Skinny manic figure in a lab coat rummaging through the clothes outside the charity shop door.
-are you a doctor?
-no, I'm a mad scientist.
-mad scientist? Biochemist or something?
-psychopharmacist.
-here, look at these books… do you want this book?
Take them away from their context and these people become too flat to be visible. (but who knows what mind-blowing dimensions a nondescript someone, a vague irritating presence, could develop in the right context?)
They (all of those people, who take that stuff), they say "we" instead of "I" - like they're speaking for a hive.
(A hive is like a… like ants or bees, social insects all together - they have a hive mind - one ant is stupid but a million together are intelligent , I explain. Yes, just like Brazilians, she says. You put ten together and they look smarter. Together we're really intelligent.)
Oh no, the laptop's on... the ants have been at the internet again, looking up formulas for explosives and manuals on robotics... they're up to something...
[20,000 years down the line humans have evolved, but ants have come a long way too… they have recently been granted limited civil rights, like the legal right for each hive to own currency and work for a living, though no protection against an individual ant being squashed arbitrarily… they buy miniaturised computer gadgets… mad scientists programme pheromonal virtual reality entertainment and the ants rush to buy… the mutation of their culture is incredibly fast… as a virtual and commercial entity, a hive will demonstrate an endearingly eccentric personality
people peeled back, layers of reality peeled away… circuits and a sense of movement beneath…]
