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It's hot here in the office. Air barely moves between the cloth-covered partitions, churned slowly and stickily by the labouring fans, oozing over the machines. Even their thought-fast chatter seems lazy today. My flesh is slowly dissolving. My brain refuses to create algorithms. Instead, without a conscious decision on my part, I watch the cursor move in dreamlike slomo towards the Start button. Run: Telnet. Address. Port. Password. My fingers move reflexively, knowing where to go.
And I wake up on the crisp white sheets of a four-poster bed. Sitting up, I push past the gauze curtains and look out at my room. Sunlight from nowhere shines through the windows on to the rich-coloured rugs and the chaos of books littering them. I stand, bare feet touching cool granite slab, and walk to the mirror. look me and my text body looks back at me, the self I slip on most easily. emote smiles and between sheets of black hair, smoother than my own, the face in the mirror smiles back.
There is no view through the windows yet, only grey haze and sourceless light. My rooms still hang in space. The doors lead nowhere. A puddle of that ghostly sunlight lies across the centre of the room, the shape of the arched window. Caught in the centre of it is - and I feel my flesh heart jump - something I didn't put there. It's yours. You've been here while I was asleep.
read note and I drop to my knees beside it, my coat pooling around me. Another command and I'm carrying it. I am holding it against myself.
I pad from the room and down the dim stairs, with no real purpose in mind, my eyes adapting slowly. I navigate with a hand on the wall, trailing along its roughness. Down and down till I stand in the hall, still holding the notebook. Will I? Should I? Yes. Elsewhere, in the hot damp place, fingers type @join in one smooth motion. Here my body crouches and tenses for a leap, and then I am flying for a few seconds between places, in the grey nothing outside the windows. I see nothing and hear nothing - no places have been hollowed out in this part of the ether - until I land with a bump in your house.
You've just moved in. I walk the empty hallways. You see nothing special.
Opening a door, I see something special. In a small, cosy room, the only one yet furnished, by the fire in a saggy old armchair, you sit asleep, head on one side, mouth slightly open. I stand silently, eyes fixed on you, barely breathing, although sleepers here are not easy to wake.
I have looked for you today in places like this, scanning the lists of names for yours. I have looked in simpler places, where we are stripped down to bare bones of words. I have opened many boxes, large and small, hoping to find something you left there, and flown restlessly back and forth through the grey non-places, acknowledging my need. Now I stand here watching you sleep, my breath catching in my throat. I could reach out this body's hand to touch your face, but it would not wake you and you would never know. You can't know, anyway. I can't tell you.
I place the notebook on the desk next to you, so that you in turn will know I was here, and turn to go. @home. My text body, which has truly seen you, stretches out on the bed with a sigh of regret. Time to sleep again. @quit and my mind disconnects from that body, to make the weary crossing back to heat, dampness and duty.
And I wake up on the crisp white sheets of a four-poster bed. Sitting up, I push past the gauze curtains and look out at my room. Sunlight from nowhere shines through the windows on to the rich-coloured rugs and the chaos of books littering them. I stand, bare feet touching cool granite slab, and walk to the mirror. look me and my text body looks back at me, the self I slip on most easily. emote smiles and between sheets of black hair, smoother than my own, the face in the mirror smiles back.
There is no view through the windows yet, only grey haze and sourceless light. My rooms still hang in space. The doors lead nowhere. A puddle of that ghostly sunlight lies across the centre of the room, the shape of the arched window. Caught in the centre of it is - and I feel my flesh heart jump - something I didn't put there. It's yours. You've been here while I was asleep.
read note and I drop to my knees beside it, my coat pooling around me. Another command and I'm carrying it. I am holding it against myself.
I pad from the room and down the dim stairs, with no real purpose in mind, my eyes adapting slowly. I navigate with a hand on the wall, trailing along its roughness. Down and down till I stand in the hall, still holding the notebook. Will I? Should I? Yes. Elsewhere, in the hot damp place, fingers type @join in one smooth motion. Here my body crouches and tenses for a leap, and then I am flying for a few seconds between places, in the grey nothing outside the windows. I see nothing and hear nothing - no places have been hollowed out in this part of the ether - until I land with a bump in your house.
You've just moved in. I walk the empty hallways. You see nothing special.
Opening a door, I see something special. In a small, cosy room, the only one yet furnished, by the fire in a saggy old armchair, you sit asleep, head on one side, mouth slightly open. I stand silently, eyes fixed on you, barely breathing, although sleepers here are not easy to wake.
I have looked for you today in places like this, scanning the lists of names for yours. I have looked in simpler places, where we are stripped down to bare bones of words. I have opened many boxes, large and small, hoping to find something you left there, and flown restlessly back and forth through the grey non-places, acknowledging my need. Now I stand here watching you sleep, my breath catching in my throat. I could reach out this body's hand to touch your face, but it would not wake you and you would never know. You can't know, anyway. I can't tell you.
I place the notebook on the desk next to you, so that you in turn will know I was here, and turn to go. @home. My text body, which has truly seen you, stretches out on the bed with a sigh of regret. Time to sleep again. @quit and my mind disconnects from that body, to make the weary crossing back to heat, dampness and duty.
