Idolon by Mark Budz

shipping containers annchored to reinforced concrete pads that had been set on the level, bulldozed sand.
    Narrow streets· and footpaths — jammed with scooters, motorcycles, and bicycles — connected a dozen or more distinctly philmed neighborhoods. New Malecon followed the beach seawall for three kilometers, its stacked multilevel boxcars philmed to look like the famous boulevard in Havana, Cuba. The Red Lantern district of Little Shanghai butted up against Putingrad, Zona Sagrada, Al Mansur, and Carib. All philmed as places that the community's legal and illegal immigrants had either lived or wanted to live.
    Her sister Concetta hated philm. After seeing what it had done to the neighborhood and the peoople, she stopped waring 'skin. In neighborhood asssociation meetings, she'd argued against the use of architectural philm to renovate the Flats.
    Marta sighed and wondered if she'd ever underrstood where her sister was coming from ...
    _______
    It's not the same as redevelopment," Concetta told Marta after a meeting at which the planning commisssion had decided to move forward. "It's not an improveement."
    "It makes people feel better," Marta said, "about themselves and where they live. What's wrong with that?"
    They sat in a secluded New Malecon cafe, sipping coffee, the crumbs of a shared blueberry scone scattered on the table between them. Soul Inheritance, a Cuban R&B band, percolated through slow-churning fans. Outside, moonlight foamed against the seawall on restless waves.
    "It,s not helping." Concetta glanced at a group of TV missionaries bunched at a corner table and leaned forward, keeping her voice low in the metal-walled room. "It’s making life worse, not better."
    "I know." Marta sighed. It was a familiar argument. "People don't want to see things the way they really are. They want to cover up their problems. Hide from them."
    "It's more than that." Concetta sipped coffee, holding the mug with both hands. "People don't know what's real anymore, and what's not."
    Marta blew on her coffee. "And you do." .
    Concetta nodded at the TVs. "All I'm saying is that it makes people easy targets. Easy to program them."
    "People are always looking for something better," Marta said. "There's nothing new about that. "
    Concetta stared into her cup. "Philm just makes the sell job easier. Lot more innocent victims now than there used to be. All I'm saying."
    Marta didn't like the tone of her sister's voice. "What have you gotten yourself into?"
    Concetta shook her head but not in denial; whatever  she was doing she couldn't, or wouldn't, talk about it.
    A week later her sister was gone, vanished. A week affter that, Marta discovered the refurbished shortwave hiddden in their bedroom closet.
    _______
    That had been three months ago. And still there has been no word from Concetta. Had she left in dissgust, fed up with the refurbished motor home thar their stepmother had philmed to resemble a Hollywood bungalow?
    Or was her disappearance a symptom of some deeper malaise?
    Each day Marta thought back to the period leadding up to Concetta's disappearance. Had her sister said something — on purpose or accidentally — to hint she might be leaving? She culled her memory for a stray phrase, a seemingly innocuous comment, and came up empty. There was nothing. Only the radio, which might or might not have been there all along. Looking for a missing blouse one day, she had found the top with the radio in a corner of the closet reserved for storage. No telling how long ago Concetta had put it there. Or why the blouse had been with it.
    To Malta's surprise, Nguyet was home, rattling around in the little kitchenette. She'd forgotten it was Nguyet's early day. One day a week she worked an early shift at the vegetable-processing plant, gooing in at 3:00 A.M. and coming home by three in the afternoon. When Marta left for the Get Reel that morning, she hadn’t noticedNguyet was already gone.
    Marta poked her head into the kitchen, where