I’m Starved for You (Short Story) by Margaret Atwood

Author:Margaret Atwood [Atwood, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction - Futuristic, Fiction - Drama, Short Stories
ISBN: 9781614520252
Publisher: Byliner Inc.
Published: 2012-01-09T16:00:00+00:00

Stan clocks in at Positron, takes a shower, changes into the boiler suit, lines up for the routine haircut. They like to preserve an appearance of authenticity at Positron, though the shorn look for convicts is archaic—it belongs with the head lice of olden times—and they no longer do the full buzz: just short enough so that when it’s time to leave again the hair’s a respectable civilian length.

“Have a good month?” asks the barber, whose name is Clint. That’s what it says on the tag, and that’s how Stan knows him. Clint has a big T on his front because he’s playing the part of a Trusty. He’s not one of the original criminals: you’d never let a dangerous offender anywhere near those scissors and razors. Outside, when he’s a civilian, Clint does tree pruning. Before he came to Consilience he was an actuary, but he’d lost that job to a computer.

It’s a familiar story, though nobody talks much about what they were before Consilience. Backward glances are not encouraged. Stan himself doesn’t dwell on his insurance-claims interlude, back when people thought they could sidestep their debts by setting fire to things. When that caved in, he’d leapt from job to job as businesses collapsed in his wake. He’d skip-traced, delivered parcels, driven taxis, with Charmaine assuring him that something better would turn up soon. They were both unemployed, though him more so, when the Consilience opportunity turned up. It was, as they said, a way forward.

Clint must have learned the barbering inside: they’d all had to apprentice, in order to gain a practical skill that would be of use inside Positron.

“Yeah, good month, can’t complain,” says Stan. “You?”

“Terrific,” says Clint. “Did a little work on my house. Went to the committee, got permission, painted the kitchen. Primrose yellow, gave the place a lift. Northern exposure. Wife was pleased.”

“What’s she do, inside?” Stan asks.

“Works in the hospital. Surgeon,” says Clint. “Heart, mostly. Yours?”

“Hospital too, Chief Medical Administrator,” says Stan. He feels a twinge of pride in Charmaine: despite her pink locker, she’s no airhead. It’s a serious position, it comes with power. You need to be dependable, you need to be upbeat; also stable, and not given to moping.

“Must be a tough job sometimes,” says Clint.

“Was at first,” says Stan. “Got to her a bit. Things are getting weeded out more, now.”

“You’d need a cool head,” says Clint. “Not sentimental.”

This calls for no more than a yup. Clint decides on a tactful, snippety-snipping silence, which is fine with Stan. He wants to concentrate on Jasmine, Jasmine of the fuchsia kiss.

He closes his eyes, sees himself as one of those dorky video-game hero princes of his childhood, slashing his questing way through swamps full of tentacled maneating plants, annihilating giant leeches, hacking through the poison brambles to the iron castle where Jasmine lies asleep, guarded by a dragon, the dragon of Max. Shortly to be awakened by a kiss, the kiss of Stan. Trouble is she’s already awake, she’s super awake, having sex with the dragon.

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