There is a new way of pressing people.

It's the kind that's done out in the open, with everyone around you, aware of you, sharing a public space with you.

This new way calls itself sophisticated. This new way calls itself advanced.

I detest this new way, not just because it represents a threat to my own practice and my own vocation.

I detest it because it is so smug and self-assured of its own success.

The worst thing is when someone comes along and tells you this is the new way and they haven't even fact-checked, they haven't even quality assured their own work.

That is what this new way of pressing means to me.

Which is why staring into the sun-flare eyes of this new breed of torturer is so unpleasant.

We’re in the stacks. The other place where all the bodies go. It’s not directly connected to the corridors, there was a small surfacing to the street level that we had to make for a couple blocks, winding our way through the bodies. The endless torrent of lives, marked by how unremarkable they all are. Faceless nameless aimless brainless degradations of social graces my brain sings, the see-saw lilt of the song doing double-duty as a mantra.

I would group this Faraday Phelps in that classification, but I’m not stupid.

I’ve read the Art of War. I know my Napoleon. I understand the game.

You never underestimate the enemy. And Phelps is an enemy, make no mistake.

“It starts with a silent takeover of someone’s socials,” Phelps says, turning to his flydeck. Among the impossible, endless stacks there is this dais, a rounded interruption protruding up a couple meters from the plate glass floors. Here, surrounded by fields of white ceramic, ivory plastic, and frosted glass, there is only one thing that doesn’t reach the looming ceiling that still sits high as the fulfilment centres.

Eddie asked for a demonstration and run through of the new method, and Phelps is happily obliging. Though the only way you could tell he’s happy is because his already manic owl eyes with the impossible sky blue bursting out of milky rounds are just slightly more open. He turns to us, wielding the welder-torch orbs in his skull, only slightly jutting out of their sockets.

“If they have a pixie, that becomes ours to use,” he adds, and I notice the bottom of his right eye is starting to water. Then I realize he hasn’t blinked since we arrived: not through Eddie’s introductions, not through my own brief hello, not even when Eddie clapped him on the shoulder. While his lips are slightly parted, I can make out from jagged teeth hiding under them. So clearly not a Destiny dropout then, I mentally note.

“How often is that?” Eddie asks. Phelps still isn’t blinking, and it’s driving me nuts that it’s making my own eyes water. Even as I’m trying to keep my eyes open, I can feel my own eyes begin to burn.

“Surprisingly common,” Phelps says. He grabs a small bottle off the alabaster desk next to him without breaking eye contact as he continues, “This new way is designed for those who are strictly no-touch.”

I feel my pulse quicken at the unspoken implication of my own recent failure in contrast to this detail. Is Eddie suggesting something here? Does he really expect me to walk this path? I finally blink, overcome by the burning in my eyes, the subtext of this interaction I can’t wait to see the back of, and the hatred I’ve been stewing over ever since I set eyes on this creepy fuck. I help rub the burn from my eyes with the knuckles of my hand.

When I open them again, I see both Eddie and Phelps are looking at me, regarding me. As my eyes come into focus, Eddie looks back at Phelps.

Who is staring at me. It’s like looking at the sun. I’m almost convinced there’ll be light trails in my eyes the minute I look away from him.

Then he tips the small bottle over his eyeballs, and I realize they’re liquid tears he’s dropping into them. He comes back down, returns my stare with his.

The tears run slim channels down his face.

He doesn’t blink.

Eddie asks him something but I’m not paying attention, haven’t been ever since I got caught in our little staredown a moment ago.

We’re locked in now, and I realize that as the seconds pass, we are getting further embroiled into something far more hostile.

It’s primal, the eyes. The staring we do is a trademark of our lineage. It’s also something we’ve known how to use for thousands of years.

At least the Chinese have. The Huangdi Neijing is the oldest medical text in Chinese history, melting anatomy, climate, psychology, cosmology, and pathology into a single worldview. The eyes were either passive, or they could become physical outlets where Qi (energy) and Shen (intent) could be wielded.

Yet despite all my reading on medical history, I’m still not sure how the fuck this guy is overriding his ocular stimuli. It must be maddening. I know I’m feeling rage like you wouldn’t believe.

Then Eddie says my name, and we finally have an excuse to break this. At least that’s what I expect, but I notice to my further rage that this shitstain keeps his eyes locked on me for just a moment longer before he turns to Eddie. It’s got me so that I’m looking pissed by the time I look at Eddie.

Eddie’s face is just slightly set, but the effect is remarkable. I’ve only seen that look before some true violence has emerged, and I’m already losing my footing.

“Sorry, I-” I start to offer, but he cuts me off, harsher than I’m used to, and it’s almost like he’s annoyed I apologized on top of eye-fucking another of his proteges.

“I said I was wondering if you had any questions before we started the demonstration,” he says.

I shake my head, and at that Phelps turns, stiffly.

Eddie is pissed.

“Is that a no?” he asks, danger in the decibels.

“No!” I continue. And then I’m over explaining and within moments Eddie’s waving his hand, like you would with a petulant child. And I swear it’s like I never even went to those courses all those years ago, the same ones I was taking shortly before I met Eddie.

As we settle in for a demonstration, my mind wanders to the day this all started, when everything was taken away.

No. No fucking way am I going over that.

It’s bad enough watching this demonstration take place.

∴ If this newsletter has done anything for you, it would mean everything to me to hear it. Hit reply and tell me what you think. One sentence is enough. Regardless, thank you for reading. Thank you for reading in an age of increasing illiteracy, cultural stagnancy, and attention divestment. You are doing something revolutionary. ∴

You're reading Verse & Vision — V13’s literary newsletter.

If you like this, maybe you’ll like our other newsletters: