“Can you imagine intentionally dying by touch?”

We still had reception from one cell provider at the time

Welcome to a new week and our last week (so far) in a fiction.

This is a glimpse at [one of my] original novels, loosely titled “Senseless”?

These were Friday’s words… or you can go back to the beginning here.

Thank you for being willing to go off on a new and unexpected journey and for gifting me this recovery time!

And hopefully you enjoy the special glimpse at a book I otherwise never would have shared?

I will return to my normal style of essayist writing and real time rambles and Every Weekday Promises but…

Maybe this is an experiment worth taking?

Please share. Consider supporting an independent writer. And let me know if you wish you could turn the page (fingers crossed, but I’m not editing this to perfection before sharing… I’m just willing myself to be vulnerable and share in all its imperfection).

See you tomorrow for more!

FIVE [sort of]

Hux was one of my favorites but I used to hate him a little.

He was one of those people that never complained about the new status of life and adjusted easily.

I spent a lot of my time internally bemoaning all that had changed and all I couldn’t control, and then feeling ashamed of myself for how first-world I’d grown to be. (Considering I’ve only ever lived in the first world – growing up somewhere between Connecticut and just shy of Canada - this isn’t a shocker, but somehow still surprised me.)

I always thought I was more worldly than this. I watch travel cooking shows in HD. I know almost every major religion on earth and how to argue against it. I post things like “freedom for feminists” on Facebook #PhilosophyFridays just to piss off my redundantly-Republican Uncle. I donate to those Name a Rhino charities once a year because poaching disgusts me (mine is named Edward).

Am I really the type of person who bemoans the loss of sashimi and baguettes as the world is ending?

I miss sashimi, but I also miss Yum Yum sauce, which is the most culturally defunct, white-person thing I could miss. I miss walking through the store with nothing to buy but knowing my paycheck is dropping Friday, so scented candles and bath bombs can be justified without guilt. I miss power-walking really fast in a crowded downtown market, knowing I’m making the person in front of me nervous, and then feeling I’ve achieved something when they eventually move out of my way. I don’t miss trying on pants or telemarketers.

Hux understood why the fatalist orgies had started, but didn’t approve of them.

“To go without touch is to go without life,” Theo countered, while we organized the little that remained of our produce.

We had done a run to the cafeteria some weeks before, and it almost ended in loss. I wasn’t ready to talk about it. I wasn’t ready to even think about it. Now, I knew without having to count that it wouldn’t be long before we ran out altogether.

“But to be willing to sacrifice yourself because you can’t go without it?”

We still had reception from one cell provider at the time and kept the last phone going with a charger from my boss’s old office. The irony of it being that the least smart of all of our phones- a low budget, partial knock off brand- was one of my favorite things to think about… as if “sticking it to the man” with our technological ‘unintelligence’ (when the man was dying) was somehow even worth it.

If my Dad were alive, he’d have said “I told you so” thanks to a long-suffering insistence on not upgrading over the years.

“I just want to be able text you, Dad,” I’d say, “I can’t always call from work or on my drive.”

He hadn’t picked up since our first thirty-six days in, and I knew what that meant. My phone didn’t work anymore anyways, and what remained in terms of public resources was a low budget podcaster that somehow kept producing in an almost steady stream of content; plus, a few rogue flickers on posts and pages.

I never thought the stream of Internet would freeze… or even could… but it was as if no one had pressed refresh on the digi-verse for weeks.

“I’m going to be with you until I can’t anymore,” the lone podcaster said, though he used to talk about unsolved crimes specifically targeting Natives and indigenous tribes before everything changed, “I believe this is why I’m still alive. To lead you through this.”

“Can you imagine intentionally dying by touch?” Theo would say, mostly ignoring Hux, “What are we going to do when Rob the Pod shuts down?”

And then… he did.

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……pause mid-chapter…..

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Continued Tomorrow.

** Thumbnail Art Credit: Unknown**