Day Five

Ever wonder what goes through the mind of a man who has gone five days without internet?

The Bell van finally came after I sent this. They didn't fix anything but they tamper-proofed the service box so nobody else could help me either then ran away. I wish to hell I was joking.

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Day Five:

Still no sign of a connection. Increasingly I find myself glaring intently to the horizon until the image of a Bell van conjures there and I can hope against hope that it is real, and that it’s on its way to rescue me. I concentrate determinedly on not blinking for I know that when I do, the mirage will dissipate along with the fanciful notion that I will once again join the online community – become an entity again. A person.

Sometimes these days, as the memories continue to fade, I wonder if I was ever online at all, if there ever actually was such a creation and that I was a participant of it, and this “modem” is nothing more than a green blinking mockery of my tortured mind. Perhaps this is the reality that has always been and the sheer loathsome boredom of this pointless existence has created a fantasy past in my mind, one in which people – many, many people – were just a tweet away. The answer to the eternal question “Who was that guy who was in that film with whatshername, her with the whiny voice?” was discovered in a moment with a mere click. The answer to all of life’s mysteries just that same simple click away.

It wasn’t real. It can’t have been real. The more I consider it, the more I’m convinced that the magic long ago world that I have envisioned and had been convinced was as real as this clean, clean apartment in which I inhabit, the more certain I become of its illusory nature. There probably never was a time when I could click a button and see the Leafs play, another to discover the weather conditions without ever having to glance out a window, yet another to stare approvingly at pictures of Nicole Kidman’s naked boobies. Oh, God, those sweet naked boobies. And why can’t I think of a more recent example of starlet beauty than Nicole Kidman, perhaps one popular in this millennium? That’s how hopeless it has all become.

The past, yesterday, does it matter if it happened in reality or just my mind? Is there even more to reality than just my mind anyway? Perhaps my mind isn’t even real, relegating its memories to an even lesser degree of tangible significance. Who knows, there’s no way of knowing, but these are the haunting questions the lone netless man must contemplate once everything that can be cleaned has been cleaned, when even the drawer with the dead batteries and the Canadian Tire money has been organized, and the dog has a baldy runway down his back from being stroked too severely for too long.

I don’t know if anyone will ever receive this email but, like every day, I shall stuff it into a bottle and with a primal scream hurl it as far as I can into the ebbing tide and I will sit, and I will conjure up more heroic Bell vans rocking gently on the distant horizon, and I will dream. I must continue to dream.

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And that's just one guy with no net. Can you imagine if it happened to everyone all at once? Actually, you don't have to because Mark Rayner has imagined it for us in The Fridgularity.