The Plot Calls #37 : "Simple Enough"

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and/or Ai-assisted-content-generation. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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Nora Solis didn’t want fame. She didn’t want wealth. She wanted simplicity—to be mentally free to treat every new occurrence like a fresh novelty. Her sister went missing first. Then, her friends went missing: Carla, Connor, and then Eden.

The world mourned Mira. Loved her. Obsessed over her. But Nora? She knew Mira. Mira was her family and her friend. She envied the love Mira’s audience felt. They didn’t know Mira—the desperation, the emptiness, the hunger. They didn’t know Mira doing lines or taking shots at 8 a.m. to put out a new video. The love the audience had for Mira was a shadow. Mira was a figment, a shade, her fans didn’t and couldn’t care about. They just needed something to run away to when they had something to run away from. Nora, glossed over by relatives, was often asked, “Not now, Nora. Mira’s missing. Can’t you read one of your books or play those games you like?”

All she thought was, “I wish I could be so simple. I wish I could care when it was too late. No one was there for Mira when she obsessed over Valerie Cho trying to find, and be, something real. Someone real.” Nora envied the shallow, convenient concern that placated the simmering and festering issues her relatives casually hid.

“I want to feel the hollow, lost love they think they feel. I envy their ability to hide so well. It’s like living on a burning planet and worrying about sales goals—or being a corrupt politician when you can actually change something… They didn’t know Mira’s pain. Her lust to grow her followers to find someone who’d love her and listen. They didn’t listen to her when she was around, but now it’s the never-ending story of how hurt they are and how much they care. I’m so confused by it. And yet, why can’t I be like that?”

The envy to be free and simple gnawed quietly, then loudly, then all the time. Nora just wanted to devolve and speak like the mindless, task-pursuing zombies who searched for something else to focus on. Something that wasn’t their life, or their real problems, or worse… their real desires. “Maybe instead of regretting my relationship with the wrong person, I can watch reality TV and pretend I’m really upset at the mindless irrelevance. I could be one of those people whose eyes glaze over when you remind them the world is their house and the people they elect are the ones who choose how to maintain the roof. Man, why can’t I be free? Why can’t I love that the Amazon is endless fulfillment and not a rainforest? Boxes upon boxes and tons of trash, discarded, remolded, replaced, resold. If only I could tell myself—be not concerned with earthly things—knowing I use that as a lie to justify my willful ignorance and inner anger for being lazy. It’s like having money and being angry at broke people for acting like they need what they don’t have. A new enemy. A new hollow concern. A new judgment. A new way to be a dumbass. Freedom. Bliss. Simplicity.”

Nora began collecting Mira’s old belongings. Photos. Trinkets. Receipts. Anything that let her feel closer—or at least less pensive. Nora envied the stupidity. “Why can’t I be so simple—with 30 concerns that don’t matter so I can hide my primary two concerns? I want to be stupid. I want to collect pets, shifts at work, Farcebook likes, and nonsense. Why do I crave connections other people have no concept of?”

The whisper came while she sorted a box of Mira’s forgotten things. Low. Voiceless. It came from Mira’s old bedroom. Nora opened the door and noticed the glow from the closet. She opened it. There it was—the plot. It curled the carpet in Mira’s old bedroom.

The soil pulsed there—black-violet, alive. The porcelain hand reached upward. Expectant. Hungry.

“Can I be simple? Can I be someone with irrelevant concerns? Can I just drift in the river of hollow business praise and shallow nonsense?” Nora muttered. She felt a mindless hunger that responded to her angry envy.

A whisper with no voice responded. There were no words, but Nora felt its intention. An intention that sung like windchimes on a gentle breeze: “Feed me to know heaven. Feed me to know God. Feed me to know the lies you seek. I am the pallid facade of truth. I am the giver of wants. The giver of blasphemies. Feed me and be free. I am the One Beneath the Soil.”

Nora paused. She felt horrified, yet soothed. “I don’t understand. Just who are you?”

“The One Beneath the Plot.”

Nora frowned, speaking to the feeling that whispered to her. “Will you bring my sister back?”

She felt the response. “Imprint your negativity on something I can hold. Offer your soul through your motive. Make a pact. A pact to feed. To serve.”

“Will it bring my sister back?” she asked again.

“Hunger. Craving. Eternal,” the voiceless whisper responded.

Against her best judgment, Nora offered a scorched matchbook Mira once held on a now-immortalized vacation—a vacation spoken of with fondness by people who judged Mira the entire trip.

The next day, Nora smelled her sister. What’s more, Nora spoke, and people paid attention. But Nora only said, “Did anyone else see the new show on Flexflix?”

The 30-minute discussion about things no one cared about was a nice mental vacation, Nora thought—still unseen as a person. It didn’t matter. Nora didn’t care. She saw her missing sister and her envy for the people who ran from their lives with any excuse they could find.

She could smack her lips and say things like, “Anyone try the new Takis? Delicious. Yum.” Without asking what made them blue. There were no nepotist eugenicist transhumanists sneaking into the government anymore either. There was only endless fulfillment from the Nozoma Corporation. No need to talk about Mira anymore. The plot calls.

Mira’s ghost clung to Nora. Idle. Stagnant. “Nora, no.”

As Nora lost pieces of herself, she had an epiphany—how many people are living like her sister Mira out of fear? What if Mira was a symptom of a strategic destabilization of society? What if this was orchestrated long ago by a small group of people with sharp facial features who foam at the mouth to manifest a destiny that never belonged to them?

The soil called again. Nora kept feeding it—more of Mira’s past. More of her own present.

Her identity blurred. Her voice dulled. Her reflection vanished. She was simple. Carefree.

One fire became the next.

Slowly, Nora became an Idle Man—pale. Hollow. Idle. She finally fit in with her family, peers, and people at work.

Wandering mindlessly, Nora didn't know where she was or what she was doing. It was just another day of shallow small talk. Idle babble about ABC topics. Nothing real. Nothing too deep. Hollow pleasantries with hollow stick figures who mindlessly sought success like an open mouth floating to the next orb that would grant it.

Someone in the background shouted, “Guys, let me tell you about this cat video I saw!” as they scrolled on another obvious attempt at reducing their capacity for thought. Nora smiled at stupidity made manifest by manipulating algorithms created by transhumanist eugenicists who sought planetary manifestation of their pointless perspective of destiny.

Nora clapped like a walrus with glazed-over eyes, smiling in placated indifference.

“Doe147 is a child-loving fraud who escaped prison by becoming pres...,” slowly echoed in her dying synapses. It didn't matter anymore. Truth was a social media application. The narcissists were linked in over their Farcebooks seeking InstantGrats as their cerebral time bombs ticked, and ticked.

Nora was normal now. Eugene Thaddeus was a billionaire hero who was self-made, despite being the grandson of a DARPA chief who created the infrastructure of the internet.

And still, no one cared where Mira went, despite using her as an excuse for suffering and complacency. That was the world.

Lips smacked open and shut like cartoon characters in a swirling montage of irrelevance about their children—who likely wouldn’t have fresh water in a decade—their new car made from metal ore that took millions of years to form, yet got depleted overnight, and—of course—the hollow desire to have money, things, and status-based irrelevancy. Mira. Nora. Person. Persona.

Nora didn’t know what Nora was anymore. Drool dripped from her lips as she scrolled through her InstantGrat app, tapping and tapping photos of manufactured people. "I can tell she doesn't work out or care about herself, but good for her to have the strength and discipline to get lipo, a tummy-tuck, and a shape she earned with her money because she gave her time to anyone who would pay. That's boss babe. Chasing her bag. You go, modern girl." She scrolled through someone shouting about pride or some other nonsensical outlet for unexamined and unaddressed rage toward their loneliness. She had a small feeling of disgust, like something was wrong, but it faded. She used to think trans-sexual was a stepping stone for the transhumanist agenda, but with no one to talk to, it was a pointless concern. Besides, as her brain rotted, like everyone else's, Nora was "happy" now. She could work without wondering what the point of her job was, who it actually helped, and how.

Nora could sell items manufactured by the same company, yet packaged under different names. She didn't have to deal with anyone putting her down as being "too this" or "too that" as they mindlessly complied to achieve useless things. A nice car today is better than clean air tomorrow. Partisan victory today is better than a stable, functioning society tomorrow.

That was truth. That was life. That was human. Worthless garbage desperately inhaling trash to be trash by achieving trash as highlighted by garbage trophies.

Eating plastic. Drinking plastic. Selling metal pounded into unnecessary vehicles, or worthless digital infrastructure that allowed more control at the cost of server farms that spewed carbon that ate the environment man required to sustain his own existence.

Then, Nora’s conscious mind slowly silenced itself in a stream of thoughts that gasped like a star dying in the night sky:

“What’s going on with the eugenicist plot for transhumanism? Are you neurally linked to the Star-Links? Tech CEOs in the military with officer ranks without entering boot camp? President Memcoin… Mira symptom of covert agenda… Nora eat. Scroll. Tap. Swipe. Post.”

The room dissolved into puppets repeating the same phrases without awareness. Pretending to be busy with things that didn’t matter.

Nora couldn’t feel the truth anymore. Like them, she skimmed on the surface.

Running. Hiding. Simple. Free. Detached.

There was no more Mira. Only the feed—or was it the plot?

Maybe it was a game of hunger?

Maybe it was a game for squids?

Maybe it was not-so-real reality TV for the living brain-dead?

Her lips smacked dyed, crispy amalgamations of powder. "Tak-Taks, or is these Gorditos, maybe Laye's? Nora no care. Red 40 tastes like cheese. Blue 1, 2, and 3—go me! Yum yum," she said.

Carefree, mindless, she waddled somewhere. Nora knelt next to something that made her giggle. "The plot shines," she said, amused, staring at sparkly window in the ground.

Hours passed. Nora gazed and gazed into the soil. "Pretty colors. Shiny. Like TV. This best flix. Scroll the soul. Whack-a-mole. Nora is people with empty chest hole. Easy simple. Nora doomscroll. Nora no care about air. Nora eat fake food, work hamster wheel job with good pay that does nothing for no one. Cyber security? Why not use paper? Plant more trees. Cyber burn air. Burn trees. Cyber-tards know. Nora still know accelerationists play games. Why Nora no stop knowing? Nora hurt. Nora hurt. Where Mira?" Nora said, struggling to keep something in heart down. She swallowed hard and fought an inner voice. The world was pretty again. She was normal, like everyone else. Free of concerns for the future. Living in the moment. Going for the day, while building the future in staunch compliance to what existed in the present. "Normal Nora. Nora normal. Eugene Thaddeus, LP Gise, DARPA, Rainforest, ARPAnet, internet backbone, centralized data, and government deals. Plot thickens. Why Nora still know? Endless fulfillment is sociopath. Sociopath. Sociopath. Socio... path? Path to the soil? Path. Nora make path to sleep. Nora tired. Nora need laughs. Nora need the plot. Nora need the soil."

Finally, she laid over the plot. "Nora is free. Nora can be. Nora is me? What was me?" she said to the soil.

"Child. Feed. Hunger," The One Beneath the Soil whispered to Nora, feeling something. Sorrow? Regret, perhaps? Or maybe, it was innocence?

The One Beneath was hungry. Craving overrode its compassion, rendering it feral again. "Free. Simple. Give," it whispered to Nora. "Sleep."

Nora knelt over the plot, but her heart—or something in her soul—resisted. Something still questioned what happened to her sister. Something still wanted to know why, but she forgot about what.

The One Beneath extended its hand through the soil. "Nora rest," it said in a vibration of inaudible energy that only Nora understood.

Nora reached for the porcelain palm. But just then, someone whispered, "Nora...," faint, frail, and hollow.

Nora turned and giggled. She pointed at an approaching Idle Man, chuckling harder. "Nora... sister?" Nora asked. "Mira is idle?"

The pale entity froze. Neither waiting nor expecting. Just still. Something in the Idle Man seemed lucid. Crestfallen. Its face was still, emotionless, yet familiar to Nora.

"Nora knows. Nora knows? Nora knows!" Nora shouted, cupping her face with her hands. Nora wept. "Nora simple. Plot call. Nora answer. Nora sorry. Nora want go home. Away. Away from here. Home. Home. Nora want to go home," she said, crying as she hugged herself and rocked back and forth.

The Idle Man stood frozen. Its eyes watering. It knelt beside the soil, beside Nora, and gazed at The One Beneath. Then, it faced Nora. The Idle Man and Nora stared at each other for a moment. Nora wept and hugged the Idle Man.

Emotionless, the Idle Man tilted Nora's head up.

Something in the sky glistened. Nora's eyes widened. "Home?" Nora asked. "Nora go home?"

There was a glow in the sky. Nora's body went limp. She felt weightless. Then, Nora felt herself ascending.

As Nora rose toward the sky, she heard Mira’s voice whisper, "I'm sorry."

Footsteps scrambled in the distance.

Detectives Gunn and Brighton approached the Idle Man holding Nora's lifeless body. The Idle Man glanced at them, then turned with the plot.

The Idle Man and the 6-by-6 plot rotated in a direction Brighton couldn't comprehend, but somehow knew. She froze. She tried to shriek. Nothing came out.

The detectives stared in horror as the robed entity vanished with the mysterious soil. Nora's physical body dissolved into specks of light that rose upward.

Detective Brighton's lips quivered, knees buckled, and heart ached as she looked at Gunn. She tried to ask a question.

Gunn simply shook his head, sighed, and said:

“The Plot Thickens.”

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