“Hey man, if you get this mod, it adds a 1/4-inch jack to your computer so you can record the instrument with no prob. It also has this 1/8th-inch jack that receives bootleg radio–all the music shows going on right now in the world, man, all there for you to record with a simple turn of the dial. It’ll tear up your available storage, man, you’ll run out in no time. You’re music collection is dust compared to what you will capture with this baby!” The music shop boy laughs in a semi-maniacal technolust.
“Well,” I waver, “I don’t really need to add anything else to my music collection–that’ll just suck up my time. I’ve already got so much I haven’t listened to.”
“Get the instrument, man. For a hundred bucks you can’t pass it up. You’ll never find another like it. Say it with me man, Electric-Guitar. Nobody has seen one of these things in forever man! It’s claa-ssic, man! It’s got strings and all.”
He tempts me with the antique but I’m here looking for some new tech–something I have never seen. But this guy hasn’t got anything like that. I was syncing musical DNA before this little terminal stain was suckling his first drop of Infojuice™.
I walk out into the bright Thai sunlight and met up with my friends. “Let’s swim through this mess,” I say in the cool vernacular of my day. My friends agree, but we need a map. We’ve never been to this part but Lena knows a bookshop in the area where we can get a secret map.
“It’s hidden in the cover of The Beach. I put it there last summer. Nobody will find it.” She assures.
“What if someone bought the book?” I query.
“Don’t worry, I had some cheap labor make copies in all the versions of the book–but even if someone finds it, they won’t understand it :)” She points at the air making two dots and a swish. She doesn’t need to smile anymore, her hands can do it for her. It’s the new rave that all the kids are doing, gestures for emotions. They say it let’s you stay young by never needing to wrinkle your face. Emote with your hands and never need ironing.
When we get to the bookshop, there’s only one copy of The Beach left. I fish under the cover of the book and find it. “Is this it?” The map doesn’t look all that special. It’s like a theme park map, something you would pick up at Space World with all the attractions in big cartoon pictures.
“That’s it. Let’s run.”
We literally get lost so we can test out the map.
“OK, 3rd and Franklin, look it up.”
“There is no 3rd on this map, it’s 10 years old. We’re standing on a dirt road. This was obviously built recently.”
“Let’s walk up a block then.” She suggests. We get up another block and end up in a stream, swimming with guppies and huge schools of little round fish. I snap photos while the tide carries us downstream.
“Hey, check out the walls around the river, they look like gargoyles.” I point and click. Around the mountains, half way in the water are midget sized gargoyles with octopus tentacle hair and huge alien eyes. Their bodies are fish like but they have little arms, no bigger than the tentacles on their heads. As I photograph and float on by, they start to lift their heads and watch us. One heads over and I realize it has a humongous head. “Does it speak telepathically,” I ask, to nobody in particular.
“How did you know.” My friend answers.
“Just a lucky guess, it doesn’t have a mouth but obviously they have bigger brains than we do.”
The creature swims around me. It’s not threatening, just curious and eventually we exit it’s domain. The water carries us far.