ApolloRising
02-06-2010, 06:59 PM
Well, this busts up the word limit not by too much, this is like 1500 words so, accept it or not. Anyway, hope you enjoy...
The Neon Café
I’d been clean for maybe two days already, so when the craving came I figured what the hell, go wild. It’s been a couple days and it’ll take what, five minutes and you’re good all day then. The problem was, I owed my regular provider money and so they weren’t giving me shit. I had a few quid though, so I figured I’d find somewhere on the high street I could pick up. It is a bit of a shithole around here, but as long as I could get down there without getting mugged, raped or killed it’d be worth it.
So, I headed down town and dived into the first cafe I could find; the Neon Café. Seedy as hell but it looked like I could pay cash and a fix is the last thing I need on my bank statement. The door handle was greasy from so many netheads that I wiped it down on my jeans as I walked in. I found the closest empty seat and took it, no one so much as spared me a glance. Everywhere people were shooting up, logging on, getting their fix; people on MSN, AIM, other abbreviations, Facebook, an older guy was still fucking around with MySpace, but you know, old habits die hard. Just last week I met a guy at group who was still using Bebo. It’s comical, but, you know, we go to help each other, not judge each other.
I put coins into a slot by the monitor and it flickered on, taking me straight to google homepage. I was so ready to log on right then the sweat and faint whiff of dried ejaculate on the keyboard didn’t even slow me, I barely spared it a thought. The web address was in, then my log in details and I was good to go. There were so many opportunities that it’s ridiculous, five minutes would never be enough.
“Steven Winchester - is typing this status,” I hit onto the grime covered keyboard and pressed enter. I felt guilty already. I’m in a counselling support group, I’m on pills, I’m in about 10 thousand euros debt with AOL. I know, AOL as a provider was an amateur mistake but I was young and reckless. I don’t see it as a problem though; social services feed my kids so I don’t have to. My first wife may have left me, but since the move to fibreoptic broadband connections porn is a lot quicker to stream and I know what you’re thinking, it’s about more than sexual gratification. It is, but I have Kitty2023, we met a year ago via mutual friends on Facebook, soon enough we realised we shared many fan pages. Six months ago we were married live via webcam and I’ve never looked back.
It’s not like I’m addicted, and even if I was, which I’m not, it’s not like it’s anything major or life threatening like World of Warcraft or Call of Duty online.
You know, it’s nothing hardcore. Strictly class B surfing for me.
My notifications were buzzing like mad and five chat boxes had opened already. Then there was Jessie’s status, ‘Going to make lunch’, and that leaves open whole avenues of conversation to explore.
“Hey!”
Halfway through updating my status again I was interrupted by a familiar voice shouting me across the aisles of net addicts.
“What’re you doing, Steven, I thought everything was going great?” it was Mr. Simpson, my group’s counsellor. I turned back around and stared into the monitor. It’s the bee philosophy, pretend it’s not there and it’ll go away. The worst thing you can possibly do is flap your arms.
Then it occurred to me, “What’re you doing here?” I asked.
His reaction was telling; silence. It’s the bee philosophy. Everyone around us was still hammering away at keyboards, surfing the cyber waves of the internet boom of 2053. The days of dial-up are long since behind us and the future is a click away.
There are no more autobiographies, just archived Facebooks, a revolutionary step forward by internet visionaries such as Miley Cyrus and Zach Braff.
Simpson’s head sunk as he walked over and took the seat next to mine, “they took my iPhone when they saw my history. I forgot to delete the history once, just once, that’s all it took. Now my home connection’s gone, my copy of Call of Duty: Moderner Warfare is gone, I’m left with fucking Resistance 8 and although servers take ten thousand players per map, it’s not all that.”
“Shit,” I said, “I had no idea.”
“I’m around you fucks all day long, how could I not end up where I am now?”
He was leaning into me the whole time, rubbing his forehead with his hand, his voice low. I avoided his stare, looking at his monitor, it wasn’t on yet, the blackness reflected my middle-aged stubble covered face, my fingers and wrists sore from RSI. It’s then, looking at my own undernourished face that two things strike me. First: Simpson saw his future when he looked at me. And why’s that such a bad thing, I’ve got all I need? And second: This was a Facebook moment.
I slid a hand into my pocket and felt for my phone. The internet was locked on it years ago, but it’s still got its uses. I slipped the cover off the camera lens, “You in?” I asked. He sighed and nodded, I held the camera at arm’s length and aimed it back at us. Simpson leaned in further and looked up at the camera with a fake smile plastered across his face. I clicked and it was done, I wondered if I should take more and make this moment into my 15th online album but it seemed I could only get maybe 40 pictures of me and Simpson in here before they got boring, making it the smallest of the albums. Plus, you gotta account for the tagging time, it’d take all day.
I Bluetoothed it to the computer and set back to dealing with my notifications. Kitty had already commented on my status, naturally I reciprocated after updating my own to reflect my location as well as current action.
“Why do you do it?” I asked Simpson, only half listening for an answer.
“Same reason you do,” he replied, “you feel more loved with every notification, photo comment.”
“And the games?” I prompted, glancing around the rest of the room at the netheads hammering at keyboards relentlessly just the same as they were when I’d come in.
“You know how good those notifications feel?” he said, and I nodded, “well, when your kill death ratio goes up, imagine what it’d be like if you had 2000 notifications at once, that’s what it’s like. Course, the flip is, when you go down a point on your KDR it’s hard to get out of bed the next day.”
I’ve only ever had 1334 notifications at any one time, and that feels pretty fucking good. All of a sudden purchasing a Call of Duty game seemed a lot more appealing.
My heart skipped as I noticed Kitty had left me a photo comment. I dropped another euro into the slot before clicking the notification.
The café’s door opened but I barely noticed until Simpson stood up with such speed that his chair flew backwards and fell to the floor. I looked at him, then past to a number of armed police baring down on my position. To my right, at the next monitor a thin translucent pool of saliva trickled from the user’s mouth onto the keyboard, wetting the ‘B’ key. No one else was moving, even as the first guy was ripped from World of Warcraft no one moved except Simpson, who grabbed my arm.
“What’ll they do to me?” he asked, fear straining his speech.
“First offense?” I asked, checking my hotmail account.
“Yeah,” he said, as his arm was torn from my shoulder and he was slammed face first onto the cum, drool and sweat covered keyboard to be cuffed.
“Nothing really,” I replied, as they read him his rights and told him he was under arrest for surfing at an unlicensed Internet Café. He didn’t hear a thing of my response, but I didn’t care much either; I was updating my status.
An armed officer spun me around on my ripped up office chair to face him. He screamed and hollered but I didn’t hear a word because I’d come to a realisation: this was a Facebook moment. I started to reach into my pocket.
“Do not move!” the officer yelled, through his standard issue balaclava.
“It’s cool,” I told him, I said not to worry, it’s a Facebook moment, lighten up, this needs to be documented. He carried on with the yelling in my face. Tiny missiles of spit impacted me all over, millions of little hepatitis B ridden cells working their way to my lips with every plosive consonant
he used.
My hand was in my pocket, his around his pistol aimed at me. Everyone else was still surfing, tagging, talking, wanking, whatever their choice. His finger rested on the trigger. I started to pull my phone out, telling him not to worry, I’m just grabbing my phone. He was like a broken record with his telling me not to move.
The trigger clicked down, the bullet tore through my skull, bits of blood and brain cover the guy next to me; he didn’t care, he kept on typing.
/Blog
Steven Winchester - is recovering in hospital.
Kitty2023 likes this.
The Neon Café
I’d been clean for maybe two days already, so when the craving came I figured what the hell, go wild. It’s been a couple days and it’ll take what, five minutes and you’re good all day then. The problem was, I owed my regular provider money and so they weren’t giving me shit. I had a few quid though, so I figured I’d find somewhere on the high street I could pick up. It is a bit of a shithole around here, but as long as I could get down there without getting mugged, raped or killed it’d be worth it.
So, I headed down town and dived into the first cafe I could find; the Neon Café. Seedy as hell but it looked like I could pay cash and a fix is the last thing I need on my bank statement. The door handle was greasy from so many netheads that I wiped it down on my jeans as I walked in. I found the closest empty seat and took it, no one so much as spared me a glance. Everywhere people were shooting up, logging on, getting their fix; people on MSN, AIM, other abbreviations, Facebook, an older guy was still fucking around with MySpace, but you know, old habits die hard. Just last week I met a guy at group who was still using Bebo. It’s comical, but, you know, we go to help each other, not judge each other.
I put coins into a slot by the monitor and it flickered on, taking me straight to google homepage. I was so ready to log on right then the sweat and faint whiff of dried ejaculate on the keyboard didn’t even slow me, I barely spared it a thought. The web address was in, then my log in details and I was good to go. There were so many opportunities that it’s ridiculous, five minutes would never be enough.
“Steven Winchester - is typing this status,” I hit onto the grime covered keyboard and pressed enter. I felt guilty already. I’m in a counselling support group, I’m on pills, I’m in about 10 thousand euros debt with AOL. I know, AOL as a provider was an amateur mistake but I was young and reckless. I don’t see it as a problem though; social services feed my kids so I don’t have to. My first wife may have left me, but since the move to fibreoptic broadband connections porn is a lot quicker to stream and I know what you’re thinking, it’s about more than sexual gratification. It is, but I have Kitty2023, we met a year ago via mutual friends on Facebook, soon enough we realised we shared many fan pages. Six months ago we were married live via webcam and I’ve never looked back.
It’s not like I’m addicted, and even if I was, which I’m not, it’s not like it’s anything major or life threatening like World of Warcraft or Call of Duty online.
You know, it’s nothing hardcore. Strictly class B surfing for me.
My notifications were buzzing like mad and five chat boxes had opened already. Then there was Jessie’s status, ‘Going to make lunch’, and that leaves open whole avenues of conversation to explore.
“Hey!”
Halfway through updating my status again I was interrupted by a familiar voice shouting me across the aisles of net addicts.
“What’re you doing, Steven, I thought everything was going great?” it was Mr. Simpson, my group’s counsellor. I turned back around and stared into the monitor. It’s the bee philosophy, pretend it’s not there and it’ll go away. The worst thing you can possibly do is flap your arms.
Then it occurred to me, “What’re you doing here?” I asked.
His reaction was telling; silence. It’s the bee philosophy. Everyone around us was still hammering away at keyboards, surfing the cyber waves of the internet boom of 2053. The days of dial-up are long since behind us and the future is a click away.
There are no more autobiographies, just archived Facebooks, a revolutionary step forward by internet visionaries such as Miley Cyrus and Zach Braff.
Simpson’s head sunk as he walked over and took the seat next to mine, “they took my iPhone when they saw my history. I forgot to delete the history once, just once, that’s all it took. Now my home connection’s gone, my copy of Call of Duty: Moderner Warfare is gone, I’m left with fucking Resistance 8 and although servers take ten thousand players per map, it’s not all that.”
“Shit,” I said, “I had no idea.”
“I’m around you fucks all day long, how could I not end up where I am now?”
He was leaning into me the whole time, rubbing his forehead with his hand, his voice low. I avoided his stare, looking at his monitor, it wasn’t on yet, the blackness reflected my middle-aged stubble covered face, my fingers and wrists sore from RSI. It’s then, looking at my own undernourished face that two things strike me. First: Simpson saw his future when he looked at me. And why’s that such a bad thing, I’ve got all I need? And second: This was a Facebook moment.
I slid a hand into my pocket and felt for my phone. The internet was locked on it years ago, but it’s still got its uses. I slipped the cover off the camera lens, “You in?” I asked. He sighed and nodded, I held the camera at arm’s length and aimed it back at us. Simpson leaned in further and looked up at the camera with a fake smile plastered across his face. I clicked and it was done, I wondered if I should take more and make this moment into my 15th online album but it seemed I could only get maybe 40 pictures of me and Simpson in here before they got boring, making it the smallest of the albums. Plus, you gotta account for the tagging time, it’d take all day.
I Bluetoothed it to the computer and set back to dealing with my notifications. Kitty had already commented on my status, naturally I reciprocated after updating my own to reflect my location as well as current action.
“Why do you do it?” I asked Simpson, only half listening for an answer.
“Same reason you do,” he replied, “you feel more loved with every notification, photo comment.”
“And the games?” I prompted, glancing around the rest of the room at the netheads hammering at keyboards relentlessly just the same as they were when I’d come in.
“You know how good those notifications feel?” he said, and I nodded, “well, when your kill death ratio goes up, imagine what it’d be like if you had 2000 notifications at once, that’s what it’s like. Course, the flip is, when you go down a point on your KDR it’s hard to get out of bed the next day.”
I’ve only ever had 1334 notifications at any one time, and that feels pretty fucking good. All of a sudden purchasing a Call of Duty game seemed a lot more appealing.
My heart skipped as I noticed Kitty had left me a photo comment. I dropped another euro into the slot before clicking the notification.
The café’s door opened but I barely noticed until Simpson stood up with such speed that his chair flew backwards and fell to the floor. I looked at him, then past to a number of armed police baring down on my position. To my right, at the next monitor a thin translucent pool of saliva trickled from the user’s mouth onto the keyboard, wetting the ‘B’ key. No one else was moving, even as the first guy was ripped from World of Warcraft no one moved except Simpson, who grabbed my arm.
“What’ll they do to me?” he asked, fear straining his speech.
“First offense?” I asked, checking my hotmail account.
“Yeah,” he said, as his arm was torn from my shoulder and he was slammed face first onto the cum, drool and sweat covered keyboard to be cuffed.
“Nothing really,” I replied, as they read him his rights and told him he was under arrest for surfing at an unlicensed Internet Café. He didn’t hear a thing of my response, but I didn’t care much either; I was updating my status.
An armed officer spun me around on my ripped up office chair to face him. He screamed and hollered but I didn’t hear a word because I’d come to a realisation: this was a Facebook moment. I started to reach into my pocket.
“Do not move!” the officer yelled, through his standard issue balaclava.
“It’s cool,” I told him, I said not to worry, it’s a Facebook moment, lighten up, this needs to be documented. He carried on with the yelling in my face. Tiny missiles of spit impacted me all over, millions of little hepatitis B ridden cells working their way to my lips with every plosive consonant
he used.
My hand was in my pocket, his around his pistol aimed at me. Everyone else was still surfing, tagging, talking, wanking, whatever their choice. His finger rested on the trigger. I started to pull my phone out, telling him not to worry, I’m just grabbing my phone. He was like a broken record with his telling me not to move.
The trigger clicked down, the bullet tore through my skull, bits of blood and brain cover the guy next to me; he didn’t care, he kept on typing.
/Blog
Steven Winchester - is recovering in hospital.
Kitty2023 likes this.