writing about the future Tane

Well, you can tell me about those future things and I can write...for you.

‘I can’t tell you everything.’

Do you know where is Tane?

‘I know. I would write it out. Then you’ll know.’

Can’t you tell me now?

‘I’m not your private prophet.’

How can I know you’re are creating something out?

‘You can check it out. But then it costs you efforts and lots of time. Do you really need to know where a person is? As long as you know he/she is alive and well, there’s no need to ask more or know more.’

I grew speechless.

X X X X X

‘This is the future me, the future version of Gt, writing.’

Tane met his father in England, only to know his mother died earlier. He felt sad and could not bear to stay in her house. He left for home. Then he recalled Gt telling him Cancer is at times a wanderer, so he started to do so. Just one try and he believed in it.

He wandered in the old Western legacy as a foreigner. Tane did not mind his father or others blaming him for wandering around, from his mother’s homeland to elsewhere. He did not mind losing contact with his friends or Gt or CoDa.

There have been so many souls wandering and drifting on this piece of continent ever since human history, what am I to resist if I am already here? He thought. Gt would know.

Dual identity saying: I know, but 21st century Gt doesn’t, not in the beginning. Until now.

the future Gt is writing about the present Gt

X X X X X

How can I switch to the future me to write?

It is a result of a conversation between me and the future me, alias ex- /internal
mono- /dialogue. I requested the talking be recorded as physical evidence of I wasn’t talking to myself, and the future me agreed. But then it was me who finally decided not to record and show it to others. If people define this as monologue, so be it. Maybe it would be easier for them.

I ask: how can you replace me as the present me in writing ?

‘If I can talk to you in this way, why not? The important thing is whether you believe I’m the future you, or, whether I believe you’re the historical me.’

Seemed puzzled. If you’re real, what you write about is real, does it pose any threat to anyone in this world?

‘Shouldn’t be. As I know something about the past, I try to avoid bad consequences. But then it may change something.’

Like what?

‘Your consciousness, in the first place. I am seeking to synchronize with you across time and space. You would know something about the near future, but you’re not allowed to change it, otherwise it may cause damage to others and yourself. And I’ll try my best to stop you and constrain your efforts.’

Why should I let you write for me?

‘Because you decide it.’

What if I don’t approve.

‘I won’t do it. But since you’re me, I know something about you, and I believe you would decide to let me write for you.’

CoDa, Tane, and me

I turned round and saw Tane outside the window glass. He came in, holding three cups, smiling to meet us.

‘Long time no see.’ I smiled, ‘You look grown up a bit.’

He handed us each a cup of coffee. ‘Yeah... My father went to Europe. I joined him later, then back in a month’s time.’

‘Good.’ I said, taking a sip. The coffee smelt good.

Tane looked around, caught sight of a larger drawing up high on the wall.

‘That’s a new one.’ CoDa said in a coffee-warmed tone.

‘Do you need another disc?’ He asked.

‘Cool. Why not. Maybe it works again.’

‘How’s your school?’ I asked Tane.

‘I finish all the course works earlier. In the coming school year I’ll jump up two levels.’

‘Bravo.’ CoDa seemed to say it for me.

Tane asked, ‘I read your book. The part on the future you, is it true?’

‘Don’t believe what a fiction writer says.’

‘A writer like him, even so.’ CoDa said.

We both smiled at her. She looked at us, with a strange look on her face.

I asked, ‘What?’

‘...Hard to say. You two looked alike, in the line.’

We talked for a short while at that time. I thought I can leave something to talk with Tane afterwards, so I had not talked much. But after Tane left for Europe, he seemed disappeared. Only a few emails in the beginning, then lost. I guessed he was in Europe, somewhere. I thought we could talk again, but no. I had lost his contact.

Gt met Tane again

Soon the robot was gone, but the harm was done. CoDa had less customers. She resorted to drawing at shop to spend the time. Called me on occasion.

‘Want to meet Tane?’ She said in the cell phone.

‘He’s at your shop now?’

‘Believe or not.’

‘Er, I guess I’d better not see him.’ I hesitated.

‘He said his father was not here. His work at the company is over. That’s a go. Come.’ She hanged up.

I went to her shop. But Tane was not there. I felt disappointed. ‘Gone?’

‘Yeah,’ She looked at me, ‘for a drink.’ Then eyed at outside.

x-world-deform art into 3D robot

It was odd, still is, that someone used CoDa’s x-world-deform art to form the most disgusting robot ever made. It did not resemble human, just a big metallic box. Its front abdomen was transparent, where organs could be seen. It was like one of CoDa’s drawing framed inside the robot, only that it was 3D. First it was only on posters, than a real object standing in the other shop’s car park, sometimes walking around.

Strangely, just by moving around, looking stupid, with CoDa’s drawing into 3D realia, what was originally graphic art tolerable, now becoming sick. People were aware of it. They visited less and gradually disappeared. Yes, a short-lasting vogue only. After the heat was over, people abandoned it and sought for new obsession.

Later, news reported that there was a suspect of commercial spy, leaking information of intelligence design of a high-tech research agent nearby. Tane’s father worked there. Investigation said the suspect was under stress and used some original design from his workplace to make a robot, and mixed with CoDa’s art. He was so excited that when someone let him play the robot, he forgot everything and moved it in the open, near CoDa’s shop.

Tane and CoDa in a cool arena

One day CoDa called me, said someone named Tane came and gave her a music CD. When she played the music along with the projector visual, the effect was good. It seemed music worked. I came to the shop and saw that a new coffee shop and a bar had opened nearby just within these two weeks. In the night they did the same to project images into the open air and play music outside the shops, in the public area, to form a cool arena.

CoDa tried to set a time clock to the projector. Even when the shop was closed, at intervals her expressionistic art shone through the window glass to mix with those in the public arena into a strange kind of beauty landscape. People loved it. And after nights of feeding on the visual of CoDa’s artistic tees, they came back to get one.

CoDa was ‘happppy’, and thanked me because Tane the musician said he was a friend of mine. Yeah. I told CoDa if she ever met Tane again, told him that I missed him and wished him success.

Finally, one day she said Tane came again. She had spread the words. She told me that the boy was in the midst of her arts and tees, once seemed like lost, but then smiling, bewildered in a world of strange acquaintance, went out to the cafe to buy something to drink, sitting on roadside, waiting to see passers-by. Then left.

steel-frame robot model posures, projected as urban mirage

‘To show the frame has life, the first thing is we believe in it. After all these years of robotics, in comics, movies, we can finally make it credible that such a stupid frame can have life. With imagination, it can live. Only that others use working robots, and we make this frame as one.’

‘How, sci-cho reductionism ?’

‘If you can think them out,’ I pointed at the drawings on the wall, ‘you can do a frame.’

Not long after, we found a movable steel frame from a second-hand recycle shop, made it look like a shadow robot or robot shadow. CoDa put the tee on it, and changed the apparel frequently. Then we found a projector, casting the different postures with different tees onto the street so that when cars drove by, they saw something always changing on the road, a virtual robot model. And it became a kind of urban mirage.

It worked. More and more people dropped by, ending up buying something. Of course the customers were not as many as the competitor shop, but CoDa was already contented with the community. She called me pal.

The competitor shop got back at us with costly investment. It used a real robot to wear a tee, selling the brand. CoDa was once discouraged, though not yielding. She used the idle time to draw at the shop, and started to work on big canvass.