Paradise

I spent the afternoon in the right hemisphere, wandering the curved hallways, dusting off old habits and tripping over a grudge I thought I’d thrown away years ago. I found it huddled in the corner, looking smaller than I remembered, but just as sharp.

That’s the thing about this architecture: there is no “delete forever” in the neocortex. There are only storage lockers with broken latches. I walked past a collection of “almosts” (the person I almost became, the words I almost said, the things I almost did) stacked like charred firewood.

Many of the same, I let nothing go.

Clutched tight, a white-knuckled grip, against the cruel departure.

I stare at the screen. The tiny pixels blur the corner of my sunken eyes. The clattering of keyboards in the background, a rhythm like raindrops on a tin roof. My fingertips, numb, hover above the black keys. The cursor flashes, flashes, flashes — Waiting for me to turn this blank space into an odyssey of words.

Is this all there is? Is this really life? Is this my eternity? I feel stuck, like a chewed piece of bubblegum pressed to the sole of my fake leather boot. I am water in a broken bucket, held together by thin strips of duct tape, waiting for the slow, inevitable burst of all that’s held inside.

I am a static current in an endless loop of light, watching the clock devour minutes I can't reclaim. I yearn for something real! Something beyond the synthetic warmth of a computer screen. But the chair holds me down, and the words won't come out. Just the dull, echoing click, the silent scream of the unsent thought.