A Horror

It is the twenty first century, and the day was long as all days are long. Body sagging with weariness the man pulls himself up the steps to his apartment. Inside he goes directly into his bedroom, lays down in bed and plugs himself in to a series of devices. Wires extend from his ears to a machine; a glowing screen fills his vision. He is cut off entirely both from the outside world and from his own thoughts.

The man of course is me. I have just come home. I have not been home in some time. What do I do? Do I converse with anyone, or perhaps sit in quiet meditation? I go to my room, I attach earphones to my head which create a facsimile of music that is ultimately as false as it is bizarre. I type a message: "Hi, how are you?" to a friend 3,000 miles away. Communication without context, soundless, sightless; the real world, the world of the senses, entirely done away with; the human removed, nothing but the Symbol remaining.

The twenty-first century: all of it is insane and none of it is real.