The Day I Wore Purple

7.1 Rainbow Narcotics

         

2048 / Year 35

May

laying on the floor, shag carpet beneath her fingertips, hannah stared at the ceiling for so long that—for a split second—the townhouse had turned upside down. the ceiling fan became a spinning obstruction on a plaster floor. the stairs became a ramp of drywall. the books and lamps and trinkets looked as if they were glued to the shelves so they wouldn't fall.

hannah sat up, blinked hard, and the illusion died. the living room was right-side-up again.

pink beams blasted through the bay window. the fireplace was set to high because—even during the day—the planet was freezing. hannah ran her fingers along the mantle, then wiped the accumulation of dust on her jeans.

something's missing, she thought. the mantel shouldn't be so bare.

she raised her hand, balled her fist, and summoned a menu into the right half of her vision. she selected the "create" button, then the "house" button, then scanned the next series of tabs: "walls," "windows," "doors," "furniture," and "decor." she selected "decor."

the object she needed was too archaic to appear on the list. she selected "vase" instead, and the object appeared floating before her eyes.

the menus were clean and mostly functional, but placing the object inside the environment was cumbersome. digital artifacting around the vase's edge betrayed its reality, but the more hannah focused, the more stable the object became.

"blue," she said, and the vase turned blue.

"smaller," she said, and it shrunk.

when the design and color were as she remembered, hannah plucked the object from the air and placed it on the mantel. nice.

through the room she moved, arms out, feet bare, taking it in and letting it be. the front door—not the same as her memory but close enough—opened when she turned the knob.

she stepped onto the porch and into the arid wasteland of mars. she breathed the ether. she surveyed the rocks, the cinnamon dust, and the rusty-smooth sky.

in an instant, she fashioned a pearl. she pinched it between her fingers, held it at arm's length, closed one eye, and let the tiny sphere cover—completely—the distant sun.

her solitary townhouse was the only sign of life in the frozen landscape. strawberries grew in a patch out back. their scent was too overpowering to be natural... real strawberries didn't smell like cherry cough syrup.

hannah was thirty-five million miles from earth, nearly weightless, and—without an atmosphere—living in absolute silence. (the silence was another illusion; she could still hear the dull pulse of the club's relentless baseline.)

"Twenty seconds remaining," declared an effeminate voice from the sky.

hannah opened the menu and saved her progress on her martian townhouse.

"Five seconds, sweetheart! And three... two... one."

the landscape flickered and dissolved with an abstract flash of pixelated slop. for a split second, the universe turned white, and

* * *

Hannah awoke. She sat up, pinched the bridge of her nose, and squinted with a headache worse than brainfreeze.

Her contacts switched to transparent mode, revealing Amadeus—a pale-faced man with orange eyeliner and rose blush—leering over her and peeling electrodes from her temples.