#theo thimo

Something cute is happening in front of me and my manager’s roommate while we smoke weed in the back of the bar.

I ask, “Did I hear John say you two recently moved?”

“Yeah, we did.”

“Oh, where you living now?”

There’s a lovely pause in our friendly conversation.

“Park Avenue.”

“Oh,” I say. Our eyes twinkle and shine toward one another. “Very cool.”

“Yeah, we moved around two weeks ago.”

“It’s funny,” I say, “You have more money right now than I’ll have my whole life. That’s very nice for you.”

He thanks me and expresses profound humility.

“Yeah,” I twirl my thumbs. “I just realized I can’t relate with your life in anyway whatsoever. Have a great day!”

There is something nice about me when I meet Paul near Boston Commons.

“So, that made me feel really emasculated,” I remark to her.

“Stop it.”

“Do I smell bad to you? I haven’t showered in a while and all my clothes are dirty.”

“No, I don’t smell anything.”

We sit in front of ducks or geese.

“I just want to remind you that you can be completely honest with me.”

“You do smell but it doesn’t bother me,” she divulges to me in confidence.

A grand jury recently decided not to indict police officer Darren Wilson in the murder of Michael Brown.

“That’s terrible,” she says.

“I agree.”

We order what we would later agree to be two “very delicious, and especially cheap cappuccinos.”

“That will be $8.89,” the barista smiles at us.

Paul investigates her pink purse.

“Oh no,” she says. “I don’t have enough money.”

Our eyes transpose with the cashier in the shape of what my imagination made-believe to be the Bermuda triangle.

“This is very embarrassing,” I say.

We accumulate our money, reaching six dollars.

“You guys are straight,” the cashier says.

“I just want you to know I feel like a terrible human being,” I confide in her.

Outside the cafe, “We deserved that shameful experience to happen,” I say.

“We are horrible and deserve this.”

We begin our leisurely stroll towards the train station.

“Can you spare some change,” a human being asks us. “I’m very hungry out here.”

Paul asks me what’s new.

“Well, I was talking to my friend about post-modernism yesterday. I just don’t get it, I think.”

“Did you know I was once in a Model UN?” she asks me.

“Yes, you’ve mentioned it before.”

“Oh, and did I tell you about how–”

“You locked your classmate out of the hotel room because he said something misogynistic.”

She explains how she has a number of preset anecdotes that she will tell people.

“Yes, I have those things too!”

“Isn’t it great that we compile these experiences in our life, and willfully highlight certain events to paint this picture of ourselves to the people around us.”

“And that’s who we are, I know. It’s crazy.”

“And we chose to see each other.”

“Yeah, and we pretend like it’s a casual thing but it’s really because we feel this impulse to see each other.”

“It’s super weird,” she says.

“Can I use your phone for a second? Mine just died.”

I trade my friendship for her smartphone.

“so happy with being happy and friendly,” I tweet.

A man in a suit walks by us while we sit and smoke weed on a bench.

“Smoking weed is something people do,” she says.

“It’s super fun. We can do this and nothing bad will happen to us even though it’s illegal.”

I’m still using her phone when I accept a friend request, and like some statuses.

“Can I see it for a second?” she asks. “Jesus christ, Theo. It’s at 3%.”

“I feel terrible, Paul.”

“Theo, it was at like 60% when I let you borrow it.”

“Look,” our legs stumble in front of a window pane.

“Wow,” she says.

“It’s beautiful.”

“It’s a 3D-printer,” she says.

We marvel in wonderfilled gaze.

“I love technology,” I say.

“It’s making a turtle.”

The storefront shines light on our cute faces. Just then, I catch a glimpse of myself in the window’s reflection. “It looks like it’s pooping,” I say, surprising myself with a little wink.

--

Theo Thimo lives in Brooklyn. He has been published in Metazen, Press Board Press, Shabby Doll House, and Everyday Genius. He can also be found on Twitter and Tumblr.

Theo has five stories in Electric Cereal.

  a short story by Jenn Olson (Sad Girl House)

I Don’t Really Know Much About Rosh Hashanah Except That We Throw Bread at Ducks

four poems by Kayla Day (halfbunny)

messy kisser lowrise cats dogs death metal forever

a short story by Theo Thimo (theoooeooo)

Tweeeeet Tweeet Tweeeet

a poem by Izzy Sanhueza (sigh-irl)

never-ending scroll

an excerpt from a manuscript by Julia Long (hausholdobjects)

Lincoln Log Smoke Signal.

two poems by Moon Temple (moontempleuniverse)

it’s hard to feel okay when you are thirsty and far away from home untitled

three poems by Kate Monica (katejustkate)

Embarrassingly enough, I’m sending a Tinder message when I am struck by a car. My face is flat against the pavement like kilobytes, alive and not feeling like they have to justify their existence anymore. My phone vibrates with a Facebook message.

  "It's OK. Just relax."

  I stumble to my feet like I'm sleeping, or like, unaware of being the thing I am, like a smiley face emoji.

  "You’ve just been hit by a vehicle but you're alright. How do you feel?"

  I feel like a notification, very present in the moment. I am very presently placing my head against the curb of the street. My manager, Carl Stanley approaches the thing which I am. He takes my HTC One Mini 2 smartphone, whose operating system, Android 4.4.2 (codenamed Kitkat), I helped design. He recognizes me from my phone’s distinctive aluminum casing. He goes for my wallet while on the phone with paramedics and pockets my money.

  "You're a good person, Steven Smith. You will make it through this,” he says.

  "Thank you, Carl Stanley.”

  "KitKat wouldn't have been such a success if it wasn't for you, I haven't thanked you for that yet.”

  He starts to cry.

  "You have been such a valuable member to us during the 4.4.3 update. The update will be so simple, so clean. It will be everything we worked so hard for it to be. Camera improvements, a new gallery app, Extreme Power Saving Mode, a gorgeous new user interface, and many bug fixes that improve battery life and system ability."

  Like a nice change of pace, it feels like my physical body is finally matching the identity I’ve been paving for myself these past few months. I’m not interested in being present anymore, or dealing with others and making decisions all the time. It seems limiting, and savage almost, like a big house on fire. I mean, existing tends to feel like working a job, but right now I feel good. Maybe I am just happier integrating my existence with others, like preferably I would like to inject myself into others, a deeply romantic polygamous internet relationship with every person on my friend’s list, a constantly updating news feed of emotions. I can’t find the difference between connecting with one person or another anymore. The concept of relationships existing as either platonic or romantic has virtually ceased to make sense to me at this point.

  “Are you dead?” Carl asks me.

  “I’m OK, I think.”

  “Just keep breathing.”

  The sky glows with billions of kilobytes flying over my head, like jellyfish, or like poodles.  I notice Carl’s phone.

  "We have the same OS," I say observantly.

  Carl looks at the thing that is me.

  "I don’t know,” I say. “I’m just glad we share such similar experiences every day."

  At this point in my life, I just assume people are interacting with me online.

  “I feel very emotionally available right now,” I tell Carl.

  In an effort to calm me down, Carl begins making small talk about cuckolding. Maybe I’m going into shock, I’m not sure. I’m not really paying attention to any of this, to be honest. Truthfully, this whole concept of getting hit by a car seems to be placed into my life as a sort of way to keep myself interested in between the emotional changes that are occurring deep in me, subconsciously, like lava slowly flowing down a nearly leveled sidewalk. Life just constantly feels like a big distraction from myself most of the time.

  “I feel very light right now, Carl Stanley.”

  “The ambulance will be here soon.”

  “I feel embarrassed.”

  “Hold onto that feeling, Steven Smith. Go towards it. Follow the shame and humiliation and go away from the light. Stay with me. I’m here.”

  Carl touches my lips like tadpoles. It feels like how everything that touches me feels like frogs like how I feel like a frog, and can be trusted with things financially, and buying a house, or paying the lease to my apartment, being on time for appointments, and living like a man with an internet connection, or a person who does helpful things for friends, and family, and always liking the comments on your statuses, always returning someone’s poke, and following someone back on Twitter, recycling when applicable, improving your perception of yourself, or your perception of being alive. You can improve your physical body by acknowledging it less, by being the idea you want to be, and fixating less on what makes sense and more on what feels right, taking time away from words and focus communicating with others in a nonexistent way.

  In the morning, I am sitting on the office room floor, stretching naked and enjoying the sunlight.

  I receive a message on Gchat.

  “I hope you don’t get hit by a car in two weeks,” it says.

  “I had to remove you off my friend’s list,” I respond. “I hope you know it’s nothing personal. I just can’t have any of you on my newsfeed anymore.”

  Immediately, like kilobytes, floating over my head, like a frog, like a thing that is really another thing, feeling that feeling that isn’t a feeling, repeating commas in between similar linking, chain reacting thoughts that exist in this constant streaming feed displayed through a computer screen behind an iris, it tastes kind of like a Kit Kat. The thing that appears to be me, but is not me, types on my keyboard.

  “Are you feeling the passage of time? If so, what does it feel like to you?” I ask.

  I receive a Facebook notification, “Are you having a stroke?”

It was a messy and foggy morning when Steven Sillyperson logged onto 4chan.org and saw the picture of a dog photoshopped inside the foreskin of a human penis. Steven, who prefers gender neutral pronouns, saved the picture in their Dropbox folder titled reaction pics, and after spending twenty minutes reading a post about Elliot Rodgers, they started a Tinychat room and linked to it in their thread on /b/.

The sky felt gender neutral to Cher Littlebit while she browsed an area code hook up thread on /soc/. She ctrl+F’d “415” but didn’t receive any results. Simba, the orange ragamuffin, knocked over a vase before running out of her bedroom and hiding under a couch. Cher followed him out the room and laid down at eye level with him where they stared at one another. “What’s the matter with you?” she said but Simba had trouble understanding her because he mainly communicates through body language.

Steven smoked salvia alone in their room to an audience of twenty peers, and when they began to feel constrictions tense through their body, they came to the same, reoccurring thought, “I can not imagine anyone consenting to this.” In the middle of the terribly physical and violent yanking of Steven’s identity, they felt something familiar.

But does it really matter if things feel familiar to Steven,and I mean does this feel similar to you, this familiar feeling thing I mean?Just FYI, I don’t see any correlation to how Steven perceives themself to how someone like, for example, me can perceive themself. It’s hard for me to find the connections between the things happening around me, but we make connections with the people in our communities all the time anyway, and they affect the way we think about the things and people around us, just in case you weren’t paying attention this is what is currently happening.

Paul Nickleback, who had recently published Cher in his serialized magazine focused on culture and gender after their initial meeting at a book launch last month in San Mateo, who had just sent Cher one of many increasingly concerning text messages requesting nude photos, hadn’t left his home in a week following his termination from his job, and watched Steven on tinychat but lost interest halfway through, in the same familiar way he had lost interest in himself whenever long ago, it doesn’t really matter.

Eli recently began his job at NewHive.com and is otherkin. His Facebook news feed displays an article that matches his interests. Millions of dollars go towards an algorithm that ensures you only see the articles that are most relevant towards you. Humans are increasingly finding new ways to control and change the environment around them. Eli, on the other hand, identifies as a cat.

_ Theo Thimo

mom

please

i cant

mom

i dont

know how

to

swim

mom

please

dont let

go

of me

mom

hold

me

mom