Imagine a not-so-distant future in which everyone is HIV positive and, sooner or later, ends up in a state-operated hospice dying of AIDS. In a broken socio-economic order, governments have been reduced to a single function: extending the lives of their citizens with anti-retroviral treatment (ART) drugs. Meanwhile, rumours have coalesced into a widespread belief in the existence of a cure for HIV that is also exchanged through bodily fluids. Sex, casual, friendly or indifferent in all its forms offers a possible cure. Consequently, genders, sexuality and relationships have been altered drastically. Elliott lies in the hospice among the dying, his only remaining purpose: to serve as a subject for sociological and psychological research, research that is conducted via a nano-tech device to which the patient is wired. The device, called a Spade has a twofold purpose: to read and manifest Elliott's thoughts along with bits of cultural detritus into his room, and to produce a tranquilizing effect on the patient. But Elliott has diverted the device's purposes, turning it into a writing machine with which he can resurface and reshuffle fractured memories of his past RAVE street life. Ohmhole is a sludge novel, grafting literary genres, imploded narratives, and recycled texts to probe the relationship between illness, technology, and language.

Tyler Hayden is an international leadership and team consultant. He has over two decades of experience as a speaker and organizational consultant and is the author of more than a dozen books and measures on personal development, leadership, and team building. He and his family live in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.

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