When Margaret Atwood isn’tquibblingover the definition of scientific discipline fiction , she ’s creating some of the most enchanting visions of the near future out there . And she ’s just put out a unexampled short novella , published as a Kindle Single , called “ I ’m Starved for You . ”
https://gizmodo.com/if-it-is-realistic-or-plausible-then-it-is-not-science-5847421
In this near - future dystopia , unemployment and crime in America have reach crisis level , and a radical solution has been give , send for “ Consilience . ” ( It ’s a combination of “ cons ” and “ resiliency . ” ) Basically , you agree to drop every other calendar month in prison house . For the off - months , you get free housing and a job , and you get to live in society as a fertile phallus .
In Atwood ’s novelette , a man named Stan find a promissory note behind the icebox , which was left there by one of the other the great unwashed who lives in the planetary house when he ’s in prison house . The promissory note , a passionate love letter from someone named Jasmine to someone named Max , is sealed with a kiss — and it trigger off Stan ’s repressed sexual desire in a way that could make him rebel against the organisation . Here ’s how it begin :
Stan launch the big fleeceable locker and stows away the clothes he ’s been have on : the shorts , the T - shirts , the jeans , the summertime stuff . He wo n’t be wear these clothes for a while : by the metre he get back here the hot weather will most probably be over and he ’ll be into the fleece pullovers . He wo n’t have to do so much lawn maintenance then , which is a plus . Though the lawn will be a wreck . Some guys have no feeling for lawn , they take them for granted , they lease them mat up and dry out out and then the yellow-bellied ants get into them and it assume a circumstances of work to bring them back . If he were here all the meter he could keep the lawn in peak shape . As it is , he ’s constantly in repair mode .
His clothes are all washed and neatly turn up : married woman , Charmaine , did the laundry last affair , before she set off on her scoter for the charwoman ’s wing at Positron . In recent months he ’s been leaving the theatre after she does , so he ’s been the one doing the final chip : no bath ring , no orphan sock , no ends of liquid ecstasy or wispy gatherings of shed hair on the floor . When they retum on the first day of every second calendar month , Stan and Charmaine find the house pristine , spotless , hinting of lemon - scented cleaning products and without a trace of late occupation - and they like to leave it that way .
Though it has n’t been spotless every time . Three month ago Stan find a close promissory note : the corner was gravel out from under the refrigerator . It must originally have been bond with the silver fridge attracter in the shape of a duck’s egg , the same one Charmaine use to post shopping reminders . Despite the stern Consilience tabu against contact of any sort with Alternates , he register the greenback immediately . It was typed and printed , but it was still shockingly intimate :
Darling Max , I can hardly wait till next prison term . I ‘ m starve for you ! I need you so much . XXO0 and you know what
more - Jasmine .
There was a lip rouge kiss : hot garden pink . No , darker : some lcind of purple . Not violet , not mauve , not maroon . He riffled through his headland , trying to recall the names of the people of color on the paint chips and fabric swatches Charmaine pass so much fourth dimension grizzle over . He ’d annul it to his olfactory organ , breathe in : still a feeble perfume , like cherry house of cards gum .
Read the restover at Amazon.[viaDaily Texan Online ]
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