Short Story - IDENTITY
Title: Identity
Rating: M15 for themes
Summary: "Do you believe that an object can have an identity?"
Disclaimer: Something I came up with on the bus. I might condense it and use it for class. Sorry if it's weird. ETA: Updated with a newer version with less clunk and more explanation.
The bus smelled like blood.
Chris frowned as he swiped his card, the three shrill beeps telling him he had around five dollars left on his account. He filed the information away at the back of his mind, like he always did, as he walked up the aisle. He wrinkled his nose in distaste at the smell, surprised nobody else seemed bothered by it. They were all sitting off on their own, not talking, keeping their eyes out their windows or on their phones or their laps. An old woman up the front had a pile full of knitting in the bag next to her and was creating something that looked like a mitten. It was strange that nobody was interacting with one another, not even by accident.
He’d written an essay on that once ; about how most people, when given the choice, would sit in front or behind (but not next to) others. There were several possibilities for the phenomenon but he’d come to the conclusion that people were afraid of each other. That they liked to control their environment as much as they possibly could and were intensely paranoid.
Figuring he might as well preserve the status quo (and as a white, twenty something IT consultant he was firmly lumped in with ‘most people’) he made his way up to the back of the bus, where there was an unoccupied pair of seats.
He was rethinking that decision even as he sat down. The bus was one of those contraptions that were stretchy in the middle, what you got when you wanted a double decker without the height. He swayed as he settled, the bus driver pulling out, evidently having been waiting for him to seat himself; a rare occurrence in the time intensive world of public transport.
The smell of blood was strongest right behind him, the metallic taste heavy on his tongue. The man sitting behind him, however, looked perfectly fine. He was one of those guys that was just classically attractive, with the square jaw and the intense blue eyes. He tore away from the image with dreadlocked blonde hair and patchily coloured skin. He’d heard about something similar happening to a singer or one of the other big stars, where their skin was changing pigments. The man behind him had a splotch of white on his tanned skin just under his eye that spilled down his jaw to his neck, like someone had thrown bleach onto his face. He smiled at him as he sat down and the man smiled back, showing off perfectly straight white teeth.
Chris tried not to let his jealousy get to him. Turning, he faced back towards the front of the bus, watching the road and zoning out a little. He always got tired on public transport. It might’ve had something to do with the fact that he wasn’t driving himself, so he didn’t need that concentration. Or it might have been the fact that he’d been yelled at by his boss for not catching something he shouldn’t have been looking for in the mainframe in the first place. Getting yelled at for things made him tired, but it was more of an emotionally fuelled exhaustion, rather than a physical one.
“Do you think an object can have an identity?”
It took him a moment to realise the guy behind him was actually talking to him. And it was a weird question, too. Frowning softly, he turned around so his back was to the window, looking over his shoulder.
“Excuse me?” He asked, and the man smiled again, waving a discoloured hand at him, as if underlining his sentence with a flick of his fingers.
“Do you think an object can have an identity?”
Shifting his hold on his bag, he pulled it into his lap, wondering exactly where the question was coming from. It was a pretty heavy, philosophical sort of question for a bus ride.
“I’m not entirely sure what you mean.”
It must’ve been the fact that the man didn’t exactly look like a threat that drew him into the conversation. Normally he’d have ignored it but it was an interesting question. It was a welcome distraction from thinking about his day, as well. As far as his job went, it hadn’t been a good one.
“This is clearly identified as a bus, right?” The man asked, brushing one of his dreadlocks out of his face, the beads near the end clinking together as he shifted. “Hundreds of thousands of millions of people could tell you that this is a bus.”
Not entirely sure where it was going, Chris nodded slowly, wriggling so his back was against the window comfortably. He could feel the sun through the glass and it was strangely grounding, if a little too warm. The air conditioning had only been installed on the newer busses. With the old ones, you had to rely on the tried and true open window technique. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“So you’d say this object has an identity, then? Like a person?” The dreadlocked man asked, smiling slightly.
“I don’t know that I’d go that far. It’s not sentient. It doesn’t think. It’s a...well, an it. It wouldn’t have one unless we gave it one.” Getting into the right frame of mind for a conversation like this was surprisingly difficult. He was used to working with machines and thinking literally. This does this does that does this and so on so forth. Lateral thinking was a little harder.
The man smiled, shaking his head, the noise of the beads clinking together loud in the mostly silent bus. The sound of the engine as the bus turned a corner was a low grade hum in the background, giving them some illusion of a private conversation. It helped that nobody else on the bus was talking, or even listening to music. It was like they didn’t hear them.
“But we’ve established that it has an identity. Do you have to be sentient to have a purpose? You use a television or a blender for what it is, without even thinking about it.” He asked, waving his hand again to emphasise his point. He looked a little uncoordinated as he did so, and the little voice in the back of his head crowed with victory at the fact that this guy, who seemed to have a confidence that he didn’t, was physically awkward.
“People’s identities are different, though,” Chris said, shifting and putting his bag down on the seat next to himself. “They tell us who we are. We develop an identity over years and years. It’s why we spend so long as a child in the first place.”
Old science classes were starting to come back to him. Talking about how long children need to develop a personality, and how long it took between that and an expression of identity. The idea that a car or a plane (or a blender) could express itself was just absurd.
“But what if an object knew what it was? If it had been around and seen so much that it knew what it was and what it was supposed to do?” the man asked, and Chris shook his head even before the other man had even finished the sentence. It was different with computers. A computer had to know it was a computer in order to work, or at last that was the way he saw it, but a bus or a car didn’t need to know what it was to run.
“But that would be assuming conscious thought.” He said, and bristled a little under the mocking smile the other man turned his way as he slung his arms over the back seat, stretching his legs out.
“It’s long been said that objects can contain memories. Houses remember murders. Certain areas of road are more prone to accidental death. If a car is in a collision, no matter how minor, it never runs exactly the way it used to.” He was fairly confident about his opinion, and came off as slightly smug. It was grating (to a degree) but he could console himself with the fact that he never had to talk to the guy again if he ended up getting angry.
And that was an interesting point. “So what you’re saying is that places and objects are alive? Don’t you have to be alive to have a way of recording memories?” He asked, slightly bemused when the dreadlocked man shook his head. His eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled again, the discolouration on his face bending and warping.
“No, what I’m saying is that they have memories from other things. People, events. A video camera can record a memory, so what if an object can collect memories? Absorb them so to say?”
“But how would you test that theory?” Chris queried, looking over his shoulder and out the window to see how close he was to his stop. The ride must have been quicker than he’d thought, because he could see familiar streets and pressed the button to alert the driver to stop the bus.
“You’d have to find an object with a memory then, wouldn’t you?” He asked, holding out his hand to shake, three of the fingers on his right hand a stark, bone white. “It’s been a long time since someone’s talked to me like that. Thank you.”
Getting himself out of the seat was a little difficult. It wasn’t that hot but he still stuck to the seat a little, and managed to pull himself free with a little struggle. He reached over, shaking his hand for a moment, his grip warm and slightly clammy.
Pulling away, however, became a problem. At first he thought the other man wasn’t letting go of his hand, and he looked down in slight annoyance only to find that a black, gooey substance had managed to attach itself to their fingers. Swearing, he attempted to pull away, looking over his shoulder to call for help.
Everyone in the bus was watching them. They all, from the little old lady down the front to the hooligan kid with the backwards cap, had identical, bright smiles on their faces, their skin seeming to take on the properties of the seats they were sitting on. The old green and grey patterns raced up along their throats and faces and he bit back a scream, whirling back around to face the man holding his hand.
“I think we should continue this discussion, don’t you?” He asked, and he finally got a good look at his eyes, which had become the same metallic green as the outside of the bus.
“Don’t worry,” A voice rang out behind him and he felt like he was going to get whiplash from turning around so fast, the black, oily liquid crawling up his arm at an alarming pace as the woman up the front spoke, lifting a green and grey hand to give him a thumbs up.
“You’ll like it here.”
---
The bus smelled like blood.
Her card beeped a few times as she swiped it, which was unusual. She’d just topped it up, so there was no way she could be running out of money now. An old lady at the front of the bus smiled at her, a heavy bag full of knitting taking up the seat next to her. The only free seat was up the back of the bus, where two young men were having an animated discussion about something. They could’ve been brothers, really. They had the same strong jaw line and the same blonde hair, although their hair styles and dress were wildly different. The discolouration on their skin didn’t seem to detract from anything, rather adding to the strange, not quite there look. They mainly ignored her as she sat near them and she clutched her bag to her chest, the news reports of women being attacked on busses running through the back of her mind. It was irrational, sure, but she didn’t like sitting too close to other people she didn’t know. Especially if they were bigger than her.
The younger of the two men turned to her and she was surprised to find he had two different coloured eyes, one bright blue and the other a dark, metallic sort of green. The sleeve of his right hand was covered in something that looked like oil. She was pretty sure someone’d bled heavily in the back of the bus at some time during the week, but she couldn’t find the evidence for the life of her. The smell was a little disgusting but not so overpowering that she was going to get off the bus, and as the driver pulled away from the stop, she tried to relax.
They smiled at her, and she found herself smiling back.
“Tell me, miss. Do you believe that an object can have an identity?”
Rating: M15 for themes
Summary: "Do you believe that an object can have an identity?"
Disclaimer: Something I came up with on the bus. I might condense it and use it for class. Sorry if it's weird. ETA: Updated with a newer version with less clunk and more explanation.
The bus smelled like blood.
Chris frowned as he swiped his card, the three shrill beeps telling him he had around five dollars left on his account. He filed the information away at the back of his mind, like he always did, as he walked up the aisle. He wrinkled his nose in distaste at the smell, surprised nobody else seemed bothered by it. They were all sitting off on their own, not talking, keeping their eyes out their windows or on their phones or their laps. An old woman up the front had a pile full of knitting in the bag next to her and was creating something that looked like a mitten. It was strange that nobody was interacting with one another, not even by accident.
He’d written an essay on that once ; about how most people, when given the choice, would sit in front or behind (but not next to) others. There were several possibilities for the phenomenon but he’d come to the conclusion that people were afraid of each other. That they liked to control their environment as much as they possibly could and were intensely paranoid.
Figuring he might as well preserve the status quo (and as a white, twenty something IT consultant he was firmly lumped in with ‘most people’) he made his way up to the back of the bus, where there was an unoccupied pair of seats.
He was rethinking that decision even as he sat down. The bus was one of those contraptions that were stretchy in the middle, what you got when you wanted a double decker without the height. He swayed as he settled, the bus driver pulling out, evidently having been waiting for him to seat himself; a rare occurrence in the time intensive world of public transport.
The smell of blood was strongest right behind him, the metallic taste heavy on his tongue. The man sitting behind him, however, looked perfectly fine. He was one of those guys that was just classically attractive, with the square jaw and the intense blue eyes. He tore away from the image with dreadlocked blonde hair and patchily coloured skin. He’d heard about something similar happening to a singer or one of the other big stars, where their skin was changing pigments. The man behind him had a splotch of white on his tanned skin just under his eye that spilled down his jaw to his neck, like someone had thrown bleach onto his face. He smiled at him as he sat down and the man smiled back, showing off perfectly straight white teeth.
Chris tried not to let his jealousy get to him. Turning, he faced back towards the front of the bus, watching the road and zoning out a little. He always got tired on public transport. It might’ve had something to do with the fact that he wasn’t driving himself, so he didn’t need that concentration. Or it might have been the fact that he’d been yelled at by his boss for not catching something he shouldn’t have been looking for in the mainframe in the first place. Getting yelled at for things made him tired, but it was more of an emotionally fuelled exhaustion, rather than a physical one.
“Do you think an object can have an identity?”
It took him a moment to realise the guy behind him was actually talking to him. And it was a weird question, too. Frowning softly, he turned around so his back was to the window, looking over his shoulder.
“Excuse me?” He asked, and the man smiled again, waving a discoloured hand at him, as if underlining his sentence with a flick of his fingers.
“Do you think an object can have an identity?”
Shifting his hold on his bag, he pulled it into his lap, wondering exactly where the question was coming from. It was a pretty heavy, philosophical sort of question for a bus ride.
“I’m not entirely sure what you mean.”
It must’ve been the fact that the man didn’t exactly look like a threat that drew him into the conversation. Normally he’d have ignored it but it was an interesting question. It was a welcome distraction from thinking about his day, as well. As far as his job went, it hadn’t been a good one.
“This is clearly identified as a bus, right?” The man asked, brushing one of his dreadlocks out of his face, the beads near the end clinking together as he shifted. “Hundreds of thousands of millions of people could tell you that this is a bus.”
Not entirely sure where it was going, Chris nodded slowly, wriggling so his back was against the window comfortably. He could feel the sun through the glass and it was strangely grounding, if a little too warm. The air conditioning had only been installed on the newer busses. With the old ones, you had to rely on the tried and true open window technique. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“So you’d say this object has an identity, then? Like a person?” The dreadlocked man asked, smiling slightly.
“I don’t know that I’d go that far. It’s not sentient. It doesn’t think. It’s a...well, an it. It wouldn’t have one unless we gave it one.” Getting into the right frame of mind for a conversation like this was surprisingly difficult. He was used to working with machines and thinking literally. This does this does that does this and so on so forth. Lateral thinking was a little harder.
The man smiled, shaking his head, the noise of the beads clinking together loud in the mostly silent bus. The sound of the engine as the bus turned a corner was a low grade hum in the background, giving them some illusion of a private conversation. It helped that nobody else on the bus was talking, or even listening to music. It was like they didn’t hear them.
“But we’ve established that it has an identity. Do you have to be sentient to have a purpose? You use a television or a blender for what it is, without even thinking about it.” He asked, waving his hand again to emphasise his point. He looked a little uncoordinated as he did so, and the little voice in the back of his head crowed with victory at the fact that this guy, who seemed to have a confidence that he didn’t, was physically awkward.
“People’s identities are different, though,” Chris said, shifting and putting his bag down on the seat next to himself. “They tell us who we are. We develop an identity over years and years. It’s why we spend so long as a child in the first place.”
Old science classes were starting to come back to him. Talking about how long children need to develop a personality, and how long it took between that and an expression of identity. The idea that a car or a plane (or a blender) could express itself was just absurd.
“But what if an object knew what it was? If it had been around and seen so much that it knew what it was and what it was supposed to do?” the man asked, and Chris shook his head even before the other man had even finished the sentence. It was different with computers. A computer had to know it was a computer in order to work, or at last that was the way he saw it, but a bus or a car didn’t need to know what it was to run.
“But that would be assuming conscious thought.” He said, and bristled a little under the mocking smile the other man turned his way as he slung his arms over the back seat, stretching his legs out.
“It’s long been said that objects can contain memories. Houses remember murders. Certain areas of road are more prone to accidental death. If a car is in a collision, no matter how minor, it never runs exactly the way it used to.” He was fairly confident about his opinion, and came off as slightly smug. It was grating (to a degree) but he could console himself with the fact that he never had to talk to the guy again if he ended up getting angry.
And that was an interesting point. “So what you’re saying is that places and objects are alive? Don’t you have to be alive to have a way of recording memories?” He asked, slightly bemused when the dreadlocked man shook his head. His eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled again, the discolouration on his face bending and warping.
“No, what I’m saying is that they have memories from other things. People, events. A video camera can record a memory, so what if an object can collect memories? Absorb them so to say?”
“But how would you test that theory?” Chris queried, looking over his shoulder and out the window to see how close he was to his stop. The ride must have been quicker than he’d thought, because he could see familiar streets and pressed the button to alert the driver to stop the bus.
“You’d have to find an object with a memory then, wouldn’t you?” He asked, holding out his hand to shake, three of the fingers on his right hand a stark, bone white. “It’s been a long time since someone’s talked to me like that. Thank you.”
Getting himself out of the seat was a little difficult. It wasn’t that hot but he still stuck to the seat a little, and managed to pull himself free with a little struggle. He reached over, shaking his hand for a moment, his grip warm and slightly clammy.
Pulling away, however, became a problem. At first he thought the other man wasn’t letting go of his hand, and he looked down in slight annoyance only to find that a black, gooey substance had managed to attach itself to their fingers. Swearing, he attempted to pull away, looking over his shoulder to call for help.
Everyone in the bus was watching them. They all, from the little old lady down the front to the hooligan kid with the backwards cap, had identical, bright smiles on their faces, their skin seeming to take on the properties of the seats they were sitting on. The old green and grey patterns raced up along their throats and faces and he bit back a scream, whirling back around to face the man holding his hand.
“I think we should continue this discussion, don’t you?” He asked, and he finally got a good look at his eyes, which had become the same metallic green as the outside of the bus.
“Don’t worry,” A voice rang out behind him and he felt like he was going to get whiplash from turning around so fast, the black, oily liquid crawling up his arm at an alarming pace as the woman up the front spoke, lifting a green and grey hand to give him a thumbs up.
“You’ll like it here.”
---
The bus smelled like blood.
Her card beeped a few times as she swiped it, which was unusual. She’d just topped it up, so there was no way she could be running out of money now. An old lady at the front of the bus smiled at her, a heavy bag full of knitting taking up the seat next to her. The only free seat was up the back of the bus, where two young men were having an animated discussion about something. They could’ve been brothers, really. They had the same strong jaw line and the same blonde hair, although their hair styles and dress were wildly different. The discolouration on their skin didn’t seem to detract from anything, rather adding to the strange, not quite there look. They mainly ignored her as she sat near them and she clutched her bag to her chest, the news reports of women being attacked on busses running through the back of her mind. It was irrational, sure, but she didn’t like sitting too close to other people she didn’t know. Especially if they were bigger than her.
The younger of the two men turned to her and she was surprised to find he had two different coloured eyes, one bright blue and the other a dark, metallic sort of green. The sleeve of his right hand was covered in something that looked like oil. She was pretty sure someone’d bled heavily in the back of the bus at some time during the week, but she couldn’t find the evidence for the life of her. The smell was a little disgusting but not so overpowering that she was going to get off the bus, and as the driver pulled away from the stop, she tried to relax.
They smiled at her, and she found herself smiling back.
“Tell me, miss. Do you believe that an object can have an identity?”