Three Ideas - none a story

I.

There was a country with the abbreviated name MR—it does not exist yet—where at the age of 18 the government sent a citizen a Pocket, which was a nylon bag with room for one person and a bag of things needed in a day. People commuted from their homes to work over a long distance and for the train ride they zipped themselves into a Pocket. It enabled a person to control their Senses (sight, smell, and hearing). Inside a Pocket, one could sit, stand, lie down, slump, and even walk, somewhat awkardly though. It was easy to get on and off. There were snaps all along the sides like pullaway sweatpants worn by basketball players and the whole thing cinched up into a built-in compartment the size of a medium flowerpot but weighed as much as a book. To put on, one placed it at their toes pulled a string from the top of the bag, like a thread from a spool, placed it on their sleeve and the Pocket shimmied up to the collarbone after which one placed the headpiece on like a helmet. They were like many cars in a larger car. The pronoun, 'it,' resurged in use.

II.

Penny had an artist boyfriend the year before who called her "Oxidize" but there are always love interests who claim parts of you for themselves. Sometimes Penny was one of those love interests; she gave names to parts of him too. She really wanted a baby. She found a website called "Baby week by week" and commented on the message board once pretending she felt a curious quickening. There were quicktime videos tracking the cartoon fetus week by week. The umbilical cord wasn't rendered convincingly and looked like a triangular tube but perhaps that is what one really looks like.

III.

The east-west light turned green and the first cab in the block-long queue was kept behind the crosswalk by a hem of pedestrians when the rain started, which one in twelve people noticed though more suspected imminent. Finally the cab pushed through and the pedestrians became two groups. The train terminal was 3 blocks south of this intersection. The pedestrians in the crosswalk, no longer pooled at the curb, were headed there. The taxis were full of people wearing shoes for posing and paying, not for walking and wearing in. The ears of the pedestrians perked, taking in the patter of rain drops now; the drones of traffic flooded their ears showing the eyes the metal, rubber, concrete vastness that was as waterproof as a pond.

The pedestrians formed a voice and one word emerged, the word as moving as a song but sounded a quick demand. The cabs shrank back, the frames falling onto the axels so their tires blocked the windows and the drivers were stuck inside. The sideview mirrors braked the tires, the cabs like strangled dogs, and the will of the pedestrians brought them to the subways. The subways took off from the station before any of the cabs’ tires realigned beneath the doors, the east-west light turned green, and the cars drove again.

It had been a lovely day flowering from an October morning of shortened but accessible sun rays dancing on the city activity to a midmorning wig of low lying clouds that confined the spires and roof gardens like a hat worn to church that lasted until the hour preceding dinner. That hour would blow up in gusts, shutting people indoors while they ought to be sleeping and full.