The other day I was reflecting about why I produce so much – though much of the same circling around insanity, socially daft content at best. Writhing around while there’s a dial tone answer dangling right ahead all the time. But I constantly forget.
Yet reminders come: many days ago I peered over the shoulder a more typical pastime computer use-case. The FortNite world glittered in its millions of man hours manifest: the skins and saturated colouring was a little dizzying, trance-y, and all consuming. Little Discord™ icons lit up top-left, whether to share sparse comms or some incidental beer fizz burping. One could tweak however they want their avatar on the launch screen, letting it evict you from this world.
Tabbing out so the chat streams re-rendered and photos of recent meals, trips, something on the muted grey background. Moving profile icons and blips of red. Joining the voice channel in medias res so the conversation leads from the previous night, or nights. Days blending after all. Shared silence. Was this the first or third time I was spectating?
Watching a scroll through a Steam™ library of titles I was once familiar, but now in reflection appears as a haunting more than anything. How can they visit what seems to be grave sites? Only to me, of course. Same as visiting an old Southern Belle mansion all cobwebbed and worn: but the chandelier flickers and flushes a wave throughout, reviving it to its Prohibition heydays. And all the ballroom dancers waltz in, and all the hors d’oeuvres stations with spiked punch to follow. Only the onlooker peering past the frontyard porch could see the single dancer, arms in air humming the serenade.
I open my cabinet doors and its the same vegetables everyday. Open my phone and have long given up any messaging, phone calls spare for a company. I walk around and it’s the same sidewalks, faces to grimace a smile or cross the street to avoid. The emails I thought to make for burners have empty inboxes, save for post-signup corporate newsletters. No classmates, no employees to exchange predictive weather takes. I open this browser and greet this place which almost feels antagonistic; perusing most of the other user pages I feel as the ghoul revived, and my anger at my stupidity keeps rising.
There are no drugs to lean on, no delusions of career laddering, no friend groups waiting to burst – this is the Aftermath existence. Living in a pseudo-apocalyptic world while everyone else still has the musical chairs. Where I have lived it all thus far and view everyone else going through the same rings while ignoring the unknown trench ahead. Not as though I have any advice though, or maybe they’re on a path I don’t know about. As I’m not sure whether to paint the scene as a summit triumph or falling into the abyss. Failure or matter-of-fact aftermaths. For those ahead they’re thousands of miles out and left little notes – one, underlined, “start.” I have no Virgil; I am a Virgil, for a world willingly closed off and to self-advise. What is real and what are my delusions? Silence is always the answer.
I wonder if only I was sentenced here while everyone else can enjoy the ballroom glamour. Of course that’s not the case, but anyone in the Aftermath has their own world to manage; no portals between most certainly. No fentanyl doors to reflect on. Maybe I am the one imposing the waltz-for-one, peering from the front porch; maybe the Devil long since cast this spell and everything is twisted for one’s eyes only.
However it is, so it comes as this little trophy, and at least I can cling to that while the molten streams thrash around me flattening the ashen landscape. To be a champion contender whatever waits at the end. Not hard to reach if you’re the only player in a deserted plane. I writhe here because it is how I cope living in the now glitterless, schoolless, companyless icon silence.
But it’s not like, analyzing the time spent, there’s much a difference. I still spend the same time on the computer as anyone else. If anything, I should have more to show for it, beyond prostrating here. Am I really better off living this way?
It’s not really a question to entertain seeing as the ballroom invitation is impossible. Can only look on and wonder what spell I am under. But at least I’m not under the ballroom spell. But a quadrant of the Attention Wars – so the little trophy sparkles amidst the volcanic springs. Dwell long enough and you may dare to like it, scribble something in the black sands. Look for the stars in our volcanic smog.
No one knows what’s ahead, but I’ll writhe here and face it the same; whether in posterity it all shows as the pinned wiggle’d worm or a weekly recuperation to push ahead and transfigure a pathetic monotony, another cog in the Novelty Machine, time will tell.