[Notes: This interview was conducted during the summer of 2013]
The Call From The House Of Ted
I was on my way home from work at the Maldon salt mines when I received a phone call telling me that Ted Vaak had requested my presence and wished to be interviewed. I gasped in shock, and yet as strange as this news was (and it is is strange, as usually he only ever consents to our requests when his lawyer can no longer afford to try and argue Ted’s way out of it), it is not the strangest occurrence of the evening. For this turned out to be one of the most baffling encounters of my entire life.
The House Of Ted
Although technically Ted’s whereabouts are unknown, I have been here several times before. It is a short walk from my house, largely through a tangled bramble wood which leads eventually to a clearing, at the centre of which stands the house.
Ted often claims that the house has always stood here, and that he has always lived here, and that, cut off from the outerlands by the bramble bushes, time has no dominion over him. This latter claim is, as I have proven countless times by the simple expedient of observing that the movement of atoms and light still occurs within his house, not true, but as for the others I do not know.
The Garden Of The House Of Ted
Ted’s garden, which extends all the way to the bramble bushes in every direction, is usually choked with dead yellow grass. Today, the grass has been covered extensively in rubbish, all of it mechanical or technological in nature. Old typewriters, rotary phones, several speak and spells, a battery powered pencil sharpener, legless pinball machines, record players, television screens removed from their cases, video tapes unspooling in the wind.
Ted, it appears, has been to the tip. And discovered at last technology.
Inside The House Of Ted
The house was dark, darker than perhaps it should be. Bare wires trailed from the walls towards the living room. Above everything the faint hum of electricity and the whirring of gears. I moved towards the living room, towards the origin of the sounds.
Ted
And in there, at the centre, all the wires leading to him, stood Ted. He saw me, and began to talk.
“It began with a simple idea – if a cassette box can be the same size as the cassette it contains, why not a cassette player the same size too. All you would need is a magnet, a couple of cogs, an input for wires. I worked hard, many years, and eventually I had a working prototype. I called it The Ted Vaak Portable Tape Explicator, later streamlined to The Portex.
“This was three months ago. It has yet to reach the market. What I am telling you here is confidential. But I must tell someone. Must show you. It is transformative. The first time I listened to something through the headphones, but outside, untethered from the large scale high fidelity stereo units stacked ominously in the living room, it changed my perception of everything. I lay there in the garden, looking up at the sky, accompanied by the stirring speeches of Margaret Thatcher. Things seemed to coalesce in my mind. The universe was ours, if only we could grasp it.
“Two days later she was dead.
“From there things accelerated. First came the Doublex, a multiphasic Portex, allowing for two inputs, two outputs, merging them together, creating something new. Tape 1: Prime Minister’s Questions, 27/11/1990. Tape 2: The living gurgles of the draining mud, low tide, the blackwater estuary, date unknown. The output cables intertwined into one, fed into a single pair of headphones, from their to my ears.
“Then the Inverted Doublex, stereo field recordings in the palms of my hands, and then, so I could keep my hands free for more important tasks, embedded within the emptiness of my chest.”
He stepped here into the light. Plastic embedded in the gaps beneath his ribs, wires trailing out like veins to every extremity of his haggard body.
“The possibilities fractalised in my mind. Instant infallible memory is finally available. Never again must I forget. Now I can just replay.
“Look, and listen: “It began with a simple idea – if a cassette box can be the same size as the cassette it contains, why not a cassette player the same size too. All you would need is a magnet, a couple of cogs, an input for wires. I worked hard, many years, and eventually I had a working prototype. I called it The Ted Vaak Portable Tape Explicator, later streamlined to The Portex.”
“The double nature here is important. The second recorder can continue its work while the first replays. Nothing is lost. Once the replayu is stopped, the present can be returned to, recording restarted. Occasional moments may be lost at the changing of the tapes, but nothing important.
“More portablised technology follows. Clocks, miniaturised and embedded in my wrists. A spirit level in each thumb. My skull shaved clean, an electric blanket repurposed as a heated wig.
“Most useful was the leg mounted typewriter. The keyboard separated, half on each thigh. Legs pushed together, sat in my most comfortable chair, the paper held by clips on each knee.
“But why only portability? Why not the reverse? Why not allow the control of the environment around you – around me – while I am at home, as I usually am. Why not allow myself control of light itself!”
At this the lights in the house faded up from nothingness to antiseptic factory style brightness. Ted’s hand erotically rotating a dial at his throat.
“The house plugged into my body. Wires from every system – the lights, the heating, the doorbell, the phone, everything electrical you can imagine. No longer must I get up to switch the kettle on. Now I can do it from the comfort of the centre of my own house, equidistant from every extremity of the house to minimise on wiring and subsequent loss of signal.
“The rotary dial of the phone on the palm of one hand, the speaker in the other. A thermostatic filament threaded through my forehead. Teeth became light switches. Fingernails fuses.
“Even my tongue painted metallic, allowing for insertion of a lightbulb when a torch might be necessary. There is not a single thing I cannot do. No system cannot be upgraded, that will not be upgraded.
“I am the future of humanity and there is nothing you can do to stop me.”
The lights switch off one by one with several flicks of his tongues. From nowhere a lightbulb appears and is pushed whole into his mouth. I back away then, the light shining directly into my eyes for a few seconds before finally Ted closes his mouth. I stare briefly at the red glow of his cheeks, before turning to flee screaming into the brambles that thankfully separate our world from his.
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