time mutant

by Peter Harris

Dylan Bennett, formerly Chad Boss of WatchWave fame, pried open his laptop after having left it untouched for six weeks.

Six weeks...six long weeks, quite a feat for someone habitually online. After all, the computer wasn't simply an instrument he used to dull the passage of time, it also generated a steady income and supplied him with emotional connections he found lacking in the real world. Like a drug, the computer directed his life, plugged him into a dark world of seething young men, who, with the right words and under the right conditions, could be manipulated into Chad's cause.

On his WatchWave channel, Man On Top, Chad proclaimed that the source of all these young men's grievances was not some defect in their personalities, a lack of ambition, egotism, laziness or commitment to self-pity, nor was it rooted in narcissistic self-indulgences - no...the problem lay with uppity-bitches -- feminist and modern ideas that turned good women into gold-digging, opportunist sluts, agents subverting the basic laws of nature.

No wonder no woman wants to date a man anymore.

To be certain, there was an anti-male agenda out there, promulgated by media types, by universities, Hollywood and corporate elites, all for the sole purpose of making men passive, compliant, malleable, and easily controlled. And this feminization of the country would probably have been complete if it weren't for the likes of Chad Boss and his cohorts who worked diligently to shed light on this nefarious plot.  

As Chad's subscribers increased, his ego inflated. He started to believe what his fans said about him almost as much as they believed what he said about the world.

A popular meme at the time depicted a screenshot of Chad with his arms outstretched, superimposed over a background of heaven; a knife, crudely drawn using Microsoft Paint, had been pasted over Chad's right hand along with thick, red, squiggly lines. Scattered below him were heads of women cut from old Vogue magazines, their eyes xed out with a black sharpie pen. On the bottom of the image were the words 'Lord of the Edgelords' typed out in impact font. The meme had been posted on so many forums that it caught the attention of some far-left podcasters who lampooned it on their program. Chad dismissed this group and referred to their program as Crapo Outhouse.

"Isn't that the kind of depraved scum you'd expect to ooze out of New York? Well, fuck 'em. They're part of the conspiracy too."

His audience agreed.

To them, Chad Boss could do no wrong. He was their messiah, a prophet - presently an apostate.

Dylan pinched his lip as he glanced hesitantly at the computer. Inside that box was a world he now dreaded, but one he had to confront to remove all traces of himself from its digital entrails.

Assuming his laptop battery had died, Dylan left his computer to charge the entire morning in one of the outlets in his near-empty studio apartment. Gone were the decorations that once stood as the backdrop of his channel: the lamp stand made from the legs of a female mannequin, the lampshade with Polaroids of tits glued to its polyester surface, amputations made by film, sent to him by his fans, the spurned ex-boyfriends; a poster of Tony Montana slouching in a chair behind a table of cocaine and a 1776 American flag, all these props had been removed and discarded into a dumpster behind Dylan's apartment. Now there was nothing inside but a mattress on the floor, a potted lily in the corner and a metal folding chair. On the folding chair was a pair of dark sunglasses, unaesthetic - purely functional. They were the kind of glasses he had once seen worn by an old Korean woman. (Old? For all he knew she could have been in her mid-twenties.) The glasses were so dark they were almost impossible to see through. But, despite their tint, the glasses were more useful to him than his computer had ever been.

Even the most devoted sycophant of Chad's could not have recognized this room. The blinds were all closed and the windows covered with black tarp. All hints of its past had been erased except for the ghost mark on the wall where Chad's bookshelf once stood filled with uncreased titles like: The Art Of War, 12 Rules of Life and The 48 Laws of Power, as well as thick, vacuous, coffee-table type books placed there to pad it out. Looking at it from the distance between two screens, a simpleton might infer that Chad Boss was a well-read individual, worthy of attention, but, in fact, he hadn't read a single book since he was assigned My Antonia in Mrs. Rushing's English class, and that was almost ten years ago.

Some kind of sticky substance had dried along the edge of Dylan's laptop lid. He dug his thumbnail into the bezel gap and applied a little pressure to pry it open. It took a few attempts before he finally got the lid and base separated and his computer chiming to life. As it loaded, Dylan wondered what the substance could have been - possibly remnants of a BulkDesign Energy drink; he usually drank five or six of them a day, and not simply because he enjoyed the taste or that they were given to him for free to promote on his WatchWave channel, but because he liked imagining the vitality it gave him as he poured the sludge down his gullet.

He could almost feel his nuts bulking as the liquid churned inside of him. He, too, had succumbed to BulkDesign's machismo advertisements.

"Reclaim your testosterone, fellas," he told his followers before cracking one open. "And put those females back in their place."

-Your video will continue after a short advertisement-

INT. ROOM - NIGHT

KEVIN and EMILY are sitting on a couch watching television. The lighting is dim, almost romantic. KEVIN leans towards EMILY and discretely places his arm around her shoulder. She doesn't notice it; she's too engrossed by the program. He moves in to give her a kiss, but she quickly pulls away and pushes him back.

EMILY

(Slightly embarrassed, maybe disgusted)

OMG! Kevin, what are you doing?

KEVIN

(Looking ashamed. Emasculated.)

Just trying to get comfortable.

EMILY

Look, I appreciate dinner and all, but I see you more as a...a...

KEVIN

As a what?

EMILY

As a friend.

Freeze frame, enter CHAD BOSS.

CHAD

Hey fellas, Chad Boss here from Man On Top. Are you tired of getting hard no-s from females like our boy KEVIN here. (Nudges in the direction of the frozen couch scene.) Do you want to roll nines and tens like I do? Get that big dick energy back? Well, first you gotta stop buying into all of that estrogen brain mush society is trying to pump into you, then you've got to pound down some of these:

MEDIUM SHOT of CHAD presenting a can of BulkDesign Energy Drink. The can is in the shape of a dumbbell. Three other cans appear on screen, each one a different flavor.

CLOSE UP of the cans. Camera PANS over them as they slowly rotate. Beads of water roll down their surfaces. The drinks look refreshing. On each can is the image a muscular arm flexing, but instead of biceps there are different kinds of fruit.

CHAD (V.O.)

See the bros at BulkDesign have created a new energy drink that has been scientifically proven to increase testosterone levels by twenty-five to thirty percent, transforming "nice guys" like Kevin here into pussy slayers like me.

KEVIN is now unfrozen. CHAD hands him a can of BulkDesign Energy Drink. He gulps it down like a thirsty athlete. KEVIN's face squares, becomes chiseled, his cheek bones are now angular and pronounced; his chin sharpens. Instantly he grows a five o'clock shadow.

Scene unfreezes and plays out. Now EMILY is gazing at KEVIN lovingly. She starts to play with her hair.

EMILY

Kevin, something about you is so...alluring. Can I show you to my room?

KEVIN

Sorry, Emily. You've got a little too much between your neck and chin. You're a solid four. I'm gonna to pass.

Camera cuts back to CHAD

CHAD

So get yourself some BulkDesign Energy Drink and split those broads before they split on you. Use promo code 'ManOnTop' for twenty-five percent off your first case.

Maybe after snapping open one of those cans a few drops had sprayed on his keyboard. But whether it was from Macho Mango or Blueberry Brute, he'd never know. He was too afraid to taste his fingers.

After six weeks of not posting, commenting, or doing anything whatsoever with his channel, the community must have been more than a little worried. A reasonable guess was that a swarm of messages awaited him in his WatchWave inbox. Questions like: 'What the hell happened to you?' 'Are you still alive?' 'Did they get you?' 'You abandon the cause?' 'You fucking sell-out?' 'Have you surrendered and got a girlfriend?'

If they only knew how bad it had really been -- how bad and eerily beautiful.

Dylan closed his eyes and tested a theory.

He tried recalling a woman from his past, an acquaintance, a co-worker, someone he had seen on the street or passed by in the stairwell of his apartment - anyone. At first his head was awash in darkness, but after a few moments a face emerged.

It was Latasha, a woman in her mid-thirties who he once worked with at Taco Bell. He hadn't thought about her in ages, but in his mind he saw her clearly: her green, almond-shaped eyes, a slender nose on a slender face, three freckles on her right cheek like the points of an equilateral triangle, her skin a reddish hue, a dreadlock dangling over the left side of her face. She was wearing dark-red lipstick like she always did.

Dylan had found her enticing, and once, in a sort of round about way, he had asked her out on a date, but she mentioned she had a boyfriend which put the kibosh on that prospect.

'Bitch,' he muttered to himself as she walked away to restock napkins in the lobby.

In his memory Latasha looked tired, as if just finishing a long shift manning the drive-thru. Dylan held no animosity towards her anymore; all he wanted to do was to keep her there looking the way she always did, the way he remembered her.

Fortunately, she did not change like the others had, and he was thankful for that. At least in his own thoughts a face would remain constant.

It looked as if the ailment only afflicted his eyes.

Dylan returned to his computer and typed 'bulkdesign.com' into the browser. The tagline 'Get into the grind with BulkDesign' appeared on the top of his screen. Below were links to other pages, one of which lead to testimonials from men whose lives had been transformed by drinking BulkDesign Energy Drink.

'I used to be a scrawny dweeb who couldn't get a date to save my life. But after drinking BulkDesign Energy Drink, I've become a total alpha. Now I'm the one turning down the bimbos.'

Dylan considered posting about his own experience but remembered the NDA he had signed and logged into his personal account instead. There was only one message in it, from corporate. After reading the first sentence, he got the gist of what it was about. They weren't going to take any responsibility for what they had done.

Dear Mr. Bennett,

First off, the shareholders would like to express their appreciation and gratitude for promoting BulkDesign Energy Drink on your WatchWave channel. As a result of the exposure we have seen a substantial increase in our quarterly sales and profits.

Now, it has come to our attention that you recently had an unfortunate experience as a result of a prototype test. We are truly sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you, but we would like to draw your attention to Section 4, Subsection E, Paragraph 7 from the liability waiver you signed which states:

'In assuming participation in the prototype testing, the subject acknowledges and accepts all associated risk, including, but not limited to, physical or psychological harm. It is explicitly understood that any such risk resulting in damages are the sole responsibility of the subject, absolving Elemental Holdings Group and its subsidiary BulkDesign Energy Drink from any liability or accountability for injuries incurred during the course of the testing.'

The prototype in question went through rigorous trials and all data suggested it was safe for use. It is likely that during the testing phase you did not follow the proper guidelines when consuming the product. Again, we are sorry for any suffering this might have caused you, but we cannot be held responsible for your injuries.

As a result of this regrettable incident, we have concluded that continued production would not be fiscally sensible so we will suspend our research. We would like to thank you for your participation and remind you that, though discontinued, information about this program should not be shared with any parties, public or private.

We understand this might be a difficult time for you and we'd like to express our support with a year supply of BulkDesign Energy Drink at no cost. Please respond to this letter with a flavor of your choice and we will send it to you promptly.

Sincerely,

Harrison Grant

Senior Counselor

Elemental Holdings Group

"Those fucking worms," he mumbled to himself. Proper guidelines -- what guidelines? It wasn't as if he drank the serum straight from an ominous-looking beaker like some cartoon Dr. Jekyll. He simply took the Dixie cup the bespectacled dorks in lab coats brought him, lifted it to his lips and gulped it down -- simple as that.

Then the lab coats started firing off questions like, "How does it taste?" "Is it too sweet or not sweet enough?" "Is it sufficiently carbonated?"

At first, neither the lab coats nor Chad had any reason to suspect anything had gone wrong.

Chad told them the drink tasted like spearmint gum, that it was sweet but could be sweeter and the carbonization was fine, or at least it didn't seem flat. The lab coats started scribbling down his answers on their clipboards along with other answers to other questions. They were not hurried. The general atmosphere of the room was relaxed and routine. Any guidelines would have come off as insultingly facile.

So why blame Chad for what was clearly their mistake? He hadn't mixed the brew. He hadn't arranged the chemical compounds or stirred the concoction; they could have just given him a bogus apology and left it at that -- or have said nothing at all. It wasn't as if he were in any position to take legal actions against them.

Dylan leaned back and let out an exhausted sigh.

Clearly there had been something wrong with the formula but some people are just too wrapped up in themselves to admit their mistakes.

Well, after what they had done it was unlikely he would be ordering any more of their slop. He trashed the message and scrolled down to 'member settings' and clicked the link.

At the bottom of the screen was the option to delete his account. He moved the cursor over it and clicked.

A window appeared: 'Are you sure you want to delete your account.'

He clicked 'Yes'.

Then another window: 'To keep you with us, we'd like to offer you a limited-time discount on any BulkDesign Energy Drinks or merchandise. Would you still like to delete your account?'

'Yes.'

A CAPTCHA popped-up asking him to prove he was human by selecting all the photographs with buses in them.

More stalling.

It took him a few attempts because the pictures were blurry; he couldn't tell if the vehicle in one of the photographs was a bus or a semi.

After that, a final window appeared. 'We are sorry to see you go. Your feedback is invaluable in helping us improve our products and services in the future. We genuinely appreciate your insights. In the space below, kindly share your reasons for leaving.'

He tried clicking 'cancel your account' without having filled out the input box but got a 'form field validation error'. It seemed as if the only way to cancel his account was to write something in it. He started typing a string of insults but then had a better idea. He deleted what he wrote and typed out one word: groomervision.

He figured they'd know what that meant.

"Groomer-vision?"

"Shh. Not so loud."

He softened his voice a little, leaned forward and whispered so that no one in the neighboring booths could hear; not that anyone in the diner would have thought to listen in on two average-joes having an average-joe type conversation.

"It's not a very clever name."

A hand waved dismissively, "That's just what we've been calling it informally...as a joke. It doesn't have an official  name yet, but we could call it piss in a bottle and we'd sell a whole vat of the stuff by the end of the week."

"If it works."

"Naturally. If it works...which it will. Just because it hasn't gone through the final stage of testing doesn't mean there's anything wrong with it. It's already passed a bunch of toxicity and microbiological assessments. It's safe, trust me. We just need a...uhm--"

"A human guinea pig?"

"I wouldn't put it in those words, but, yeah, we need a test subject. A test subject that can keep things quiet. A test subject we can trust. Someone who's on the same ideological wave-length as us. And we think you're that someone."

"But how is this even legal?"

"Shh...look...it's not like this stuff is going to be on the shelves at Walmart. This is a very exclusive product for a very special and very discreet clientele. New-money types. Computer guys." He cleared his throat. "Some are even subscribers to your channel. Not all your followers are twenty-somethings."

"Alright. So?"

"So think about it. These dudes missed out on the opportunities of their youth because they were too busy fucking around with computers to beef-up their game. Now they're behind the eight-ball. They're going bald, getting a gut, and if they ever had looks, they're fading fast. On top of that, they're not particularly charismatic. My God...how many times have I had to hear about the differences between warlocks and sorcerers and which cleric spells to cast on a...well, you get the idea...they're not exactly catches for the ladies either. But still, they're entitled to a little pussy now and then like the rest of us, only they need an edge. That's why we've developed this. Money simply isn't enough for these guys.

"So what do you say, Chad? You down? You want to give it a shot? Think about it...Chad Boss, savior of men...lord of the edgelords...hell, looking at it from a purely selfish point-of-view, it might just help you out...I mean, how have you been making out on the pussy-front recently?"

Silence.

"Exactly. Bitches are getting clever. They're catching on to how the game is played. They're starting to see through the bullshit. This, my friend, is going to give guys an upper-hand. Like knowing where to place your chips before the croupier spins his wheel. Imagine: 'Gentlemen are you tired of waisting time on dead-ends and cock-blocks? Well, with one sip of this, hooking up becomes as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. One-hundred percent putang guaranteed.' Don't get me wrong, though...it's not like you'll have to do any promotion. This is still very hush-hush. We've got people on the dark web who can move it around. All I'm asking is that you try it out and see how it works. Really, you should consider yourself lucky -- you get to reap the benefits without paying a damn cent. This stuff isn't going to go cheap."

"I don't see how you can be so sure it's safe if it affects the brain the way you say it does."

"Look...how many times do I have to tell you? The product has gone through more tests than I can count. It's about as harmless as a typical can of BulkDesign. And the change only lasts a few hours. All those eggheads did was make a few tweaks to the original BulkDesign formula -- took some things out, put a few things in. No big deal."

"A few things?"

"Chemistry stuff. Nerd shit. I can't explain it. And what difference does it make? How much do we know about half the shit we put into our bodies. Those eggs you're eating...what's in them? Are they pumped full of hormones? Did you think to ask before you ordered them? No. You just shoveled a forkful into your mouth and started chewing like the rest of us. Christ, it's the twenty-first century, bro. We've got more plastic inside our bodies than a Ken doll. What difference does it make what's inside of it? If it works. It works. End of story."

The risks started to evaporate as Chad imagined himself surrounded by a harem of beautiful, obedient women attending to his every whim. This could all be yours, he thought. Then, after some more negotiating, the two finally shook hands and discussed their schedules. A date was finalized for the test and Dylan signed all of the necessary documents, vaguely worded to obfuscate the prototype's purpose.

"My man, you're going to be drowning in so much pussy that people sitting next to you will think you work at a fish market."

A message appeared informing Dylan that his BulkDesign account had been permanently deleted -- well, there was no going back now, all his reward points were gone forever.

Good, he thought, one down, one to go.

Dylan paused before taking the final step of erasing his WatchWave channel and all the content stored on it, and, as if to deter the inevitable, he started fidgeting with his computer touchpad, spinning the cursor around like the chambers of a revolver, drumming his fingers against the seat of his metal folding chair, mumbling to himself that none of this was really happening, that this was all a dream he'd wake up from soon.

He glanced down at the rattling sound coming from the seat. It was his sunglasses, confirming the veracity of his dilemma. It was no dream.

Not only had the past few months seemed imaginary, but the past few years seemed unreal as well. He tried to figure out the exact moment he had become this Chad Boss character but couldn't settle on a particular incident. The change had occurred incrementally until it became absolute. It must have happened long before he started posting videos on his WatchWave channel. Perhaps the rottenness had always been inside of him, brewing since adolescence, or earlier, inching through his soul until it completely took-over, a process as gradual as aging, an encroachment that absorbed his brain with resentment and lust. What could he have done to stop it? The incursion would have been too subtle to notice.

So here he was at the end of the line, infected by a new type of blindness, contaminated without contact. He should have known better than to tread in the water he had gotten himself in, the slime and sleaze, yet the promises of captivated maidens were too deliciously appetizing for him to resist. He, too, was a part of that slime.

Now, thinking back, the whole premise struck him as absurd. He puzzled over how he could have been so easily duped in that diner. How could it have actually saved anyone any time; manipulation requires a lot of effort too.

Groomervision was nothing more than scam, a commodified transgression, its only guarantee was smug self-satisfaction by those who raked in the cash.

Regardless, he tried to hope his way out of it, fathom an antidote through reasoning: What had gone wrong? Had the concoction been too strong? Had it needed to be diluted? Perhaps if he felt bad enough, things would return to normal. If he promised to be good could he just be Dylan again

After a slew of questions, Chad told the lab coats he needed some fresh air. The lab was becoming stuffy and a strange heaviness had started to weigh down his body. His limbs were becoming weak, brittle, almost paper-mache like, and he wondered if, maybe, something in the sample had affected his sense of gravity; it was as if he were trying to stay upright inside a funhouse tilt-room. He had to hold the edge of a counter to keep from falling over.

Looking down at the floor's checkered pattern, he imagined phantom chess pieces advancing towards him, surrounding him, but there was no strategy to evade their charge -- no escape, no counter-offensives, no way-out; he was trapped, check-mated, and all the while looking sea-sick and vulnerable, a far cry from the tough bravado who raged the masculine crusade through a hundred-thousand computer screens.

Now all he wanted to do was lie down on the floor and take a quick rest, close his eyes and go to sleep; but in sleep he feared his breathing would cease to be reflexive, and that, if he didn't make a conscious effort to fill his lungs with air, he'd suffocate. So he continued his efforts to stay vertical, closed his eyes and weaved about until a few minutes passed and he regained his equilibrium, after which, he gently pushed himself away from the counter, loosened his neck tie, unbuttoned the top button of his shirt and massaged his neck. A pool of sweat had formed between his collarbones. The temperature in the room must have been getting hotter -- or at least it seemed that way. Chad's throat had become so parched it was difficult for him to swallow. He tried moistening his lips with his tongue but it was too dry to provide any relief. More than anything he wanted something to drink -- not just any drink, no Punch-Out Peach or Virility Lemon-Lime, a simple cup of water would do; it didn't even have to be cold -- it could come straight from a faucet or a garden hose. But the lab coats warned him that eating or drinking less than an hour after consuming the serum would undermine its effectiveness. Chad glanced up at the clock. The positions of its hands were blurred streaks against a white 'o'.

"Sure you can go outside," snickered one of the lab coats who winked knowingly at Chad, mistaking his request for an overeagerness to harness his strange new power. "Be our guest. There's a park across the street with a nice view."

The scientist pointed towards a window. Chad tried to look outside but could only make out a painful yellowish-white glare. Then the scientist added, as if it were only an irrelevant detail, that the park had a children's playground with some comfortable benches beside it.

Chad nodded, understood the implication but gave no hint at his intent. Without another word he exited the lab.

The main hallway in the Nexus Heights Building where Elemental Holding Groups' offices were located had an eerie feel to it. Though well-maintained, the interior was lifeless and inactive with the exception of a steady, mysterious hum that was as omnipresent as the air. The noise was not rumbling through the floor nor seething out of the vents; it was simply there and there was no way to discern exactly where it was coming from or what was making it. Chad paid no attention to it nor the sick-looking ochre walls with greenish hues. He ignored the bizarre brass statue looming in the center of the hallway, twisted in the shape of a screw, gleaming with polished wire appendages that stretched out and watched Chad as he passed by.

Chad did notice the potted crane flower by the elevator panel as he pressed the call button. In contrast to the rest of the building's immaculate appearance, the plant looked out of place. Its leaves were bruised and shriveled; the browning flowers were like deflated canoes. But, after stepping inside the elevator and just as the doors closed, he happened to glance back at it and saw that its leaves were bright green and its flowers firm and vivid.

Chad shook his head, rubbed his brow, then pressed the ground floor button.

As he stepped outside the Nexus Heights Building, a breeze from the delta cooled him off. He took a few deep breaths and started to feel like his old depraved self again. The panic subsided and he was no longer experiencing any thirst or exhaustion. His head cleared and he was now excited to finally put the plan into action.

Being a Tuesday afternoon there was little activity going on in Midtown. There were a few cars on the street but they were all parked and empty; most of the children would still be in school. He imagined a few kids from the junior high school might be playing hooky, sneaking off to the park for a secret smoke with their delinquent friends, but those specimens would be a little too old to fully demonstrate the capacity of the prototype. True, a child of twelve or thirteen hadn't fully matured yet, but the outcomes of how their faces would form, their bodies shape, their attributes enhance were mostly apparent -- the transformation wouldn't be much of a surprise.

Nonetheless, if it added a few years to their features, it would at least prove the prototype worked, to some extent.

Chad crossed the street without waiting for the light to change and hurried through the park entrance. He found a bench by the playground and waited for a victim. After leaning back and stretching out his legs, he started formulating the best ways to approach a child without appearing like a creep. He'd have to be careful though. Maybe he could pose as someone trustworthy, a teacher...a policeman, but that notion struck him as anachronistic.

Who did kids trust these days: Rock-stars? Athletes? Internet-influencers?

Before he could settle on a practical means of initiation, he caught sight of pink shoe poking out of a sandbox, lazily shoveling around sand.

A voice called out to it, "Emma?"

Chad froze.

An unfathomable fear squeezed every muscle in his body, chilled the marrow of his bones. He could hardly think. He couldn't exhale to scream. All he could do was gaze at the thing in the sandbox. As he clenched the slats of the bench, his fingernails scrapped the wood and bent backwards but he was too numb to feel any pain. Rising out of the sand was a skeletal figure the size of a small child, and, what first appeared to be grains of sand cascading out its empty eye sockets started to wither and squirm. No, it wasn't sand tumbling out of the gaping holes but a writhing tide of maggots clinging to the desiccated face made featureless by the passages of time after death. Patches of skin peeled around the cheeks where dimples might have been. This was not a key-hole peek at a future hottie but rather a life-sized doll corpse. Chad watched the thing sit up with its arms extended outward and while an cavity surrounded by blackened teeth opened, it cried out, "Look at me, mom. I'm a mummy."

Chad turned to see whom the thing was addressing; if someone else was witnessing this monstrosity.

Sitting on a bench near the sandbox was a woman of no certain age, mutating as if caught in a time lapse. Her hair changed from strawberry blonde to gray then to a goldish-red. Its texture was first lustrous then stringy then wavy, firm one moment, brittle the next.

Chad stared at it until the sight overwhelmed him. Was she young or old, middle-aged, adolescent, dead?

Yes to all. There was no way to tell.

It was as if he were gazing from a perspective outside of time, observing the stages of human growth in single static moment where time converged, reveling itself as layered rather than linear.

"Emma! You're going to ruin your dress. We are going to Nana's later."

Chad pressed his palms into his eyes and told himself this was all in his head. When he looked back at the corpse in the sandbox he now saw a woman in her forties, a teenager.

All of this was real, and the most he could hope for was that the delirium would past like they said it would.

But the time mutations didn't pass; they followed him where ever he went. It was a part of him now, stuck seeing birth and decay unfold at once.

Dylan gathered the courage to sign into his WatchWave account and, as expected, was greeted by hundreds of livid messages -- judged by the plethora of exclamation points in the subject lines. But it wouldn't do any good to read a single one of them; they were just dispatches from lunatics and furious ghosts he wanted nothing more to do with, savages who'd now have to manage their own way through the complexity of life. If they slipped through the cracks or were cast into the flames that was on them. He could no longer afford to shoulder their burdens.

Yes, he'd be hated for leading the charge only to abandon it halfway, but so what. After a few clicks and everything would be over.

Without an inkling of indecision, Dylan navigated the cursor to the member settings of the WatchWave website and deleted his channel. The whole process took only seconds. There were no questions like the BulkDesign page, no pleadings to stay, no coaxing with discounts or prizes, no CAPTHCAs -- the channel was simply there until it wasn't. And with that, Chad Boss, the champion of frustrated men, the scourge against a culture of Amazonian Woman, lord of the edgelords, expert pussy-slayer and huckster of fruit flavored tonics was no more. Erased from the computer screens of the world, deleted from the conversations between the lost and the unmoored, residing now only in the heads of those who had followed him; but in time, even they would forget and move on to a different charlatan.

Staring blankly at his laptop, he festered over the next step, but having just eradicated the manifestation of his sickness, there was nothing more to do. Realizing this left him feeling listless, unfulfilled. It was as if he were a body abandoned in purgatory to ponder the source of the angst that had led him there -- that, and his new set of eyes.

He closed the laptop and tossed it aside. It struck a wall and cracked as it landed on the floor.

Outside his window, Dylan could hear the muffled noises of the city streets. Car motors, buzzing lights, the murmur of movements, faint, indefinable voices all congealed into an insincere invitation that exasperated Dylan's feelings of inadequacy and alienation. So close was the world, where people worked, toiled, laughed and loved, hoped and despaired, fought and fucked, ravished through life or simply got by, but this integration of life could have no use for a crippled spectator of time. To participate in the infinitely varied routines of human existence required one to be in the moment, where pasts and futures were relegated to vague abstractions. Society has a natural rhythm, a groove, a pattern revealed thorough an organic process; the swaying of the pendulum is either to the left, to the right or somewhere in-between but never everywhere at once. In Dylan's present state it would be impossible to assimilate to that kind of cadence -- he'd be nothing more than a clumsy hinderance, a deaf man on a dance floor.

Dylan sighed then sensed something there with him. It was the lily in the corner of his room. He turned and glanced at it.

Not being versed in the names of the species of plants, he gestured towards the white lily by the window and told the florist he wanted that one. The florist did not think it was odd that Dylan's eyes did not meet hers or that, not for a moment, did they leave the surface of the floor. His eyes were hidden behind the dark lenses of his sunglasses.

Dylan scooted across the floor and huddled around the plant and sat crosslegged, watching it and the spectacle of nature passing before him. Tiny buds started to swell into capsules, leaves turned yellow and started to wither, then, out of its near-death, blooms appeared, opened into a large trumpet-shaped flowers -- disappeared without withering. It was both beautiful and sad. Fragile and doomed. Everything predestination to linear steps.

It was never a range conspirators who were in control, he realized. The puppet master pulling the strings was always the vast, omniscient presence of time. It had never been a Humanities professor or a butch dyke. If he had not been so caught up by the knots inside his head, it would have occurred to him that this insight was rather obvious.

Photo of Peter Harris

BIO: A native Californian living in China since 2012, Peter Harris teaches literature at an international school and writes fiction/poetry that explores the collision of cultural identities and digital dystopias. His work has appeared in Underbelly Press, Spittoon, and A Shanghai Poetry Zine. This piece, in particular, draws from observing the global spread of reactionary online subcultures and their eerie uniformity across borders.