The other day I was reading a back issue of SEED magazine, wherein they had printed some stories of Science Fiction. Not as in fiction about the future, but fiction about science (e.g. the first story features Thomas Edison). I thought … hmmm … what would Design Fiction be like? Herewith …
Night Shift
Sharon was woken by the sound of her name spoken in an unfamiliar voice. Her eyes fluttered open and focused on a rack of bronze trophies. “We’re ready in about 5 minutes,” the voice said. She unstuck her arms from the leather couch and sat up. Her partner, Chris, looked at her blearily from an armchair. “We’re getting there,” he said, and stood up.
Minutes later they were walking down a corridor of closed doors and linoleum tile. As they opened the pressroom door the throb of machines woke them up properly. Sharon’s eyes flitted, as always, past the bins of make-ready, but with less interest than usual; kittens overprinted with real-estate agents … she just wanted to go home.
As they approached the press—was it the daylight balanced light?—something strange, something glowing from the man standing there. He radiated. Do men radiate? Do pressmen radiate? She looked at his eyes—surely the same aquamarine as the cover of their piece. The very same, so unusual, it must be the light and perhaps the time of night. But there he stood, glowing and radiating. Unearthly. And something else … his shirt had a familiar texture. Again, how strange, just like the cover stock. What a coincidence, she thought. It’s like he’s wrapped up in my design piece, or reflecting little bits of it back.
He smiled, held out his hand. “Hi. Jim,” he said. His hand was warm—electric. She didn’t know what to say, but held it for a second longer than necessary. When they let go, he gestured to the sheet and stood aside. Her hand tingled.
It looked OK. Not brilliant, just OK. “Uhuh.” said Chris, and she felt him struggling to say something useful. They were here, and there was an urge to feel a need to be here. “What do you think?” Chris said to her. She looked hard at the sheet, but noticed the pressman’s—Jim’s—hand beside it. Was that Blue 072 under his thumbnail? Why would he have ink under his thumbnail? Do they mix ink? She didn’t think so. He had absorbed more bits. He was becoming hers.
The colour on the sheet looked uneven. “Does the colour look uneven?” she said, “It looks … lighter over here to me. I don’t know.”
“Yeah it does,” said Chris. “That’s what I thought.”
“Mmmm …” Jim took the densitometer and laid it on top. “It’s reading the same. I don’t see it.”
At that moment Sharon noticed a tattoo on his arm. The design! The same artwork she had made for the back cover! How?
“Can you bring it up over here?” asked Chris.
“Well, it’s the same. That’s 072, right? Tricky colour. But it’ll dry back just fine.”
His arm moved in front of her. It was the same art, or close enough … she wanted to reach out and touch it, stop him, ask him. She leaned heavily against the table.
“Hey, are you allright?” Jim and Chris moved to catch her. She leaned into Jim; again that peculiar warmth. Vibrant.
“It must be the ink … the fumes maybe. I’m OK, I think. Just …”
Again she looked at his arm and saw the lines she had so clearly drawn herself. There, on his skin. Her colour in his eyes, another on his fingers. Like he rolled off her page. He let go of her.
“Well,” said Chris, back to the sheet, “I guess it’s OK, if you’re sure it’s even.”
“Yup.” Jim handed Chris a pen, but Sharon reached out and took it. Brushed his hand, to feel him again.
“I’ll sign off.”
“OK. We should be back on in about an hour.”
As they were leaving she looked back. Jim was looking at her, and smiled as he crossed his arms, baring the tattoo, which he touched with his fingers as though to say, “See? I know you.”
They walked back down the hall. “Jesus Christ,” said Chris, “Who do you have to be to get on press during the day, fuckin’ Ivan Chermayeff?”
“Did you see that guy’s tattoo?”
“Who, the press guy? Yeah it was a ship.”
She stopped Chris and turned him to face her, “What? No! The one on his arm! Didn’t you see it?”
“Yeah, it was a fuckin’ sailing ship, like he’s Mr. Sailor Man.”
“Chris, no! It was my artwork! From the back cover! It was mine!”
“What are you talking about? That guy, Jim, right? On his beefy right forearm?”
“It was my artwork!”
“Sharon … I dunno, it’s late, we’re tired, I think your eyes are playing tricks. And fuck, that colour better be fine or I’m going to be pissed.”
Sharon laughed nervously, uncertain now … “How about his eyes, and his shirt, did you notice?”
Chris just looked at her and shook his head. “Coffee,” he said, as they entered the waiting room.
Sharon slumped on the couch and looked around. Printed books and samples on the coffee table, a nubbly beige carpet on the floor, the silent TV. Was she just in some kind of heightened state? Would other colours and coincidences emerge from this room? But it all seemed normal. Familiar, a typical printer’s waiting room. She thought about Jim. The tattoo. It hadn’t been just a glimpse, she’d looked at it hard, close. It was hers. She tried to think … had she posted it anywhere online, and maybe he rushed out and had it tattooed? How quick, how fresh would that have to be? And of course not … she never posted things before they were done. But the files had been at the printer’s for two weeks. That had to be it. But still…. Maybe it was fake. A temporary tattoo? He saw the artwork and did some kind of photomechanical transfer…. A joke? A sign? She sighed. She remembered the feel of his hand in hers. A sign, maybe.
“Last one, Share, and then we’re outta here. Fuck. Why is it that the most important form is always on last?”
“I dunno. It’s like they do it on purpose, but I don’t know why. Is there anything in the fridge?” Muffins. She unwrapped one and crumbled it into a napkin. She could smell ink. All she could think of was Jim. Electric Jim.
*
An hour later the door opened, “We’re on.” They followed this man, a smaller man, down the corridor. They were ejected from a quiet night of boredom into pounding activity. Two presses running, another with its siren going, ready to start up, and theirs lazily idling. It whispered rhythmically, like sweeping. Jim had his back to them, leaning over the sheet. He said nothing and turned to the press as they came up.
The press sheet looked like shit.
“It looks like shit.” said Chris.
“Well, uh … I wouldn’t say ‘shit’ exactly, but it could use a little, uh …”
“What’s wrong?” The voice over her shoulder.
“Well … it’s really dull.” said Chris.
“That’s the paper.” said Jim.
“Ohhh, I don’t believe this,” said Chris. “Look, we … can we bring it up? We really need to … like maybe the cyan and the yellow, can you bring them up?”
Jim moved in and leaned on the table, “Well, it’s stochastic. There’s not a lot of room to move, but I can try.”
As he pressed buttons and took readings, Sharon looked at his hands. His thumbnail … not Blue 072. Not blue at all. Dirt. There was dirt under his thumbnail—under all his nails, actually. He turned back to the press as it started up.
Chris was fumbling in his bag. Sharon turned to look at Jim. He looked different: ordinary … and his shirt—how incredibly strange—it was a regular t-shirt! Not textured at all. He must have changed it. It was kind of dirty, but still he must have changed it. He had a bald spot she hadn’t noticed before; one of his shoelaces was untied.
A new sheet. “OK, so I brought it up through here, but I don’t want to affect that photo on the other side, but it’s brighter, see?” She did not see. She looked at Chris and could tell that he did not see, either. It looked the same. “So, is that better?” Jim asked. Chris shook his head and held out a piece of paper, a printed sheet, and said, “See this? Same paper, and the photo’s from the same shoot … we need that colour, like that.” Jim took the sheet, doubtfully, and put it beside the press sheet. “Well, ours is much cleaner, much crisper … this one looks muddy.”
“It’s not muddy, it looks rich, we need this to look rich too.”
“Yeah, but on this paper—”
“—it’s the same paper!”
“Well, in order to get that colour, we’d have to make an extra plate for the cyan.”
Jim looked at Sharon. His eyes were brown.
“Well,” she said, “Let’s do it … can we do that?”
“Well, it’ll take some time, we’d have to go back into pre-press and separate it out, make a new plate, you wouldn’t get it today. You’d probably lose your spot in the queue; might be a week.”
“Well shit,” said Chris, “This is ridiculous, we didn’t have another hit for this piece …”
“Different press, different photo … I don’t know what you did.” said Jim.
Chris and Sharon exchanged helpless glances. Sharon sighed, “They’ll freak if they don’t get this by the end of the week. I think we have to let it go.”
“Is this the best you can do?” Chris asked Jim.
“Given what we’ve got … unless you want to take it off.”
Sharon looked at Jim’s arm. The tattoo was a ship.
*
The pressroom door closed behind them and they stumbled down the muffled corridor. Mute. Into the grey light of morning.
A good example of Design Fiction by a Sci-Fi writer would be William Gibson's Pattern Recognition, about a girl with a morbid sensitivity to design (especially logos) investigating the origin of a misterious web movie for a post-national guerrilla advertising agency.
On Jun.27.2007 at 06:54 AM