Chapter 5 — Debit Card
And thus begins Chapter Five.
Now, children.
We left the “hostel.”
Quotation marks remain necessary.
The council agrees.
Outside.
Open city.
Objective active.
I turned to Hex.
Again.
“Take me to your dealer.”
Hex sighed.
Or perhaps simply looked at me with the patience of a man who had already explained the problem once.
“No cash.”
Pause.
Dealer will not give pot without cash.
Children.
Reasonable.
Annoying.
But reasonable.
The council updates the quest log.
PRIMARY OBJECTIVE:
Weed.
PREREQUISITE:
Money.
SUB OBJECTIVE:
Acquire spendable cash.
Excellent.
At last.
A straightforward problem.
We had bank accounts.
We had debit cards.
ATMs existed.
Go ATM.
Take money.
Continue.
Children.
Simple.
The council laughs ominously.
Yes.
I know.
Demonetisation.
We reached the nearest ATM.
And there
I saw something that remains engraved into my brain.
A queue.
Not a queue.
A migration.
The council looks down the road.
How long?
Children.
To the next junction.
That much I remember vividly.
Not exaggerated through the fog of old memory.
Not:
Oh, it felt endless.
No.
I remember seeing the line
and seeing it continue
and continue
until the road itself seemed to lose patience.
The council winces.
For my Kerala children
imagine a BEVCO outlet
the day before a public holiday.
The queue where half the state suddenly remembers:
Tomorrow dry day.
Acquire everything.
Or
first day,
first show,
massive movie release.
Fans.
Heat.
Bodies.
Commitment.
Now take that energy
and apply it to people attempting to access their own money.
Children.
That was the ATM.
The council checks Story Nuo’s willingness to stand there.
Zero.
Correct.
ATM Plan
abandoned.
Immediately.
No heroism.
No:
We shall endure.
No.
Story Nuo had travelled twelve hours for weed.
He had not travelled twelve hours to become part of a human centipede attached to an ATM.
The council marks:
PLAN A:
Dead.
Fine.
Plan B.
Debit card.
We possessed plastic.
Plastic represented money.
Surely this could become useful.
Problem.
The council already knows.
The dealer.
Yes.
Children.
I had strong reason to suspect that a seller of questionable narcotics
was not going to produce a card machine
and say:
Chip or swipe, sir?
The council imagines the scene.
No.
Not likely.
So the card itself did not solve the problem.
We needed
cash.
Still.
But perhaps another person could convert card money into physical money.
Children.
On paper?
Easy.
At almost any other point in modern civilization?
Also easy enough.
You pay a shop electronically.
They hand you equivalent cash.
Perhaps a small fee.
Done.
But this month?
Different universe.
Notes were not merely currency.
They were
resources.
Scarce.
Precious.
Objects possessing social status.
The council nods.
Cash had become loot.
Exactly.
Children.
Fifty rupees in an account
and fifty rupees in your hand
were no longer spiritually equal.
Hand cash had power.
Physical notes could accomplish things.
Account numbers merely stood there
looking wealthy.
The council looks at Nuo’s banking status.
Theoretical prosperity.
Practical poverty.
Perfect.
Now.
I once described it like this:
fifty rupees in notes was worth seventy five.
Did people literally sell fifty rupee notes for seventy five?
Children.
No.
That was emphasis.
Hyperbole.
Except
I would know.
Because I checked.
The council goes silent.
You checked?
Of course I checked.
Children.
Desperate Nuo had entered the negotiation phase.
Shop.
Walk in.
Debit card.
Request.
Can I pay you by card
and you give me cash?
No.
Next shop.
Same thing.
No.
Another.
No.
Children.
Man after man.
Counter after counter.
Shop after shop.
The answer remained remarkably consistent.
Cash?
They needed it too.
Everyone needed it.
Nobody wanted to surrender notes
for the abstract promise of money appearing inside a bank account.
And I
committed negotiator
began sweetening the offer.
The council looks worried.
How much?
Children.
More often than I am proud of,
I offered absurdly more than the amount of cash I wanted.
Sometimes around fifty percent extra.
The council stares.
So if someone gave you physical money
I would willingly lose money electronically.
Yes.
Children.
This is what addiction does to economics.
Normal person:
That exchange rate is terrible.
Nuo:
But weed.
The council sighs.
And still
failure.
No.
No.
No.
Everywhere.
The cash shortage had become so severe that even my deeply stupid premium could not reliably buy access to physical notes.
Children.
Imagine being willing to lose fifty percent on currency conversion
and still receiving:
Sorry.
No cash.
That was the month.
The council updates the crisis map.
ATM:
Impossible.
SHOPS:
Unwilling.
DEBIT CARD:
Functionally decorative.
WEED:
Still absent.
NUO:
Increasingly committed.
Hex followed.
Children.
This deserves attention.
Because Hex had already accepted the obvious conclusion.
We don’t have cash.
Therefore
weed later.
Normal.
Healthy.
Reasonable.
Story Nuo rejected all three.
So while I moved from shop to shop,
Hex followed behind.
Watching.
Waiting.
Occasionally offering reassurance.
Maybe:
We’ll get it later.
Maybe:
It’s fine.
Maybe simply reminding me that this was not the end of civilization.
The Archive does not preserve exact phrasing.
But the message was essentially
Relax.
And my response?
Not giving up.
The council nods.
Of course.
Children.
Tunnel vision had activated.
This was no longer:
I would like weed.
This was now:
A SYSTEM HAS TOLD NUO NO.
Dangerous.
Not because I become clever.
Let’s not exaggerate.
But because I become persistent.
ATM says no.
Fine.
Shops say no.
Fine.
Currency system itself says:
Please wait until society stabilizes.
Story Nuo:
No.
The council buries its face in its hands.
I kept walking.
Shop.
Request.
Rejection.
Next.
Shop.
Request.
Offer premium.
Rejection.
Next.
The city began existing around me
for the first time since arrival.
Not because I suddenly appreciated Chennai.
No.
Children.
I was using it.
Scanning storefronts.
Looking for possibility.
Judging counters by:
Might these people have cash?
The Archivist still did not exist.
But something had changed.
The city was no longer scenery.
It had become
terrain.
The council nods.
A quest map.
Exactly.
And eventually,
after enough rejection,
my brain produced a new idea.
Not necessarily a good idea.
But an idea.
ICAT.
Pause.
The council looks up.
Old territory.
Yes.
Children.
My first college.
Years earlier.
The Chennai I actually knew.
And with it
old contacts.
Old networks.
Old dealers.
The council becomes concerned.
Were they still around?
No clue.
Did I know whether the same people still operated?
No.
Had years passed?
Yes.
Did any of this weaken Story Nuo’s confidence?
Absolutely not.
Desperate times.
The council sighs.
Desperate measures.
In Story Nuo’s mind.
And so
new plan.
Return to ICAT territory.
Maybe the old dealer network still existed.
Maybe one familiar face survived the years.
Maybe some ancient contact could solve the supply problem without requiring the impossible cash path we were currently failing to navigate.
Children.
Did this plan contain holes?
Many.
But so had the Weed Conservation Constitution,
and that did not stop me either.
Hex?
Still with me.
Manager following client into increasingly unnecessary side quest.
I told him.
ICAT area.
Let’s go.
And thus we changed direction.
Back toward the Chennai of an earlier Nuo.
The council opens the old map.
Exact neighbourhood?
Children.
No clue.
Didn’t know then.
Don’t know now.
Archive law.
Somewhere near Marina Beach.
That is as precise as memory permits.
Do not ask me for street names.
Present Nuo could perhaps open Maps and reconstruct everything.
But Story Nuo navigated differently.
Memory.
Landmarks.
Vague familiarity.
The ancient human GPS:
I know this area when I see it.
The council nods.
Reliable?
Sometimes.
Enough.
And there is something strange about returning to old geography years later.
Even when you are not returning for nostalgia.
A road remembers nothing.
But you do.
Buildings change.
Shops disappear.
Signs mutate.
Yet something in the body says:
I have been here.
Children.
Story Nuo was not poetic about this.
Again
important.
He did not stare into the distance and contemplate his younger self.
He was thinking:
Maybe old dealer still exists.
The council laughs.
Protect Story Nuo.
Always.
So toward ICAT we went.
Past whatever parts of Chennai connected Hex’s current life
to my former one.
From his hostel
the atrocious bunk bed hive.
Toward the city where another version of me had once attended college.
Different Nuo.
Different years.
Different addictions perhaps in different stages.
But same streets somewhere ahead.
And now
the Sixteenth Wandering had begun folding timelines together.
Present Nuo sees that.
Story Nuo?
Need weed.
Correct.
The council marks the new objective.
QUEST:
Acquire weed.
PREREQUISITE:
Find old dealer.
LOCATION:
Somewhere near former ICAT territory.
KNOWN ADDRESS:
No.
CURRENT STATUS OF DEALER:
No clue.
PLAN QUALITY:
Questionable.
NUO CONFIDENCE:
Disturbingly high.
HEX:
Still following.
Excellent.
Children.
This is the point where the pilgrimage stopped being linear.
I had come to Chennai because Hex had supply.
Supply vanished.
Cash failed.
ATMs failed.
Shops failed.
So the quest dragged me backward
into my own past.
Toward the part of Chennai I once knew.
Toward people who may or may not still exist in the same places.
The council looks down the road.
And the funniest part?
If the first bag had simply lasted the weekend,
none of this would have happened.
We would have remained in Quadrant Two.
Dota.
Smoke.
Sleep.
Repeat.
Bus home.
The Sixteenth Wandering might never have earned a number.
But Nuo wrote a weed conservation policy where both success and failure required smoking.
The council points at the empty bag.
And therefore
history.
Children.
Never underestimate the narrative consequences of terrible resource management.
Thus concludes Chapter Five.
The Exit From The “Hostel.”
The Repeated Demand:
“Take Me To Your Dealer.”
The Cash Problem.
The ATM.
The Queue To The Next Junction.
The Demonetisation Flashbacks.
The Abandoned ATM Plan.
The Debit Card.
The Dealer Without A Card Machine.
The Cash Scarcity.
The Attempted Exchange.
The Increasingly Ridiculous Premium.
The Rejection.
The Next Shop.
The Next Rejection.
Hex Following Behind.
Nuo Refusing Defeat.
And
The Return Plan.
ICAT.
Children.
Somewhere near Marina Beach
was a piece of my old Chennai.
And somewhere inside that old geography
Story Nuo hoped there might still be a man
capable of solving the only problem he currently cared about.
No cash.
No weed.
No surrender.
The council sighs.
And so we headed toward my past
for the least poetic reason imaginable.
