer’s library of his favorite music and chose a piece to listen to. Then, he’d gather together some vegetables, some eggs, some healthy cooking oil, and an assortment of tools. Typically, this consisted of a cover for the pot, a basket for steaming, a pan, a medium-sized bowl, a fork, and a spatula.
The water was usually boiling by the time he got all of this ready, so he’d then put the vegetables in the basket, put the basket in the pot, and put the lid on the pot. Once this was done, he’d coat the bottom of the pan with the oil and put it on the stove on the lowest possible heat. While the oil was heating up he’d crack six eggs into a bowl, scramble them, and then dump them into the pan. Afterwards, he’d promptly put a single slice of bread into a toaster. He’d fry up the egg, and his vegetables would always have achieved the perfect amount of softness just as the egg achieved the perfect amount of firmness. He’d add the vegetables to the pan, and fold the egg over into an omelet just in time for his toast to pop up out of the toaster.
Once dinner was ready, he’d put a slice of toast on a plate, lay his omelet on the toast, and bring the meal over to his small, circular glass table. He’d then grab a clean fork and knife, and sit on his one dining chair. He’d take a second to contemplate the music he was listening to; if he wasn’t feeling it, now was his time to change it. Once satisfied, he’d begin to eat.
Aios took care to make his meals last. He made sure his bites were small, so he could get at least twenty out of each omelet. He timed them, chewing slowly making sure that each bite was in his mouth for around fifteen seconds. He’d then count the time in between bites, making sure that each bite was followed by a waiting period of about ten seconds. He would space each one out by at least fifteen seconds, and spend the dormant period listening intently to his music.
After cleaning up the dishes, he’d sit on his preferred side of the couch, right next to his end table and lamp. The cushion was at this point faded and much softer than the other. He’d sit with his right arm and body hunched over the oversized armrest and read a book. It would usually be nonfiction, and almost always related to philosophy.
Aios would read until his eyes went heavy, which conveniently happened at nine-thirty every night. He’d move from his couch to his bed, and replace the music with some calming ocean sounds, or perhaps the sound of a crackling fire. Aios hated when his apartment was quiet.
After sleeping for precisely eight hours, Aios would wake up, make his bed, and put on some upbeat music. He’d read for a few minutes to wake himself up, then brush his teeth, shower, and get dressed. Once he finished all of this (which happened at precisely six-fifteen each morning), he’d fry up some steak and eggs (scrambled this time), and sit in his chair to eat them, taking fifteen-second bites with ten-second intermissions. Afterwards, he’d clean up his dishes and walk to work, just in time for the building to open.
Work was different. He enjoyed being in his office. Before the Microcosm, he would spend most of his time there working on his books. He’d written six in total, four of which had become bestsellers. His latest was a comparative analysis of history as told by many independently-developed cultures around the world. The subject matter in question was thousands upon thousands of years old, of course, when civilizations still could spring up independently from one another with zero contact.
Aios sometimes wondered if it would be possible for an independent civilization to pop up in the modern world, or whether it would be found out immediately, and then either assimilated or stamped out. He assumed that the Microcosm would one day give him his answer. The thought excited him.
Aios hadn’t written much recently, a fact which had prompted some of the busybodies of the university to start theorizing about his imminent retirement. In truth, he was working harder than he ever had in his life. The Microcosm had taken up the better part of a decade, between gathering the materials for the planet, playing around with magnetic poles to get the orbit just right, playing around with temperatures and gases and chemicals, and cloning the genetic material needed to actually populate the thing.
Now that the Microcosm was finished (and the human society contained within it had progressed to the point that he had wanted it to), it was basically like his work had just begun. Now it was time to extract the data to prove his ‘theory of history.’ So far, it had gone smoothly. His miniature human society had, within a few thousand years of their time and just a few years of his, followed the exact trajectory that he’d expected. The human societies progressed through a series of highs and lows, ruin and rebirth, with the heights that they achieved getting a little greater after each failure.
The details were different than that of his world, of course. Their buildings and clothing were different from the artifacts that had been uncovered from his world’s past; they preferred different spices; the gods they worshipped went by different names. But they followed the same patterns. The theory would be proven once and for all, once the patterns continued into the future, once the world of the Microcosm advanced past the world that Aios knew.
This was the whole point of the Microcosm—the whole genius behind it. If history progressed faster in the Microcosm than it did outside of it, then at some point, the world in there would become more advanced than the world he lived in. From there, Aios’s own world could advance exponentially, create technology they had only ever dreamed of before. Then he would write his treatise, and since he’d have the empirical data that the university wanted, it wouldn’t be blacklisted from the philosophy curriculum for not being ‘scientific’ enough.
The only thing Aios hadn’t been able to anticipate was Mona Blank. He couldn’t stop looking at her. Couldn’t stop wishing that he were there with her. Mona’s actions were so free. So different from the people in his own world, which was so littered with microscopic surveillance cameras and so packed with people that they’d long ago abandoned any hope of a truly private moment.
Still, her ‘freedom’ couldn’t have been the whole reason she was so interesting to him. Aios had become invested in people before—whole families, actually. He’d followed the rise and fall of entire dynasties. He celebrated births and mourned deaths. His interest in his subjects would always be purely academic. He would observe their behavior, try to figure them out, but would never crave their company. There was something so compelling about Mona, so different. He wished their paths could cross, really cross, in a way that she could perceive. He wanted to know her the way Nathan knew her, and in some way that he couldn’t really describe, he wanted her to know him.
Mona even had the power to alter Aios’s routine. While Soma lay dormant before their future stardom, Aios decided to do things a little differently. He still adhered to his eating schedule. The first thing he did when he got home was go into the kitchen, still with the intent of putting on some music. This time, however, instead of putting on music from his personal computer, he took out the computer which held the data from the Microcosm, which he had snuck out of his office for the first time since the project was in its infancy.
This violated a university rule—their property was not to leave school grounds under any circumstances. His computer was tracked via GPS, so that if the university wanted to, they could track the history of where the computer was ever taken and when. However, the Symposium was coming up, which meant that rules like this were frequently bent, and if he was questioned for it, he had a viable (and technically true) excuse.
Of course, his motivation for bringing the computer home wasn’t to spend more time with his work in order to better prepare his presentation. He hadn’t given his presentation a fleeting thought; the invention spoke for itself. He actually brought it because he didn’t know how he’d be able to bring himself to listen to his usual, ‘modern’ music when he knew that he could be listening to Soma’s album.
Soma’s album carried him through his cooking, his meal, and his cleanup. He even had a few minutes left of it once it came time for him to sit on the couch. This was exactly what he had intended. However, he hadn’t explicitly planned what happened next.
Aios remembered that he had bought a hard drive when he was way younger, before they had disappeared from stores entirely. He wasn’t sure where it was but he knew it had to be somewhere, and his apartment didn’t contain many places to look, so after a few minutes of anxious rummaging, he found it in an old bin full of stuff that he’d been meaning to throw out.
He spent the rest of the night rewinding through each second of Mona’s life, recording and exporting the audio of every song she ever sang onto the hard drive. It was painstaking, joyless work. If he wanted to save all of it, he had to resist the urge to stop and observe her life. It didn’t matter what conversation she and Nathan were having or how pretty she looked in a new dress. He would stop to record only when she or a member of the band had an instrument in their hands. Aios didn’t even stop to listen to the music—he could do that later. He just recorded it all, making a copy of it onto his work computer and another copy onto the hard drive.
It was drudgery, but he forced it upon himself, knowing that if he didn’t keep up with it, the data would overwhelm him. It was horrific timing—between the dinner tomorrow and the presentation on Monday, he was busier than basically any other time of the year. It was worth it, though. He needed to save the music, and he’d get a whole lot busier once the Microcosm was unveiled to the world. Besides, he thought, as a pin pierced his chest. It’ll only be a couple months until she’s gone.
14 - Fame
At work the next day, Aios continued his project with the same urgency.
Excitement and a faint feeling of dread ached in the back of his mind. It was Thursday. Tomorrow was the dinner. Monday was the Symposium.
The Microcosm wasn’t even much of an escape right now; not while Mona was so prolific. Recording her—preserving her, rather—was busywork, like grading papers. Aios rewound through her past, stopping to record every second of music without taking the time to enjoy any of it. As he did so, his mind began to wander.
He wasn’t anxious about the Symposium, no—he wouldn’t even need to prepare. Once he was up there, the Microcosm would speak for itself. He could see the whole scene in his mind. Every eye in the place would be fixated on him as he wheeled his box onto the stage. It would be covered by its sheet, of course, so their minds would wander. What could a philosopher be doing with a thing of this size? Perhaps they’d think it was a model, or maybe a work of art. They’d have no idea what was coming. Then he’d rip the sheet off proudly and explain what it was. As soon as he said “It’s a planet in a box” the place would go silent. He’d explain what he did, how he did it, what was happening. The room would buzz with chatter. When he’d ask the audience for questions, every hand in the room would shoot up.
The Symposium would be easy. But tomorrow’s dinner, where his colleagues would just see him as regular old Aios Roe who hadn’t published anything noteworthy in the better part of a decade—that would be hard.
Don’t say anything, he told himself. They’re going to try to probe for information. Don’t give anything away. It was easier said than done, of course. They’d all be talking. Aios would feel the compulsion to speak, at which point he’d probably say something stupid that he’d regret. Then he’d get nervous, having just confirmed the idiocy that all his colleagues would be silently accusing him of. Say nothing, Aios reminded himself. Always say nothing.
He envisioned them laughing, gossiping, touting disingenuous praise.
“Wow, that’s such a great idea you had. How bold and entirely original of you to analyze the work of that one douchebag through the lens of the work of that other douchebag.”
“Oh, don’t flatter me. What you did—analyzing that over-exposed social issue through the lens of the biggest douchebag in academia to date—now that was truly a stroke of genius.”
“Oh, stop. They say genius only comes once in a generation, you know. It certainly wasn’t wasted on me.”
Aios smirked to himself. At least his fictional professor was finally right about something.
Hymns had been more of a success than anyone could have ever imagined. Mona’s single was the hit of the summer, followed closely by two hard rock anthems penned by Nathan which showcased the band’s musicianship at its best.
Simon and Nathan were finally able to move out of their shared basement apartment. Simon rented an apartment in a hip, affluent part of the city that housed a lot of artists and musicians. Mona and Nathan, who had the luxury of pooling together half the band’s income stream, were able to afford an adorable little townhouse in a quieter neighborhood not far away. Craig stayed in his crappy apartment; no one in the band could quite figure him out.
They still did shows at Mark’s, which people now paid a cover charge and bought tickets in advance to be able to see. The bar was becoming a destination all its own. Marty also got them a few gigs at some big, notable venues throughout the city. Their album sales and the proceeds from these little shows made the band more money than they’d ever seen, and now, they were on track to see a whole lot more.
As Aios snapped out of his daydream and reminded himself once again that the dinner would be fine as long as he kept quiet, the four members of Soma boarded a plane, set to embark on their first tour across the country.
Mona was terrified. Throughout her life, she was haunted by a feeling—one that she couldn’t quite pinpoint, but still threatened to surface whenever she felt particularly safe. It was the feeling that she could lose anything—whatever she loved most—and that if things were good for a while, it only meant that a tragedy was overdue. And as she buckled herself into a first-class plane seat with Nathan next to her, arm around her, Mona felt close to the edge.
The plane started rolling. She looked around, darting her eyes shiftily from person to person as though she were hiding something. She did this for upwards of a minute, until Nathan looked behind him to say something to Simon. As soon as she was certain no one was looking, Mona hastily brought her hands up to the center of her forehead, closed her eyes, and mouthed something inaudibly. This was a gesture of prayer in the religion she grew up with and promptly rejected when she got older. As soon as she did this she relaxed somewhat and nestled in close to Nathan, where she waited with her eyes closed until takeoff was over.
The tour was a success. The crowds loved Soma. Despite Nathan’s quiet, serious demeanor offstage, he was a great showman, charming the audience with jokes and questions and sarcastic comments. Simon joined in on the banter sometimes, which always aroused a good reaction, and Craig, the truly quiet one of the group, conveyed an energy through his drumming that rivaled any other member of the band.
Of course, Mona’s voice was stunning. It wasn’t beautiful; that was never the right word. It was loud and edgy and daring—at times even abrasive. Yet its vibrations resonated deep within the listener, built up an intense feeling somewhere in their chest, or the pit of their stomach. Even Aios could feel it, and he was listening to a slowed-down, distorted version of it via microscopic recording device.
Aios wished he could be there. And when he saw Mona up there with sweat dripping down her forehead, a bright cocktail of spotlights hitting her face and a sober, hyper-focused look in her wide green-brown eyes, he imagined that he was. He could see it vividly—him right there in front of her onstage. Their ears would stop hearing the noise from the crowd. Even with all those people watching, it would just be the two of them.
You’re remarkable, he’d say. Brilliant. Unbelievable.
She’d look confused, and he’d continue. I am, too, you know. Some might say that, anyway. I created you. I created this whole place.
And her eyes would get wide and she’d look at him, eyes glassy with respect and awe, and he’d continue humbly, Well, not exactly ‘created.’ I incubated it, from some shrunken cells—anyway, never mind the details. You wouldn’t understand them anyway. Then he’d blush. Not that you’re stupid, of course. No, the opposite—you’re more brilliant than I could ever hope to be. You’re just not there yet. Your whole civilization isn’t there yet.
You’re from the future? she’d ask, face alight with the promise of possibility. The screaming crowd would seem small to her then, compared to the vast expanses that Aios promised.
Not exactly, he’d say. We exist in different realms, you might say. The point is, we’re bigger than this place, you and me. The whole world is so much bigger than this place. And you deserve to see it.
Aios stopped himself. This was stupid. Not professional. Not practical. Not necessary. A distraction—that’s what it was. There was no reason to concern himself with things that could never happen.
There’s no reason to concern yourself with things that can never happen, he repeated to himself as he was suddenly transformed into a young boy, pummeled by the laughter of his peers, his eye on a girl that would never even know his name. It’s not worth it, he repeated as he was suddenly a young man with a group of then-friends, hanging out at a bar, trying hopelessly to contribute to the conversation with things that he felt that he was supposed to say and receiving lukewarm responses; the friends paying attention to each other, to women, but never to Aios. It’s not for you.
He was in his twenties now, and his brother was getting married, moving away. They’d gradually lose touch. His friends would follow suit—not by moving, but by calling less and less until eventually they didn’t reach out at all. He understood. Time was in such short supply now; it didn’t make sense to waste it on a person whose company they only tolerated.
You’re brilliant, he said to himself. That’s why you can’t relate. Your brain works differently from other people. They can’t understand you. You’re so rational, so intelligent. It puts people off.
Mona would understand. Mona would understand more than anyone. She was brilliant, too. She was alone, too. She had Nathan. But he didn’t understand her. Didn’t understand the pain that lent power to her voice. No one ever could. Except perhaps another genius, someone like Aios.
“Genius only comes once in a generation,” he said to himself in the mocking voice of the imaginary colleague from his previous daydream.
Soma were a humble bunch. They had no need for elaborate costumes or fancy effects or strange hair or eye-catching makeup. They weren’t interested in absurd, fleeting attention grabs. Mona didn’t exploit her sex appeal; she went onstage in a relaxed t-shirt, comfortable jeans, and a reliable pair of beat-up white sneakers. Nathan and Simon wore plaid shirts. Craig always donned a hoodie.
Ironically, the lack of attention they put on their appearance drew more attention than if they’d decided to waltz onto the stage in iridescent jumpsuits. Being normal was almost an act of rebellion. Everything had to be spun in a way that generated drama. The gossip columns weren’t interested in ‘normal.’ Everything had to be spun into something outrageous.
So, while critics lauded Hymns as “A breath of fresh air in a stale music scene,” the tabloids called it “irreverent,” accusing the title’s reference to religious tradition a derogatory form of “shock value.”
Fortunately, the members of Soma weren’t particularly interested in the tabloids. On interviews, Nathan’s strategy (which the rest of the band quickly picked up on), was to answer questions as quickly and cryptically as possible.
When asked how he came up with his music, he’d say, “I don’t do anything. I just listen for it.” When asked about his relationship with Mona, his preferred response was, “Who affixes the label: the product or the manufacturer?” To this question, the interviewer typically responded with a quizzical stare and a prompt subject change. If Mona was present (which she usually was), he’d wink at her, and they’d exchange an affectionate smile that had the power to make Aios sick.
When Mona was questioned—on just about anything—she’d say, “It’s all Nathan. Without him, I’m nothing.” The interviewers would ‘aww’—there’s only a certain degree of seriousness allowed in the realm of pop culture, and it was better to assume that this was shallow flattery—but Mona would get this look in her eye that revealed that she believed what she was saying to be absolutely true.
In truth, the couple balanced one another out. Nathan was the discipline, the order, the genius. Mona was the energy and the madness. Aios didn’t see any of this, though. He just saw Mona. Every singer needs a band—that’s just how it goes. There’s nothing special about the guy that plays instruments behind the superstar.
Of course, Aios was biased. His cameras followed Mona; they didn’t follow Nathan when he was alone in his own part of the house, endlessly tweaking each little melody of each song until he got it all just right. And although Aios had seen what Mona’s life was like before Nathan—poor, tortured Mona and her marked-up notebook, riddled with dreams of becoming a star—that was just coincidental. According to Aios, all Mona needed was a band. She could’ve accomplished the same fame with any group of musicians. If anything, Nathan was a distraction.
End of Part I
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Great writing Melissa! I wish I ate like that.