/As under a green sea, I saw him drowning/

What is an ideal human face anyways?

Arkady woke up, before Electra. She was tired. It was obvious. She was not peaceful in sleep; her body arced unnaturally through the sheets, covered in the unflattering clothes they had been given. He wondered how anyone could sleep like that. He wondered how anyone could look good in those clothes. Electra looked heavenly.

He had to take a look in the mirror, see what this ideal that whoever was behind the affection multiplier thing was aiming for. His face looked... more delicate. Delicate was the right word. His hair was less coarse; he could actually brush it to the side now. His eyelashes a little longer, his skin freed of blemishes, a little softer.

-

it's what Electra likes.

-

That explained that.

He went to shower, turned the knob, waited for the cold water to cascade down on him and jolt him awake. It did. He flinched. Then recovered, showered quickly, stepped out, brushed his teeth, shaved, freshened up, dressed, walked out. Electra was there, radiant despite the sleep having not fully receded from her. She walked like a woman possessed, not even turning her head to look at him as she walked in to the small bathroom. He heard the noise of water running, walked to the kitchen, looked in the small fridge. A little container of something. Looked wholly unappetizing.

He got a bowl from the messy little stack of cheap dinnerware next to the sink, split the paltry meal in half, grabbed the container, and ate ravenously, not even waiting for her to come back.

She did eventually come, awake, revitalized. She looked more like the Electra he had known, in cheap jeans and a t-shirt, looking utterly informal, looking utterly magical.

Fuck, he was falling for her quickly.

He got up as she came, hugged her, kissed her, smelled the mint on her breath. She smiled, then frowned a bit.

"There's something... different..."

Shook her head, as if to clear it, sat down, and ate ravenously, not even waiting for him to sit down again.

They ate in silence, as they had an eternity, no, three or so days ago. Of course, Arkady's mind jumped back.

The ideal human, though...

Could we ever get there? Would we? Should we?

Fuck it's too early in the morning for philosophy.

(it was 0900)

-

Daring as never before, wastage as never before.

Young blood and high blood,

Fair cheeks, and fine bodies;

_-Ezra Pound, Hugh Selwyn Mauberley_-

Who is the ideal woman? Could Electra be better?

No. He realized the emptiness of his insistence, the corruption of his mind from the young love, from the fucking hormones, from the fucking whatever.

Of course.

-

There was a lot of time for philosophical musings in his new job. He delivered parcels, those that were of low importance, low value.

Back in the 2010s and 2020s they feared that automation would plunge the nation into unemployment. Who knew that there would come a day where humans were cheaper than robots?

Am I less valuable than a bunch of tiny circuits, a bunch of electric components, pushed together into one barely-functioning whole?

Of course.

-

That was his "job."

Of course, his job was also delivering packages, this time for the resistance. Instructions had come in a little envelope slipped under his door early that morning. He just had to deliver a couple of letters. Doubted there was anything compromising in them anyways; despite their words, they'd never entrust a wildcard like him with the lives of their trusted operatives.

Or maybe they value me. More than a robot.

Comforting.

They'd given him a rickety bicycle. He'd never ridden one before, but surprisingly it wasn't hard to learn. As long as he went slow. A sack tied to the back, full of letters, small boxes, bits of people's lives entrusted to him for safe delivery, no matter how small.

They expected him to work every day for sixteen hours. He was given thirty minutes for lunch in the middle of the day. He'd gotten away with a late start on his first day, but they would not be so kind to him in the future.

And in the other eight hours of the day, breakfast, dinner, sleep, and anything the resistance required of him.

It was a rushed life. It was a life without time for intimacy, without time to burn with Electra Kavafis.

Fuck I'm so horny. And it's been less than a day.

__He almost wished he'd stayed in the prison.

-

(it was 1330)

He'd seen a lot of boys, no, men, like him out there, wasting their life helping others live theirs.

The others, of course, being the rich, the middle class, the Wilcoxes and Schlegels to his Bast.

Even Leonard Bast had dignity. Do I?

There was no dignity in the way he ate lunch, horribly rushed, without Electra there, she off doing whatever she had to (they had not said). There were two half-meals left in the kitchen. They'd have to go shopping. If they could afford it.

He had to go back.

What is the ideal life?

-

There was plenty of time for philosophy. And not enough time for Electra.

-

I need a hug.

-

He got one, at 2100, before dinner. Dinner being, of course, one of the two half-meals they had left.

It wasn't any good, but he craved it anyways.

-

“We loved each other with a premature love, marked by a fierceness that so often destroys adult lives.”

-Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

-

There was more to be done in the night.

Four additional packages. They went out together, walking in the dark, to a factory, much like the factory Electra Kavafis apparently worked in, toiled in fifteen hours a day (lucky bastard!), and placed the package on the ground, in a corner.

A brief kiss that wanted to be so much more, a brief look into each other's eyes, and they walked away. He didn't look back.

This time, they both walked up to the third floor. Three flights. She fumbled with the key, unlocked the door. They stepped in. Took off their boots. Fell into the bed's embrace. Slept.

-

"I really don't know what happens next. One so seldom does."

-E. M. Forster

__