You’re replacing the bandage for the night, and she’s dragging a finger across her eye, pinching out a contact lens. You wince for her, and she reminds you how brave it was to get the tag.

“Think of what a pioneer you are, like Shackleton, like the Curies. Didn’t you want to be a pioneer?”

It’s true, you agree, you just didn’t have the grades.

“Forget about the grades. Those belong to the ugly past with the rest of this country. Ugly, ugly. Past, past. We’re in the future now.”

The future itches on warm days, though, and near power lines it buzzes in your arm.

“It’s adjusting,” she says, “you’ll adjust.”

In bed you try to think of anything but the stitches, and you remember when you first moved here. ‘Adjusting’ was what your folks called it when your stomach made knots that kept you home from school. You had your own word of course, convinced the kids who called you names were adulterating your lunches. You turn to tell her what an imagination you used to have, but she’s already asleep.

It’s easy to trust the judgment of someone like her, someone who just lies down and sleeps without thinking about stupid kids stuff, even if it gives you an itchy arm sometimes. That might sound wrong, but with the tag she’ll know what you meant. In the morning she can see all the Devotion Points the tag recorded, and won’t have to hear your clumsy words, which sound wrong mostly, you both admit. You guess that’s what it means to be in love, to lose yourself a little for someone else, so you can be better or at least closer to right, but the stitches still hurt and you want to tell someone, and you’re not sure how you’re going to sleep, or if you ever can.

When we met Julie couldn’t cook any better than I could. There was a contempt we had for corporal pleasures, not just eating but alcohol and smoking too. Even dancing and swimming; all those lower ecstasies. Our worst enemy was sleep, always threatening to keep us from each other, but most nights we’d win, giddy on ideas.

And after we finished school we felt a vindication, our peers tumbling elseways, lost and worn, while Julie and I were so close to something big, a new aesthetic that was ours. My grant bought a studio space and before I left each morning she’d make me toast and a coffee, timed to both be hot, even though I knew the coffee took longer.

I haven’t had anywhere to go early in awhile. Now it’s Julie who must get up, shower and put on that outfit that used to be funny but hasn’t been lately. And we don’t talk so much now, but exchange notes and papers. I dreamt that today I’d find one signed “Management,” but there’s no evidence of any human hand; the article doesn’t even name a reporter.

It says that humans didn’t rise from four limbs onto two to conserve energy like they’d thought, the hypothesis that said we needed more oxygen for our brains, but that we needed free hands to bring goods to mates. A scientist calls this “monogamy” under a bold line that says “Food for Sex,” and I’m rinsing my cup where Julie must have stood, after making coffee, before toasting bread.

“Even if they don’t want to, it’s essential that we document their voices,” he was told. “Especially the resistant, we already have millions of figures from people who want to take surveys.”

Martin found his place under a laminated “27,” which he copied to his yellow timecard, and the one for tomorrow, and the next day. He slid the headset easily over his close-cropped hair, already dialing with his right hand. At the first answer he was nearly halfway through the script. “…is Martin Krause at Call Research, a national research firm, are you registered to vote at this address?” His voice came out tighter over the phone than he expected. Martin loosened the tie his father had helped him with this morning.

“No, and I don’t aim to, so you can just put us on the do not call list,” they replied. In the measured tone he had learned to parrot during training, Martin explained how the list only applied to marketers, but the voter hung up before he was through and it was time to dial again.

The first few, Martin was told would hurt, but he felt nothing until they started to question the survey.        “If you were told Ms. Barr had ties to terrorist groups, would that make you more likely or less likely to vote for her?” he asked, his finger already positioned on 1 and 2 on the keyboard.

“Is that true?” they responded.

“Ma’am would that be more or less likely?”

“ I think that’s a goddamn lie, you’re a goddamn liar.”

It was against the rules, but Martin hung up this time. What kind of person, he wondered, could be so skeptical of their own opinion?

By the dinner hour he was well above quota, using his breaks to get an extra survey instead of smoke, though during one he used it to look over the shoulders and saw the other new employees were well behind him. By a quarter ‘til he had gotten six (“six!”) in the hour and was going for seven, which Martin was sure was some sort of first day record. He felt good about the call; it had a 27 in the last four digits, which was his new lucky number. When it picked up he skipped the intro, which he had been ignoring, and got straight to the questions.

“Are you familiar with democratic politician Robyn Barr?” he asked.

“Are you familiar with democratic politician Robyn Barr?” the voice answered back. Martin removed his headset, inspecting it for some physical defect that cause an echo. Satisfied he put it back on.

“That’s a yes then?” he asked.

“A yes then?” they answered.

Martin shifted painfully in his chair, then hit 1, Return.

“Do you view her favorably or unfavorably?”

“Favorably or unfavorably?” they answered.

“So that would be unfavorably?”

“Unfavorably?” they answered.

2, Return.

“And do you know her challenger, republican politician Charles Farris?”

“Charles Farris?” they answered.

“Is that a yes?”

“A yes?” they answered.

1, Return. Martin smiled. He was finally getting some good data.

“You made me look like an idiot back there,” the man said as they got back in the house. The boy was careful not to sob too loudly.
“You’re going to sit in the bedroom until I figure out what to do with you.”
With short steps and his head held low the boy walked to the room. From inside he heard a knock at the front door.
“Oh, so you followed me,” he heard the man say.
The boy crept to the man’s closet, careful not to knock any ties off the knobs as he pulled it open.
“It’s not right how you treat that boy,” said another voice.
On his toes the boy was just tall enough to reach the middle shelf.
“I hate to see a man mean like that, mine was mean like that.”
The box fell open on the floor as the boy tipped it toward him.
“I oughta have you fired, coming to my home like this,” the man said.
The boy picked up one of the heavy leather shoes that came out of the box. Gingerly he walked towards the window, holding the shoe high above his head. When the boy flung it out the window he smiled. His dad was sure to get the other man fired after this.