Errorby Ásgrímur Hartmannsson |
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| Chapter 2 |
One day, Jonas, who has recently migrated to the city, discovers that all his records — including his assets — have been erased somehow. No longer able to get work, buy anything on credit or sell his now legally non-existent car, his life becomes a unique adventure.
Jonas walked down the stairs and into the foyer to check his mail before he went out to the courtyard. The courtyard had trees in it. Jonas liked trees, especially in winter. Trees in autumn and spring, on the other hand, bothered him. The reason was that in autumn the leaves fell off and spread all over and would turn into worm-infested sludge if not swept away as they fell. In spring, a different kind of worm would appear, hanging all over from these invisible strings, only to be walked into. Then they would crawl around on one’s person, the way worms do.
Like most residents of Smoky Bay, Jonas did not care much for worms. You never know what a worm is thinking. If worms think at all, that is. A worm is just a small intestine surrounded with skin, a mouth on one end; a mouth with teeth. Worms eat stuff. Perhaps living stuff? Jonas did not know; worms just creeped him out.
Jonas walked to his car. It was an old Hyundai Accent. It had been cheap to buy; not the world’s greatest car, but it had a tendency to start. It is always better when a car starts. It was also cheap to fix when it did not start. In older cars, repair cost is a part of the annual running cost, and regardless of what people and auto-manufacturers might say, all cars break down about equally. So the thing to think about is how much it costs to repair.
As usual, the car started normally when Jonas turned the key. He put it in reverse, and backed out of his space.
He turned on the radio.
“Are you lost in the city of fear?” asked the voice on the radio.
Jonas grinned.
“Let us help you,” the voice continued.
“I’ll consider it,” said Jonas and tuned to another channel. He wanted to hear the news.
“... were killed in a suicide bombing yesterday. Officials say...”
The same old, same old; Jonas was willing to bet it was the Israel-Palestine quarrel again. 90% of the time it was the Israel-Palestine deal.
“... in Palestine has upset the ongoing peace-talks...”
Aha! I knew it! Jonas thought. He could not remember the world any other way than with Israelis and Palestinians blowing up and shooting each other. Peace in the Middle East would be to him as to many others: a sign of the End Times.
“... was put on line at midnight. The new system will render state control a lot simpler and easier, says the director of the Personal Information Protection Committee. All names and social security numbers have been entered into the database, where the information has been encrypted.”
Ah, that new computer thingamajig. It had been in the air for some months now. The thing would simplify the state’s job: to annoy the populace. Perhaps Jonas would finally get his taxes computed correctly for a change?
“... has cost one point five billion and is expected to pay for itself in just a year.”
All legal transactions were to be run through the database first. It would probably make credit-card transactions a bit more time-consuming for the first five or so years, or until technology caught up. After that the system would be made more complicated, to compensate.
All of this was to put a stop to crime, or so they said, and terrorism. Jonas and other equally cynical persons tended more towards thinking it was to keep an eye on the populace, to track their spending habits, to act accordingly to make them spend their money on something else. Like their taxes.
What if your credit-card got stolen by terrorists, to be used for nefarious purposes?
Jonas could see it in his mind: a group of men with AK-47’s and ski masks would barge in on him while he was watching TV and take his credit-card and use it to finance the cloning of Usama Bin Laden and, while they were at it, Hitler. Jonas guessed the cloning facility would offer a quantity discount, two for one, if they used the correct credit card.
“... and now, the weather.”
Jonas tuned to another channel. It was playing music: seventies and eighties rock. Good stuff to listen to while driving to work. Jonas figured that next time he would just skip the news in favour of classic rock. There was nothing on the news but government overspending and Israel-Palestine anyway.
It was still dark. In winter it is better to maneuver in the dark than it is in the light, at least on clear days. The reason is that the sun never gets any elevation during the winter; it skims the brim of the horizon, sending eye-burning rays at just the right angle to get through the front windshield, at best annoying the driver, at worst causing him to collide with oncoming traffic.
Also, the roads seemed to be constructed in such a manner as to get the best out of the sunlight: when driving to work, the sun will beam directly into your eyes, and when you are going home, sunlight will beam directly into your eyes. The ingenious nature of this construction had often caused Jonas much wonder. How did city planning always know the best way to make the road system into a sadistic torture device?
They were in league with the devil, he was sure of it.
Jonas arrived at his new workplace as the sun was coming up. He was on time; he looked around to make sure no vortexes were around to swallow him up before he locked his car and walked inside the building.
He unzipped his jacket as he came in, as it was quite warm. The place was very well lit and made his eyes hurt. Jonas looked around for the boss. He would have to finish a few formalities before he could start working; like knowing what to do and the basics of how to do it. But most importantly, signing in so he would get paid. Jonas believed, contrary to what some people say; that money is the most important thing in the world — right after air, food, and the ability to move.
After asking around a bit, he was finally directed toward the boss’ office. Jonas opened the door and walked in. The boss sat behind a desk and was just finishing talking with someone on the phone when Jonas arrived.
Jonas told him who he was and what he was doing, and the boss listened, then turned to his computer and hacked in some text. He sat in front of the computer, looking for something for a minute, before he asked Jonas his name.
Jonas answered the man. He gave his full name and address. The boss began looking and exploring on the computer again.
“Your social security number?” asked the boss, explaining: “Maybe we misspelled your name.”
Jonas told the man his number, and he hacked it in and looked for a time.
“Are you sure you were registered with us?” asked the boss.
“Yes. I came here in person two days ago,” said Jonas.
“I can’t find you anywhere on the computer,” said the man.
“There must be an error,” said Jonas, wrinkling his forehead.
The boss played around with the computer for a short while. “You aren’t even listed in the national archives,” he said.
Jonas raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure?” he asked.
“Yes. Quite sure,” said the boss.
“Does that mean I can’t start working?” asked Jonas.
“I am afraid so,” said the boss.
“Damn.”
Jonas walked out of the office and out of the building. He went to the shop across the street and borrowed a telephone directory. He had to have a talk with the people in charge of the national archives.
Jonas dialled the number given in the directory on his cell-phone. Nothing happened. He tried it again, rendering the same basic results: Nothing. He could not understand it; there had been nothing wrong with the phone yesterday. Bloody third-rate construct. Jonas pocketed the phone, and went to use a pay phone instead. He put in his credit card, and waited. The phone did not seem to like his card.
Jonas asked to borrow the store phone instead. The shop girl brought over an old wall-connected phone, and Jonas used it to call the archives.
He got referred to the bureau of Personal Information Protection. He told them about his problem, and was referred to person after person, until he was back talking to the one he started with. He did not get a shred of information. So he decided to go there and have a talk with them in person. He asked for their address.
He got the address, but also a warning that he would not get any more information out of them in person than over the phone. Jonas doubted that. He could prove that he was a person, and demand to be put in the archives. He could show them his credential, his visa-card, his drivers licence, his actual face.
Besides, he liked talking to actual living persons better than speaking to them on the phone. You do not entirely know how someone reacts to what you are saying unless you can see his face. And you can threaten them with violence.
Jonas doubted, however, that when he arrived on site, that there would be any living persons there, as the state seemed to hire only zombies for the lower-paying jobs. Higher-paying ones were reserved for family members or friends that were too stupid to make it on their own but not so much that they drooled.
With this in mind, visiting the bureau of Personal Information Protection seemed futile, but he had nothing better to do, being unemployed and all. He had to pay the rent somehow. And to do that, he needed a job; and in order to get a job, he needed a social security number, and to get one of those, he had to contact the bureau of Personal Information Protection.
Jonas walked out of the little shop and sat in his car. He turned the motor on, and the radio sprang to life. Disneyland After Dark was playing. Jonas backed the car out of the space, and was off to have a word with some bureaucrats. Not the way he would have wished to spend his day but the way he was going to spend it anyway, it seemed.
Of course the sun had come up, and of course Jonas found that the way to the bureau was directly into the sun. Joy.
The bureau of Personal Information Protection building was modern looking; that is, it was a grey, flat-roofed box, with some of the walls slanting inward for a type of upside-down pyramid look. It did not seem to have any right angles, only wrong ones. Jonas wondered if the architect had utilized non-Euclidean geometry for the design.
The building had one large window on the side Jonas saw when he drove up to it, and several small ones, like portholes. The far side was all glass, he knew, having seen the building on TV a few times. At least two traffic accidents had been reported that had been caused by glare from the windows on that side.
A single tree was in front of the building. It was probably an attempt at Feng-Shui, but it just made the setup look even more evil; the tree only served to emphasize how everything lacked life and colour. And to top it, the tree looked dead.
So evil did the building look that Jonas considered just going away. But he had come all this way. And not only that, he was sure that the punks inside were responsible for his current unemployment, and he wanted it rectified by something at least pretending to be in the flesh.
Jonas parked the car between a Land-Cruiser 90 and a Land-Cruiser 100, each on 38-inch tyres, and stopped the engine. He took a deep breath. The big Toyotas caused him to start thinking how much they cost their owners each month. By what he read in the ads, it was probably more than he bought his entire car for — monthly. They also used up more fuel than his car, at least triple, and this is factoring in that the Land-Cruisers were both diesel, and diesels are twice as fuel efficient.
Each tyre cost more than all the tyres under his car. Combined with the rims, they cost more than his car, plus running expenses for the year.
The thought made Jonas feel big. Show-offs always made him feel big. He got out of his little car, and walked into the bureau of Personal Information Protection building. When he passed the tree, he saw that it didn’t just look dead, it was dead.
Copyright © 2010 by Ásgrímur Hartmannsson
