Fiction: Unilever/Tate series | Phase Cycle by Salwa Azar

Phase Cycle

Full sample here: https://www.tate.org.uk/unilever2008/index-p=133.html

Entered into competition for the Dominique Gonzalez-Foester submission to the Tate gallery, 2009.

As dark-shod feet sloshed through the rain and flood-induced sludge on the pavement, moisture hung in the air from the fog off the river that lapped for now, peacefully against the concrete and flex-metal container built after the great war of '35 destroyed part of the bank. Laser turrets blinked expectantly in the mist, constantly monitoring for changes in waveform and temperature, every half mile.

Governor Snide looked up at the mammoth building in front of him and curled his lip involuntarily. He never knew why they refused to knock it down after the war. All red bricks, shafts and sheer cliff face proportions, half bombed, half resurrected now as a data bank and generator. So What if it was a major gallery as recently as twenty years ago? Modern indeed, he scoffed fingering the collar of his N-rain coat, cut in the style of an old Macintosh, the irony being lost on him entirely.

Now Snide had to make his way across puddles and sludge from the riverbank that flooded too often, just to get to a monstrosity he had to see every day of his job sheltering his new, clean, perfect office.

“Morning Governor” said an aide opening the door widely for Snide to cross.

The Governor gave a cursory nod and swept through to the main hall, populated now by a raised platform that ran the steam turbine, more lasers blasting off the surface flood-water that now ran freely diverted through the large sloped hall creating clouds of steam that drove the turbine to run the data banks above.

Ironic, thought the Governor, that a power station is again a power station. Snide lit a now-moist Proto-hale and sucked in the sticky cherry scent deep into his lungs. Cherry was for heartache and the nano particles were already doing their job, injecting minute nano-therapy drugs into his circulatory system. With the dark coat, trilby and shoes, Snide looked like a private detective of old, the Proto hanging languidly out of the side of his mouth. He liked the thought of looking like someone recognisable from culture’s history, it resonated with him, although it was about his only emotional link to the past he felt was worth cultivating.

He shivered, all too aware that the humidity and steam were signs that the water levels were rising, always rising damp, taking another deep drag of the re-engineered smoke.

Snide drew the collar of his now dripping nano-raincoat close round his neck and walked toward the lift pod up some non-slip and Na-dry stairs that were now standard issue in older buildings.

He stared at his reflection from beneath the Trilby, watching as his nano-coat spread dryness along the fibres on the way up to the third floor. He always liked it when it got up to his neck, the warm tickling his earlobes. The pod’s ImmersiLast front, now clouded over to mask the speed at which they had arrived at their destination in under five seconds, swung open effortlessly and Snide stepped out into the lush white carpeted Third level, dry as a bone, smoke curling effortlessly towards the air filters in the corridor’s ceiling.

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