HTBAUTDFA, Part 2: Meeting Mother Monica
It's always Tuesday in the cyclical quantum superposition of post-urban monotony.
Somehow 69% of you opened my last email with the first chapter of How To Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart, in which a socially-awkward-but-trying-too-hard FinanceBro repeatedly shoots himself in the foot over his obsession with 9/11 chemtrails. So now we’re back with Chapters Two, which introduces another member of the addiction support group for conspiracy theorists at the center of our story. I’ll be honest, this character ended up being one my favorite parts of the book; sometimes I’ve been tempted to throw out the other 80,000+ words in the book and just write a whole new novel about poor sweet Monica Lund. Fiction is weird, y’all. (If you want longer sections in each of these emails though, let me know,)
But first! Some quick business! My new podcast History Listen has finally been released on Audible! The whole show is basically a dramatic history of rock & roll, narrated by St. freakin’ Vincent (!!). I wrote the script for episode six, which focuses on Southern Rock — not quite what you’d expect from me, but I still had a blast with it. My buddy Bob Proehl wrote all the good ones though.
Speaking of music: I’m wrapping up work on Forfocséic, Vol. 3 — Love & War, the third album in my Irish folk music series. More details on that to come. Also, my rock band the Roland High Life is playing at Charlie’s Kitchen in Harvard Square next month; then in March, we’re back at the Midway Cafe, followed by our re-scheduled show at the Silhouette in Allston. Related: if anyone knows of any bars in the Boston area that want Irish music for St. Patrick’s Day this year, hit me up!
Okay, now on with the fiction:
Background Interview #47: Monica Lund (Transcript)
Name?
Monica Hansen. Lund. Monica Hansen-Lund, legally.
Okay. Occupation?
Homemaker. Physicist.
Both?
Well, I was trained as a physicist, though. And I still work part-time up on Prospect Hill -- but, well, it's a transition. Homemaking is more of my priority. Right now, anyway. Shan is...it's a lot of work, is all, but that's the work I focus on right now.
I understand. Moving on, have you ever been formally diagnosed with or sought treatment for a mental disorder?
Yes. Postpartum depression. Does that count, or...?
Sure. I'll put that down. Have you ever been formally diagnosed with or sought treatment for brain damage?
Oh! Um, I guess maybe postpartum should have gone into that category? Technically? I mean, in a way, it's --
It's fine. I have it down. It's more about making sure we have all the background that we need, not necessarily that it's...it's fine. Next question, Missus Lund --
Miz Lund. Please.
...
...
Sorry, I was waiting for you to do that "Missus Lund is my mother" thing or something.
Why?
I don't know, I just figured that, um. Anyway. Are you now or have you ever been prescribed to use a psychiatric or psychoactive medication?
I've taken antidepressants in the past. A few other things. Xanax. Lithium. Thorazine. I was on Luvox for a while, but that, um. That was bad. Klonopin. Zyprexa. Some form of benzamide as well.
Are you on any of those medications right now?
I am not.
How long has it been since you've taken any of those medications?
Two years, I think?
Okay. And have you ever used psychiatric medication recreationally?
Like, for fun? No, absolutely not. That's a terrible idea.
What about other recreational drugs?
Oh, sure.
Like what?
I was cool once. Smoked plenty of dope when I was younger. A few other things here and there. But nothing too intense. Nothing out of the ordinary for any crunchy twenty-something.
Have you ever taken LSD or any other psychedelic or hallucinogenic drug such as ayahuasca?
Oh, yeah, of course.
What have you taken?
I dropped some acid in my day.
More than once?
I'd say a few times, yes.
Have you ever had a bad trip, or overdosed, or...?
Yes.
Which?
I've had some bad trips.
From the acid?
Yes.
Do you still get flashbacks?
Not in a long time I haven't, no.
Thank you, Ms. Lund. Have you ever sought treatment for addiction to chemical substances such as alcohol or drugs?
No.
Do you have any family history of mental illness or substance abuse?
I think so, yes.
You think so?
It's hard to say with my parents -- it was different times, different diagnoses, but -- if I had to make an unofficial diagnosis, not as a professional obviously, but looking back, I would say that my father had some mixed affective states, and some other comorbidities.
I see you have your terminology down anyway.
Well, I try to stay informed. Also my son has autism. Is autistic, I guess I should say.
Is that his preferred language?
[Note: subject pulled inward at this point] He doesn't talk much.
Did he talk, at some point?
[Note: subject shrugged, then motioned for the interview to continue]
Moving on. When did you first become aware of the...PsyOps, you called it?
Psychological Operations, yes. There might be some other kind of internal acronym for it, but I wouldn't know. None of us would know, because they don't want us to know. That's kind of the point. It's all about testing the limits of human perception, human behavior. So they can know how we respond to...to everything, I guess. It's like those experiments they do with monkeys, or with Pavlov's bell, except it's in the real world. Except that it's us.
But when did you first realize that these experiments were happening? That you were a part of them? Was there a specific moment, or...?
You mean like, how did I become a T.I. -- sorry, a Targeted Individual? When did they select me? I don't know. I wish I knew, but I don't. But the first time I realized I was on their list -- that I was being targeted -- we were in Atlantic City, about 5 years ago. We had...Jamie and I had tried to conceive another baby, after Shan was diagnosed, and we...it didn't work. So we decided to take a trip, like it would somehow bring us together, make everything right.
It was February, and we were out on the boardwalk -- I don't know why we went in February, but we did -- and I stopped to get a drink at this water fountain near one of those arcades out there. And the water...I could taste it in the water, at the very first sip. Fluoride, or something, I don't know what it was.
But the water wasn't right, and I could tell. It didn't matter though. Just one sip was all it took, and they had got their chip in me. I could see the red light blinking in the fountainhead, and when I looked up, I saw a camera nearby with the same red light, and this dark-skinned Desi man who looked like my uncle but not, he was standing there in his Cubs cap like he was making sure I swallowed, making sure the chip went in. I got light-headed and then...and then I couldn't, I had to get it together, because my little Shan had a meltdown, the first one since we knew that maybe there was something wrong.
Security came out, and the man in the Cubs cap, he was with them. They tried to separate us. But I told them, I said, I know what you're doing, I know what this is. Though I didn't really, at the time. I just knew my son is in trouble and I had to take care of him. Fluoride be damned, the adrenaline would kick in soon and I, and everything would be fine, and I --
I blacked out after that. And the ride home was the start of the end of my marriage.
So you're no longer married then?
We're...in the process.
I see. And who do you think was behind this psychological operation? Who would want to target you?
[Note: subject shrugged] I always figured it's the Deep State. But I've never figured out quite what that means, whether it's the Freemasons, or the Illuminati, or just the CIA, or someone else entirely.
What about aliens?
[Note: subject erupted into wild laughter] I may be crazy, but I'm not that crazy. I'm a scientist. I understand how to form a hypothesis and seek out evidence and that...no, it's not that. It can't be that, there's just no way.
I understand. So when did you realize that these psychological operations --
PsyOps.
PsyOps then, okay. When did you realize that these PsyOps might be a barrier to living your life?
When Jamie tried to use it as leverage against me for custody.
So you're interested in this program because...
Because it makes a difference to my family. Because it gives my son a fighting chance. And if I have to stay in their targeted program -- subject myself to these experiments -- if that's what it takes to give Shan a normal life, then it's worth it. Every moment of their torture is worth it for him.
You wake up and it's Tuesday -- somehow it's always Tuesday in the cyclical quantum superposition of post-urban monotony. You make your way through the bare-walled rental and into the sterile kitchenette where you make your coffee the old-fashioned way, with a boiling pot of water that you gradually pour over the filtered grinds that you roast yourself by manipulating the wire from the heat lamp in the bathroom. Then you dry-shower while the water runs to drown out any microphones or fog up any sensors.
Anything to avoid the constants of the mass-scale experiment that has become your life. Anything to keep yourself seeing straight.
It was hard enough keeping up the house when you lived there with Jamie. But this studio apartment has its own ways of swallowing your time, even when Shan isn't there to steal your attention away with something -- anything -- that he might need help with.
The difference is, at least that's a welcome distraction. At least when Shan's around, you get to spend your spacetime doing something, rather than slipping deeper into your crippling paranoia.
You take a sip of coffee and breathe. It's two more days until group, because it's always two days until group, until their comforting voices tell you not to drop the "p-word" or the "c-word" or any other such derogatory remarks about reality the way that anybody sees it.
That's an easier idea to swallow when you're not waking up three hours early just to make your nanotech-free coffee. But that's just what you have to do sometimes to clear away the storms.
Before you leave the house, you make sure to check the microwave, then the blinking clock display on the Instapot that's been flashing the null set ever since you moved in. Both times you have to physically restrain your hand from flying towards the plug at the wall. Your left hand goes to open up the mini-fridge, right hand still wrapped around that wrist and braced to hold you back from yourself. The light inside the door stutters before it flickers on, like a dying sun rising up over a planet composed of pre-made synthetic meal kits, sealed and stored for solar perpetuity and then shipped overnight directly to your door.
It's also a pretty sad reflection on the life you've made alone here, floating like flotsam in the endless expanse of late capitalist culture.
You un-screw the smart bulb within the mini-fridge and shake it by your ear just to be sure there are no stray wires or screws inside that might suggest the presence of some kind of newly-installed recording mechanism -- audio, or video, or even temporal, none of it would matter. But there's no rattling of any kind, not that you can notice. You can't decide if that's a good thing or bad. If nothing else, it means the LEDs are working right, which ultimately saves you more on electricity anyway since this shitty apartment didn't come with one of those cryptomining treadmills that are standard these days. It's hard to pay the bills on a part-time lab assistant salary, and depending on how it goes with the custody court, that's about to get better or worse, too -- just like the absence of a spy in the light.
You wonder briefly if this might count against you -- if the cameras that you missed will catch you checking for other cameras. Bugs watching bugs. Would it make you look better if you just let them stay there? Would the courts call you "compliant," or would they say that you were sloppy, exposing your child to electronic surveillance systems that could --
STOP, you tell yourself. You take a breath. Deep and slow, just like you learned on that meditation app. You could really use its rhythms right about now, the soothing timbre of that digitized voice with its vaguely Australian accent. But you'd disconnected and logged out from all of your AI systems as soon as you'd moved in -- just to be sure, you reminded yourself then, even though it cost you more to rent a fully-integrated smart apartment in the first place. You had tried to tell the rental agent that it should actually cost less, that the landlord should be paying you for the privilege of stealing your data, and the government should be paying him in turn to take it all away and filter it down into its social science database and --
STOP. Another breath. You can do this. "Monica Lund, you can god damn do this," you say aloud, to no one, or to everyone who is or isn't watching. At this point, it's the same.
It's all the same, and there's nothing you can do about it, is there? Because if you don't leave the house right now then you won't catch the bus and if you don't catch the bus then you won't make it to work on time and if you don't make it to work then they'll have all the proof they need to show that you're unreliable, unstable, unfit to be a mother. That poor, sad Monica Lund can't take care of the child that she had once carried inside of her, because she can't even take care of yourself, so the state will steal your love away and you'll be left with nothing but the people watching your every step and you still have that god damn smart bulb from the fridge in your hand, what is wrong with you, Monica?!
You take another breath. Screw the bulb back in. Close the door. Re-open it, then close it again, just to watch the wonders of the speed of light, the physics of the physical world that still remain consistent despite all the other wreck. You look around the printed plastic kitchenette again, to the four square zeroes flickering on the oven clock -- reminding you that maybe how we measure time is nothing after all, an arbitrary marker to make sense of a universal constant that's maybe not so constant but otherwise too vast for our simple minds to understand.
It also reminds you that you still have a bus to catch, and now you're running late for work again.