The Play

Reset your password.

I stare unblinking at the flickering cursor and the line of empty space in front of it.

I knew it was coming. The email filtered in one week back very insistently describing the process (and necessary steps) of changing it. The usual why it was important. Internet hygiene and all that.

Reset your password.

I never do but I've hit my final warning. Three strikes and you're out. It doesn't exactly matter if you don't want to walk off the field, you're walking off the field. Do it yourself or make a scene and get dragged.

This is the scene then because I definitely didn't come here willingly.

Reset your password.

The words make me itch like Adderall. A scratch I can't reach and know better than to comply with.

An allergic reaction.

Reset your password.

Why?

Why abandon something that never failed?

Am I supposed to be eager to toss something that continues to serve me aside? The next best thing, the next shiniest thing. The next, the next, the next. They're never any good. Things are made with cheaper plastic and worse security. Things trend down in quality and up in price and I'm expected to drool all day over these stupid ad campaigns.

Honestly. It's always about the shimmery lies of tomorrow, the next greatest thing. Aside from today, of course. Of course.

What happens to the now? The password that has served me well as a valiant little soldier? Unimportant. Unworthy. I like my password. I like him, personification or not. I feel the same sense of betrayal throwing him aside as I did when my dad told me to toss out my favorite stuffed animal when I turned ten because "that's what ten is about".

I hid him in the crack between the mattress and the wall.

Now, I'm greeted with that same, annoying expectation, not a request, to change everything all the time and never spend a moment in the simple solitude of consistency. I can't stand by my old decisions even if I wanted to.

And I want to.

Reset your password.

My password has never failed me! My password is fine! It's fine.

It’s been six years with this one. Six years of loss strung along by one little word of success. One word that reminds me moment by moment, at least with the frequency of logging into my email, that there was something good, something real, something tangible that I did that was worth doing. One thing in this measly life that worked.

Why would I get rid of that reminder?

There’s nothing to replace it. I haven’t tasted success since that one sliver of a moment years back. What is there even to replace it with? A failed hobby? A failed life path. Failed career. The taste of coffee doesn’t ignite enough love in me to serve. I would feel the letters click beneath the pads of my fingers and know I had nothing better to fill that space with than a favorite drink.

There’s nothing to replace it.

I haven’t done anything worthy of internal bragging rights. Getting up and dressed hardly classifies and neither does making a good bowl of not-soggy oatmeal in the morning. There is no great love to make me flush every chance I get. My pets are dead. My family, estranged. The future is bleak and cold and there is no dream for me out there. No escape.

Reset your password.

It’s arbitrary, changing passwords as though I'm important enough to be hacked. Robbed. People don’t even recognize my identity now. They brush me to the side, walk over me, and shove me into unused corners where I can be forgotten. There are enough spiderwebs in my hair from being ignored to spin my own silken shirts.

What’s the harm in letting someone else step into this desolate life in my stead?

There isn’t any money they could take and credit won’t be of much use to them. Thieves steal to gain an advantage whether it’s a flatscreen or a full stomach and nothing attached to my name is an advantage. It is a disadvantage.

A disgrace.

Burned-out gifted boy scraping by on last Tuesday’s leftovers crippled by executive dysfunction isn’t exactly a sought-after job. Not in this market. The hackers, the invisible nobodies out there trying to be someone wouldn’t be looking for a profile like mine. Alone. Penniless. Unimportant.

They wouldn’t want my life even if they had it. David Nobody. Resident of the eternally forgotten suburb and king of a throne no one can even see. Lives on… Where again? What State? City? Oh, really? My family has asked enough to be a league of scammers themselves. Surely, no one forgets that much.

Not that much.

Reset your password.

A command this time. It isn’t asking. It never was. The back button has somehow vanished and there is no way out. No way to undo this. I can’t open the tab again, it will only bump me back here. But this doesn't matter!

Passwords don’t matter. They don’t matter.

Reset your password.

The cursor is still blinking and my eyes have gone dry and red. The password doesn’t matter but words do, don’t they? They matter.

I heard my first collection of bad words in fifth grade when I was heading toward the bathroom in the middle of class. I caught a glimpse of my friends full of starry-eyed mischief with their heads so close together they must have been sharing the same Cheeto-filled breath from their lunch. My friends. Thinking it was only a quick detour, I began to approach.

And then I heard it.

David, David, David. My name filled their little mouths. Each time, something uglier followed until I realized they never liked me at all. They were making fun of me by being a friend. It was a show. A play-pretend sort of thing where they smiled and laughed but snickered behind my back about the things I prided myself on. A black sheep there too.

From the mouth of babes.

Reset your password.

With a sigh, I type out the same old password, shifting a capital, adding a number, and a “z” for good measure. That’s two extras, one from last time and one from this time.

It doesn’t look right but it’s better than nothing.

The name of the character I played in my university's play. There it was, staring unwaveringly at me with two "z's" on its rear and speaking the truth. I was in a production. A production! And I'd been good. For one brief, small second, I was good.

I’ll still get to remember that one glowing moment, the room of applause, and the warm hand in mine as I took a bow. That remains.

Password reset.

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Silver Serpent Books

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