And the Rat Laughed - By Nava Semel Page 0,43

wallowing in dirt. I was never able to see its face.

When I woke, I instructed the REMaker to restore the colors, but the machine disobeyed me.

Night after night...

Always black.

Now there’s no need to send the REMaker in to be fixed.

Extra-hypnagogical thoughts pour out of me.

My insignificant research.

Ferreting through discards of history.

I’ve turned into the sum-total of this myth. Always a little girl, always a rat. Just not the Stefan.

Please, just not him. Explain to me, Stash, with all our technological advancement, why is it that the only gene we have not succeeded in correcting – the only one that has remained intact – is the gene of brutality?

Even if I wanted to, I would no longer be able to block the dream filtering through you and exploding the net.

Memory...

You don’t want

To know...

It isn’t part of the Anthropology of the Future project.

A never-ending cycle of murder, hatred and fears...

Your own clean future is my own filthy past.

Has my memory...

Been excised too...

When the Stefan climbs down

I bang my head and hope

There’s a child on the other side with a...

A recopied voice...

Where can I find my Remembearers?

Will they agree to Remembear for me?

I beam a recording of a rare theatrical performance from the twenties. The rat hardly stops laughing the whole time. The little girl returns to the pit to exterminate him. Before he dies, the rat asks why she is killing him, and the little girl answers: Laughter is not something that’s given out for nothing.

***

Laughter

Like crying.

A strange experience.

I sensed it only through...

Will I ever cry?

Or laugh?

A little girl gives birth to a rat. The Stefan offers her his flesh in a dish adorned with crosses. A little girl eats a rat. The Stefan eats a little girl.

I had not intended to beam this ancient horror film. Where did it come from? The entire system is collapsing and the dream is pouring out through the cracks. The audience in the theater is in an uproar.

There is no little girl.

There is no rat.

End of story.

I see people holding on to their stomachs, their faces contorted. It looks like pain...

But it’s...

I’ll unlog in a minute. With my very own hands, I’ll pull out the implachip.

K-0005275...

And it isn’t enough to be dead

Because even when I am dead

It won’t be over.

You’re in a frenzy, Stash. Every part of your body is fighting to get rid of the dream. All I have left is a tiny particle of time in which to entrust you with my discovery. Not only in your brain, but in your heart. In every single part of your body.

I won’t get another chance.

You’re my stowaway. Sooner or later you’ll wake up. I’m afraid of that split-second just before the final awakening. The realization. When you discover that the dream is not really yours. You won’t be able to bury Girl & Rat, and even though you decide to try...

You’ll have a tail too–

In the dark, which for you is light.

Who knows, maybe one of these days you’ll thank me for Girl & Rat. You may even pass it on to your offspring.

To be a parent.

If I were given that chance...

With my very own womb...

As soon as you regain consciousness, I’ll break through the electronic wall. I’ll set out into the unknown, holding my genetic card between my fingers. It was all I had when I came into this world, and it’s all I’ll have when I leave too.

Feel free to use this dream to prove to the mindnet authorities that you’ve done all you could to stop me from going on my crazy mission, and to absolve yourself of guilt.

Final separation. We won’t see each other again.

When we feel a longing for people, it doesn’t come from the brain ... I know now where it comes from.

Stash...

A name that I will keep retrieving myself towards again and again...

I will remember.

This promise I’ll keep.

Stash, my love, if only we could meet, body to body. Maybe some day you’ll see me in a spontaneous dream of your own making. You’ll follow me to No-Net-Land. Y-mee Prana is walking about, bodily. Her muscles, her tendons, her joints, her arms and legs. A womb. Internal organs that I’ve wandered through virtually so many times...

“Because in all your voyages you accompany yourself.” The implachip flashes the words of Socrates through the memory of Seneca.

Memory – a long convoy of amputees fighting for implants.

Children of the little girl, grandchildren of the little girl, children of the grandchildren...

Of the little girl.

All of the Stefans

Somewhere

Waiting for me too.

The Madonna of the