Godiva of the Broken Shell

Tommy noticed the flickering shell immediately. Everyone did.

It sputtered and drew the eye like mirror glass among river stones, like an open flame amid fluorescents, like a perfectly normal person about to be horribly humiliated on a public train platform. Shells did this sometimes, when an update didn’t download correctly or the hardware needed upgrading, but it rarely lasted more than a few milliseconds. Tommy still occasionally had that common adolescent nightmare: his shell malfunctioning in a public place, leaving his identity, unfiltered personal appearance, smell, voice, his everything exposed for all to perceive.

A nightmare that was about to become someone else’s reality.

Tommy wasn’t the only one watching—everyone on the platform was transfixed in horror, though no one chose to display it. The crowd was a colorful, gleaming field of smooth, well-functioning shells, curated information sliding across in pleasing patterns, reflected off the tiled station walls. There were a few blanks, which Tommy’s eyes glossed over naturally—if their respective algorithms blocked each other, it was likely for the best— but the broken shell was like a beacon of impending calamity.

It was always a possibility; the subject of racy jokes, resistance art, and ever-more-complex legislation—age-out standards for family plans, federal grants for low-income shells, special dispensations for “ideologically unshelled” wealthy weirdos—but it wasn’t supposed to happen to normal people in real life. Waiting for the 4. On a Wednesday.

But it didn’t stop. The flickering got worse, more frequent, to the point where you could almost make out the person inside—just under six feet, pudgy silhouette, a crown of frizzy curls—and unconsciously everyone around them shied away, like healthy creatures repelled by a diseased soon-to-be-pariah. Except for Tommy, who just as unconsciously moved forward. He couldn’t tell what the shell was supposed to display, not a remnant of this person’s chosen self-expression remained, not even an indication whether it would have blanked him.

And then the unthinkable happened. The shell stopped flickering.

It stopped, period.

The crowd moved like a ripple, like a shockwave, away from the sudden manifestation of collective nightmare—a person out of their shell, exposed, unedited, inflicting their private self on everyone. Tommy was struck by terrified brown eyes, a horrified grimace, acne patches, soft brown arms moving to cover a rounded body dressed in nondescript teeshirt and sweatpants. The smell of soap and shea butter, the faint tang of anxiety and citrus.

The rumble of the oncoming train filled the station, and Tommy’s heart was in his throat, his body moving forward without direction from his brain. There was no time to think — the police were likely already on their way to arrest this poor soul for indecent exposure—

Still halfway down the platform Tommy opened his shell. Two unthinkables in one day. It was just a sliver, but enough to gesture at the unshelled stranger and call out to them in his unfiltered, naked voice. “Over here!”

They looked at him with those dark, long-lashed eyes, wine-red mouth falling open, and with an electric shiver Tommy realized they could see him, too. They jerked like a thing come loose and crashed into him as the train screeched into the station.

Tommy wrapped his arms around plump shoulders, closing his shell over them both. Curls tickled his chin, warm smells mingled with his own suddenly very apparent woodsy aroma. He wished he’d shaved. Worn a cleaner shirt. “We should go,” his whisper was throaty and broken in a few places. He started gently guiding the stranger off the platform, “before the cops get here.”

This close, their smile was all glinting black eyes and auburn cheekbones. “Thank you, my place is only two stops away,” their voice was deeper than he expected, and it made his arms tingle.

Two people in a single shell moved awkwardly, but they made it on just before the doors closed, leaving behind a platform of shocked displays.

Tommy and the stranger slumped in relief as the train rattled out of the station, leaning on each other, skin touching, breath fragrant and warm. They could see each other. Smell each other. Feel their hearts still pounding. All around them commuters went about their day, completely unaware of two strangers pressed up close, perceiving one another raw; performing the day’s third unthinkable and intimately sharing a shell.

Safe inside a nightmare.

* * *

Author’s Note: Lady Godiva was naked in public for the sake of the public good. She was a real person, with a real jerk for a husband; the Earl of Mercia in the 11th century was really into exploiting the people of Coventry, and his wife Godiva agreed to ride through the streets naked in exchange for tax reform. The people were so grateful they all turned away for the sake of her modesty. All except this one guy named Tom, who peeped. In some versions of the legend Tom was struck blind, in others he straight up died. In mine, Godiva and Tom connect over the inherent intimacy of being perceived.

Ⓒ Maya Dworsky-Rocha