It was a wonder to behold. It’s bezeled edges caught the light as he held it in his hands. In it was more computational capacity than man used to reach the moon. Its ability to access the silent waves of telecommunications enabled any knowledge, true or false, to be summoned to its lighted screen in a mere matter of seconds. It was without a doubt, the paragon of human technology. This slab of steel, glass, and copper, this handheld torch into the unknown of darkness, loneliness, and ignorance. When in need of knowledge, when in need of distraction, when seeking after a love or a lust, there need be nowhere else to turn but to this device.
It’ll be obsolete in a year or two, and he, like most people, will be inclined to buy a new one. To trade the fruit of many hours of life in return for that connection, that distraction, that outlet for availability again. Society as a whole had decided that that was what they wanted. They wanted to feel close to the light in their hands, and far from the darkness outside. They wanted to see the pictures of their loved ones, and hear songs that made them feel a certain way. They wanted to know that at least a little bit of who they were, could somehow, somehow, somewhere, make a difference in someone’s life, or at least what they professed it to be.
He placed it gently on the table, and turned it off. It used to never be turned off, and it would light and buzz day and night, alerting him to people that did things in places for reasons. And he felt informed. He felt safe, he felt warm, he felt happy. But his happiness did not lead to joy. The smiles of profiles and the shenanigans of cats did not cause any jubilation to become his own. Happiness was not what it once was. It was thin, and light, and constantly attended to. It needed to be recharged, it needed to be squirreled away in pockets and purses to always be pulled out and always be touched, but protected, for its fragility mandated that it be so treated.
He stared at it for a while. He knew part of him wanted to pick it back up and be with it. As the last flickers died from the screen, he closed his eyes and breathed. His world felt a little more silent without the noise, the waves of interference. The hunger for more- the pictures, the knowledge, the understanding, the exposure, the sensation, the enthralling captivity, it all cried out as he turned and walked away. With every step he felt lighter, with every breath he felt fuller as the atoms of air in his lungs filled his chest and crept into his body, pushing out the exhale that it was exchanged for. He felt his muscles relax, muscles that he didn’t know were tense. As he walked through his house, turning off the lights in each room, his brow settled into a gently curving line, free of tension. His arms fell to his sides, with nothing to hold, and nothing to protect, he swung them as he walked. After going from room to room unplugging alarm clocks, televisions, computers, stereos, he came upon his kitchen. He unplugged the toaster oven and the microwave, letting the cords drop like hungry serpents from his hands onto the linoleum tile, where they lay coiled.
The faucet groaned and sighed as he filled a cup with water and brought it to his lips. He held the cup with both hands, feeling the ceramic warm from his skin and cool from the water. The water tasted the way water does, for all intents and purposes tasteless, but never perfectly so. He felt it run down his throat into the cavernous mechanism that would process and utilize it in a perfected biological clockwork. He set the cup on the counter with a gentle clink, and turned to look at the window. The night was warm and inviting.
The moonlight called to him with its unattainable allure, its pale beckoning, nestled in the brotherhood of stars. The trees swayed their branches as a warm summer breeze pushing through the skies and clouds, rusling every blade of grass and leaf in gentle caress.
He opened the door and set one foot outside, suddenly paused. It wasn’t fear, it wasn’t anxiety, it wasn’t obligation that stayed his body across the threshold, it was a simple desire. It was a want to mark this moment, to take it in as soon as it passed, to hold tightly and never let go of this moment with the world in front of him, and the world behind him. He stepped into the night and the moon and stars twinkling looked upon his figure fading quickly into the night.
