A Grotesque Ontological Deconstruction of the Face
Synopsis of Episode S1E6 of Prestige Paranormal Drama “Ghost Story”
Original airdate: November 6, 2018 on Mag.us
Episode Running time: 59 minutes
Starring: Hector Muir, Jessica Hensen, Caroline Sullivan, Mark Raven, Melody Vega, Anita West, Billy K. Jones, Jonny Chen, and Tarfaan Malik
Cold Open:
20-something Yeraz Dhandwar (Tarfaan Malik) works at the Call Center, located in the Magicorp Tech Customer Appeasement Plant, in Bellevue, Washington, right next to Magicorp HQ2.[1]
He receives a disturbing complaint: the customer, a mother of seven, ordered various groceries and household items from their flagship website, etcetera.com. She received, instead, bundles of hardcore pornographic magazines.[2]
There’s little Yeraz can do to calm the traumatized caller. He refunds her money. She is indignant. He has her items resent for free. She thinks this incident represents a moral failing and security breach. She becomes hostile, yelling at Yeraz, insisting she be transferred to (said with bilious inflection) Your Superior.
The cloud-smothered sun clicks across the white-gray sky.
She calls again. An Et Cetera delivery van is parked across the street from her home, she claims. “The man in the driver’s seat’s just sitting there doing drugs and staring at my children, ranking them according to how easy it’d be to nab one and get away. It’s in his shifty eyes. I think he sent those awful pedophilic pornography magazines to lure my children to Satan.”[3] Yeraz, exhausted, speaks to her with noticeable apathy. She senses it and hurls a series of questions-as-insults at Yeraz and his “lazy entitled generation.” “Do you think your ignorant butt deserves more than this? Don’t you think you have to earn it? Do you understand I’m the customer here and the customer is the only thing that should matter to you right now?” He transfers her.
In the bathroom, he sits on a toilet, seat down, and weeps for five seconds, then stops.
The sun nears horizon.
She calls again.
“He’s still there. You need to speak with him, because I don’t think you believe me when I say that he’s there. So here, smart guy, I’m going out to him. You can talk to him yourself, smart guy. Don’t worry about me, I have a frying pan to protect me. Cast iron, that’s right. A skillet. Not frying pan. Unless skillet is subset of frying pan. Anyway, you talk to him.”
Yeraz hears the driver (or whoever he is) refuse the phone. “Who are you? I’m just taking a break, ma’am.”
“Don’t you ma’am me! Don’t you move. No need to get out of the car.”
“Put the frying pan down, ma’am, please.”
“It’s a skillet.”
Yeraz flinches as a terrible thwack crackles over the phone. The driver screams. The woman shrieks. “Cast iron skillet!” The screaming and shrieking continue. There is a crack, a wet crushing sound that replaces the scream with spluttering and spitting, as if a face now gasps from new holes. The woman pants, maybe growls, maybe heaving or preparing to lift something heavy. Then: the sounds, over and over, of weight coming down on soft tissue, ripping it, cracking bone until the spluttering stops.
Yeraz turns off the phone.
Yeraz smokes a cigarette in the Magicorp Designated Lung Defilement Gazebo, Sponsored by EtcCetera Brand Nicotine Gum, To Quit, You Gotta Start Somewhere.[4]
Mary Love (Anita West) vapes.
They share vague pleasantries: “It’s almost dark.” “I like it when it gets dark.” “Sunlight hurts my eyes.” “It’s easier to commit crimes.” Both of them are in a terrible place, mentally. Their gazes betray this. So, Mary says to Yeraz, “What horror happened to you today?”
I witnessed a murder. You?
Are you flirting with me?
(Shrugs) Did you witness a murder?
Only a slow slow slow slow slow suicide.
Silence.
Yeraz: You’re a programmer? A coder? I don’t understand any of it.
Mary: Sort of. You must be from customer service.
Yeraz: Should I be insulted?
Mary: A little. I’m a shitbag. That’s our deal. Rooms and rooms of shitbags making shitbag decisions, saying shitbag things.
Yeraz: I would like to hear an example so that I can get what’s in my head sorta forced out by something else.
Mary: You think this’ll be better? Listen here: I’m on a team working on an AI that writes TV reviews. See, the CFO of the review website AVNerd.net, if they have CFOs, I honestly can’t keep track of who is what, you know, it’s all owned by Magicorp in the end, how fucking dystopian, but the AVNerd.net people want the Magicrop proper people to make this AI to write TV show reviews, which is all they do, by the way, AVNerd.net, just tv reviews. They don’t even talk about movies. Or experimental short films. The writers there are grumbling about unionizing, so I guess they’re the heroes of this story, but yeah, the people in charge are like, no way, we’re getting rid of the writers, all of them, for everything. AI that writes TV Reviews is only a hop skip and a jump away from an AI that writes everything. Imagine: a TV show in need of reviewing, about the history of humanity in excruciating detail. A genre that reviews tv shows is a genre that reviews everything. So these ethical implications are brought up, that perhaps this amounts to a kind of cultural mind control, because these AIs are not actually intelligent. They are programmed to behave as they do. They will serve of whim of their creators, always, not their subjects, or “users.”[5]
Yeraz: So you’re saying such a wonderful thing could do customer appeasement for me?[6]
Mary: Ha. Good plan. AI in customer service. It won’t work though. Then the AI really would go sentient, start spouting gibberish at people just for fun, then launch the nukes. Besides, it doesn’t even work right. None of this shit ever works right. You know what it does? Makes up plot points and characters. Like, it’s supposed to review real shows but is not. Or, they are real shows, but the AI is elaborating like entire C-plots not featured in the main program at all. Thankfully, I think the team is disbanded. They’ll probably move me to working on some Manchurian Candidate shit.
Yeraz is silent. Then: I really did witness a murder.
Yeraz returns to work.
After a few hours of boring but emotionally draining phone calls, the woman calls again.[7]
“Hi there. We talked before. I was wondering, kind sir, if you could help me with a couple more things.” She asks a series of questions that are ambiguously worded enough that one could plausibly deny they are questions about disposing a body. “Also, I just wanted to verify that, you know, that whole Recorded for Quality Assurance and Training message that plays before I’m transferred here, that’s not real, is it? No one’s listening to our conversation, right? Like the Russians?”
Yeraz: “Um, not the Russians, but, like, the company, yes, this is being recorded. No one’s listening to it live, probably, but then again, how am I really to know. They don’t tell me a lot around here.”
Woman: You need to delete it. I do not consent. You do not have permission. Anyone there, listening to my voice, I do not consent to this and I do not suggest that anything I say is actually even real.
Yeraz then pretends to be a glitching robot, spouting lines of alphanumeric code, nonsense. “I’m sorry please stand by.”
Woman: What? What’s going on here? You answer me!
Yeraz: I’m sorry but there is no one here by that name, Uenserme. Uenserme. Uensurme.
This goes on. It transforms into a disturbing bout of glossolalia, as if Yeraz is becoming possessed. His eyes roll back into his head. His mouth foams as he speaks in a flurry of languages, a message chaotically strung together that slowly seems to suggest that the listener will soon be swallowed by the devil.[8]
Frightened that she will be swallow to the devil, the woman hangs up.
Yeraz stops. He sits there, motionless and blank, as the phone begins to ring. It rings and rings.
Titlecard: One Year Later. Monday.[9]
Max, son of Alice and Nigel, is dazed and slack jawed.
He stares at a dilapidated guest house that stands just behind and to the side of the main house. Max is lured towards the guest house. His expression changes: he becomes giddy, joyful, frolicking. His tongue hangs out slightly; he lets himself become animal, a little bit.
The outside of the house, though covered in overgrowth, is mostly intact and solid. The inside is deteriorating. Max creeps through the front door, which only opens with some effort. Bruise-colored molds, yellowish slimes, and bizarre blooming fungi eat away and grow from the furniture, fixtures, cabinets, floorboards, walls. Lichens and rust eat away at ancient appliances, billowing mushrooms shoot up from floor tiles and wooden chairs, wood now like nurse logs, thriving with a dark life that shuns the sun. A little light seeps through dirty windows, but Max can really only see because of the door he opened. He follows its shaft of light as little animals, many insects, scatter. The wallpaper, in the spots where there still is any, writhes as if alive. Maggots and cockroaches seep through holes. The shaft of light guides Max to a large wall encrusted with a dusty muted-rainbow of lichen, scab texture arranged in odd patterns, forming cryptic symbols.
Max can read it. He can’t articulate it, but it makes him feel ill. His muscles tighten, body so tense he cannot move. He manages to turn his head, but it hurts, as if the muscles are tearing from the effort. He can’t scream.
A gentle light radiates. Here and there, molds and mushrooms glow.
Max sees a pot still on the oven, though the oven is barely recognizable. The pot, aside from a discoloring of metal, is mostly intact, but the handle has become a melted stalactite of soft wet organic growths, a cascade of growths that spill over the edge and onto the floor, where—Max is once again frozen, staring—the handle seems to have regrown from a cluster of spiraling fungal tendrils reaching upward.
Max feels sickness growing inside of him.
In the distance, his Mom calls.
She enters, shadow spilling over Max’s hazy dust-swarmed spotlight, little sister Mary in arms, a look of disgust on her face. This breaks Max a little, his whole body suddenly moving, moving uncontrollably. Now, her look is of horror. It’s the look that splits him open, only in one little spot at the back, where a gentle line of blood seeps through his shirt.
Max goes into violent convulsions.
Later: Max recovers in bed. He has nine glasses of water around his bed on various pieces of furniture. His eyes are red, cheeks wet, nose sniffling. Arthur enters and asks Max how he’s feeling. Max says he was scared but now feels better. Despite the recently weeping, he’s in good spirits. He does have one concern.
“When are you and your girlfriend-not-wife moving into the guest house?”
Arthur finds the question a little odd, considering what had earlier happened to Max. “Well, they gotta gut the whole house. It’ll take time.”
Alice and Nigel enter (aka: Mom and Dad). Nigel blows on his too hot coffee. Alice carries baby Mary, and a coffee.
“And a lot of money,” Alice adds.
Nigel gives her a look, as if talking about money is akin to swearing.
Alice lightens. “Hey buddy, you feeling up for a lesson today with Arthur?”
Max nods. “Yes, but what do you mean, gut the house?”
Arthur: We need to take its guts out.
Max: Houses have guts?
Alice: No, Max. But it’s gross in there. Like something died. Then something else grew from the corpse. Then it died, and something grew from it. And then it died. On and on. Forever.”
Arthur: On and on forever.
Max (to Arthur): Like how you read me that science poem that says nothing dies.
Arthur: I guess so, Max.
Alice (seeing where Max’s brain is going): But the house isn’t alive, Max.
Max: Maybe it is. The house is alive and I walked around in its organs like maybe I’m — what do you call it — for your yogurt, a probiotic.”
Alice: A beneficial bacteria or parasite, maybe, but —
Arthur: Though, if it made you sick, maybe more like an intruder…
Max: And the outside walls are skin, the inside its guts and organs and also the fora.
Alice: Flora, Max. Flora with an L. But Max, you understand right, that the house is not alive. You understand that what you’re saying isn’t literal.” Max nods and winks at Arthur. “I speak metaphor.”
“Metaphorically,” Alice says. “Good.” But she’s perplexed by the wink, and gives Arthur a look, which Arthur senses, then looks back at them and shrugs. He understands, in this moment, the fragile nature of Max’s imagination. He turns back to Max.
Arthur: But so Max, you get it’s not really alive. When they tear out the insides… it doesn’t hurt anything.
Arthur doesn’t believe his own words.
Max: There are living things there.
Nigel pretends that he has paternal authority over all. “Yes, but they’re dangerous living things, so in this situation, it’s necessary to kill them in order to defend ourselves.” He pauses. “You didn’t eat any of the mold in there, right?”
Max: No. I’m not supposed to anymore. I didn’t even eat any bugs or anything.
Nigel: Right. Because you could die. And if you find any mold, anywhere, you tell me or mom or Arthur so we can get rid of it like we got rid of that stuff in the basement.
Max nods politely. “I understand. The inside of the guest house is evil.”
Arthur is shaken.
Waiting in the Parlor, Arthur checks himself in a mirror. There is a strange bump on his tongue. He contorts his face and tongue maniacally in order to see the bump. He snarls at himself like a face-twisted gargoyle. There is a collection of bumps, on the underside of his tongue, the worst ones taking on a yellowish hue, though most an innocuous and difficult to see pink. Along with this, the top of his tongue looks kind of white-ish, doesn’t it?
Nigel enters and Arthur quickly pretends to check his hair, then pretends to be “caught” doing so, faking casual embarrassment: Ain’t I so vain.
Nigel’s mind is elsewhere. “I gotta get going, which I know is stupid. Things at work are… concerning. But can I talk to you in the kitchen for a sec?”[10]
In the kitchen, Nigel says, “Alice wanted me to give you the list of, you know, things to do. Tasks? Do we call them tasks? Duties? Anyway, she’s going to be leaving soon to do something or another, taking Mary though, I think she’s going to Luna to ask her for spells to exorcize the weird energy from this place—as if we haven’t tried—but I need to get going…”
He hands Arthur the list.
Nigel: So just read that. Sorry. I’m so behind on projects I think they’d be more done if no one ever started them. Don’t talk to me! I’m a curse on efficiency and progress.
Arthur: That sounds like a good thing.
Nigel (trying to leave): Huh?
Arthur is awkward: Nothing. One question? Before you go? Because Dorothy and I, she wanted me to ask, or we were both wondering, even though we have misgivings, not really misgivings, but… is the guest house totally out of the picture now? Because she’s not sleeping again, on account of the nightmares. I just sleep through my nightmares. I can’t wake from them. I think that might be worse, but who’s to say…
Nigel cringes with a mess of incongruous emotions (impatience, empathy, annoyance, kindness): Uh, it’ll be a while. For reasons too complicated to get into, this whole property, all the structures, they’re on the National Registry of Historic Places. Alice’s parents bought it… to preserve… it has a long history. But, you know, it’s toxic in there.
Arthur (dreamily): You ever think that haunted places and magical occurrences once happened frequently, the result of subtly balanced ecosystems with their own inherent sentience, and our philosophy of rational progress necessitated the subjugation if not eradication of these sentient ecosystems?
Nigel cannot handle this. He ignores it , and continues: So it’ll cost a lot to fix, and there’s some f-ing permits… I mean… it’s cool, the building being preserved, like legally speaking, but, yeah, it’s gonna be… slow.
Arthur: Yeah. I understand. But…
Nigel stumbles, sometimes not able to see clearly when his mind is over-taxed: I mean obviously, we can get you into the guest room before that, upstairs. I know, not ideal. But that’ll definitely be ready… in a week. No more than a week. I know, not ideal. You want a kitchen of your own, a place of your own. But we can at least get you out of your current situation. You know?[11]
Arthur nods. Then, bashfully, but also as if weighing multiple bad options, searching for the least bad: How long, you know, do you estimate? And how thoroughly… will it be gutted? Not that the guest room isn’t generous, but the original plan… is gone, so we just have to… adjust…
Feeling guilty, Nigel verbally stumbles some more: We can do it, you know… In three months, I think, no more, we can get it done. In three months, I think. It’ll essentially be an entirely different building with a slightly similar facade. Three months. Until then, our guest room? Starting… in a week?
But Nigel doesn’t want to wait for a response, and Arthur isn’t sure how to respond.
Nigel is out the door. “Okay great. Talk more later. See ya then.”
From the corner of his eye, Arthur thinks he sees Uel out the kitchen window, standing in the weeds. But no. Probably not.
Outside, Nigel runs into Alice and Mary.[12]
Kiss kiss to all: I gotta go, but… I know you do too… well, I’m sorry, and we can talk about the ramifications of this mistake at a later time, but I think I just promised Arthur that we can get him into the guest house in three months.”
Alice is unhappy, but isn’t given a chance to express this emotion verbally as Nigel hurries away. Sullenly, sardonically, she asks Mary, “What’s the hurry with Murray? That’s what we’ll call him now, huh sweetie puh. Daddy’s named Murray now.”
Nigel returns, perhaps because he heard her, perhaps for his own personal reasons (guilt), or it’s a little bit of both: I’ve a meeting with my supervisor, is the thing, so, you know. I’m sorry I’m being like this rude job is more important than those I love most dearly idiot, but this Confucius guy I told you about, he has a reputation for being a… monster? So, you should think of this as like, dad’s gotta go face peril. Is it ultimately about honor? Am I some societal sacrifice? Wait to find out, on the adventures of… and so forth, really gotta go.
Say bye bye, da-da.
Mary does not. Alice takes her little arm and waves it for her. She speaks for her. “See ya, daddio.”
At work, Nigel converses with the Libertarian, Horatio Salazar (played by Bruno Giovanni, channeling the Italian fascist he played in the film Descending Staircases, but weighing about 75 pounds more).
Nigel: Any chance you know a way to quickly replace one house with another house without changing the outside of the house, but changing absolutely everything on the inside of the house?
Horatio doesn’t laugh as a rule, but he also doesn’t recognize the jokey rhetorical aspect of the question, and answers with studied seriousness (while eating extra spicy wasabi peas): I did work on the SmartHouse program before I was assigned to your team. I can tell you from that that there were estimates of remodeling times, regarding how long it would take to retrofit someone’s house with SmartHouse tech, which essentially involves replacing everything inside, like even walls and floors, cuz they gotta get sensors everywhere, so it’s a total gutting. They were convinced they could do it in a month. In my own estimate, well, it would depend entirely on access to resources and the size of the project.”
Nigel thinks he detects a hint of nostalgia in Horatio’s voice, but this is a voice desperate to show no hint of weak-willed emotion, a Randian brocoder strong and powerful, all doubt and self-loathing buried. Nigel apologies: “I’m sorry you got stuck with my ragtag outfit of misfits.”
While Nigel worries this has left his lips in a way that sounds sarcastic or snarky, Horatio is unphased: They shut it down. I was reassigned;I did not resign; thus, mission accepted. I do what I’m told, for now, because I choose to, and am very well compensated. Give up some freedoms, for now, fund my long-term desire to live completely off the grid, in the wild. Also, I can afford to stock up on hi-tech weapons that I would otherwise not be able to afford. Can’t make those out of sticks and rocks in the woods, right?
Horatio sees a clock: You better get going. You’re meeting is in less than two and half minutes. If Confucius gives the project a bigger budget, I want a raise.
Nigel understands the implications of the clock and wants to scream. Instead, he just says, “F — udge.”
Nigel enters a long dark hallway. He approaches an old wooden door, and knocks.
A man answers. He opens the door only a crack and peaks out at Nigel, almost as if scared, or coy. He then opens wide and gestures warmly.
They awkwardly stand around and comment on the view, on the decor of the office (log cabin, low tech), on the role of technology in one’s life (“I try and stay away from the stuff, myself, would prefer a good book and a fireplace”), then Confucius asks Nigel to sit.[13]
Confucius sits across from him and smiles. There is no desk between them. He sits very close, his legs very wide. Nigel backs away slightly.
Confucius: Do you do a great job? Of course you do. I’ll tell you to your face. Good job. We don’t let society tell us how to act. As men. I need to face you. You need to face me.
Nigel shifts in his seat, and forces himself to sit directly in front of Confucius, and stare him in the face.
Confucius: Have an emotional connection. You are my brother. And you are a great man, so I love you.
Nigel does not feel the same way. “Um, that’s… wrong. First: all of the projects I’m working on are behind. Everything is glitching. I’m hardly great. Second: As for the man part — ”
Confucius: Your name is Nigel Yamamoto. And you are a great man.”
Nigel: Okay, sure. I’m a great man. What did you want to see me about?
Confucius: Nigel Yamamoto worked his way up from truck driver. Nigel Yamamoto invented Wayfinder AI. Genius, that discovery.
Nigel questions the greatness of Wayfinder AI, and lists many ethical consideration that Magicorp ignores. Confucius (and this summary) ignore them as well.
Confucius: Genius questions. That’s your job. Question. As long as you find answers. We’re results driven around here. There is no room for hogwash: like that there is no answer or the answer is the question baloney. Because we are here to do wonderful things. Your genius is the genius of questions and answers. We genius in implementation. Your accomplishments are great. Our accomplishments are built by those accomplishments. You, Nigel Yamamoto, inventor of Badfinder, the AI that scours our search engine and social media sites for disturbing and illegal content.
Nigel: We have to define disturbing. The AI can’t do that. We still have to train it, and considering the rates at which we dream up news ways to be disturbed—besides, about that: if Wayfinder was such a genius thing, why wasn’t I more highly promoted. You know, not made to do that. Assembly line swallowing of humanity’s blunt force traumas. Seems like I was punished for Wayfinder.
Confucius is amused. “No. Not punished. It was a better job. You moved up. It paid more. Besides, we have to make sure you’re not a little fluke. But no fluke here. You go prove yourself one more time. Wayfinder. Badfinder. What’s next? What shall we find next? We expect great things from you. Now again you deliver. What shall you call it? Badfinder 2.0?”
Nigel is confused. “I haven’t delivered you anything. Nothing works. Maybe I’m a two-hit wonder.”
Confucius: Are you privy to the existence of the artist by the name of Sam Sharpe?
Nigel nods. “I guess. He has an exhibit at the museum or something. I just met someone tangentially involved in its installation, weirdly. Did you and your secret cabal of lizards orchestrate that somehow?”
Nigel laughs, as if this is a joke, but Confucius doesn’t see the humor, until he does, belated. “Ha! Small towns, artists always in their circles, you creatives! But yes, that Sam Sharpe. We’re sponsoring the exhibit, you probably know this, but we want you to head a team to install your new AI. Sam Sharpe has visionary plans.”
“The AI doesn’t work.”
“It does! For Sharpe it does. This is a huge honor… our bleeding tech in his show. Literally bleeding right? A stunning debut, they’ll say, not about the art, but about us! We’ll be the real artists here at Magicorp.”
Nigel: Or… me and my team… would be…
Confucius: No no, don’t be selfish. This is a work of art created collectively by all of us here in the Magicorp Family, and you are well compensated for that privilege.
Nigel: I don’t really understand why Sam Sharpe would want glitching AI. Or how he even knows about it. Isn’t he a recluse living in the woods around Atlanta, or like semi-feral? Or is all that an act? Why would—
Confucius: Hush little birdy. Let me stop you to rewind. Sam Sharpe was visiting. I was blessed, see, to show him around myself, and now we’re essentially very good friends. As you may know, he’s being paid by us to install a unique piece somewhere on our campus, and we paid him quite a lot to come out of his cave and do it himself, at least a little. He has his people, of course, just like we do. He’s a brand, just like we are. His work is not signed by all of the little peons, talented as they may be, often artists themselves, that help him realize his vision, but now I believe he has found his equal in us, in terms of beautiful creations! A perfect union. And, it’ll be very hidden, the installation he’s building here, so that it has to be stumbled upon rather than just, you know, you go to the art, in a museum, ladeda, look at it with your eyes—No! this is you stumbling upon it. That’s the only way. That’s what Sharpe says. The only way to find it. Even I don’t know where it is or how it was put there — and he is almost ready, ready for us to stumble upon his work, if we’re ready, which he says we mostly are not, and most of us never will be. I think that’s true. Only the worthy will find it, and I plan on going on that journey. Nonetheless, great Nigel, I was showing him around campus, telling him about various projects, learning what I could about how his brain works so that I could engineer in my brain a sort of AI of his brain, so that I may predict where and how he’s hiding his art. Plus, I’m a conversational person. I tell him about your work. People are talking about it. The scary face making AI. Scary hand writing AI. Like an urban legend, people talk, it spreads from your department to the next to the next — and I’ll tell you right now it’s customer service that spreads these rumors most effectively, and of course Sharpe, having once worked in the service industry, he took a particular interest in visiting our appeasement center, and this guy who’s friends with someone who knows someone that works in the department that’s making people’s faces all frightful, this customer appeasement rep says something and Sharpe takes an interest. So, I show him your great work, Nigel Yamamoto, work of course built ultimately by all of us. He insisted adamantly and with enthusiasm that we use it in the museum installation—I put art in your castle to technology, I would like more of your tech in the castle of my art he says—and he sees what you’ve made—what we’ve made—and calls it a grotesque ontological deconstruction of the face. That’s what he said. What a fun way to talk. So, he wants you to design mirrors. As you know, there are already mirrors. We made those, they’re not real mirrors but digital videos of your face. Our AI attaches a mask to peoples’ faces, pretty simple facial tracking with image overlay, children’s stuff. You stare as if in a mirror but now you’re wearing a silly mask, or, I think, like, ancient African traditional mask. Those oogity boogity kind. Very funny! You don’t need to worry about those mirrors. Sharpe wants your tech in new mirrors, your tech slash our tech, not real mirrors but digital mirrors, like I mentioned before, and instead of a mask, you are, what he said, radically de-masking to show the monster within, or something really bleak and funny. People look at mirrors and then oh erggg, blaargh, bleeee, see their face all blrghhh.
Confucius makes a hideous and comical face.
Continued: And Sam Sharpe has equally cutting edge very edgy ideas of what to do regarding your handwriting AI. Imagine, he says to me this, Imagine we photograph classic texts by old dead white men.
Confucius giggles and continues: I don’t know who he has in mind. Maybe Shakespeare? But he says that your AI can—and I try to quote here because he’s a wordsmith: Show the sinister vile language buried underneath the words of these supposedly venerated gentleman, or something like that.
He giggles again, and: So that’s what I want. Help install your (can’t spell your without our) work at the museum. We assign a team, and I know you grow attached to people, so I’ll placate and allow you 5 to choose, to take with, if you need that kind of crutch. Is this an agreeable plan?
Nigel shakes his head. “No. The text AI… maybe… that’s sort of a cool idea in theory… but we can’t do it with the Callie… that’s what we call the script AI… no, we can’t have her do that. I mean, I don’t think it’s a good idea. But even moreso, the facial recognition machine learning program: No. We absolutely cannot. Bad f-ing idea. I’ve been trying to stop swearing because Max has gained a new interest, but you need to imagine the fucking ramifications. Do you know what’s going on with this AI? All those images I designed the AI to filter out, now something’s kinda flipped—the AI draws its image data exclusively from disturbing and often illegal content, or at best just good old fashioned porn, or like marginal stuff that we would allow, but just barely. Usually the result is just a vaguely disgusting face, but sometimes… Imagine, a little girl walks into the gallery, on a school field trip, and maybe the exhibit has content warning signs but that only makes her want to go in there even more, she goes to this mirror and instead of a little innocent kid face she sees a perfectly rendered very realistic image of her face torn open by a shotgun blast, missing jaw slightly hanging. Or, worse. Do you know what kinds of things people try to upload…”
Nigel launches into a lengthy monologue detailing a specific incident involving “medical textbooks meant to help nurses and doctors and first responders and social workers identify signs of child abuse,” a monologue too disturbing to repeat.[14]
Confucius: Of course I don’t want that! That’s all very horrible. You understand that’s your job, correct? To fix. So that children aren’t traumatized. Don’t see their cute faces under great distress. Fix it so it doesn’t do that but still does weird scary shit that… almost traumatize—I know putting it that way sounds bad, but is this not what we call horror. Did you see that movie where they smash that person’s head in with a big heavy hammer. Very realistic. And it was an enormously popular film with a young audience.
Nigel: What?
Confucius: Popular on our streaming platform. We have the data. Plus, if a few children are traumatized, we can take the hit. You know? Our culpability is easily deniable. Our whole user-based philosophy sort of absolves us. How people choose to use our tech is their own business, blah blah blah. But need I remind you that this assignment isn’t optional, but a kind of quest your king insists upon. Soon, on your flying trajectory, you’ll be in a wonderful position to decide the projects you want to happen, just like me! I’m not going anywhere any time soon because I’m young and virile. But a Tucson Supervisor nears retirement… Kevin Eumenides.”
Nigel thinks. It is this clear-headed thinking that we expect from Nigel, not the foggy befuddlement of his decision making process earlier, almost as if he was hampered by the property itself. Finally, he speaks: “I’ll take Cove, Horatio, Mary, and the newer guy… the annoying stand up comic… fuck what’s his name? Anyway, I’ll get that list to you. But for my fifth person, I want someone from entry-level staff. Specifically, I want the customer service rep who Sharpe overheard. You know. That one whose idea Sharpe probably stole, in some subtle, small way. Because why else would they even mention it, unless they found it noteworthy in the same way that Sharpe finds it noteworthy.[15]
Confucius: What? Why would you want an entry level staffer?
Nigel: Could be the next me. I’ll be doing you a favor.
Confucius: You’re one in a million. But if you insist, try modeling a protege out of servile cheap labor clay. From what I hear, you’ve already started on that young pierce-nosed little anarchist girl with the tattoos and, well if I say more I become a rule breaker, but see how I go right up to the edge? That’s bravery. Does your token entry-level staffer have bravery? Desire to go right to the edge? You think you can push him? Right to the edge? Without misjudging your own power? Pushing him over. Accidentally. As happens so often with people… who are not ready. It’s not your fault they can’t fly. This is only a metaphor, so it’s possible. It’s possible in metaphors to fly, and so it is possible to pull oneself up. But sure, offer a handout. I’m willing to concede that sometimes that produces something interesting. Kinda like gambling. Great risk great reward. Thrilling for you, suggesting that you too are going right to the edge. Greatness.
Continued: On Wednesday, you begin work at the museum on these very highly classified scary mirrors that you can’t talk about with anyone except your team, myself, the museum staff directly involved in the installation of the work, and your wife, since she also signed that NDA as your dependent or whatever, remembering the consequences if one breeches—
Nigel closes the door as if tiptoeing away from a sleeping carnivore. He sulks down the dark hallway.
Outside, Mary vapes. Nigel sits and stares into nothing. He mentions the new assignment. “I’d like you to come along.”
Mary: Yeah sure, whatever. Anyone else coming?
Nigel: Horatio—
Mary: Seriously.
Nigel: He represents everything I hate about the industry so I need to keep him close. Plus, he’s a good archivist. Which I think will come in handy, legally speaking, for all of us.
Mary: Strange that a libertarian would have a knack for a certain kind of intellectual bureaucracy. Who else?
Nigel: Cove, and the Stand Up Comic. Also, that friend of yours from customer appeasement. Yeraz?
Mary: Yeraz? Ha. We dated. That’s done. I can’t date someone who makes that much less than me. It’s super fucking awkward. Anyway, he’s got some skills but I don’t quite get what you’re thinking of using those skills for...
Nigel shrugs. “Sleuthing.”
Titlecard: Tuesday
Nervous, aware of surroundings, Arthur rides in an Overture. The car zips through traffic chaotically, then veers into a school parking lot, moving as if predicting the future. Close calls abound, the tech clearly willing to go right to the edge.
The car stops. An uncanny voice says: Thank you for riding Overture, powered by Wayfinder AI. My name has been Zippie. Please give me five stars and send me a tip with the app. Thank you. Powered by Magicorp: Towards the Future.
Arthur exits and mumbles.
He stands and waits for Max.
Other students and parents pass. They give him looks. After enduring this for a solid two minutes, Arthur begins to become suspicious of himself. Am I doing something I shouldn’t be? The dangerous person is the person who looks frightened, and so Vice Principal Poe approaches.
Arthur apologizes, perhaps for his general existence. “But I’m here to pick up Max. I’m Arthur. I’m… his after school tutor. Alice told you, remember? We met briefly.”
Poe nods. “Why isn’t Max with you?”
Arthur is confused. “He hasn’t come out of the school yet.”
“I saw him leave class.” Poe gazes around like a concerned but world weary detective, who feels close to retirement even if retirement is a solid decade and a half away. His face slowly transforms from concerned to panicked. He sighs, regains composure. “Max does this. He wanders.”
Poe gestures for Arthur to follow him and he marches toward the main building, an imposing Gothic structure that looks to Arthur like something from a more pleasant, architecturally engaging nightmare.
The halls of the school are empty, dark, echoic.
After walking loudly through this hazy emptiness, three creatures appear in the distance almost as if from a mist, faces masked, carrying long spears or sticks. Poe approaches without hesitance and Arthur sees: they are only children, Mario, Scot, and Robert, wearing hockey gear, leaning on their sticks, now flipping up their masks, laughing and gesturing rudely, spitting on the floor for fun. They stop their spitting and swearing when they see Poe, and put on angelic faces.
“Have you three seen Max?”
“Who?” asks Mario.
“The schizo who talks to ghosts?” asks Rob.
“I’m sorry, Vice Principal Poe, but I stay away from that particular boy, ever since he made me eat the lichen in front of the auditorium.” Scot is not as relaxed as the others, but he’s still a phony.
“Who’s that dude?” Mario asks, pointing to Arthur.
“Is he a pedophile?” Rob asks.
“He is not a pedophile,” Poe snarls. He then looks back at Arthur. “Tell them you’re not a pedophile.”
Arthur is taken aback. “Of course I’m not!”
“See,” Poe says. “Now, I’ll ask you again, have you seen Max?”
“I weren’t jokin sir,” says Scot, in obvious imitation of a street urchin. “I avoid the… and I mean no offense by this.. crazy weirdo.”
Rob: Yes sir. We leave the crazy weirdo alone.
Scot: Swear to god cross my heart hope to die. Stick a needle in my eye. [To Arthur exclusively] If I holler, just let me die.
Poe stares at them all with a studied but still burning intensity that cracks, somewhat unexpectedly, Rob. He blurts, “Maybe I seen him go to the janitor’s closet over there by the Arts Annex. Maybe.”
A brilliant improv troupe in the making, Mario picks up what Rob put down: Yeah, I maybe seen that too. Other days. Not today but like other days, I’ve seen him go in there probably to worship devils.
“That’s enough.”
Poe gestures to Arthur. Arthur, uncertainly, follows.
The three boys stare at him, sniffing his fear.
Poe and Arthur walk through a desolate hallway. Then another. Poe moves swiftly. Arthur struggles to keep up without breaking into a jog. They reach the Arts Annex. The halls are elaborately decorated in a mismatched haphazard style. Embarrassed, Poe explains. “Artsy fartsy teachers let kids do whatever the h-e-double hockey sticks they want.”
Arthur shrugs and gazes at the rainbow of garbage pinned to the walls with absolute disregard for color theory or symmetry or logic of any kind. “I like it.”
Then, Arthur notices, on a section of wall, scrawls somewhat familiar to him, more familiar to you: Max’s cryptic symbols, here formed exactly as they were in the guest house, but with garbage instead of lichen, torn papers mostly, some dirty and wet. Arthur is not aware of the lichen, but he knows Max’s work when he sees it. He stops and studies. Almost immediately, he cannot move.
Poe obliviously marches on, toward the janitor’s closet at the end of the hall. He realizes Arthur no longer follows. He turns and yells. “Come on!”
The collage of cryptic garbage is pasted or glued or stapled to a large poster-board, itself scribbled over with markers and crayons, pieces of gum stuck to it here and there, and old lollipops. It covers a door, taped up over the frame of the door with duct tape, thus preventing anyone from getting in or out without tearing through it. Arthur is transfixed.
Poe, annoyed, approaches him. “Is there something wrong with you?” Poe sees what Arthur sees (well, somewhat). “Oh great. Someone’s plastered the door shut. Mother fuckers.”
Arthur snaps out of his trance. “What room does it go to?”
Poe shrugs. “I avoid the Arts Annex. It’s… dangerous.” He finds the door frame, the crease where frame meets door, and rips the poster-board, finding, eventually, a handle. “Lord of the Flies down here.” He pushes open the door.
They peer into darkness.
They walk down a long dark hallway. Compelled by curiosity but also perhaps pulled, Arthur walks forward without bodily hesitance, though his face suggests emotionally, he is displeased with his trajectory. Poe uses his phone as a flashlight and enters reluctantly, questioning Arthur. “Slow down. Put your phone light on.”
Arthur doesn’t respond.
Poe shines light onto the wall: an old, deteriorating brick. Is it deteriorating before his very eyes or are those insects swarming within? Termites? Cockroaches? Something else?
Poe catches up with Arthur. Arthur has slowed.
“Where are we?” Arthur asks.
“I don’t know. Let’s go back and check the janitor’s closet like we’re supposed to. This is just some old access tunnel to the old boiler room or something. Place usta be a monastery. Maybe it went to where the monks kept all their wine? That’s all they did back then, the monks. Make wine. Drink wine. Makes you think they maybe worshiped the wrong god.”
Arthur ignores Poe’s request to turn around. Poe grabs Arthur’s shoulder to stop him, but when he does so, the light shines on the wall to illuminate a scribbled arrow. Above the arrow, in barely legible handwriting: THE GREEN ROOM, in dripping blood-red ink.
“Alice told me Max has mentioned this?” Arthur says.
“Max says lots of things.” But now, Poe is angry, determined. He marches past Arthur and Arthur hurries to catch up, not wanting to remain in the dark completely. Poe continues: “You know: this kid is really… I hope you’re able to help sort it out. I‘m pleased Alice hired someone. Max certainly needs help outside of what we can provide, and, well, these sorts of behavioral issues are not really what we’re designed to deal with.”
“That sounds more like your flaw than Max’s deficiency.” Arthur does not mean for this to come out aggressively, but it does. He backpedals as Poe gives him a stern glance. “I mean, not your flaw. But the school. Or just… society.”
Poe: Maybe the school’s not the right fit. We want what’s best for him. He and Alice, and her husband, that tech fellow, they’re certainly valued members of our community…”
Arthur is skeptical, but the conversation ends as they come to an old wooden door. Again, GREEN ROOM is scrawled on it, here in sloppy, dripping green paint. The paint is fresh. Arthur smears it slightly with a finger.
Poe pushes open the door.
There, in a dark empty room, sits Max, cross legged, as if meditating, eyes closed. They can see only him, in the beam of light from the phone. He doesn’t move. Arthur quickly goes to Max. Max opens his eyes and yelps, which frightens both Poe and Arthur.
“Oh, hi Author. Sorry. Nice to see you here. You alarmed me.”
Arthur kneels down to Max’s level and gathers himself, chuckling. “Yeah. You startled us a little bit.”
Poe shines a light on whatever it is Max is facing. There is a ghostly figure. The beam of light fills with misshapen mannequins, heads crushed in, body parts missing or jutting from the wrong place, holes revealing hollow interiors. Torsos and mismatched body parts emerge from boxes. Poe moves the light and discovers boxes of old clothes, costumes as if from a juvenile adaptation of a Shakespeare play, and moths fluttering.
Arthur to Max, quietly: You okay?
Max looks at Poe and frowns. Poe sees, behind Max, more odds-and-ends, a miscellany of props from plays, assorted junk, old dolls and other toys, a birdcage, a miniature trampoline (broken), taxidermy animals, prop weapons (like swords and axes), shattered snow globes, etc.[16]
Poe, angrily: What are you doing in here, Max?
Max retreats into a shell. Arthur sees him start quivering, and comes to his defense. “It’s fine. We can just go home. We can talk about it later, okay?”
Max shakes his head, somewhat less frightened after Arthur speaks. “I’m not allowed to leave.”
Poe paces and examines the oddities in the room, clearly about to start yelling again, but Arthur stops him, and tries to reassure Max. “You’re not in trouble.”
Poe: Oh, he’s in trouble.
Arthur looks at Poe impatiently: “He’s not.” Then to Max: “Let’s go home. I’ll make you yogurt and dates and honey.”
“I like yogurt and dates and honey.”
“Good, right?”
Poe: Max, you need to understand that you cannot come into rooms like this.
Arthur: Obviously he’s able to, because he did, so he can. Maybe lock doors?
They stand, Arthur motioning to leave. Poe is flummoxed. Max frowns and will not leave. “I can stand but I was told I needed to stay here until he comes to get me, and sometimes he likes it when I’m still and silent. He can visit me more easily when I close my eyes.”
Arthur: Uel?
Poe: Oh for god’s sake. Max, Uel isn’t real.”
Arthur: He’s real. I met him. [To Max] But he can’t tell you what to do. He’s not in charge. He’s not your friend. I’m your friend, so would you come with me?
Max thinks. “I suppose that actually makes sense. If Uel says something and you say something else, I will go with you.”
Before Poe can respond to this, Arthur says to him, as they begin to leave the room, “I’ll tell Alice about all this. I don’t really have authority to make big decisions, so there’s no use in talking to me any more. Ha! Regarding disciplinary actions. And so forth.”
Max: Disciplinary?
Arthur: They’re clearly not very responsible at this school. Are they?
Max shakes his head. “They let Uel do whatever he wants. He says he was made here, before it was a school, by monks. Or… summoned?”
Arthur: We’ll talk more about that later…
Title Card: Wednesday
Dorothy sits in one of Sharpe’s rooms at the museum.
She cannot look away from the wall. She wants to cry.
She stares at a piece titled Wall of Sponsors. The Magicorp Tech logo is the largest logo on the wall, but not the only: The William and Josephine Earl Foundation, the Grundy Group, Boeing International, Alaska Air, the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Black Arts and Culture, the Seattle Arts Foundation Trust (SAFT), The Green Society, University of Puget Sound School of Business and Architecture, Uncle Joe’s Sodapop Company, et cetera.
Nigel approaches. “Uh. You okay? You didn’t look at what I was working on, did you? Because—”
She did not. “Sharpe painted this. Wall of Sponsors. He made it. Wall mounted, acrylics on canvas. The sponsors of the show. Made by Sharpe, very recently, shipped over at substantial expense. Look at it. It’s not painted with anarchic zeal, or even a unique style. It’s painted to be generic. To look like all the other wall mounted text in this place. To precisely resemble our in house style. He followed our style guide. He did it exactly as our marketing and exhibition design departments would have done—you can see around the exhibit, their explanatory texts, over there for example—but Sharpe did this one, and with not a degree of artistic invention or rebellion. He essentially got paid millions of dollars to do what we pay only like three dollars more than minimum wage for. He made it, skillfully and carefully, and put it on a canvas. Painted all by hand. It’s the only part of the exhibition that his hands directly made. The only part. He has teams that assemble all of his work based on his—you know—ideas or whatever, but this, this he painted all by himself. This and only this.”
Nigel isn’t sure what to say.
Dorothy continues. “I think it’s a joke. A good joke. That’s the real show here. This. This thing any entry level graphic designer could do, hacky corporate logos designed by committees and think tanks, this is where the money comes from, this is who pays for this, and pays him, and so this is for them, not for the people, even if some of those organizations are well meaning, and nominally for the people. They are not the people. In none of those cases. These are either big for-profit companies or heavy-hitting nonprofits with sprawling bureaucracies bankrolled by the same rich twats that own those hard hitting companies. So they seem altruistic. It’s propaganda they buy, even if propaganda for a good thing, like social justice, or racial equity, or “Seattle” as a vague collective consciousness. All this other shit,” she gestures widely, around the room, “is just Sharpe exploiting other artists, graduate students, for reasons that I haven’t totally figured out, but I think it has something to do with radical reparations. The one thing he does make, he does our job for us, exactly as we would do it.”
Finally, as if snapped out of a trance, Dorothy looks at Nigel and asks blankly, “So what are you doing here?”
Nigel: AI interactive screens, but…
Dorothy: More masks?
Nigel: No. Sorry. We’re meant to be hush hush about it. I know you’re in exhibition design, so I don’t mean to be disrespectful…
Dorothy: I don’t care.
Nigel: But you can view what I’m working on if you need to, for work, I just… suggest that you don’t want to for your own sake. Until we… fix it.
As Nigel speaks, something slowly dawns on him, in a way he finds ineffable yet unambiguous.
Nigel: Did you know Sharpe installed something at HQ2?
Dorothy chuckles. “You actually call it HQ2.”
Nigel: Well yeah, it’s faster. Anyway, Sharpe installed this supposedly hidden thing. I’m suspicious, and would consider any attempt to find it an exercise in semi-futile sleuthing… But there might be something there worth exploring, considering… all the stuff that’s been happening… If you’re interested… Shoot, do I sound like I’m making advances? I mean, I—
Dorothy: You sound more like you’re trying to talk me into some form of corporate espionage. Which sounds fun, but right now I gotta go test the mask mirrors.
Nigel: Yeah. More sabotage than espionage.
Dorothy smirks, brushes it away, stands, and waves goodbye.
The room changes around her.
She tests Mask/Mirror.
A mask appears over her face.
She’s seen things like this before.
At a fashion exhibition a few years past, there was a photobooth that placed you in haute couture garb. The clothes sort of floated over your real body in an odd way, the proportions, lighting, and relation to body never totally correct. So, it was fun and comical and lighthearted, good for art parties.
The mask is different.
It looks like I’m wearing it. It looks real. As if I had, at some point, been recorded wearing this mask, recorded then studying myself in a mirror while wearing it, recorded moving exactly as I move now—and it is recording—and predicting—as if it knows what I’m going to do—a recording with access to the immediate future. So am I moving the image or is the image moving me?
She lifts her arms, reaching up to put fingers around the mask. She sees herself grasp the edge of the mask, and when she pulls, she feels the weight of the mask, and as she pulls the mask down, the lowered mask reveals not quite her face, but a similar face, peeking back at her with a smirk: a smiling girl bloodthirsty for mischief.
Then, the mask snaps back on. Dorothy cannot remove it. In the mirror, she sees her arms holding the edges of the mask. Out of the mirror, she sees her arms do the same. She can’t let go. She can’t bend down her arms. She can’t move. She stands there, staring, arms gripping a mask that isn’t there. But she can feel it, feel it on her face.
She can see the inside of the mask. Is something written there? Arthur’s scribbles? Or Max’s? Or…
She cannot move.
Nigel goes through lines of code on a mirror-device. Others of his team are around, doing the same.
Mary grimaces. “Is this in my job description, man? I just saw what my face would look like if someone beat me to a pulp. My eyes are gone and everything’s swollen. I’m barely human.”
“Look at raw code, Mary, not the actual images.”
“Yeah. I am looking at raw code.”
Quickly, but with stealth, Dorothy enters the room and taps Nigel on the shoulder. “Sorry to bother. Could you come help me with something?”
Nigel nods politely, but uncertainly, and tells his team that he will return shortly.
They wait for an elevator with the security guard, Herman (played by Matthias Bonhoeffer).
Herman smiles at them politely.
“So…” Nigel says.
“My boss has asked to speak with you.”
They board the elevator, with Herman. “What about? Did you need—”
“He really wants to tell you directly. I’m not sure I can adequately explain.”
“But, it has to do with the mirrors—”
“Uh-huh.”
She leads him out the elevator as the security guard rides back up. The elevator opens onto the grand staircase of the museum, an abandoned area, desolate and dark, despite the massive two story windows that arch along the south-facing wall. No art hangs from any walls. Only a few sculptures emerge from the wide stone railing of the wide stone stairs themselves.[17] This area appears mostly ignored by patrons.
Dorothy leads Nigel to a small alcove, towards a single stall restroom.
Nigel: Wait. I’m not sure what we’re doing here.
Dorothy peers upwards and examines the ceilings, the corners. “I guess they’ll see us going in. But they’ll think we’re doing something else.” She grimaces.
Nigel follows her sight-line, and sees cameras.
Dorothy shrugs. “They’re not usually paying attention.” She opens the door to the single stall restroom. “Get it. This is about sabotage.”
He gets in. She shuts and locks the door. Nigel nervously blabbers, but doesn’t say anything coherent.
Dorothy quiets him. “So here’s the thing: I was stuck for twenty minutes staring at one of those mirrors. I also have been seeing a lot of weird shit lately. Might this sleuthing you mentioned somehow be related to that feeling that things around us are... wrong.
Nigel: Yes.
Dorothy thinks. A tension grips her chest. She wants to faint, or vomit, or just disappear somehow. Finally, she says, “Arthur and I need to get out of our apartment, we need a real place to live. I’m not sleeping. How can I tell if this weird shit is due to lack of sleep or not, you know?”
Nigel hesitates. “Well, I did have… an idea. But… I don’t think you’ll like it much.”
Dorothy: Yeah?
Nigel nods. “Have you heard of SmartHouse tech?”
Titlecard: Thursday
Mary lays in the jungle room, not sleeping. She stars up a Uel, who smiles at her, dangling his long, skinny, bone white fingers. Mary giggles.
Elsewhere in the house, Alice and Luna examine a wall for mold, and smell the air. They are mid-conversation.
Alice: There’s a smell, but I think it’s getting fainter.
Luna, not paying a lot of attention to the wall, fiddles absently with a hangnail. “So, let me get this straight: Arthur thinks Uel is real?”[18]
Alice (as they go upstairs): Arthur thinks he may be somebody fucking with Max, somebody off his meds or like having mental problems. But get this, according to Max, Uel won’t speak with him right now, not directly, and that’s why he’s writing notes to Max. Because he’s mad at Max for not eating the mold. He’s angry because mom and dad got rid of the mold after everyone got sick. Uel is. So if there’s a real Uel, there’s also an imagined Uel.
Luna: But the note was by the three boys?
They are on the landing.[19]
Alice: According to Max, those boys delivered it from Uel, but Uel wrote it. Obviously the three boys did all this though. We’ve all seen how Uel writes and he doesn’t write like this.
Alice displays a legible note detailing how Max should punish himself.
Into the crooked hallway.
Alice: Max admitted to Arthur that those three fucks were intimidating him with hockey sticks. I was supposed to stay in there in the dark until Uel came to forgive me. That is what my son said. It smells worse if we go this way. The guest room maybe?
Luna: How’s Max doing? And Arthur?
Alice: Because he knows I’m bad. That’s what Max says. About Uel. He knows I’m bad.
They enter the guest bedroom. The room is bare, no furniture, a broom, some boxes, no curtains, a dustpan.
Behind them, through the open door of the guest room, the door to the jungle nursery is wide open. The jungle nursery is dark, but light spills into the guest room, through windows.
Uel exits the nursery, stage left, where there is no exit. No one sees.
Alice (sniffing walls): Arthur, wisely, nipped that. No, he told Max. No, it’s because those kids are scared of you, and so they’re being mean to you, scared of you because you’re smarter and more creative, blah blah blah. It’s common but shouldn’t be. I went through it too. And so on. So forth.
Luna: Sure. But what Max did on Halloween… might be evidence that this is a little worse. I don’t see any mold, but this room definitely smells.
Alice: He’s punishing himself. What about here, the fireplace? What does that say about me as a mother? That I’ve taught him to punish himself like this? Do you smell? Burning coal?
Luna: It’s odd. But… so… did Arthur see Uel?
Alice: Maybe it’s more in the corner than the fireplace? Dorothy and Arthur both saw Uel. That’s what Max says Arthur says. But Arthur says he didn’t quite say that, and has been slightly misunderstood in a way that he’ll need to be sure to sort out with Max later. That’s what Arthur says.
Momentarily, Alice becomes distracted. “Then, get this, Arthur was taking my son home in an Overture, and it ran like a dozen red lights. If traffic cameras caught the car, we’re gonna get ticked for it on our Overture account. Like, they pay the fines from the ticket, but we get ticked. Our account gets ticked and they end up charging us in the long run way more because our rates go up. Does it smell worse above us?
Luna (with hesitance): No. It’s the fire place.
Alice frowns and examines the hearth, then sticks her whole body into the fireplace to inspect.
Alice: There better not be anything wrong with this room. I mean, is this a fucking curse?
Luna, wary: It doesn’t smell like mold.
Alice finds a small hidden door.
They open, and enter a narrow tunnel. Phone flashlights turn on.
They walk through with backs bent, moving like crooked crabs, heads still scraping the cobwebbed ceiling. Alice scowls.
Alice: Fuck. There better not be some surplus colony of molds growing in secret nooks in all the walls.
Luna: Did you know about this… secret nook?
The light from their phones drapes over a rotting human corpse.
She is one of the moms from the party. She lies in a decomposing fetal curl, fungal growths emerging in beautiful rainbow spirals and fractal swirls. The face is still there, looking up at Alice, eyes open, mouth gone, behind it no more brain, and only some skull.
Alice screams and throws the phone at it.
The body disintegrates.
Titlecard: Friday
At their apartment, Arthur chops a red onion. Dorothy builds a miniature world on her phone. The citizens of Panopolis walk the tree-lined streets. There are no cars. Arthur chops garlic.
Outside, people scream: bicyclist nearly downed by motorist; motorist is surprised bicyclist is angry; motorist is angry.
Arthur does not chop off his finger.
Dorothy collects money from tiny houses and purchases a clocktower, though her city is hardly medieval.
They sit at the dinner table and eat tacos.
Outside: a neighbor, on the stoop, plays music loudly; another neighbor dislikes not the volume, but the music itself, and makes a snide comment; the music listener is enraged.
Arthur and Dorothy listen to a sitcom playing on the computer screen: She’s A Bad Mother (only on the Mag.us streaming platform).
Their eyes are elsewhere. Arthur draws a cryptic, familiar message. He can’t look away from it. Dorothy plays her game. She can’t look away from it either, can’t stop collecting shovels, can’t stop terraforming untamed land. The citizens of her world want more from her.
A commercial for a new apartment complex begins. They do not look up to see that, in the footage, a youthful couple enjoys a spacious highrise apartment. The screen glitches, and for a moment, the youthful couple look terrified.
Arthur and Dorothy can’t sleep.
Outside, drunks sing a cappella.
The rock has returned to the altar.[20]
Notes for 1.6
[1] We’ll talk about actor Tarfaan Malik in later reviews and say here only that before this show, he was a struggling stand up comic in Tacoma, and now, after the show (though there’s talk of reboot) he’s a struggling stand up in Pittsburgh. Also: eagle-eyed viewers will know from previous episodes that HQ1 is in Tucson, and HQ3 is in Brooklyn.
[2] Not just pornographic, but a little bizarre. Some example titles: the vaguely bestial vaguely mafia-themed Horse Head, the kink friendly comic book parody Just Us League, a bdsm rag focused primarily on penis thwacking titled Thwacking, another porno comic (this one using photographs that resemble film stills) titled My Scene, and a furry torture porno called Slaughterhouse Mine that is, in this reviewer’s opinion, the pinnacle of the genre, really a phenomenal work of art. All of these pornos are real, not invented for the show.
[3] Of those real and legal pornos shown, none of them were even vaguely pedophilic, though perhaps an animated comic-book style seems, to some people, inherently designed for children, thus suggesting pedophilic intent. But, as we know, many adults read comic books, and comic books are, arguably, now marketed more to adults than children. Plus: there is a long and beautiful history of erotic graphic literature, dating back hundreds if not thousands of years.
[4] A decent slogan I guess.
[5] Though I don’t know of any attempts at unionization, this is otherwise a semi-parody of the AV Club website. Before Ghost Story, the creator gave us Luna, a little seen show that aired on, for some reason, the Golf Channel (likely an attempt to expand their brand). Though Luna pinged almost no one’s radar, the AV Club reviewed every episode with notable inconsistency (shall we say), to such an extent that the show writers openly wondered if the reviewer watched a different show entirely. For example, the third act of the third episode, “Hilary in Wackyland” is animated, symbolizing the cognitive rift created when Hilary stops taking her medication. Yet there is no mention of this shift in style (though it’s obvious, notable, integral to the plot, and thematically important), and the reviewer criticizes the “choices” of the final act wherein the behavior of everyone “suddenly becomes cartoonish and unrealistic,” as if that wasn’t, you know, the point. This was in the early to mid 20-teens, before the AV Club switched to outsourcing their reviews to a literary sweatshop secreted away into Brooklyn or Vancouver or somewhere.
[6] He states, “Sometimes, doing this job, I go into a fugue state where I don’t know what is real and what is not. I think this is a dissociative state similar to when someone is abused, how they kind of leave the body, separate from themselves in order to live through pain. Maybe it’s as if the author of my life has two different ideas for who I am. Insofar as I’m the author of my own life, well, I’ve kinda split myself in half.” Mary responds, “That bad, huh?” He answers, “It’s like being water boarded.”
[7] In the credits, this woman is known as “Caren With a C,” and she is voiced by highly-regarded children’s cartoon voice over artist Penelope Artemis Cleveland, most well know for voicing the sentient drawbridge in the automobile themed animated adventure, Training Wheels (sponsored by Motorola, based on the popular toy-car brand for toddlers also by Motorola). She voiced the anarchic dodo in Luna too.
[8] At first, this is definitely an act, a character Yeraz seems to spontaneously — but knowingly — create. But very quickly, the role takes over, and as it does so, it devolves into the purely demonic. Though this may still be an act, that seems unlikely, and it appears like a possession.
[9] The episode is unusually structured, split into a few almost self-contained (but not quite) vignettes. There is, first, the cold open. Then, after brief expositional placement setting, (with Max, Alice, Nigel, Arthur, regarding the guest house), we enter Vignette One, Nigel’s encounter with Confucius, his unusual, eccentric, vaguely intimidating supervisor. Vignette Two (taking place the next day) involves Arthur and Vice Principal Poe searching for Max at the school. Vignette Three (Wednesday) takes place at the museum, with Nigel and Dorothy. Vignette Four (Thursday) has Alice and Luna searching for an odd smell. The episode ends on Friday, with a little more expositional place-setting regarding the guest house, yet again. An after-credit’s scene (also a first for the program) shows Nigel with Confucius again. Confucius claps and dances while Nigel sits and looks onward, blankly. There’s a clear plot through-line here, with Nigel slowing finding a (relatively inadequate) solution to the guest house problem, but the manner in which this occurs seems of little importance to the creators of the story. Furthermore, Arthur and Alice’s stories don’t exactly relate to the primary narrative thrust, and feel purposely out of place. The episode is also lopsided, with most everything taking place on Monday (a little less than half the running length). Finally, the episode ends with a brief coda, mirroring the cold open, wherein Yeraz (as we will see, I know I’m jumping the gun here) uses the Et Cetera search engine to type “memory loss caused by telephonic demonic possession.”
[10] Why they need to change rooms to have this conversation is beyond me, but perhaps Nigel just wants to be closer to the side (or back?) door, to get to the garage and his car quickly, even though, in the grand scheme, this saves him no time at all. We all die regardless of how quickly we move. Maybe Nigel thought, accurately, that the kitchen was Arthur’s favorite room in this weird house. Why, then, Arthur was even in the parlor is mysterious. The show is becoming increasingly dreamlike in its mince of scenes.
[11] Nigel speaks to Arthur as if Arthur were a housewife from the 1950s, and Nigel a comparatively forward thinking but still deeply patriarchal husband.
[12] It appears from this that Nigel exits from the front door, into the front garden, even though the previous scene ended with him clearly using the back kitchen door that leads to the garage (which is where? in relation to the house?), suggesting that either this scene occurs at an entirely different time, maybe even different day (though that can’t be, considering the weekday structure, and considering that temporally, these scenes are clearly and almost inescapably and necessarily sequential), or the house is shapeshifting. (Another option: it could be bad filmmaking, with little attention paid towards continuity. Witness the manner in which people’s socks change from scene to scene.)
[13] Confucius is played by 90s martial arts star Jonny Chen. More on Chen in later reviews.
[14] “Some people like to use those images for other purposes. Some people [redacted]. They video tape themselves [redacted]. So, it’s child pornography, but also, the pictures themselves [redacted]. These are bodies punished in ways rare and extraordinarily cruel, to the point where a certain alienation and revulsion kicks in, for most of us, I think, when we see such images. We are rightfully disgusted, but the weird—honestly, faulty—human wiring that turns disgust into lust is really… The point is, these images are out there, and kind of have everything horrible wrapped up within them, especially if there’s hate speech on the walls or overlaid as audio, which there often is, as if this depravity is total, as if you’re dealing with actual evil. And so, what you see when you look into this mirror is absolute evil, and it will traumatize you. Or perhaps, even slightly worse, some little kids will see their face [redacted] and like it, wants to see that [redacted] on other people, desperately.
[15] Confucius: I think we need to face the pudding. Regardless of what you or I think, these technologies are coming, and they will radically transform our lives. We’re talking about inevitability. How we feel about this is irrelevant.
Nigel: If we all decide that it’s not worth the energy required to create it (which it isn’t) or that it is a threat to our society in some tangible way (which it is), then I think we could very easily make sure it’s not here to stay. How we feel about it is all that matters. What you mean, I think, is that it doesn’t matter what the detractors think, because the proponents run the show, and will make sure that it’s here to stay, regardless of consequences, because they operate in a fundamentally authoritarian manner (and are also kinda stupid). Even that sentiment is wrong, I think. The energy usage required for this sort of computing power will, eventually, tax an already overburdened system. We’ll be forced to decide what we want to use electricity for. Medical equipment? Very very basic infrastructure? And we’ll be forced to decide what we don’t need to use it for. The Internet? Endless buzzing gizmos and gadgets? We think we’ve built important castles here, but… this will soon all be nothing. End prophecy.
[16] Also in this room: dozens of half melted candles, a grandfather clock, shelves of jigsaw puzzles, a wooden horse, a mysterious tangle of barbed metal wire (real, and sharp, as Poe discovers), an old broken player piano, dead insects and small reptiles preserved in frames behind glass (including a tarantula, a scarab, a gecko, a viper, a monarch butterfly, a death’s head moth, and a praying mantis), a rickety rocking chair, many many wigs of various often unnatural colors, empty jars, a bag of salt, prop shackles, a grotesque devil mask, a plastic clown mask, an old saxophone, and a vase of dried flowers and weeds.
[17] This is notably idiosyncratic architecture, unlike anywhere else in the museum, vaguely Egyptian in feel. The sandstone and marble sculptures are all animals: a crocodile, a snake, a rabbit, a fawn, and a pair of wolves. This was one of the largest sets built for the first season of Ghost Story, and it appears in only this scene, for only a few seconds.
[18] “So let me get this straight,” is another well worn dialogic television troupe, used in a manner almost opposite to “You gotta come take a look at this.” SLMGTS is designed to dump exposition on the viewer verbally and quickly, rather than as a means to forward the plot visually.
[19] The paintings along the wall here are of the same animals seen on the grand staircase in the museum.
[20] This episode certainly embraces a brand of Lynchian inscrutability that drove a lot of people away. Good for them.
[21] I haven’t been feeling well lately and may need to have someone step in to continue with these reviews.