Anne-Marie Kinney - Radio Iris

* * *

It is cold in the dusty alley beside the house where Iris stands watch. It is late at night, but there are no stars in the sky.

Way out in the middle of the yard, her father is standing in front of the fig tree, staring up at the wide expanse of its spidery branches, its leaves in crackling piles at his feet. An axe dangles from his right hand.

Iris steps up a little closer, quietly, so he won’t hear her. When she gets to the back porch, she sees her mother’s face in the kitchen window. She’s watching too.

Slowly, her father raises the axe and drives in hard into the trunk, but the sound it makes is a metallic clank, harsh, and echoing like a tuning fork.

Iris looks to her mother, who still watches intently. She’s inside. She didn’t hear just how loud it was. Sebastian comes around the side of the house and sits at attention by Iris’s feet. She reaches down and rubs behind his ears.

Her father rears back with the axe a second time, swings with all his strength and this time, the sound of struck metal sounds, then reverberates, louder and louder out into the night. Iris covers her ears, and Sebastian rises to his feet and begins bucking his head forward and back, then he stops and lets out a clipped howl.

Her father drops the axe and steps slowly backward, as the tree vibrates before him as though electrified.

Iris creeps away, back against the side of the house. The tree is still ringing its warped, tinny ring, the only sound in the whole sleeping neighborhood. She approaches the street, running her fingers along the side of the house. Her fingertips are covered in soot as she looks out and sees neighbors’ lights turning on, and some windows opening. She presses her back to the side of the house in an effort to merge with it, to limit her exposure. She turns her face away from the light of the neighbors’ windows, more switching on, one by one— she can feel their glow on her neck, and on the backs of her bare arms.

With the sound growing, lowering so Iris can feel it weakening her knees, and the lights flicking, flicking, she feels utterly stuck. There will be no moving from this spot, not now, not ever, and then she thinks, where is my brother?

This sudden thought moves her to look back toward the street, but then the street is gone. In a second it’s all gone. Even she is gone, a slab of meat on the bed once more, with the dawn rising outside.

The CEO of Creationeers Tech looks like a turtle. He’s saying something, but Neil has a hard time listening, distracted by his little chin and beaky mouth.

“Mr. Finch?”

“Yes?”

“You can tell me a little bit about it now, if you’re ready.”

“Of course, absolutely,” Neil says. Yeah, just say whatever affirmative words come to your lips, asshole, yes, most assuredly, he thinks, blinking fast. He closes his eyes briefly to settle them down.

Neil pulls out his briefcase and plops it down onto the shiny oak desk with a thump that makes the CEO, Mr. Krebs, jump in his seat a little.

“What we have here,” he says, “is a product meant to revolutionize the effects of sleep.” He pulls out the puffy blindfold and holds it out across the table, displaying it as though his palm were a silver tray. Mr. Krebs takes it and turns it over in his hands, his face expressionless.

“Do you want to try it first, or do you want me to tell you more about it?”

Mr. Krebs looks up and nods, “Please, go on, go on.”

“All right. Well— the product doesn’t have a name yet, that’ll be up to you, but essentially, what it does is block out light while providing a soothing white noise effect for the user. It’s meant to create an ideal sleep space, to put the user in… into that space.”

Mr. Krebs sets the product down. “And this is going to, you said, revolutionize sleep? How do you mean?”

“Well,” Neil begins, thinking, I mean it’s hyperbole, like we all shovel back and forth to each other all goddamn day like anything actually does anything, “what I mean by that is that… the purpose of sleep is to renew the user. What we’re trying to emphasize is the fact that perfect sleep is the way to personal betterment.”

“Mmm, yes. And what do you mean, ‘perfect’ sleep? What does this,” he holds up the puffy blindfold, “have to do with that?”

This used to be easy, the pitch. Something is blocking his flow, like a plug in the dam. He visualizes water flowing and takes a deep breath, which comes out too loud when he releases it, like a grunt. He swallows.

“Would you like to try it out? Just slip it on and press the button by your right ear.”

Mr. Krebs complies, and Neil watches his slack, unsmiling mouth and folded arms. Fuck you too, moneybags. These thoughts keep butting in.

“What do you think?” he finally says.

“Okay, I’ve got it,” Mr. Krebs says, slipping the blindfold off and pushing it across the table.

“And, what did you think?”

“Listen, Mr. Finch. It’s a perfectly solid product; I won’t try to argue otherwise. But it’s very much like a product we already carry, which is already very much like a lot of products on the market.”

“I see,” Neil says, looking intently at the CEO’s pursed little mouth.

“I mean,” the CEO continues, “if you could convey to me what makes this different, well, then we might have something.”

“What makes it different. It’s, well, it’s meant to be transformational, sir. The sounds have been meticulously designed to… lull the user, in, in a— maybe you’d like to take the product home? Try it out for a night. I guarantee you’ll see what makes this a must-have item. Tell me, do you have trouble sleeping?”

“I sleep fine.”

“If you don’t want to take it now, I could have it delivered to your home?”

“No, no that won’t be necessary.”

A long silence sits like a boulder on the table while Neil tries to situate himself in the room and the conversation. He can barely remember anything he’s said. He looks around the room, the shiny brown table and matte brown walls everything brown, brown, brown, like this guy’s opinion holds any more weight than anybody else’s, like this guy’s some kind of taste-maker with his finger on the pulse of the all-important market. All he can think of to say is what he’s actually thinking, always a no-no.

“Why did you want to meet with me, Mr. Krebs?” he asks, too pointedly.

He shrugs defensively, “I thought it might be interesting, but it turns out it isn’t.”

“What would’ve been interesting?”

“Excuse me, Mr. Finch?”

“Is there something you’re able to imagine that this product could’ve been, some imaginary product to whose image this actual product doesn’t measure up?”

Mr. Krebs looks at Neil, hard, and cocks his head to one side as though something has just come to his attention.

“I think we’re done here,” he says.

Mr. Krebs then gives Neil an admonishing look that momentarily enrages him, but he collects himself, unsure suddenly what he’s said versus what he’s thought.

“Good, good,” he says, standing. He shakes Mr. Krebs’s hand across the table and shoves the blindfold into his briefcase. “Good to meet you, great,” he says, without making any eye contact, and leaves the room.

Neil takes the stairs down to the building’s garage, too impatient to wait for the elevator. He forgot to get his parking pass validated, so he’ll have to pay for it out of pocket, seven dollars for not a goddamn thing. His anger returns for a moment, as he climbs into his rented silver Nissan, making him heave himself into the car and slam the door hard, but it subsides as he sits behind the wheel for a moment, key poised at the ignition.