Shortly after we first read Mariev Finnegan‘s “CRYONICS,” we knew this story had to be the grand finale of our premiere issue. It throbs with so much of what we want in FLAPPERHOUSE: surrealism, shadow, sensuality, satire– not to mention added bonuses like psychosis, psychedelia, silliness, sci-fi, and sexual metamorphosis– all blown up to glorious, apocalyptic proportions. (Apocalyptic not as in death & destruction, but from the Greek meaning “uncovering” or “revelation.”) We hope it opens a door or two in your mind, or at the very least, takes you for a spin on a delightfully bizarre trip.

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THE FIRST DEAD HEAD TO BE THAWED from Cryopreservation was a rich guy, big ego, big head. Bob Nowatchick (Ick, for short) was an autogynephilic transsexual, a narcissistic disorder in which a man is erotically obsessed with himself as a woman. Krystal did not exist, but Krystal was the only woman that could satisfy Bob. He/She were the ultimate evil: Complete unto themselves. Loved no one.  Screwed each other.

Krystal, a dark wisp of a girl, developed an ego, became judgmental about that slob, Bob. His diet of fast food, his drug-use, his constant anger– directed mostly at women– all disgusted her.  Also, his conservative fashion sense made her real edgy: Their wardrobe consisted of pressed tan slacks and casual sweaters. Because of him, that prick– he had no vagina, no womb– she would never have a child.

So one Labor Day, Krystal murdered Bob. She committed suicide by cop when he tried to have her arrested for raping him.  From up in the bell tower, Krystal shot badge number 911 dead. The return barrage of bullets destroyed their heart, but left the head intact.

Bob had paid a huge amount of money to preserve the head, which was removed from the grossly-overweight body, and frozen with the hope that resuscitation and healing would be possible using highly-advanced future technology.

Then, in all probability, Bob would get the death penalty for murdering a cop.

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Now, 16 years later, the large head, wrapped in foil, is removed from a holographic space chamber and placed on a laboratory table to thaw, because it can now be cured of brain death and brought back to life. A team of professionals attach an artificial heart and lungs, as well as electrodes and monitors. Never before has anyone been brought back after being cryogenically frozen. There had been discussion about Larry King being first, but they decided to begin with the last one frozen, because it’s the freshest. And if they mess up, who’s going to complain? It’s the head of a condemned man.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar goes public with many spiritual questions concerning the reanimation of life to a head: “Does the mind need the brain? Is our consciousness simply the result of brain function, the firing of neurons within a nonlocal consciousness? What happens when we die? Is the mind separate from the body, having its own eternal existence?”

The head scientist on the project, Dr. Franklyn, tells the public, “We are about to present scientific proof that life is a physical component of the brain, that identity can be restored by contemporary medicine, by restoring life to this head, this brain!”

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It is the Alpha and Omega:

A spiritual savior has come to the world, a young girl known simply as Crystal. They say she’s a virgin. Crystal is the Matriarch of the Erie. She connects all Erie– and everyone is Erie. Crystal reflects the whole in mirror imagery. The subjective experience of that entanglement is mystical experience, or in general: Erie.  Erie mental structuring is not linear in form, but rather holographic: Each member contains the whole.

In all her 15 years, Crystal’s dark hair has never been cut; her eyes are fringed in long lashes and her eyebrows are wild, like her hair. She wears a long patchwork skirt, a peasant blouse, and owl feathers at the crown of her head. Crystal is an old soul who recalls consciousness as the first particle that contained everything and exploded in the Big Bang. Dimly she is aware of her last incarnation as Bob/Krystal.

Now she is perfectly balanced as both male and female.

Crystal floats.

She really is levitating! Crystal has gone viral: She’s addressing the UN live; she appears to everyone at once.

“The Erie is coming!” Crystal proclaims, floating in the center of the rotunda of the United Nations. She exists in the global unconscious, connecting everyone with unconditional love: For what is love but attachment, connectedness, and oneness? Reflected.

Crystal won the Amazing Randi’s challenge, the prize of a million dollars, for proving paranormal abilities. Not floating, or healing or predicting the future, all talents she displays. The Matriarch of the Erie merges with another in total empathy, and actually becomes them for short periods. Mind-weld: She sees what they see, feels what they feel. Crystal has even died, as both individuals and groups. The subjective experience of that entanglement is mystical, or in general: Erie.

There are skeptics. Some scientists claim she’d learned things, while she was Randi, that may or may not be true, dark secrets that he’d rather were not known. But she would have won the million anyway. The girl can walk on water!

Even before the news broke in the media — SCIENCE DETERMINED WRONG! — the Erie began to appear simultaneously in several widely separated locations around the planet. All over the world, people began to float!

“The Erie is coming!” Crystal proclaims. “Mind-to-mind the Erie have preserved the knowledge that God is to be experienced directly, by understanding the mirror image of I and the universe!”

Geraldo is right in the middle of the action at the UN. He reports, “Some of us are getting this singularity event consciously!”

Then he and Nancy Grace, reporting from a studio, are split-screen.  Grace cries out in a strangled voice, “A relatively small, but rapidly growing percentage of humanity are experiencing within ourselves the breakup of the old egoic mind patterns!  And the emergence of a new dimension of consciousness: Erie!”

Nancy Grace is tearing up. “Each Erie is capable of immediate connection with the sacred: Consciousness unconfined by space. Or time. Or a physical being. Free. The essence of our BEING is unconditional love.  As the Erie say, Love, without reservation!”

Geraldo says, looking directly at the camera, “No one feels the need to judge or consume excessively because we have no need to possess or to control.  The individual’s natural loving tendencies are manifested without an object:  Love originates within ourselves, and is expressed in the form of service and compassion toward other embodied souls.”

Then a window opens between Geraldo and Grace, and the Amazing Randi is shaking his big head, exclaiming, “It’s all done with smoke and mirrors! You’re being fooled!!”

Now the screen opens on a long shot of Randi in a wing of the UN. He turns to Stephen Hawking beside him. Stephen is robust, naked and floating above his wheelchair, which goes out of focus. Randi demands, “Explain! Scientifically!”

“In a transformation of human consciousness, we are becoming enlightened collectively and with each person who awakens, the momentum in the collective consciousness grows, and it becomes easier for others.  This is the spiritual awakening that we are beginning to witness now.”  A close-up shows a halo above Stephen Hawking’s head.

“Over large distances and across barriers of time, individuals are giving and receiving direct conscious contact.” Stephen Hawking’s voice holds wonder. “Erie! Freely and spontaneously, enlightenment is spreading mind-to-mind, slowly at first, but gaining momentum, from individual to individual, until the entire sphere has been affected! Spiritual development and psychic abilities are connected. Global mind-to-mind interactions are entering a phase of super-exponential growth resulting in a transformation of humankind to a far higher spirituality, with abilities, including telepathy, clairvoyance, healing and vision!”

While off screen, Randi can be heard in an eerie voice-over, “I can float! It’s a trick!” Another voice over (Might be God): “The Erie are an evolutionary leap: Separation disappears, diseases vanish, the body detoxifies, emotional baggage is purged, peace and well-being develop. Individuals are beginning to sense their fundamental interconnectedness with creation. World-wide, those with expanded awareness are organizing on a higher plane. The Erie is gathering impetus towards a cosmic awareness! The Erie is coming!”

Written across the bottom of the screen: As a collective, we are about to expERIEnce a profound shift in consciousness. The Erie is coming!”

“There is an ultimate matter/energy. The equal distribution of power!” Crystal, floating centered in the UN, cries out in a crescendo of sound, “Collectively we have the power to harness thoughts, and use them as energy! Power in a metaphysical sense!”

The planet is about to rapture into a cosmic consciousness. Paradise will come to Earth.  Everyone will be Erie. The whole universe conforms around Crystal as she reveals the secret to free energy:

“Orgasm!”

Not in words, but an understanding: A vibration that grows to a beat, a vibration and a melody, a wailing from the void that climaxes in an ultimate satisfaction.

“The ultimate energy is orgasmic,” Crystal cries out, and off-stage, Randi can be heard yelling, “That’s not prehensible!”

“The highest spiritual achievement is the reunification of female and male. Yin/Yang. Man/woman. Birth. Death. The combining of the two into oneness is the metaphysical basis of orgasm, the elemental energy. These two primal opposite but complimentary forces, found in all things in the universe, can transform into each other!”

The planet itself, Mother Earth, is reaching a mystical state of higher awareness, universal psychic cohesion, planetary mind-to-mind communication outside time and space! The linking of minds has reached a critical mass. Universal consciousness… All at once we each feel as if our bodies are breaking loose, freeing self, and rising in the air, a feeling of infinite lightness, of a wondrous capability for floating.  The Erie is coming!

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Two techies unwrap the foil from Bob/Krystal’s big head that has an artificial heart and lungs attached with tubes and wires. The eyes, bloodshot and weeping, roll in their sockets, look inside. The head begins to feel, then think.

At the same time, ordinary consciousness is radically transformed for the masses–  the Erie come! Almost!

Mother Earth readies herself for a shift in polarities: The planet is on the cusp of universal consciousness! Don’t look at the black hole! Space is what we all, even the Erie, fear.

Centered, suddenly Crystal fears everything.  In the middle of the UN, Crystal loses her buoyancy, falls to the floor. She pulls herself into the lotus position, falls over into a fetal position. Crystal feels the immensity of her matter–  she’s given up everything, even love, to reflect unconditional love.

Now she gives up her last heartbeat in cosmoagony.

Crystal, willowy figure, clutches her throat with both hands. Her eyes bulge as she gasps for breath, air!  Crystal, Matriarch of the Erie, experiences the ultimate climax: She dies.

Expanded consciousness allows her to relive every second of entire lifetimes, from several perspectives at once and in exquisite detail, including what others experienced in those events, all simultaneously. Crystal is orgasmic light, she reflects everything.  Vibrations enfold her womb; she is sucked like a Big Bang Baby. Inside out!

Crystal is instantly reborn.

Immediately, her soul and her consciousness experience the shock of life inside that big dead head, that big ego: Bob, whom she had been in her last life, and whom she must return to, reanimated by science. Crystal, Matriarch of the Erie, savior of the world, dies because her soul is recalled to her previous life as a totally selfish big head.

In one splendid orgasmic explosion, the head becomes conscious of self, but this time around, in this cycle, the personality is Krystal/Bob…  This time around, Krystal is erotically obsessed by herself as a man, her male side, Bob Nowatchick. Ick for short. Just the two of them, inside that brain, inside that dead head, that big ego, returned to life and consciousness by science.

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Upon Crystal’s death, the Erie–  beings evolved to interact directly, and in so doing, keep the planet balanced— return to separate beings, each one alone. The planet does not rise to a higher vibration, heaven does not come to Earth. No ascension, no rapture.

The Erie do not come.

Crystal’s soul, her essence, so spiritually advanced, is returned to the head that now flushes with emotion and gives an utterance, a cry like a newborn: “Mm-m-m-meee…Meeee…”

Now Crystal finds her self– her consciousness– which was God– or reflecting God– confined in a physical being: a brain, a head!  A big head on a table. The Matriarch of the Erie is returned to a past life. Crystal weeps as she becomes aware of the physical, the small space of a white room that contains machines and people in laboratory coats.

A man with a beard, Dr. Franklyn, gets down to her level and looks into her eyes. “Bob, you’ve been asleep for sixteen years. Welcome back, man.”

“Krystal,” she corrects him, then points out: “I’m just a… a head!”

“Don’t worry, we’ll put you together with a body!”

A sharp intake of breath from Krystal: “Oh! A body with big boobs! And a vagina! I need a vagina!”

Krystal recalls being one with the universe, keenly remembers her past life as Bob/Krystal and her life as Crystal, Matriarch of the Erie, who almost brought humanity to a higher shift in consciousness.  Despite Bob, that dead head, that idiot man, maybe, if she had big boobs, she could still float; perhaps, with a vagina, she could unite the world and bring heaven to Earth. Then she begins thinking about a new wardrobe.

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End of story: Krystal wrote a flash fiction: Cryo-no-dICKS.  No one understood it.

Science proved that identity and consciousness is a product of the brain, and not mind-at-large. No eternal soul.  The Amazing Randi sued and got his million back. And Mother Earth died from ego, greed and global warming, before they could even execute Krystal, the cop killer.

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MARIEV FINNEGAN‘s work has appeared in Farrago’s Wainscot; Serendipity; The Bad Version; Shadows of the Mind Anthology; Fiction Brigade; Writing That Risks: Red Bridge Press; Real Lies; Zharmae Press; Tortured Souls; Scarlett River Press; Up, Do: Flash Fiction By Women Writers; and Advances in Parapsychological Research (Saybrook). More info on her work can be found at Marievfinnegan.yolasite.com