PodCastle 645: God Damn, How Real Is This?

* Author : Doretta Lau

* Narrator : Andrea Bang

* Host : Jen R. Albert

* Audio Producer : Peter Adrian Behravesh

*

Discuss on Forums

Originally published in How Does a Single Blade of Grass Thank the Sun? Published by Nightwood Editions in 2014, audiobook version of this produced by ECW Press.

CW: strong language, including racist and misogynistic slurs.

Thanks to Nightwood Editions for allowing us to reprint the text of this story and to ECW Press for allowing us to run an excerpt from the collection’s audiobook; this audiobook was produced as a part of ECW Press’s Bespeak Audio Imprint. You can purchase the print version of this book here and the audiobook here.

God Damn, How Real Is This?

By Doretta Lau

My future self sends me a text message at least once a day.

The latest: Hey, tricho-slut, get your man hands out of our hair. I have a Lake Michigan–shaped bald spot forming on the back of my head. stop plucking. it’s starting to look like a penis.

Last I checked there were no Great Lakes of any sort blooming on my scalp, no Superiors or Hurons or Eries flooding my hair. Of late, these missives from the future have become increasingly more abusive. I wonder, when will I flip my bitch switch and hop on this negative self-talk train? In a week? In a year? I’d like to believe this use of misogynistic language is out of character and that maybe I’m being trolled by a bored identity thief. I file the thought as something for my present self to discuss with my now therapist.

Another message flashes on my phone: That mole on your left arm that you’ve been ignoring? Get thee to a doctor.

I peer down. My arm is presenting itself as blemish free. At times like this I wish I could send a text to my future self to make clear the murky. I want to address important issues such as: “Will I die alone? But that technology hasn’t been invented yet, or our future selves have circumvented its implementation for the good of humanity.”

I call my local clinic and explain my situation.

“This is Franny Siu calling. I can’t find this mole my future self is warning me about, but I’d like to make an appointment to see Doctor Chang.”

“I understand,” says the woman on the phone. “Last week, my future self started blasting me messages about herpes. Today, she escalated to drug-resistant gonorrhea. I think she’s trying to tell me that my boyfriend is cheating on me.”

“No sex for the hexed,” I say, unsure how to handle this kind of intimacy with a near stranger.

“Come at two tomorrow afternoon.”

“Great. See you tomorrow,” I say, and hang up.

Despite this disruption, I still have time before my therapy session to stop by my ex-colleague Rita’s house and check on her. Rita has not left her house in months because her future self keeps divining death and destruction. As soon as she thinks of doing something — innocuous activities such as watching a movie or washing her feet — a new text arrives dissuading her from taking actio...