psyche

There is an old computer in a basement; it is not particularly dusty but it still exudes a sort of smell (which isn’t really a smell, but smell will do) which heavily implies that it is old. By old I do not really mean aged (although it has indeed aged), but more specifically I refer to that vaguely-defined state of oldness that exists in computer culture and probably in most other subcultures: the computer is a generic old thing and no-one knows precisely what it is but they know that it is from another era.

It had previously belonged to a man who liked it quite a lot and did some useful things and also, like any man, wasted a fairly large section of his life using to pursue things which ultimately meant nothing. Of course, he found out interesting things and his life was better but he also engaged in other things; he dialled into boxes ever so far away and played tricks on the telephone men and women and was occasionally proud of himself. The computer didn’t really remember him as such; certainly were there things on backup tapes still bound to it that had never been overwritten but, in a way that makes me sad, would probably never be looked at - in fact, I can confirm that they never were but, as you now know, they could have been. It now sat humming below the electronics shop. Its hum was permanent because it ran some antiquated but venerated software that required several hours which, according to its system clock, should not have harboured much human activity, for “housekeeping” tasks and so was left on by its more recent owner (a shop employee). It had been superseded by much, much faster machines.

Left behind by someone who found things out. I cannot really convey the strange tightness that I feel in my torso when I think about it; it’s like an edgy nostalgia: it had been left. Dark people in dark rooms had done dark things but found the way. Most left in a bad, lonely way. Others left in a way that was still lonely but they experienced a profound connection to something incredible. They broke many rules and, you know, I wish they would come back and help me but they won’t. I still sort of wait, you know. I sit here in my room at my computer staring at it and hoping something will come, although I know that I really have to make it come. I have to pull things to me.

Now, the light from the character bled into the darkness which might as well be considered part of the bigger darkness of the room. People had sat and done things but now no-one sat; I would’ve taken a melancholy photograph had I been there. No-one remembers the computer! It doesn’t even exist!I made it up! It died alone! I MADE IT UP.

Physics and guitar concert on Monday. Someone knows that I try!

Pax