Evans Readymade (Fragment) by Ray Ogar

>>> COPYRIGHT 2002

evans readymade makes his way out of the tight cockpit of his douglas skyraider aewink like a new born puppy ready for mother’s tit. where that tit is he doesn’t know. his leg smacks against the trashed plane’s hull. evans hears some of the leg’s inner compnoents rattle. to him this is comfort. rattle. thunk. comfort in reality. evans readymade turns back to the plane. it lies in a sprawl like the afterbirth fuck of machine and military. so much more juice than joy. he scavenges a few bits and pieces. slips a cock-like shape into one of his leg’s many cavities. more rummaging and he places several more compacted parts closer to the hum of his knee.

readymade finally surveys the full crash site. though his plane is discernable from the rest of the land, he swears in lengthy epithets more like dna than toothpicks. he uses his left hand to pull away a thin film across the top of his right hand. instantly the film looks to be torn skin but is simply a flexible palm data screen. he holds it up in front of the plane. the screen annotates several areas of possible repair or salvage evans hadn’t guessed at initially. a thought and then he allows the screen to slap back to his right hand. the film merges and eventually soakes back into his skin.

he looks back along the plane’s crash path. the land is carved more like a child trying to gut a fish than any true landing. it doesn’t matter though. readymade has himself and the mcguffin (he pats the slim backpack case he wears with one hand) his first priortity is to get elsewhere in case turf squatters try to claim him or his genome. though he has all his paperwork, that doesn’t stop a squatter from laying brick.

readymade walks away from the wreckage towards the belt of silver guts a kilometer west. he knows galveston is south and that the guts lead to the city (the guts are just a crush of maglev tracks tangled in front of him like so much christmas wrapping—this is simply the aftermath relics of retail terrorism that took over the older parts of galveston a few days ago).

readymade continues to walk. he pulls one of severl dozen needle-thin protein straws from the inside of his wrist, as the straw extends, he punctures it into one of the thousands of cell walls lining his urban armor. the armor uses small vacule like compartments near his joints because these areas tend to heat up the quickest—and therefore collect sweat the best. sip. he tastes the recycled water. he pulls out the straw and the armor reseals.

closer to the tangled maglev guts, readymade quickens his pace. he will try to set up camp somewhere in the tangle itself with the hope that no hardware will try to seek him out. once at the tracks he figures he will try to foist a signal onto the remnants of magnetic guts and piggypack a message into the heart of houston.

he grips the mcguffin on his back again. just checking. readymade makes it to the maglev tangle. he clears himself a space under the mess and camps out. as the sky relinquishes its daytime juice evans readymade turns away to sleep.