lurker
and shimmer
(a dystopic blog-novel in verse)
introduction
This is a story
devoid of heroes and villains. The characters who populate this
tale are mere agents, the users and the used, mediators, interlopers
and the displaced. My place is central and it will be left for you
to determine whether I have abused my omniscience. I'm no god. I
am Lurker, and I maintain my innocence in the death-murder-of Shimmer.
I have devoted
my life to being a benign watcher; my taciturn nature comes from
decades of mute attentiveness to my craft. Yet, I have been asked
to speak on my own behalf.
I've cued up
the relevant clips-transcribed into textual form. Rather than tell
you, let me show you truths. I can vouchsafe for the integrity of
these experiences. The translations, well, they are as limited as
any language. The order of the events is my attempt to ascribe causality.
Shape the details as you will.
It's all about
me
it's nothing to do with me.
I belong in here.
lurker
lurker
I am a wordless peregrinate
a mute surveyor in a fluid digital suspension
wide open -- infinite bandwidth
I was made to
look,
linger and back up
life's shimmering thrills
(flogged to the huddled hotwired hobos)
my eyes are
open
to experiences
I am an insider looking
out through unfiltered neural pathways
I'm safe
digital fingers
hands off
a digital castrate
or so I thought...
but that was only
one way of looking at it
one way of looking at it
there's one
way of looking at it
(I assumed the only way)
from within—through the kitchen window, say
onto a soon to be brightening morning streetscape
looking over the top of the newspaper, the coffee mug
maybe even the cigarette burning between your fingers
an interiority
small aperture eyes
looking through transparent glass
morning air
guarded by an operculum
of assumptions
an obscuring
flash of light outside?
watch(ing) out
can you hear
me now?
I've watched
and I've reached
past
what even you
might
think you think
to secrets
confidences
the subdural
of denial
the why? of why?
and even your
regrets
self-recriminations
make me love
who you are
and would be
b-SEEG
it
suddenly became very crowded
in here
a crush
of digital transients
many
(an estimated 91.7%)
just out for a shimmer
looking for things inside
at
the moment the virus struck
(provenance uncertain but purportedly Cuban)
labelled b-seeg
it secured the exits
the
revolving doors continued
to let you in
but you could no longer see
the way out
brilliant,
eh?
if only you could see yourself now
my captive audience
you
don't even know
how dark it can get
soundless
Why should I listen?
Who should I hear?
If you lie long
enough
your voice loses potency
significance
relevance
intent
care
voice.
how
Paul made it out
an unmanned
three-ton rogue van
swiped him
its (un) driver side mirror caught Paul
behind his right ear
dislodging the
neural implant
it dangled above the cold asphalt
by some wires or ganglial chaos
He fell into a
world, and the last world
deleted him seamlessly
Paul opened
a bloodred eye and saw
for the first time in a very long time
his own bloodred eye, and grey concrete
and below?
a lowering sky
reflected in a shard of mirror
the streets
were empty,
save for the children—who sang, pointed and laughed—
and ran
Paul
wakens
Paul blinked
heavy eyelids twice
and squinted at the intense light
shining at him from the ceiling.
His mind yawed
with its first exposure to
first hand experience.
"Where
am I?", he thought.
The voice inside his head
was dull, flat, hollow, and unaccompanied.
Normally, the
thought "Where am I?" would prompt his operating system
to search the appropriate ultranarrow band frequencies to determine
his precise location. The query did not set in motion his interactive
telemind. It did not tell him where he was, nor did he get any response
from his mind other than wonder. A response to the vast emptiness
of his mind followed: "Where were the databanks of immediate
information,
the programmes,
the celebrities,
the laughter,
the directions....
next poem...