The Cappy Chronicle

Asha jerked awake in a tangle of sweaty limbs and bedclothes. Startled she looked around the room, unsure for a moment where she was. Her dreams had been dark and twisted but she could remember no details. Now she was filled with a miserable sense of unease. There was something she needed to remember, to grasp hold of, something of vital importance but her brain wouldn’t focus or provide the necessary answers.

Struggling to disentangle herself from her bedding, Asha noticed a small stain on the pillow. It looked like blood. An involuntary shudder wracked her slim frame. Something teased at the edge of her memory but no matter how she tried it eluded her

She’d had this growing sense of unease for almost a week – ever since she’d acted completely out of character and had her navel pierced. An old-fashioned and outmoded custom left over from the 21st Century, some considered it barbaric and crude whilst others thought it quaint.

Strange, how that had come about. Asha had been dress-shopping…

She’d pulled the silky fabric over her head and let it fall. Her hands had smoothed the dress over her curves. Looking in the mirror Asha had twisted her upper body to and fro, swishing the gleaming material against her skin. She’d enjoyed the sensory experience, the feel of the garment against her skin and the way it moved when she turned.

“Mmm, I like this one”, Asha had commented to the wall, “it’s cool and silky against my skin and hangs beautifully”.The wall had grumpily responded, “Yes it suits you - as the holographic image already indicated - shall I place an order then?” Asha had smiled. She always shopped the old fashioned way rather than requesting a holographic image of herself draped in the beautiful fabrics. She stubbornly continued to annoy her digital dressmaker by insisting on trying on the real clothes before she’d buy.

Next she’d tried on a two-piece outfit. Gauzy and floaty, it showed off her taut midriff and exposed navel. Just as she was about to consult the projected image of her dressmaker, the image had disappeared and the lights had gone out.

In the pitch dark shop Asha had been at a disadvantage. The clothes she was trying on couldn’t be programmed to her frequency until she’d bought them. She’d moved away from her own clothes while parading up and down and now felt disoriented in the dark. Groping in what she’d hoped was the right direction, Asha had stumbled toward the back of the room.

Finally her outstretched fingers had grazed against her jacket. Made of purely synthetic fibres imitating the look and feel of linen, it was woven through with wireless nano-electronics that connected Asha to the world. The electronic cells were fuelled by thermal energy - sunlight, body heat - and so wouldn’t be affected by the electrical outage

She had spoken crisply, “activate emergency lighting”. The jacket in her hands had felt oddly stiff as nothing happened.

Electricity outages were rare. So rare, in fact, that Asha had been concerned. None of the emergency lighting had activated either suggesting the backup was also in trouble.

Just as she had been about to try to leave the shop, the power had come back on reactivating all the electronic devices in the room with a barely perceptible hum. Breathing a sigh of relief, she turned back to the wall and, in turning, had caught a glimpse of something shining that had disappeared as she focussed her gaze on it.

Always rather temperamental , her digital dressmaker had been cross at the delay. Looking down at Asha, the program had snapped, “what you need with that outfit is a navel piercing”. Suddenly the projected image had flickered, seemed to jump backwards and repeated “navel piercing, navel piercing, navel piercing”. A glitch in the program had caused it to loop around repeatedly on the phrase. Surprised, Asha had stared at the flickering dressmaker unable to make sense of what was happening. As the image had continued to flicker and repeat itself, Asha had hurriedly changed and left the shop, eager to get away from the strange occurrences.

Walking home, she had drifted past a shop she’d never noticed before. It had looked archaic and antiquated and the grimy sign swinging from the rusty hinges announced ‘Ye Olde Body Piercing and Tattoo Shoppe’. Something glowing in the window had caught Asha’s attention and tugged at her memory. Her mind had flashed back to the moment in the dress shop when she’d glimpsed something shiny. In the window in front of her had lain a tiny silver orb, the size of a grape, nestled in a bed of rose red tissue paper. It had seemed to radiate a cold, crystaline flame and Asha had felt herself drawn to it. Staring into its depths she’d been mesmerised, unable to turn away from the flickering glow. An old, wizened woman appeared inside the window and beckoned Asha to enter. Almost without knowing what she had been doing, Asha had entered the shop, where the hag greeted her; “ah my dear, you’ve come for your gift I see…”

Thirty minutes later, Asha had left the shop with the tiny silver orb attached to her flesh at the navel. As the old woman had pierced her flesh and inserted the orb, instead of pain, Asha had felt a warmth suffuse her midriff – a warmth that had swept through her whole body. The orb had nestled perfectly in her navel as though it belonged there. Asha could have sworn she heard it sigh with satisfaction. The whole process had had a dream like quality.

Asha had been haunted by nightmares every night since. Vague recollections of whispered voices in her head and feelings of foreboding had inhabited her night time realms, spilling over into her waking hours. During the day she found she suffered lapses of concentration, and would come to her senses to find herself gazing at the tiny silver orb joined to her flesh – the orb that she could not remove no matter what she tried. She’d attempted to find the ‘Shoppe’ to ask the old woman to remove it, but somehow she couldn’t locate it. It was as if the shop had disappeared off the face of the earth…

Now, five days later, Asha touched the silver orb that still clung to her midriff. It was warm to the touch giving off its peculiar clear, cold glow and yet it made her uneasy. It seemed as though the silver orb was now a part of her, melded to her skin forever. And with it came the nightmares…and the voices in her head.