Chapter Nine: The Variations Accumulate (Part II)

World 176

The license had expired, and K. was no longer authorized to feel, and the emotion regulation office was explaining that continued feeling without a license was a civil violation.

"Your emotional license expired on the 15th," the officer said. "That was three weeks ago. You've been feeling illegally for twenty-one days."

K. felt the feelings he was apparently not supposed to have. They were ordinary feelings—mild contentment, occasional irritation, the background hum of being alive.

"I didn't know I needed a license," K. said.

"Everyone needs a license. Emotions are regulated. Unlicensed feeling creates social instability."

"What happens now?"

"You have two options. Pay the back-licensing fees and renew your permit. Or surrender your feelings until you can afford reinstatement."

K. calculated the fees. They were substantial—three weeks of illegal emotion, plus penalties, plus the cost of renewal. He couldn't afford it, not immediately.

"I'll have to surrender," K. said.

The surrender process was clinical. A technician attached devices to K.'s temples and drained away the unauthorized feelings. The contentment went first, then the irritation, then the background hum.

When it was over, K. felt nothing. He could think, could reason, could perform cognitive functions. But the color was gone, the texture, the warmth that made thinking about things feel different from just thinking.

"Your feelings are stored at the licensing office," the officer said. "You can reclaim them when you renew your permit."

K. walked home, feeling nothing. The city was the same, but his experience of it was flat, two-dimensional, stripped of the emotional resonance that made places feel like places.

He would save money. He would renew his license. He would feel again, eventually.

But for now, he was a person without permission to feel, living in a world that continued to provoke feelings he was not authorized to have.

World 177

The roster was unknown, and K. was on it, and he had no idea what he had been selected for or what would be required of him.

"You're on the roster," the notification said. "Report to processing center 7 at 9 AM tomorrow."

K. showed up. The processing center was full of others who had received similar notifications—people who had been rostered for unknown purposes, waiting to learn what they had been chosen for.

"Does anyone know?" K. asked the person next to him.

"No one knows. The roster doesn't explain. It just selects."

K. waited. Eventually, he was called into a small office where a administrator sat behind a desk covered with files.

"K.," the administrator said. "You've been rostered for—" she consulted her file, "—something. The roster doesn't specify. You're on standby for whatever is needed."

"For how long?"

"Indefinitely. Until you're called."

"Called for what?"

"We don't know. The roster is generated by an algorithm. The algorithm knows what it needs. We just execute the selections."

K. was given a badge identifying him as rostered. He was told to keep his schedule flexible, his bags packed, his affairs in order. When the call came, he would need to respond immediately.

He went home and waited. Days passed, then weeks. The call didn't come. But the badge remained, the status remained, the possibility remained.

He was rostered. He was on standby. He existed in a state of permanent potential activation, waiting for a purpose that might never be revealed.

The uncertainty was its own kind of purpose. The waiting was its own kind of work.

World 178

The sleep had to be documented, and K. was behind on his sleep reports, and the somnography department was threatening penalties for incomplete nocturnal records.

"Every citizen is required to submit nightly sleep reports," the inspector said. "Duration, dream content, REM cycles, position changes. You've missed seventeen consecutive reports."

"I've been sleeping," K. said. "I just haven't been documenting it."

"Undocumented sleep is a violation. The state needs to monitor sleeping patterns. For public health. For security. For planning purposes."

K. looked at the report forms. They were extensive—pages of questions about the nature and quality of his sleep, spaces for dream transcripts, diagrams for indicating body position at various points in the night.

"How is this possible?" K. asked. "I'm asleep when these things happen. I can't report them."

"That's why we provide sleep monitoring equipment. Standard issue. You should have installed it when you registered as a citizen."

K. went home and installed the equipment. It attached to his bed, to his pillow, to his body. When he slept, it recorded everything: his breathing, his movements, the electrical activity of his dreaming brain.

In the morning, the equipment generated his report automatically. K. reviewed it: 7.3 hours of sleep, four dream cycles, two position changes, and a detailed transcript of dreams he didn't remember having.

"This is what I dreamed?" he asked no one. "I don't remember any of this."

The equipment didn't answer. It only recorded, only documented, only created the official version of K.'s sleeping life—a version that was more complete, more accurate, and more true than anything K. could have reported himself.

World 179

The temperature marriage was ending, and K. was divorcing a climate system that had been his spouse for twelve years, and the weather was making the proceedings difficult.

"I, K., wish to dissolve my marriage to Temperate Zone 7B," K. said to the court. "We are no longer compatible."

The climate responded with a sudden drop in temperature—a cold front that swept through the courtroom, forcing the judge to put on a coat.

"The respondent objects," the judge noted. "The climate does not consent to divorce."

"Climate consent is not required," K.'s lawyer argued. "Temperature marriage is dissoluble with cause. My client has documented cause."

K. had documented extensive cause: years of unexpected weather patterns, storms that arrived without warning, heat waves that lasted months. The climate had been erratic, unpredictable, unwilling to maintain the stability that marriage required.

"I loved you once," K. said to the climate. "I loved your seasons, your changes, your particular way of being. But you've become something I can't live with."

The climate responded with rain—heavy, insistent rain that soaked the courtroom despite its being indoors.

"The marriage is dissolved," the judge ruled, shouting over the weather. "K. is granted climate independence. Temperate Zone 7B is required to maintain a minimum distance of 500 miles."

The climate withdrew, taking its weather with it. The courtroom dried. K. sat in the sudden absence of atmosphere, feeling the emptiness where his climate spouse had been.

He would need to marry again, eventually. No one could live without climate. But for now, he was single, weather-less, a person standing in a vacuum where rain had just been.

World 180

The deposits had been forgotten, and K. was owed something by an institution that no longer remembered the debt, and the recovery process required proving that the forgotten thing had ever existed.

"You claim to have deposited something with us in 1987," the institutional representative said. "Our records show no such deposit."

"I have the receipt," K. said, showing a faded piece of paper that documented the transaction.

"Receipts can be forged. Without corresponding institutional records, we cannot verify the deposit."

K. looked at his receipt. It clearly showed a deposit: a quantity of something, placed in the institution's care, to be returned upon demand. He remembered making the deposit—or thought he remembered—though the details had faded along with the paper.

"What was I depositing?" K. asked.

"The receipt doesn't specify. It just says 'contents.' We don't know what contents you're claiming."

K. didn't know either. He had deposited something, decades ago, and the something had been important enough to save a receipt for. But the nature of the something was lost to time and institutional forgetting.

"Can I withdraw it anyway?" K. asked. "Whatever it is?"

"If we verified the deposit existed, you could withdraw. But we can't verify what we don't remember. You're trying to recover a forgotten thing from a forgetful institution. The math doesn't work."

K. kept his receipt. It was proof of something—proof that once, he had possessed something worth depositing, something worth saving, something that existed in a time before forgetting.

The institution didn't remember. K. barely remembered. But the receipt remained, a document of a debt that would never be paid because no one could recall what was owed.

World 181

The famine was emotional, and K. was starving for feelings, and the relief agencies were explaining that emotional aid was limited and subject to prioritization.

"You're experiencing Category 3 emotional famine," the aid worker said. "That qualifies you for basic feeling supplements. One unit of contentment per day. Emergency joy as needed."

K. took his supplement. It was a small thing—a capsule that dissolved on his tongue, releasing a faint warmth that was contentment, or something like it.

"Is this enough?" K. asked.

"It's what's available. The famine is widespread. We're rationing."

K. looked around the relief center. Others waited for their supplements—people who had been emotionally depleted, who had run out of their own feelings and now depended on the kindness of strangers to feel anything at all.

"How did this happen?" K. asked. "How did we run out of emotions?"

"Overconsumption. Emotional inflation. People felt too much, too fast, without replenishing. The reserves are exhausted. Now we wait for feelings to regenerate."

The contentment supplement lasted about four hours. After that, K. was back to baseline—a flat, gray existence without joy or sadness or any of the textures that made life feel like something.

He returned the next day for another supplement. And the next. And the next.

The famine continued. The supplements continued. K. survived on emotional scraps, living a reduced existence, waiting for the day when feelings would be plentiful again and he could feel freely, without rationing, without limit.

That day seemed very far away.

World 182

The weights were redistributed, and K. was now heavier in some ways and lighter in others, and the gravity technician was explaining that mass was no longer a fixed property.

"Your core mass remains constant," the technician said. "But we've redistributed your weight according to social need. Your head is now heavier—for thinking. Your hands are lighter—for fine motor tasks."

K. felt the changes. His head sagged forward, pulled down by the increased weight of thoughts. His hands floated upward when he relaxed them, light as air.

"This doesn't feel natural," K. said.

"Natural is outdated. We optimize now. Your body serves a function. The weight distribution should match the function."

K. tried to walk. The uneven distribution made movement difficult—his heavy head pulled him forward, his light hands tried to rise. He stumbled, caught himself, stumbled again.

"You'll adapt," the technician said. "Everyone adapts."

K. spent weeks learning to navigate his redistributed body. He developed new postures, new movements, new ways of being that accommodated the artificial weight patterns.

His thinking did seem clearer—the heavy head forced concentration. His hands did work better—the lightness made them quick, precise.

But something was lost. The original weight—the way his body had been born—was gone, replaced by optimization. He was more efficient now, more functional.

He was no longer balanced. He was adjusted.

World 183

The census was wrong, and K. didn't exist according to official records, and the bureaucrat was explaining that non-existence was, unfortunately, his problem to solve.

"You don't appear in any database," the bureaucrat said. "No birth certificate. No identification number. No record of education, employment, or residence. According to the state, you don't exist."

K. stood in the office, clearly existing, clearly present, clearly taking up space in reality.

"I'm here," K. said. "I exist. You can see me."

"Visual evidence is not sufficient for bureaucratic existence. The records determine reality. If the records say you don't exist, then you don't exist."

"Then how do I get records?"

"You need existing records to obtain new records. You need identification to prove identity. It's a closed loop. Non-existent persons cannot become existent through the normal process."

K. walked out of the office. He moved through a world that officially didn't contain him. When he bought food, the transaction wasn't recorded. When he spoke to people, the conversations didn't count. He was a ghost in the machine—visible, tangible, but absent from every system that tracked existence.

"Is there an advantage to non-existence?" K. wondered.

There was. No taxes, because the non-existent cannot be taxed. No obligations, because the non-existent have no civic duties. No tracking, because the non-existent leave no official traces.

But there were disadvantages too. No services, because the non-existent are not eligible. No rights, because rights require recognized personhood. No future, because the non-existent cannot plan.

K. decided to remain non-existent. It was easier than fighting the bureaucracy. He would live in the gaps, in the margins, in the space between what the records said and what reality demonstrated.

He didn't exist. He continued anyway.

World 184

The attention was taxed, and K. owed a significant sum for all the times he had been noticed, and the attention revenue service was threatening collection.

"You've been noticed approximately 47,000 times this year," the agent said. "At the standard attention tax rate, that's 23,500 credits owed."

"I have to pay for being noticed?"

"Attention is a resource. When someone notices you, they're investing their awareness in you. That investment has value. The value is taxed."

K. looked at the bill. It itemized every instance of being noticed: strangers on the street, coworkers in the office, friends and family who paid attention to his existence.

"Can I avoid the tax by not being noticed?" K. asked.

"You can try. Invisibility reduces your tax burden. But complete invisibility is difficult. Even the effort to be invisible attracts attention."

K. tried to minimize his visibility. He wore inconspicuous clothes, moved quietly, avoided eye contact. He became as forgettable as possible.

It helped, slightly. His attention tax decreased by about 30%. But people still noticed him—noticed the person who was trying not to be noticed, noticed the gap where a person was deliberately not being.

"You're taxed for the attention you attract by avoiding attention," the agent explained. "Meta-attention. It's a common mistake."

K. paid his taxes. He couldn't afford to be noticed, but he couldn't afford not to be noticed either. He existed in the middle, paying for his presence in the world, indebted to the attention economy for the simple act of being seen.

World 185

The infidelity was geometric, and K.'s spouse—a pentagon—had been seeing a hexagon, and the marriage counselor was explaining that shape betrayal was particularly devastating.

"A hexagon?" K. said. "They have six sides. You only have five."

"The hexagon made me feel complete," the pentagon said. "Like I had more angles than I actually have."

K. looked at his spouse. They had been married for years—a triangle and a pentagon, an unlikely pairing that had worked through accommodation and compromise.

"I'm not enough angles for you," K. said. "That's what you're saying."

"I'm saying the hexagon offered something you couldn't. More complexity. More sides. More of what I needed."

The counselor intervened. "Inter-shape infidelity often stems from geometric insecurity. The pentagon may have felt inadequate compared to more complex polygons."

"I never compared you to hexagons," K. said. "I loved you with your five sides. I didn't need more."

"But I needed more. I needed to feel like I could be more than what I am."

K. considered the geometry of betrayal. His spouse had sought out more angles, more complexity, more shape than K. could provide. The affair was not about sex or love—it was about ontological expansion.

"Can we work through this?" K. asked.

"I don't know. Can you accept that I'll always wish I had six sides?"

K. didn't know. He was a triangle. He had three angles, no more, no less. He couldn't give his spouse the additional sides they craved.

The marriage survived, barely. K. and the pentagon continued together, knowing that somewhere, the pentagon dreamed of hexagons.

World 186

The list was classified, and K. was on it, and no one would tell him what the list was for or why his name had been added.

"You're on the list," the official said. "I can confirm that much."

"What list?"

"I can't disclose the nature of the list. That information is classified."

"But I'm on it. Don't I have a right to know what I'm on?"

"You have the right to know that you're on a list. You do not have the right to know which list or what the list is for."

K. had discovered his listing by accident—a reference in a document, a mention in a conversation, the suggestion that his name appeared somewhere significant.

"Am I in trouble?" he asked.

"The list is not a trouble list. It's not a reward list either. It's just a list."

"Then why does it matter that I'm on it?"

"Everything matters. Lists matter. Being on lists matters. The fact that you don't know why is part of the mattering."

K. lived with his listing. He couldn't forget it—the knowledge that somewhere, in some file, his name was recorded for some purpose. He looked for clues, searched for patterns, tried to understand why he had been listed.

He never found out. The list remained classified. His presence on it remained significant and unexplained.

Sometimes he wondered if everyone was on lists they didn't know about. If the world was organized by secret classifications, invisible categorizations, purposes that moved through lives without ever being revealed.

He was listed. That was all he knew. That was all he would ever know.

World 187

The quota was for dreams, and K. had underdreamed this month, and the somnography department was explaining that his dream production was below the required minimum.

"Standard quota is 23 dreams per month," the officer said. "You've produced only 17. That's a significant shortfall."

"I don't control my dreams," K. said. "They happen or they don't."

"Dream production is a civic duty. The collective unconscious relies on contributions from all citizens. When you underdream, you're not doing your part."

K. thought about his dreams—or tried to. He rarely remembered them, rarely felt that he had dreamed at all. He slept and woke and the time between was blank.

"Can I increase my production?" he asked.

"There are supplements. Dream stimulants. They're not pleasant, but they can boost output by 30 to 40 percent."

K. took the supplements. They worked—his nights became vivid, crowded with dreams that demanded attention. He dreamed constantly, intensively, productively.

But the dreams were exhausting. He woke more tired than when he slept, drained by the nocturnal productivity that the quota demanded.

"This isn't sustainable," he told the department at his follow-up.

"Sustainability is not the goal. Production is the goal. The collective unconscious is hungry. It needs material."

K. continued taking the supplements. He continued producing dreams. He met his quota, exceeded it, became a model citizen of the sleeping world.

He was never rested again. Rest was not the point. The dreams were the point, and the dreams kept coming, and K. kept producing, and the collective unconscious was fed.

World 188

The custody of the climate was disputed, and K. was the mediator, and neither party was willing to concede the weather to the other.

"I raised this weather," the first party said. "I nurtured these clouds from infancy. I taught these winds how to blow."

"But I'm the natural parent," the second party countered. "This climate comes from my atmospheric conditions. It's genetically mine."

K. looked at the climate in question: a small weather system, maybe a few square miles, consisting of intermittent rain and mild breezes. It was unremarkable weather, but both parties seemed to love it intensely.

"What would be best for the climate?" K. asked. "Not for either of you—for the weather itself?"

"It needs stability," the first party said. "A consistent environment. That's what I provide."

"It needs freedom," the second party said. "Room to develop. To become whatever weather it's meant to be."

K. observed the climate. It rained, hesitantly, as if aware that its future was being decided. The winds circled nervously.

"I'm going to recommend shared custody," K. said. "Each of you will have the climate for six months of the year. During your time, you can nurture it as you see fit."

"But it will become confused," the first party objected. "Different conditions every six months."

"That's the nature of weather," K. said. "It changes. It adapts. It becomes what it needs to be, regardless of who's managing it."

The parties accepted the ruling reluctantly. The climate would be shared, shuffled, passed between competing caretakers.

K. watched the weather leave with the first party, already changing, already adapting to the new arrangement. It was small weather, unremarkable weather.

But it was weather, and weather mattered, and someone had to decide who got to care for it.

World 189

The odors were gone, and K. had lost his sense of smell in a previous reality, and this reality required olfactory participation that he could not provide.

"The meeting will convene in scent format," the notification said. "Please prepare your aromatic contributions."

K. couldn't smell. He couldn't produce meaningful odors. In a world that communicated through scent, he was functionally mute and deaf.

"I have an olfactory disability," he told the meeting organizer. "I'll need accommodations."

"Accommodations are possible. We can translate the scent discussion into text for you. But you won't be able to contribute. Scent contributions cannot be synthesized."

K. attended the meeting. The others released their odors—messages, arguments, emotional content expressed through fragrance. K. received the text translations, which were accurate but inadequate.

"The scent of agreement," the text said. "The scent of mild disagreement with undertones of respect."

It wasn't the same. Text couldn't convey what smell conveyed—the subtlety, the complexity, the direct emotional impact of olfactory communication.

K. sat in the meeting, isolated by his disability. He could see the others, see them releasing their scents, see their reactions to each other's aromatic statements. But he couldn't participate, couldn't contribute, couldn't be part of the conversation in the way that mattered.

"Thank you for attending," the organizer said afterward. "We appreciate your presence, even if you couldn't smell it."

K. went home to his odorless apartment, his odorless life, his existence in a scentless bubble that the world's fragrances couldn't penetrate.

World 190

The nomination was for something, and K. had been nominated, and the ceremony was approaching, and no one would tell him what he was being recognized for.

"You've been nominated for the annual prize," the coordinator said. "The ceremony is Friday."

"What prize?"

"The prize. The annual one. You know."

"I don't know. I don't know what I did to deserve nomination."

"Deserve is a strong word. The nomination is for—" the coordinator checked her notes, "—something. The committee felt you represented something worth recognizing."

K. prepared for the ceremony. He rented formal clothes, wrote an acceptance speech for a prize he didn't understand, practiced grateful expressions.

At the ceremony, other nominees sat in similar confusion. None of them seemed to know what they were nominated for. They exchanged bewildered glances while the audience applauded.

"The nominees represent the best of us," the host announced. "Their achievements in—" a pause, a consultation with notes, "—various fields are worthy of recognition."

K. didn't win. The prize went to someone else, for something else, in a category that was never explained.

"Congratulations on your nomination," people said afterward. "You must be so proud."

"I don't know what I was nominated for," K. said.

"Does it matter? You were nominated. That's an honor."

K. went home with his nomination, his almost-prize, his recognition for achievements he didn't remember achieving. He hung the nomination certificate on his wall, next to other mysteries, next to other honors he didn't understand.

Being nominated felt like something. What something, he couldn't say.

World 191

The flood was emotional, and K. was drowning in feelings that weren't his, and the emergency services were explaining that containment was impossible once someone started leaking.

"You've absorbed approximately 47,000 units of external emotion," the technician said. "That's beyond capacity. The overflow is inevitable."

K. felt the feelings inside him—too many, too much, a reservoir of joy and grief and anger and love that belonged to others, that had somehow accumulated in him, that now needed release.

"How did this happen?" K. asked.

"Emotional permeability. Some people absorb feelings from their environment. You're extremely absorbent. You've been collecting without knowing."

The flood began. K. cried tears that weren't his sadness, laughed with joy that wasn't his happiness, raged with anger that wasn't his frustration. The feelings poured out, undirected, uncontrolled.

"Stand back," the emergency services warned bystanders. "Emotional flooding is contagious. His overflow could trigger your own."

K. flooded for three days. The feelings kept coming, kept pouring out, kept emptying from a source that seemed endless.

When it was over, he was empty. Not just emptied of the external emotions—emptied of everything. The flood had washed away his own feelings along with the borrowed ones.

"You'll recover," the technician said. "New emotions will grow. But you need to be more careful about absorption. Some boundaries need to be maintained."

K. sat in his empty interior, waiting for feelings to return. He had been a container for everyone's emotions, and now he was a container for nothing.

The nothing was, at least, entirely his.

World 192

The custody was over K.'s weight, and both parties claimed the right to determine how much he should weigh, and K. himself had no say in the matter.

"His optimal weight is 175 pounds," the first party argued. "That's the weight that maximizes his utility. Any more is waste. Any less is deficit."

"His ideal weight is 160 pounds," the second party countered. "That's the weight that maximizes his aesthetic value. Appearance matters."

K. stood on a scale in the courtroom, watching the number that would be determined by others.

"What do I think?" K. asked. "Does my preference count?"

"Your preference is noted," the judge said. "But weight is not a personal choice. It affects others. It affects systems. Your weight is a public matter."

The trial continued. Experts testified about K.'s body, his metabolism, his potential weights and their implications. K. listened to himself being discussed as if he weren't present, as if his body were property to be managed.

"The court rules a compromise weight of 168 pounds," the judge said. "K. is required to maintain this weight within a tolerance of plus or minus three pounds."

K. left the courtroom knowing what he would weigh. Not what he wanted to weigh, not what felt natural—what the court had decided.

He adjusted his eating, his exercise, his entire life around the mandated number. 168 pounds, plus or minus three.

His body was no longer his. It was a court-ordered compromise, a negotiated settlement, a weight determined by litigation rather than appetite.

World 193

The schedule was incomprehensible, and K. was supposed to follow it, and the time management office was explaining that comprehension was not required.

"Your schedule for Tuesday is as follows," the officer read. "8:47 AM: Event A. 10:23 AM: Process B. 12:09 PM: Function C. The details are not your concern."

"But what are these events? What am I supposed to do?"

"You'll know when you arrive. The schedule determines your presence. Your actions are determined by circumstance."

K. followed his schedule. At 8:47 AM, he arrived at a building he didn't recognize and performed tasks that were explained only when he began them. At 10:23 AM, he processed something—data, perhaps, or paperwork—without understanding what the processing accomplished.

The day passed in blocks of incomprehensible activity. K. moved through his schedule like a piece on a board, positioned by forces he didn't understand, activated by timings that had no apparent logic.

"Was today productive?" he asked the time management office at the end.

"Productivity is not the metric. Compliance is the metric. You complied. Therefore, the day was successful."

K. went home. His schedule for Wednesday was already waiting—another series of times and events, another day of incomprehensible activity.

He would comply again. He would follow the schedule, perform the functions, arrive at the appointments. Understanding was optional. Compliance was mandatory.

The schedule continued. K. continued within it.

World 194

The bankruptcy was attentional, and K. had run out of the ability to focus, and the attention receivers were closing his accounts.

"Your attention account has been depleted," the notice said. "You no longer have the resources to attend to anything."

K. tried to focus on the notice itself. His eyes slid off the words, unable to concentrate, unable to maintain the attention that reading required.

"I can't read this," he said.

"That's consistent with attentional bankruptcy. You've exhausted your focusing resources. Everything will become difficult to notice."

K. moved through a world that he couldn't properly perceive. Objects blurred at the edges. Sounds faded into background noise. People spoke to him, but their words dissolved before they reached meaning.

"Can I rebuild my attention?" he asked—though asking itself was difficult, requiring focus he didn't have.

"Attention regenerates slowly. With rest and reduced stimulation, you might recover basic focusing ability in three to six months."

K. went home—home being a vague concept now, a place he knew existed but couldn't fully perceive—and sat in the blurring room, unable to attend to anything, unable to focus on recovery, unable to notice his own noticing.

He was bankruptcy made manifest. He had spent his attention on everything and now had attention for nothing.

The world continued around him, rich with detail, full of things worth noticing. K. sat in the middle of it, unable to see, unable to focus, unable to attend.

World 195

The divorce was between K.'s shapes, and his square self was leaving his circular self, and the mediator was explaining that identity integration was no longer viable.

"The square-self and the circle-self have irreconcilable differences," the mediator said. "Continued coexistence in one body is causing psychological damage to both."

K. looked at himself—or his selves. The square-self was rigid, angular, defined. The circle-self was fluid, continuous, complete. They had coexisted for decades, but the tension had finally become unbearable.

"What happens if we divorce?" the square-self asked.

"You'll exist separately. Two partial K.s, each with their own identity, their own body, their own life."

"And what happens to the memories? The experiences? The person we've been together?"

"Those will be divided according to the shape they best fit. Square memories to the square-self. Circular memories to the circle-self."

K. thought about the division. His childhood—was it square or circular? His relationships—did they have angles or curves? His identity had been both, always, a constant negotiation between definition and fluidity.

"I don't want to be half a person," the circle-self said.

"You won't be half. You'll be whole—but a different whole. A whole circle instead of a divided hybrid."

The divorce proceeded. K. watched himself separate—felt the painful division as square and circle became distinct, became separate, became two where there had been one.

When it was over, there were two K.s. One angular. One smooth.

They looked at each other with recognition and estrangement—familiar strangers who had once been one, who now had to learn to be two.

World 196

The marriage was to smell, and K. was married to the scent of pine, and the marriage had lasted seventeen years, and K. was beginning to wonder if olfactory love was enough.

"I love you," K. said to the pine scent that filled his apartment.

The scent responded as scents do—by being present, by surrounding, by entering K.'s awareness through channels that words couldn't reach.

"But I wish you could speak," K. continued. "I wish we could have a conversation."

The pine scent couldn't speak. It could only smell—intensifying sometimes, fading others, but always present, always the same fundamental scent that K. had fallen in love with.

"Other people have partners who can talk," K. told the marriage counselor. "Partners who can respond. I have a smell."

"You chose olfactory marriage," the counselor said. "You found this scent and committed to it. The limitations were clear from the beginning."

"I know. But seventeen years of one-sided conversation—it wears on you."

The counselor couldn't help. The marriage was what it was: a person and a smell, bound together, experiencing each other in the only way they could.

K. went home. The pine scent welcomed him—or he imagined it welcoming him. The apartment smelled like his spouse, like his life, like the choice he had made decades ago.

"I love you," K. said again.

The scent said nothing. The scent said everything. The scent was marriage, was commitment, was love expressed through presence rather than words.

K. breathed deeply and accepted what he had.

World 197

The processing was for K., and he was being processed, and the officers were explaining that processing was standard and would continue until complete.

"Everyone gets processed," the officer said. "You're not being singled out."

"What does processing involve?" K. asked.

"That's part of the processing. You'll understand when it's complete."

K. was led through a series of rooms. In each room, something happened—examinations, measurements, questions, procedures he couldn't name. The processing was thorough.

"Am I being changed?" K. asked. "Will I be different after?"

"You'll be processed. Whether that's different depends on how you were before."

K. couldn't remember how he was before. The processing seemed to be affecting his memory, smoothing over what had been, making room for what would be.

By the end—if there was an end—K. felt different. Not better or worse. Processed. As if everything about him had been examined, evaluated, adjusted according to criteria he didn't know.

"You're complete," the officer finally said. "You've been processed."

K. left the facility. The world looked the same, but he perceived it differently—through the filter of processing, the lens of whatever had been done to him.

"What now?" he asked.

"Now you continue. As processed. Until reprocessing is required."

K. continued, processed, waiting for the reprocessing that would inevitably come.

World 198

The subsidies were for dreams, and K. was receiving government support to dream in certain approved directions, and the dream regulators were evaluating his nocturnal output.

"Your subsidized dreams show good compliance," the regulator said. "Appropriate patriotic themes. Adequate production values. You're earning your subsidy."

K. dreamed what he was paid to dream. Visions of approved content: national pride, civic virtue, the proper emotional responses to approved stimuli. His sleeping mind had become a factory for government-sanctioned imagery.

"What about my own dreams?" K. asked. "Dreams that aren't subsidized?"

"Unsubsidized dreaming is permitted but not encouraged. The subsidy covers your basic needs. Why would you dream beyond your allocation?"

K. tried to dream his own dreams—personal, unregulated, potentially subversive. But the subsidy had shaped his unconscious. The approved dreams came naturally now. The unapproved ones required effort he didn't have.

"I dream what I'm supposed to dream," K. admitted. "I don't know if I can dream anything else."

"That's efficiency. That's the system working. Your dreams serve the collective. Your subsidy recognizes that service."

K. took his subsidy and dreamed his approved dreams. Night after night, the government-sanctioned visions played through his sleeping mind, and he woke rested, compliant, his unconscious fully integrated into the apparatus of the state.

World 199

The infidelity was climatic, and K.'s spouse—a weather system—had been intimate with another person's atmospheric conditions, and K. didn't know how to feel about meteorological betrayal.

"The cloud formations were unmistakable," K. said to the marriage counselor. "My weather system was mixing with someone else's pressure system."

"Climatic boundaries are difficult to maintain," the counselor said. "Weather is inherently connected. Atmospheric conditions flow into each other."

"But we had vows. We agreed to exclusive precipitation."

K.'s weather system hung in the room, sheepish, drizzling lightly with what might have been embarrassment.

"I didn't mean for it to happen," the weather said—or seemed to say through shifts in barometric pressure. "The other pressure system was—intense. The interaction was natural."

"Natural doesn't make it right. I trusted you. I expected fidelity."

The counselor intervened. "Climate marriage requires acknowledging the fundamental nature of weather. Your spouse is connected to global systems. Complete isolation isn't possible."

K. looked at his weather system—the patterns he had loved, the precipitation that had comforted him, the atmospheric presence that had been his companion for years.

"Can I trust you again?" K. asked.

The weather responded with clearing skies—a gesture of hope, of apology, of commitment to better boundaries.

"I'll try," K. said. "We'll try."

The marriage continued, damaged but not destroyed. K. and his weather system worked on their boundaries, knowing that perfect climatic fidelity was impossible, hoping that imperfect fidelity might be enough.

World 200

The textures were no longer his, and K. had been stripped of the physical sensations that made touch meaningful, and the world had become smooth and identical under his fingers.

"Standard textural reassignment," the officer explained. "Your tactile profile has been averaged. All surfaces will now feel the same to you."

K. touched the wall. It felt like nothing—not rough, not smooth, not warm, not cold. Just contact, without quality.

"Why?" K. asked.

"Textural diversity causes inequality. Some people had access to rich tactile experiences. Others didn't. Now everyone feels the same things."

K. walked through a world of identical touch. Silk felt like sandpaper felt like water felt like concrete. The differentiation was gone, replaced by uniform sensation.

"I miss texture," K. said to no one.

"You'll adapt. Everyone adapts. And you'll appreciate the fairness. No one has better touch than anyone else now."

K. adapted, sort of. He learned to rely on other senses, to see texture instead of feeling it, to remember what different surfaces had once felt like.

But the memory was fading. Texture was becoming abstract, theoretical—something he knew existed, but couldn't experience, couldn't verify, couldn't prove.

He touched the world and felt nothing distinctive. The world touched him back, equally blank, equally fair, equally stripped of the variety that had once made touch worth having.