The Ren Faire, pt. 1: Let's Go
“All OK here. Unless you’re worried about dragons!”
Previously: We meet Deshawn/Mapmaker, a boy who obsessively makes maps of the world’s new psychogeography. However, he is terrified of stepping outside.
○ Opening Era: Early Autumn, 2025, Manhattan
Deshawn woke just before his head hit his keyboard.
How long had he been sitting at his desk? Was it light outside? He had no way of knowing. The aluminum wrap coated the window like a silver cocoon. He checked his phone: 8am. These days he didn’t wake up until 10.
Deshawn heard his parents in the living room just outside his door. They’d just said his name. He pressed his ear to the door.
“…is not developmentally challenged, Deb. He’s just a sensitive kid. It’s a phase. I probably would have been the same way at his age, with all this Psi craziness.”
“It’s not normal for a kid his age to not have friends. To not get outside.”
“Deb––”
“We’re doing this family trip today whether he likes it or not.”
Deshawn didn’t want to hear it. He put his headphones back on and Googled for the first music that came to mind: a YouTube video of “lo-fi beats to relax/study to.” Then he opened the software he used to make his maps. Soon enough he was in the zone.
Some amount of time between an hour and a month passed.
Then he heard a muffled voice: “Deshawn, open up!”
But Deshawn was at work. There were too many new subcultures to document. Too many new maps to make. Too many new followers demanding too much new content, like a swarm of squirrels tapping on the door to his room.
The doorknob jiggled, but Deshawn had locked the door. “Deshawn! It’s time to go!”
Deshawn turned up the music in his headphones: post-ironic country glitch. It was a new genre. Now that everyone was more porous, genres were colliding, mixing, mutating. There were too many new genres to keep track of since the Opening. But someone had to try. On his computer, Deshawn drew a link between the node of operatic EDM and new neoclassical.
“Deshawn, I’m going to turn off the internet!”
That was bad. He needed to move faster. Make it to a “save point.” Get everything out of his head and onto the Internet. He opened the Discord his followers had made and typed: <Does anyone know whether there’s a link between these new alt-academia universities-of-practice and––>
The door opened.
“I found the key.” His mom looked down at him with her hand on her hip.
Mother with hand on hip, Deshawn thought. That’s an archetype isn’t it. Does it have a name?
“Let’s go,” she said.
“But I’m not finished.”
“Little man––”
“I’m 15.”
“––You’ve been cooped up here for months. You can’t just lock yourself in a tin foil prison all day. Come on, I cancelled my department meeting for this.” She cupped his face in her hand. Deshawn winced. “I know it’s been scary,” she said. “But I promise you, it’s safe outside now.”
“What about last week’s street war between the Christians and Nondualists?”
“That was Asheville, honey. This is New York. We know how to put ourselves back together again. We did it after COVID, and we’ve done it after Psi.”
“That’s just because everyone’s on numb-ers.”
“OK, but––”
“I don’t want to take those,” said Deshawn.
“I’m not asking you to take numb-ers anymore. I’m sorry I pushed you about that. I’m just asking for us to come together as a family and take a little trip upstate. Where it’s probably even safer than here.”
“What about the Woodstock thing?”
“What Woodstock thing?”
“The news said that large portions of the Hudson Valley stripped naked and they’ve stayed that way. They’ve all quit their jobs after the Woodstock Revival Festival. Everyone’s still on drug-highs from the Festival but without even taking any drugs.”
“Deshawn––”
“That’s New York. That’s upstate.”
“OK, but Woodstock is two hours away from where we’re driving. Come on. It’s time. Baby, you’re be heading back to school next week anyway. Let’s rip the bandaid off. You need to leave this apartment.”
“What about Tony Robbins and the ‘Inspiration Contag––’ Woah, what are you doing?”
“Pulling the plug.”
“Don’t! I haven’t saved my work!”
“Then hit save and get in the van.”
—
Deshawn looked at the trees whisking by. They looked like the prickly brushes you use to scrape dishes.
To his right, his dad tapped on the handles of his new wheelchair. It had barely fit into the lift they’d installed in the van. “Pumped to take this baby for a spin. The Adventurer 3000! The website said you can take it off-road.” His dad reached over to pat Deshawn’s leg. “ Hey, you gonna help your pop pop some wheelies? Deshawn?”
Deshawn knew he should respond.
“Hey, D. D,” his dad said. “If you’re too freaked out, we can turn back.”
His mom’s eyes flashed in the front mirror. “No. We’re going.”
More quiet.
What what it that gran had told him to do when his stomach felt like it was turning inside out? Invite Jesus in, like a summer sun dawning in the depths of winter. …But he felt weird about Jesus. What was the other thing she said? He looked up at her, trying to remember. There she was, floating in the sky above the van’s sun roof, waving. (Soon after catching Psi, he started having hallucinations of gran smiling down from heaven.)
Deshawn remembered the other teaching of his gran: she said to remember her love, and the love of everyone who loved him. But if his parents really loved him, why were they driving him straight into a dangerous situation?
His mom, turn her head, feeling the outlines of his thought. “Little man––”
“I’m 15.”
“Come on,” his mom coaxed. “It’s opening day! You used to beg me every year to go the Renaissance Faire.”
“You said that ‘the Ren Faire is where white people go to reenact a fake version of their precolonial history’.”
“I don’t remember saying that.”
“You did. And you said that ‘they probably can’t do Shakespeare for shit’.”
“Well, I don’t remember saying either of those things,” she said, her hands on the steering wheel, “but if I did, then I was wrong and you were right.”
“Deb!” yelled his dad.
“What?”
“There it is on the right! The sign!”
Their van screeched around a right turn like a cat-scream, terrifying the parking attendant who stood near the sign that said New York Renaissance Faire.
Deshawn braced himself.
His mom rolled down the window.
“This way m’lady,” said the attendant, recovering.
“Thank you, sir,” said his mom. “Hey, my son is a little nervous about this year’s Renaissance Faire with Psi and all. There been any trouble today?”
“No, m’lady. Not that I’ve heard.”
“Any incidents reported?”
“I don’t believe so.” The attendant noticed Deshawn in the back, like a man finding a bunny huddled in its burrow. “All OK here. Unless you’re worried about dragons!”
“No, no thank you.” His mom rolled up the window. “See Deshawn. We’re gonna have a great time!”
Deshawn stared straight ahead and tried not to hyperventilate.
Next release: Deshawn was right to be worried about the Renaissance Faire.
Psi Tale companion pieces – read these to learn more about Deshawn’s world:
