“Laser Shades,” A Free Read! And Transrealism News.

What this episode covers

Today I’m posting the text of my story, “Laser Shades” for your holiday reading pleasure. The story was commissioned for The Superlative Light , a photo book by Robert Shults , but it has not been otherwise published as yet. Two news items before my story. The writer and columnist Damien Walter posted “ Let the Strangeness In ,” a good interview/discussion about transrealism between me and Monica Byrne , author of the excellent novel The Girl In The Road. And, on the same day, synchronistically enough, my film-maker friend Edgar Pêra posted Trans-Realist Maniphesto a video from Lisbon, 1994, with me and good old Terence McKenna. And now…on with the show.. Laser Shades, by Rudy Rucker If you want, you can listen to the story online while you read it. “Laser Shades,” oil on canvas, February, 2014, 24” x 20”. Painted to go with this story. Click for a larger version of the painting. Adrian was entranced by Carla. She’d hooked him fast, and she was reeling him in—smiling with parted lips and nodding her head in rhythm to the cadences of his speech. Jack, off to one side, wasn’t really listening to the words, no, he was reviewing tonight’s plan. Step one: bump into Adrian. Step two: get into to the laser lab. Step three… This was a nice club, on Austin’s merry Sixth Street, out towards the dark end of the spectrum. The Scales Fall. They featured yowly music here, one of Adrian’s hobbies—he talked about The Scales Fall all the time, which was how Jack had known they’d find him here. Tonight a hairy guy was playing a “beam guitar,” which was like a steel guitar, but with sensitive light rays in place of the strings. The man wore his hair a hundred-percent over his face, like a cartoon hermit, and the only skin you could see was the tip of his nose. A happy nose. The beam guitar had a mellow, aethereal tone, sounding like one of those old-time gizmos—theremins. A woman was singing along, kind of a Russian steppes sound, her voice dank and husky, reminding Jack, as so many things did, of his dead wife Yulia. Yesterday it had been six months. A prion infection from her lab. Horrible. “Did you hear what Adrian said, Jack?” Carla was looking at him brightly. Humoring him. “Uh, no,” said Jack. “I’m lost in the music. A jellyfish.” He made wiggly motions with his arms, managing to knock over one of their empty Shiner beer bottles. It bounced off the floor, unbreakable nanocrystal. “Vintage slimefabber move,” said Adrian, laughing at Jack. He was a tidy man with chiseled features. “Slimefabbing is king,” said Carla, sticking up for Jack. “Forget about brittle, thuddy machines. Jack cultures a wad of fabslime, he sings to it, and it makes what you need. Like the way a peach makes a pit.” “I know all about that,” said Adrian. “Jack fabs components for my group at the yottawatt laser lab. I’m a plasma ultraoptics tech, right? Jack here’s the only slimefabber in Austin who can make mirrored surfaces. You’ve known him for awhile, huh, Carla? Have you ever heard him singing to his slime?” Carla giggled and nodded. “Kind of rank,” she said. “All burbly and wet. But maybe a little magical, too.” Truth be told, Carla had once had a crush on Jack. She’d been Yulia’s research assistant, and with Yulia out of the picture, Carla had half-expected to take her place. But nothing was happening along those lines, and Jack was getting ever stranger.

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