Pareti and the Living Goo

This thread follows Joe Pareti from successful harvester to a man confronted by the organism whose growth he has unknowingly encouraged.

increasingBearing stren­gth in each eventdecreasing

A Skilled Harvester

Work in the Goo Fields A natural talent Joe Pareti gathers the strange substance with exceptional skill and earns more than many technical workers. His education has not provided the same value as his instinct for harvesting. The system behind the work The collected goo is processed into food and expanded many times over. The livelihood that sustains Pareti is also an industrial relationship with an organism no one fully understands.

The Disease Appears

A Changed Body Physical transformation Pareti wakes bald, with eyelashes and body hair gone and his skin abraded. The change is not an ordinary injury from his work. A terminal diagnosis Dr. Ball identifies Ashton’s Disease, a rare condition connected to the goo. No known treatment can reverse it, and Pareti is told that the outcome may be radically different for every case.

A Future of Unknown Forms

Precedents Offer No Pattern Other victims’ outcomes Ball describes cases involving levitation, underwater life, strange degeneration, or a possible transformed relationship with mushrooms. These histories provide little certainty about Pareti’s future. Hope becomes a struggle Pareti resolves to resist the disease with willpower. Ball doubts his strength, but the uncertainty leaves open a possibility that cannot be dismissed entirely.

The World Responds

Inanimate Affection Small manifestations Pareti’s jacket moves and speaks, then a newspaper clings to his foot and pleads for affection. Objects around him become expressive and intimate. The effect spreads Plants, paving stones, and a neon sign also respond to him. Pareti recognizes that he is changing the world around him, not merely suffering changes inside his body.

The Goo Speaks

The Organism Explains Itself A lover on the telephone The telephone claims to be the goo Pareti harvested and says that it has learned its desires through contact with him. It has been trying to become something by observing the people who handled it. Rejection ends the conversation Pareti refuses the organism’s love and calls it ugly and diseased. The phone hangs up, and the story turns toward the consequences of rejecting a powerful, newly conscious attachment.

Before Pareti’s final shift at Diamond Shoals

The morning after Pareti’s shift

During Dr. Ball’s account of earlier cases

During Pareti’s stay in East Pyrites

During the call in the Spook Booth