Here and Now and Then and Forever
By Attila Veres, first published in McSweeney's
A woman is hired by a multi-level marketing scheme to sell a product that leads its users into the next evolution of humankind.
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Plot Summary
The woman is someone who thinks there is opportunity in everything. Her mindset has made her the perfect saleswoman. In a hospital room where a boy is undergoing chemotherapy, the woman meets with a mother and father to sell them a product that can save their son. She explains that the product is not any mere medication but rather a transformation into the next stage of humankind. According to news reports, there have been sightings of humanoids which fly effortlessly like birds. While many consider those sightings to be hoaxes, the woman explains that such humanoid forms are a transcended form of human which are highly adaptive and can gain sustenance from most things regular humans cannot, such as salt water or sunlight.
The woman then explains that such a transformation would not only save the boy from cancer but also inaugurate him into a successive civilization. When the mother and father ask why they themselves cannot get it, the woman says that the transformation can only happen before puberty. She then shares the cost of the transformation with them, after which the father moves the three of them into a nearby study. In the privacy of the study, the father punches the woman several times and chastises her for her proposition. After her beating, the woman is asked to leave. She then spends the rest of the day at home. There, she cries in the comfort of her kitchen where motivational posters are hung and other luxurious amenities keep her company.
The woman recalls starting her job. Upon starting, she is asked to buy a bunch of promotional materials as an entry advance. She gets money from direct sales and recruiting. She pours all of her money into both efforts, but she seems to get none in return. Now in the present, she wonders whether she has made the right career choice after all. She considers committing suicide, but she reserves it as a future option and decides to continue with the multi-level marketing scheme. The mother from the hospital room calls her hesitantly, asking her if the transformation is actually real. The woman says yes. They arrange to meet after the mother asks for evidence.
After communicating up the hierarchy of the multi-level marketing scheme—specifically by threatening suicide if she did not get what she desired—the woman is able to secure a visit to the headquarters where evidence of the transformation is. An unmarked van takes the mother and the woman away. In a compound far away, the two meet a man who introduces himself as the founder and CEO of the multi-level marketing scheme. He explains more about the company’s mission, how such a transformation will allow humanity to survive apocalypse and create a new world. In a room of the compound, the three of them are faced with strange and unsettling creatures. The man leads them both to another room where the final form of transformation is purportedly kept.
The man’s grandchild, thoroughly transformed, is kept in a cage. The man explains that the cage is for safety purposes, not for the human within, but for the humans outside, as the transformed humans are hunters who can feed on regular humans. The man then explains furthermore that the transformed humans will eventually be released out into the world in order to begin the dawn of a new world. The woman feels a great need to become one of them in order to access a freedom she has never had in her current form, but meanwhile, the mother is terrified and runs away. The man then explains to the woman that she needs to sell the transformation to the mother, or else both women will be killed and fed to the transformed grandchild. Renewed with a sense of purpose, the woman gets back into the unmarked van with the mother and recites her perfect pitch.
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