The soft whizzing of fans, one for you, the other for your computer’s graphics and motherboards. The golden sun breaks through the window shutters. Another afternoon of deep dives. You’d go to bed early, but you haven’t cared for college in a long time. If we’re honest, you probably never did. Some water, coffee and two pills for “breakfast”, vitamins for dessert. Half an hour passes, you feel calmer, time to get to work. Write a little bit? Read some articles, maybe a few pages off a PDF and maybe you have a plant that needs to be watered. Time to distract yourself, put on a stream, you got a lunch date after all. Your food is a little less fancy than theirs, really it’s more ready-made than a Duchamp but hey, they can’t judge when they’re not there. Someone did something appalling, doxxed or harassed a friend. Seems like there isn’t a day without this type of shit. Disappointing. Scene change, some music –a Carnyx– while you read a manga on a shady website. Images of blood and sex appeal highly stylized. Maybe some games? Patch notes said your main will be nerfed but you’re good enough, top 10%, to make it work. This might as well be a work out. In between games you even do an actual exercise or two, something to be proud of, really. And this isn’t even dark sarcasm, better to do something rather than nothing. Good job.
Enough of it, time to hang out at //thePub. Feels a bit like a pub, you think, you grab a cold one while chatting with the regulars. Politics is on the table, as always, it’s disappointing. Your guys aren’t winning, not that they have any idea what to do about the climate or fascism or communism anyway. At least their heart is in the right place. You get handed a link to a podcast, modern day pamphleteers some of those guys wouldn’t you agree? Don’t really care for it but the guys say some things that make your pressure rise now and then, some beauty in the slogans and in the lines of some of these articles. The world is ending but at least we can squeeze a few drops of serotonin out of the ordeal. A few drops of love and beauty. Drugs starting to wear off as you go back to anime. Flashing images marinate your brain and your room with colors. A notification. A girl you’ve been paying for company. The shine of her pictures blends seamlessly with the flashing lights. Her naked curves are spice for a fake relationship. But you don’t need reality when you can have grace. And there is nothing base about her but instead divine, you can feel it for those few minutes of your chat. And then:
02:00 am
Time for a smoke. You sit at the window, time marches on and the videos on your monitor become more and more esoteric until a jungle mix comes on with 100 views. When you get some snacks out of the fridge you realize the pills have worn off completely. It’s draining but at an hour like this you wouldn’t have it any other way. Spending some time unmedicated surely builds character. Each burning minute will be a bittersweet memory 2 years down the road, or down the river. But for now you sit back down and start typing away, it’s in these moments where you feel the deepest, where you do your best work. And as you hound the state on these electronic pages you feel Hypnos pull you into his realm. You’re not done, there’s more to do, these words should be spray painted on walls and you know you can’t finish this tomorrow. But don’t be sad, after all this was an unprecedented day. Normally you might do one of these things per week or month, yet you crammed so much toil into a single night. Do not be discouraged, poet, no matter which path you take you will make it. Happy or beautiful and tragic. But a path you must choose, that is the only advice the cyberghost can give you before you’re lost to sleep.
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