the atmosphere of pervasive connection
Why do you choose to do things in such a roundabout way? I’ve been staring at the screen for minutes now, the display has gone dark, battery saver. How am I supposed to reply to your attitudes through digital letters and symbols? Emojis that can only be read as unserious in the face of all.
Do you relate to me at all? Have you considered your own faults when being mad at mine? You have, you’re just hurt. And I still love you. I still have patience for you, as you have for me. In acceptance we unite, lose mass and diffuse, becoming one with the clouds and winds of the city. We’re acid rain now, dissolving what’s left of the concrete that once held people looking at the cloudy sky.
The introduction to things tends to be cryptic. I don’t think it’s possible to do it any other way. Understanding is retroactive for us, and that’s a feature of the complexity of our lives. No introduction to things then. Just jump into the cold water pond.
Is there something on your mind? I can still wait for the ellipses that tell me you’re writing, but nothing shows up. Been like that for minutes. Been there, not deciding, writing and deleting. Until I give up. What’s it going to be today? Agonizing silence or groundbreaking declarations, pick your choice. Either or.
But I can’t wait forever, and the city is anxious today, reverberating noises inside, like the grumbling stomach of a carnivore.
Set up airplane mode. Sever myself from the world while I’m still very much in it, riding through the streets, smelling the ocean rain, soaking my clothes. Still traces of data coming through, push notifications bypass anything (we’re never fully disconnected). We’re never fully disconnected.
I throw my phone into the ground, take out my revolver and punch three holes on the screen. In my head, in my violent dreams. It’s not about being disconnected. I just want to not be caged. And the anxiety of airplane mode can only be tolerated for so long.
What’s on my mind? Now that the messages are not coming through, what can I think about? No airplugs to distract my ears, no screens to entertain my eyes. Wide color spectrum real-life-quality interactive real life. This is what I’ve been seeking, but virtuality keeps pulling me, like my hands with a mind of their own lighting a cigarette and before I know it it’s lit in my mouth, my phone in my hand, and thirty reels gone by.
I throw my phone into the ground — We’re repeating fantasies now, I conjure mindfulness to not fall into obsession, but let other obsessions overcome my will. Those are tolerated, in general.
Reading your messages say nothing new to me, really. We’re stuck in a roundabout, and I’m following. Or are you following? Are you following? Maybe we’re in different ones in the end. Just talking to ourselves through each other, using each other as mirrors for our faults. But we never come to anything. I put out the cigarette on the bark of a tree. City’s poisoned anyways.
I apologize. I’ve been ignorant of the ways in which I hurt you and everyone else. Very often, I know. I promise it’s not on purpose, it’s just… It’s… And you wait. You wait with your eyebrows raised, expecting that what I say will actually make sense, you’re still patient after all this time. It’s just… I don’t know. Those signs of disappointment that I know so well show up in your face, my greatest fear. Letting out a sigh, you turn around, and I cry. Inside. I can’t really cry, I’m taking anti-cry pills.
I just stand frozen as you walk away. So much for talking in person.