No One is Talking About This

Police brutality becomes the most prevalent topic in the portal. The protagonist reacts strongly because her father is a retired policeman, and she has struggled with the cultural implications of her father’s career since she was a teenager. The protagonist recounts a few of the short poems she contributed to the portal, such as “that’s the cost of my vegan lunch” (20), which often feature a mash-up of seemingly unrelated words and references to popular culture. The dictator continues to rule as if his opinions are incontestable. After an election, her husband gets a tattoo with the words STOP IT along his hairline as a form of political protest. As the political climate of the protagonist’s country intensifies around issues of police brutality and white supremacy, the protagonist notes how easily people seem to disappear from the portal.

Her husband does not spend as much time in the portal as she does and will ask her if she is “locked in” before showing her pictures of roast chicken, which tend to bring her back to reality. When asked why he doesn’t contribute to the portal more, her husband responds: “Because I wouldn’t want to be full when I die” (21). The protagonist disagrees, believing in the importance of preserving information, images, and culture for the future.

As the protagonist travels to speak at events, she is questioned about whether her contributions are meaningful to society. She finds herself unable to explain the motivation behind her writing. She believes that, before the portal, an individual’s community and the “mental weather” they experience were not a matter of choice. In the portal, they are. As the protagonist spends increasing time in the portal, she begins to regard the people in it as more real than the ones she interacts with in reality.

Her husband then discovers that their neighbor is part of a reality television show. The couple watches the episodes with interest and the protagonist is disappointed to find that there is no mention of her existence at all. After she and her husband have sex, the protagonist reflects on her desire to be inconsistent above any other attribute.

The protagonist fantasizes about killing the baby that would grow to be Adolf Hitler to change her current reality. The protagonist acknowledges, however, that the emotions of the people that Hitler took advantage of in his rise to power would have still existed, and she questions what other uses those emotions may have been put toward. Furthermore, the protagonist considers that the capitalist, political, and technological society she lives in would not have happened if not for trains and the Industrial Revolution, which she resents.

The protagonist is banned from the portal for two days for taking an inappropriate and politically charged photo but quickly resumes her work traveling to different countries to speak about the portal. In Jamacia, the protagonist talks about the stream of consciousness, as she is becoming suspicious that her consciousness is influenced by the collective nature of the portal.

During her travels, the protagonist notes how cab drivers and acquaintances are likely to ask her about living in the United States, particularly about the issue of racism. The protagonist notices how pervasive American culture is by the number of Subway restaurants in international cities.

The protagonist considers the portal as the place where everyone can compile a complete identity and history for posterity and capture the culture in which they live. She considers her actions on the portal to be one “small stone on small stone on small stone” (47) in her pile of contributions to future generations.