Out shopping a couple of months ago, my wife and I came across a sinister item: a black T-shirt swirling with skulls and burning buildings, and bearing the baleful message CHICAGO: WHERE THE WEAK ARE KILLED AND EATEN.
It’s been a hard year for Stan and his family. He and his wife were once so compatible it was scary–they were both handsome, aglow with erotic energy, and ideologically committed to mathematics and technology as the only worthwhile fields of human endeavor. Recently, though, she’s lost her faith in her old rationalistic worldview. It happened after she became seriously ill–and her doctors were unable to offer a diagnosis or a cure. Since orthodox medicine was failing her, she began exploring alternatives. These days, she’s a passionate enthusiast for the occult theories of Rudolf Steiner.
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Stan is not an admirer of Rudolf Steiner. While his wife puzzles through texts teaching how to rise out of the evils of the material plane into a realm of pure spiritual essences, Stan devours cyberpunk science fiction, and spends the rest of his free time plugged into the Internet–where he and his nameless, locationless friends debate old TV shows, special-effects movies, and the imminent takeover by virtual reality. He despises his wife’s new friends: Steinerians who visit the house in the flesh and sit around in the living room discussing Steiner’s doctrine of child rearing–according to which video games, TV, and even literacy are banned in the name of the child’s unimpeded spiritual development. Stan refers to them as Luddites, out to smash the technology he cherishes. The atmosphere at home has become very tense.
Nadia was enchanted by Stan. She loved the Chicago T-shirt, which he had worn for the occasion; she was enraptured that he wanted to get a tattoo, and heartbroken that she had something else she had to do that afternoon and couldn’t come watch. I suddenly remembered her once telling me her theory that the more tattoos a guy has the sweeter he is in bed. And Stan, as it happens, is a handsome and charming man anyway, who flirts with any woman he sees.
After my wife went to bed, I asked Stan what he thought was going to happen.
