How many people can claim that being online has changed their life? I am not talking about someone who did a google search to discover what kumquats were. I am referring to an existence that is certifiably different than what it would have been if they had never been tempted to surf the web. A path in life altered by the Divine Intervention of the ether. For all those who have found aching love, true friendship, or a change of address waiting for them online... this is for you.
My life has been exceptionally altered because of the internet. I have been Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty; I have been lost and found, cursed and blessed. My praises have been sung, and my deeds condemned. I have lain awake at night because the words on my screen had liberated my conscience from any semblance of every day activities, and been privy to e-mails that made me shake with fear, hating the accessibility e-mail provides. All of this and more... my thoughts, my actions, my life has been chronicled on this tower and monitor, and others like it.
Because of this world, I have reclaimed myself. And here is a token of gratitude to those of you who love me, and to those I love. But more pertinently, to anyone who has found a haven in this tangled web we weave. Anyone who has ever checked their in-box hopefully, who has revealed parts of themselves to a keyboard and a webcam that they never knew existed, anyone who has glimpsed solace and freedom when they open a browser window. I know you. I am you. And here is how it happened.
One sweltering summer afternoon in central Florida, there was a rather picturesque scene in a certain lakehouse. Sunlight wandered gently through a barren glassed-in porch, and finding no furniture to halt it�s advances, continued unabated towards the double parlor just on the other side of the french doors. Striking the hardwood floors at an angle that suggested it was around two in the afternoon, it contented itself with illuminating dervish swirlings of dust being whipped into a languid frenzy from the non-stop attentions of two stalwart ceiling fans.
Floor to ceiling bookshelves lined the back wall of the parlor, filled with dusty first edition tomes and the occasional embarrassed, wilted paperback detective novel. Down on the other end of the vaulted rectangular room, a fireplace stood at hopeful attention, as if someone were about to toss some kindling into it, instead of cigarette butts and a random tissue when the trashcan was full. The mantle was wearing a shine, due to a recent skimming of white paint. Cracked yellow wallpaper daintily stamped with a delicate flower design lined the lower portion of the walls, stained and browning along the cracks in the mortar. On each of the four corners the wallpaper had begun peeling away, and when the lighting beckoned, a faded periwinkle peeked out from a time before anyone currently living had been conceived.
The room was startlingly spartan, containing only five things of note: a desk dating to the baroque period that was awkwardly presenting a brand new gateway monitor and keyboard to its avid audience of one: a Louie the fifteenth drawing room chair. On the other end of the room, casually sagging just in front of the bookshelves, was a softening navy air mattress strewn with thinning pastel sheets. The sheets rustled, buoyed by the omniscient breeze, and the young woman beneath them unconsciously pulled the frayed ends slowly back over her feet.
Her hair was a mess of reddish brown tangle, and her skin was alternately sweaty and goosebumped, depending on the appendage that happened to be vulnerable to the steady whirring of the fans. She rolled slowly onto her back, pulling her sleep encrusted eyes open. Unfocused, they dilated with the unwelcome intrusion of the sun. The mattress sunk resignedly beneath her, and the sand from the lakeshore that had hitched a ride indoors with some anonymous flip-flop began pressing its way into her back. Her lips cracked open, and a sigh joined the floating dust particles.
Stretching and cracking her neck and toes, the woman rubbed her back on the muted grittiness of the mattress filtered floorboards, and hauled her torso towards her knees. Looking towards the source of the blanketing light, she saw her boyfriend slowly pacing the back patio, inhaling smoke intently. His body became partitioned as he paused in-between the cheerfully white windowpanes, and she focused on his thumb nestling comfortably into the belt rung on his jeans, as if searching for assurance.
He turned towards the house, and saw her staring, squinty eyed and rumpled. A smile creased the edges of his mouth, and he motioned with a slight gesture of his head for her to join him.
French doors creaking, lake water whispering, she did.
The date was July fourteenth; the year two thousand. And life as she knew it hung on the precipice of change.
(to be cont.)
3:25 a.m. - 2001-09-29
Recent entries:
cliffhanger - 2005-11-12
Mary - 2005-02-08
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Propaganda - 2004-02-20
Lifer - 2003-12-05
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