A Crack in the Glass
The sharp teeth of a steak knife bit into grey coating. My thumb pulsing as thoughts rumbled. Damn cats! Bet it was Hammy who chewed through them. Peeling down both halves, multicolored stems sprouted out. Simple, this looks simple enough. Pulling back each to match its partner on the other end that snaked along, leading to a box laying on the floor. Travelling into the wall and disappeared out into the real. Taking all the copper guts and twisting and pinching as fibers pricked my fingertips. There, that should work. Up the screen popped. Connect, click. A silent yes, ran through my brain. The shrill ping and sharp eardrum piercing whirring, progressed while the yellow man walked to make its way to the next box. Perfect, shooing the two kittens that dared to venture too close to the spliced phone cord with my foot. The dead time just before connection, brought a smile across my face. Resting in the chair, proud now, far from the pure panic moments ago. Not able to contain myself, I spoke aloud with the greeting as “You got mail” droned through the speakers.
It was important, threat consuming and the anxious need now, much different than the few months of wonder, when first signing on as a guest family member. The turmoil of typing here and later watching as the world shot in my eyes it’s macabre sense of humor. Family, what a foreign word to use for this. Never attending their functions. Enjoying the silence of the rooms around me. As though the mold behind the moist paneled basement was somehow refuge. Drifting over the icons and looking down the mail list. This crap is basically a ton of creative chain letters for the most part.
The humor itself got very dark, pitch black to put it mildly. The test simple, logical. Maybe if people were more pros and less cons. I may have made it out with less scars and no flashbacks. Dark like, lets see what happens if? Followed by the most insane thing people could think of. People, yes it was a village. All camouflaged underneath fancy fonts and whimsical member names. In a place where they easily intermingled excess fumes permeated and settled all over the monitor. Clicking on sent, thinking wow it’s wonderful to be able to check if they had been read. No time spent wondering why I haven’t received a response. The chimes went off over and over. Oh, hurray more cams. Said with the most sarcastic tone a mind could vibrate. In a wave pressing the arrow into that thin line, rapidly. Quickly grabbing each minimized window and organizing them along the bottom in neat little rows.
Tapping away and into the familiar smell of what was now my permanent second home. When it was merely an extension of the basement. Branching and weaving, seeping into every crevice. Like the mold spores into my lungs. Until like the cough expelling mucus, my typed words spewed here, stuck there. Taking my big ol’ foot and planting it firmly in my mouth as well as down the throats of others. Sometimes even waved in the face of several more until the odor could be found wafting out and up the nostrils to settle on their brains. To be sure, I was not alone in the bad taste left in my mouth. Connected and placing me in a death grip.
High up, told this rancid machine had billowed up chains of command. Still haunting words of “You can just shut off your computer and it will all go away” never tasted so sour. Brave? Yes, the word comes to mind as the room opened like a pack of skittles. I could when sleeping still taste that rainbow gliding across as text, melting on its way up the screen. Seemingly swallowed by abysmal nothingness. Little did I know, later I would discover it’s origin. Military use, over and out. Servers and wheels turning. Bytes and packages traveling at lightning speed. Perfected then made for public use. From the invention of the GUI and release from MS DOS. Learned a bit later in classes at he Toronto School of Business.