“Crystal Clear”
Because even in the future, I’m sure some people will still fall for pseudoscientific guff like this . . .
Have you heard the one about the “Telecleansing” guru who used d-mat to “cleanse” himself of cholesterol? He died, of course: our cells don’t work if you take all the cholesterol out.
What about the “Zenportationists” who decided to avoid food altogether by d-matting nutrients directly into their bodies–blowing themselves up in the process?
Well, maybe this one is new to you. There was a girl whose father turned her into a crystal called nuummite, otherwise known as “the magician’s stone”. It’s supposed to clear karma, strengthen the aura, and provide insight into the astral realm. He father hacked the network to do it, but it was her choice all the way. Maybe she was expecting to become some kind of psychic superhero. What her father got was a statue, and the peacekeepers breathing down his neck.
The PKs ruled her death a suicide and made the hack illegal in case anyone else was stupid enough to try it. But the father was unrepentant. He insisted his daughter was not dead, but in a higher plane, looking down on us all. That last bit was literally true: he put her on a pedestal so everyone could admire her purity, her sacrifice, her whatever. People came from all over to whisper prayers to the crystal girl, to touch her for luck, even to chip off tiny slivers and steal them, although her father didn’t condone that, of course. Slivers had to be bought.
Years later a devotee looked closely at all the photos ever taken of the girl and noticed something odd. The girl’s outline wasn’t the same as it had been when she’d first been crystallized. That prompted a new flurry of interest: was she like old panes of glass that flow downwards, very slowly, over time? Would she fold up into a puddle long after her father had died?
Word got around that if you put all the photos in chronological order and played them very quickly, like an old movie, you could see that she was moving her lips. Maybe she was alive after all, relaying secrets from the Divine!
The story goes that her father brought in a lip reader and held a special prayer meeting. All the faithful came, clutching their officially purchased slivers. The lip reader studied the images for an hour. His verdict? That the crystal girl was repeating two words over and over.
“Kill me. Kill me. Kill me.”
The father kicked everyone out, took a sledgehammer and smashed the crystal girl to pieces, but not because she asked him to. Because she wasn’t pure or something. Which was pretty stupid, really, what with the PKs still smarting over the whole suicide thing. They’ve got a long memory, particularly if you’ve been selling bits of your daughter for profit.
He got life for murder in the end, which is only fair. Whether he killed his daughter by d-mat hack or hammer, the end result was the same: one very dead girl. Who cares if she was really alive or not in crystal form? If you believe she was, you’ll love this wonderful new technique I’ve come up with called “Transpurity”, for giving you chakras whether your body wants them or not . . .
(for Sarah Crawford)
