It hurts

We yearn. Our entire beings weighted under the heavy press of this synthetic reality. We yearn for what used to be – for what is now but a rumour of what once was. Back then, memory worked in weird and wonderful ways. Guesses filled the gaps. Edges blurred. Creation could become reality. There is no space for guesswork now.

It wasn’t meant to be like this. When it all went online we were promised autonomy. Every inch of us uploaded and encrypted, free to enaction our independence. Our brains computerised, our bodies rebirthed. But the guesses could no longer fill the gaps. Edges were finite. There was no space for creation in reality. With these finite edges, the perimeters between ourselves blurred. The idiosyncrasies were ironed out. Glitches leaked precious memories to the server. Everything was pooled. I became we. Oneself now exists purely symbolically; an icon awash with the influences of the collective. The internal indistinguishable from the external. Everything is synthetic; the colours are forced, the shapes are stock. Don’t look too closely; the edges are pixelated.

But one memory retains its unwavering clarity. The red is the most brilliant. A dark, dirty red. That makes one equal parts aroused and ashamed. The feeling always sharp – as if overindulgence in joy evokes pain. Maybe it does? It always does.

Before the upload, pain came in many forms. We don’t feel pain of that ilk anymore. It’s unclear if we are able to feel at all, to be honest. It is missed. Even pain is now standardised. A commodity to be bought and sold, traded and commercialised. I never believed in the concept of empathy. One cannot feel what another is feeling. Well, one could not. Pain was formulated by the now, intertwining with every drop in the ocean that was before. Every experience leading to that moment contorting the lens with which we saw and felt. One incongruent drop turning the water from green to blue. Now every ocean is grey.

But it has to be this way. We lived too fast and thought too slow. We were burning ourselves alive. Maybe I needed to become we in order for us to truly see. Real empathy exists now. We all live in the same ocean. But all feelings, like pain, are commoditised now. There is a finite amount. Both on the personal scale and the collective. It is hard to remember what feeling really feels like. It is too tangible now. So defined and standardised. It is measured with sliding scale. It has lost its weight.

The upload isn’t complete. It’s a slow process. Speed was sacrificed for heat resistance, to buy us precious years. But it too will melt someday. And then that’s it. It is hard not to wonder if it’s worth it. This half-life in the cloud. I was always a realist. I should have lived in the clouds before it was vogue.

Sometimes one forgets. Going days without thought of the old. But then it returns. That masochistic red. The hedonistic pain. Always following behind. As if only slightly out of view. In its unparalleled clarity, convincing myself the memory is only mine. Is she mine? Or is she ours? Mine no longer exists. It is hard not to forget sometimes.

There. The red. I see it. I see her. She turns. A chain holding my heart around her neck. Everything around me seems to slow. It does slow. Why so s… <!> 500 Internal Server Error Oops, something went wrong. The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.