Before The Lights Go Out

It is extremely likely this version of the Internet will not survive. Don’t you find that romantic?

When the world plunges into chaos, whether due to an unforeseen geological event (plenty waiting) or something far more dramatic for the sci-fi dreaming, everything will disconnect.

However many of the datacenters recover in that destined fallout, well, maybe each’ll retain a good chunk. But what a goodbye!

One could liken it to reading a signal ten light years away. You are able to locate the star system, ship a Rosetta Stone and hope for many more days of communication. Then one day, swiveling over the observatory telescope, it’s all dark. A giant dark blot where all of those messages and vague fitful dreams centered.

Did you save everything you wanted? You can’t save live connections, but most of us are the digital dead anyway. I am writing my grave here. As are you.

Let’s scroll through all of the albums, looking over all the culture as it turns into our global chrysalis. Whether the twig snaps is handed off to fate, though what do you think will hatch should it all hold on?

The blizzard rages on, burying all of those laughs and screams indicative of the carefree global reign. Let the sun dissolve while the volcanic meteors plunge into skyscrapers.

In that deep mahogany glow, where the magma bubbles effortlessly carve snow, so all the hard drives melt in its stream. Structures of hubris, so lifeless, torn apart.

Here’s my single hologram flickering out. What sort of person does it represent? Someone to be forgotten.

What a way to close the century. A little early, but who knows how long it takes to ease back into confidence you have the world.

The world has you, don’t you get it? You are forever in its grasps.