The Tomorrow Solution

The Tomorrow Solution_Part 1

Her life was empty without the screens that streamed endless data, existence possessing a dull meaninglessness, a sense of atrophy pervading her neural network, and in the expansive world accorded by her newfound freedom, Nira went without purpose, adrift in the current of doldrums of humanity, awash in the monotony and insipidness of contemporary society, searching for something more. She rested her head of short pixie cut blonde hair on a pillow, curling into a fetal position on her bed, her toes tucked beneath the edge of her blanket. She faced her bedroom window, the moon a crescent sliver of pale steel set in the deep blanket of blue sky, diaphanous gunmetal clouds crossing over it so only stray thread beams of moonglow passed through. In her memory, she opened the image of Alison Borges, played the videos of her interrogation, torture, and death, allowing the last image of her corpse to remain, her stripped emaciated body covered in filth, blood, and bruises, splayed on the room's concrete floor, her vacant eyes buried in her disfigured face. She allowed the audio of Alison's screams echo inside of her, the final cry before the last minutes of laboured breath and then quiet.

When her roommate knocked on the door, she closed the images, videos, and audio, pushing it into a file buried in her memory. As the door opened, Nira rolled onto her back and sat up, pulling down her shirt to hide her bare legs and grey cotton underwear.

"Emi?" Iris, her roommate, poked her head into the bedroom.

"Yeah?"

"What's up?" Iris entered the room. She wore a smile and a tank top with her hair tied back off her pale olive shoulders and pyjama pants with a geometric pattern printed on them. Her right hand fell to her exposed mid drift as she stepped forwards.

Nira analyzed Iris's face, comparing it to all her other entries, registering each of her face's features and distinct shapes with their corresponding emotions, matching against the multitude of data the intensity of emotion by contrasting the curvature of her physiognomy and lines that arched across it. Iris had the face of a classic Middle Eastern beauty with large brown eyes, a light olive complexion with cheeks that blushed bright pink at the slightest flirtation, and a smile that engaged her full face unless she was lying.

Six months prior, Nira answered an advertisement for a roommate, arriving at the door with a new haircut and wardrobe. The bright autumnal sun shone amber at midday from a large picture window at the end of the seventh floor hallway, causing her golden hair to luster, the light embracing the silhouette of her body in a lilac dress of chiffon and lace, swaying whimsically around her thighs. When Iris opened the door to her prospective roommate, Nira was enclosed in a tawny halo, greeting Iris with an effortless and casual smile, her heels clicking on the wooden floors as Iris invited her inside. With a coffee cup cradled in both hands, the heat tickling up her artificial nerves, Nira sat at the kitchen island and evolved her persona, making small adjustments to accommodate the woman's personality and better complement her. Taking the pseudonym Emily Grier—the sobriquet Emi preferable, she told her new roommate—she presented her falsified documents and paid her rent in cash procured with a simple interface with bank machines throughout the downtown Toronto area while simultaneously accruing a digital fortune distributed amongst Cayman Island bank accounts.

Since the day Nira moved in with Iris, the two women found in each other much of what they had sought, someone with which they could be vulnerable and in turn accept the other's vulnerability. When Iris sat at her desk writing her most recent magazine articles, Nira would bring her tea as the day slid through the hours of the afternoon, setting her hand on Iris's shoulder for a single affectionate moment. One night while the sat together in the living room, Nira read a collection of poems by Emily Dickinson, reading one aloud as Iris slid close to her, their bodies together as Nira spoke just above a whisper. "'Hope' is the thing with the feathers – That perches in the soul..." And when the Fall Fair arrived as the seasons transitioned, Iris took Nira; they ate pink cotton candy as they strolled through the autumnal booths and riding the Ferris wheel at twilight, when the horizon was pink and lilac.