The Green Man (Stanley Ipkiss Unlimited Edit)

IN 2002, SHORT OF LAND AND DROWNING IN CASH, THE SINGAPOREAN GOVERNMENT CONSTRUCTED THREE FLOATING CITIES OFF THE ISLAND'S EASTERN SHORE. Jinyang, Dungarpur and Bawang, named respectively for the three dominant racial groups of Singapore, were connected rafts supporting a combined population of 900,000. They featured all the usual South East Asian amenities: climate-controlled malls and hawker food courts, butterfly cages and statues of lions in evergreen parks. Their principal industries included robotics, tourism and marine science.

In 2003, bursting with racial tension and African guest workers, the government of Malaysia built four underwater cities off the coast of Borneo. Their names were Gemolang, Nanchun, New Jhunjhunu and Atlantis #2.0.

ON THE OTHER SIDE of the world Willem Boonzajer, a PR officer for the transnational Glam corporation, was on a Dutch commuter train fighting with a refugee for the last seat. The refugee was Sudanese with the usual ridges of scarified dimples running over his face and brow.

<> he said, saying it in Dutch of course.

<> Willem argued <<but that's not the etiquette here. Do you understand what etiquette means? It might be all right to go on a mad stampede for the nearest seat in subSahara or wherever it is you hail from but this is Europe yeah, this is the land of respect yeah. I got on the train first, I saw the seat first. Therefore, I should have it.>>

The refugee, having understood only the reference to the Sahara, repeated his pidgin: <>

Willem snapped <> The refugee just gripped his seat and said as smugly as he could in such broken Dutch, <<You not intimidate me now.>>

<<Is there a problem here?>> another black man interjected. He stood up from his bench on the other side of the carriage and levelled Willem with a seven-foot high stare. <>

<<Go on then>> Willem conceded <<take it.>>

WHEN WILLEM GOT TO WORK it was at the Glam European headquarters in Rembrandtplein, Amsterdam. His office was a ripoff of a hash coffee shop with dogeaten couches, Pink Floyd posters and an ornamental bong. He had a secretary named Moya and a gift for media promotions.

<<Jesus Christ, what a morning>> he sighed. <<And they talk about a coffee-colored Europe!>>

Speaking of coffee here were four men sipping espressos on his divan, three white men in suits and a brute whose skin was a lurid shade of green.

<<What are you a>> Willem asked <<Martian or something?>>

Imagine if there were creatures on Mars and they were intelligent and they wanted to settle here. Not War of the Worlds style or anything but say there was a famine back on Mars, their ozone belt went on the blink or something and suddenly they're fleeing home in rickety spaceships, piling into the sky for the lush green fields and lucrative commodity markets of Earth. Martian restaurants spring up all over Asia, specializing in lichen soups and dry ice shakes. A new form of music, mixing Martian glottal clicks and hardcore, becomes popular among Europe's disillusioned youth.

<<They've been waiting for you>> Moya said. <<This is Mr Wagenaar. And Mr Brugmans. And Mr Kroon. And Paval Poznyak.>>

<<We're lawyers>> Mr Wagenaar said, offering his hand nonetheless. <<From Wagenaar and Associates. Paval here is our client. He'd been using one of your products when he developed this, er... condition.>>

<> Willem objected. <<If this is a liability matter you should be speaking to our legal reps."

Mr Brugmans said, <<Oh, we've got no concern about liability. This case will be a walkover.>>

Willem fingered his ornamental bong as if it were, say, a flute. <<So what I have got to do with it?<<

<<When a man wakes up one morning and finds his skin greener than Kermit that man has to reconsider his future," Mr Kroon said. <<Especially if he's a school dropout and is living in an age of permanent 10 per cent unemployment. We could milk you for 30 million but is 30 million enough? Your a PR man, Mr Boonzajer," Mr Kroon smiling now <<you understand these things."

<<No I don't>> Willem said, fingering his bong.

THE PREVIOUS EVENING WILLEM had been at one of his sessions, this one a Jungian therapy group. The topic of the night was fairytales and the archetype they represented. The woman next to Willem began by talking about Jenny Longtooth, a witch who hid out in the leas and dug trapdoors for unwary children. After 25 minutes the coordinator had to interrupt and pass the torch to Willem.

<<I've never believed in fairytales>> Willem confessed. <<Hansel and Gretel stories never sent chills down this resilient spine you know.>>

<<Don't be so defensive," the coordinator urged him. "Get in touch with your feelings."

<<Well," Willem said, "if we're allowed to broaden this fairytale thing to cover Hollywood archetypes, let me tell you about my favorite movie. It's The Mask, that mid 90s classic starring Jim Carrey during his so called Manic Phase²⁰. It featured some of the best special effects of the age. Are you familiar with the storyline?"

<<A socially inept, bumbling loser unleashes his repressed id and conquers the world>> the coordinator answered. And she gave him a look which said: Hmmm, and do you feel like a Stanley Ipkiss tonight?

<<That's the Freudian interpretation," Willem said. "We're a fucking Jungian group. My interpretation of The Mask is a little more... metaphysical. Stanley Ipkiss puts on the mask and suddenly he has the courage to express his innermost desires and fantasies, that's true. But he can also turn balloons into machine guns, survive roadkill and pop his heart out of his chest just to impress the girl of his dreams. He transcends the laws of reality everytime he puts that mask to his face, enters a strange new world of possibility..."

"Kinda like a dream world, huh," the coordinator breathed.

Willem was indignant. "It's not a dream world though. Ipkiss doesn't fly off to Narnia or Alice's Wonderland or anything like that. For all intensive purposes he doesn't go anywhere. He's here in the real world but for him reality is a shitload more elastic than it used to be. He's here but not here, if you will..."

"It's okay Will," when the tears started flowing, "we're all here for you."

"Jim Carrey's nothing to get upset over," an adjacent housewife said. "The only archetype he represents is bottled rage." She had been dumped by her first boyfriend during a screening of Ace Venture III and later married an alcoholic.

>>You're projecting," the coordinator said. "Stop it!"

<<YOU'RE NOT ACTUALLY SAYING," Willem was reading Paval's bio over morning tea biscuits, guarana flakes studding them to help enhance stamina. Paval was born in the Ukraine in 1982 and moved Dutchward with his parents when the European Union came. In Rotterdam he fell into EU habits like MDMA and Gabba techno. The story about him being a school dropout was true and there were documents to prove it. He had acne as well. When he was 16 he started using Glam facewash to dry out his zits. It was reasonably successful so he kept using it, two times a day for the next eight years.

"The rest is still highly confidential," Mr Wagenaar said. So confidential, Willem noticed, that Paval hadn't uttered all morning. "In August this year our client took a vacation to France where he contracted an especially bad case of sunburn. He returned home, applied Glam facewash as every other night and went to sleep. When he woke up half the skin on his face had peeled away. The skin underneath... well, you can see for yourself."

"The specialists have diagnosed a complete melanin mutation," Mr Brugmans said. "As you may well know, melanin darkens the skin in a range from white to jet black. For the first time in recorded history, in a mutation somehow linked to your product, our client's melanin has turned chlorophyllic green."

"Our skincare range is a simple variation on a recipe which has existed for decades," Willem said. "Suitably cosmopolitanized, naturally. It has never caused a mutation before."

<<That's why we want to have fun with it," Mr Kroon said. "Glam makes the world's first Green Man. We'll make a fucking mint!"

<<Of course," Mr Wagenaar assured, "there will be dividends enough for Glam to share."

WILLEM'S WIFE WAS NAMED Noa and she was Israeli. This may puzzle readers who've developed a preconception (in turn founded on stereotype) that Willem was a racist. Willem was not xenophobic; he was simply obsessed with the ideal of ethnic transcendence. The fact this was a taboo in early 21st century thought was irrelevant. Willem would willingly Orientalize his eyes if he believed that would enhance the global gene pool. Willem was not a Jewish convert nor Lisa a wannabe Goy, but when they were together he yearned for some kind of alchemy where two plus two equaled five, and a miraculous, higher state of being might emerge.

Occasionally, usually in bed, they achieve it.

"I can only stay an hour or two," Willem said whilst in the middle of a delicate cunnilingus operation. It must have been a delicate operation as his brow was furrowed, his breath labored. "I've got to stay back all night working on this new promotion."

"Oh Christ," Noa trying desperately not to revert to Hebrew, "an hour or two with you is all it takes." She wrapped her Semitic thighs tight around his golden head, his tongue their temporary axis. "Oh God," she said, "I'm exploding!"

Getting redressed for work Willem dropped as casually as he could, "Fucking hell. I met a green man today."

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