Moxyland - Lauren Beukes [22]
I take out my Leica Zion, my everyday filter on the world, and start clicking through the memchip, past the people framed in the window of the Afro Café and the unfinished graffiti on the Parade clustered between the adboards, past the pictures of bridges from the negative space binge I went on last week, until I come to the images of my wrist.
Four thousand one hundred and twenty photographs over the time it took to develop, like film. Played back in timelapse the bruise blossoms and bursts, resolving like a Rorschach into the logo. It's the exact colour of the phosphorescent algae shimmering in the waves on the beach in Langkawi, where Jonathan took me after the agonising slow-mo months of my father's death.
I spent an hour looking at my skin this morning, studying my wrist, my face. The cosmetic effects are the most obvious, but it's the stuff you can't see that counts; the nano attacking toxins, sopping up free radicals, releasing antioxidants by the bucketload. It's a marathon detox and a fine-tune all in one. And the nano's programmed to search and destroy any abnormal developments, so I'll never have to go through what Dad did, the cancer chewing its way through his stomach, consuming him from the inside out.
No promises, said Andile, before he made me sign the contradicting waiver: 'The applicant understands that any claims made by Inatec staff regarding medical or health benefits are based on preliminary findings from testing in animals. The applicant understands that the Inatec nanotechnology is still in the prototype phase of development and, based on this information and understanding, accepts full responsibility for all the risks inherent, etc, etc.'
I don't mean to be dismissive of the etceteras or the risks inherent. I know exactly what I'm in for, despite what that freakshow from the bar might think. Or my shrink, who believes I'm just doing this as a way of asserting myself in the whole bang shebang with Jonathan.
I'm a demo model for their demographic. An angel of aspiration. A guinea pig for an appropriate alliterative beginning with g. Ghost, I guess. Only once removed on the food chain from the kids who sell space on their chamo, adblips playing out on the plastivinyl of tees and jackets like walking projectaboards, only with more 'risks inherent'.
And my skin does look amazing, like it's been buffed and scrubbed and moisturised within an inch of its life, all velvaglow and radiant, even though the only cosmetic in the apartment is Jonathan's aftershave. It's been almost six days now with no side effects, or only good ones, apart from the first few miserable days when the flu and achiness hit. But then maybe that was self-induced. Maybe all of it is.
It's a shock to find Jonathan at the gallery, but really, what did I expect? He and Sanjay are examining my prints, laid out on Propeller's floor in a blunt mosaic. They weren't supposed to start the selection without me. Sanjay is squatting, shuffling like a crab between the prints. He's already set two aside. He flashes a smile at me when I come in, slightly strained at the edges.
'Hey, sweetness.' Jonathan gives me the fullbody up-down, like he does to the models in castings. It's an old habit, he's told me, from the job. As in, don't take everything so personally, Kendra.
On any other day, the cigarette dangling off his lips would have annoyed the hell out of me, when he's supposed to have quit again, but my secret makes me feel smug and secure, counterbalancing the elation, like a fish jumping in my chest, that I can't keep down at seeing him.
'You shouldn't be smoking over the prints.'
'Don't be so tense, baby. It's not going to hurt them.' He starts to reach for my shoulder, to knead the knots in my neck, but I brush his hand away, irritated.
There are to be three of us in the group exhibition: Johannes Michael, who does intricate paperwork mobiles on a massive scale, taking up Propeller's entire second floor; and Khanyi Nkosi, a legend at twenty-six.