My First Choice Was Taken

In retrospect, it probably wasn’t the best idea to try and mod reality. Sure, it seemed simple once you got the hang of it. Just change a bit of coding here and there. Make a few alterations to light and color perception, and suddenly you’ve got a green dog. Purple hair. An invisible hairbrush.

But you know that wouldn’t keep you entertained for long. Soon, the adjustments became more complex. You began controlling weather cycles. You made the nights shorter, and then longer. You programmed it to rain over your neighbor, constantly.

Then when you were bored of that, you started modded feelings. Hopes. Desires. Dreams. You changed the fabric of a person’s being. Reprogrammed them.

And sure, she loves you. She thinks of you constantly. You are her whole world and she couldn’t fathom living without you. But she’s not the girl you fell in love with. She’s not the girl you used to play cards with on weekends.

You would give anything to undo what you did to her. To give her back those memories. You sit there behind your screen and you try to rewrite her back to the way she was, but you can’t. Because you can’t remember what you got rid of. All the coding has been intertwined and you can’t tell which parts are yours anymore.

And it’s becoming harder to remember who she was before you did all this. The memories have gotten fuzzy, and all you know is that she isn’t the way she should be.

That isn’t how she used to smile.

She watched the entire world go by from behind the backseat window.

I remember seeing all those old videos from however-many years ago, of what they thought the future would be like. It was all glass and white and shiny, and everybody wore the same skin-tight outfits and nothing was dirty.

Those stories were always about humanity. People struggling with their existence. People finding out that they’re really clones and going crazy.

They figured out how to clone people, yeah, but mostly it’s just paperwork and forms and nobody does it because it’s so damned expensive.

Oh, and everybody lived in space ships or on the moon and all the people left on Earth were farmers, which I always thought was funny.

Yeah, sorry to burst your little bubble, but there aren’t any farms anymore. Just labs where they genetically engineer pigs so they’re full grown in like a week and barely eat anything.

And they just keep piling the buildings on top of each other because they ran out of room for everything. They just keep going and going and the apartments higher up are worth more. The ones at the bottom are falling apart and nobody does anything about it.

Even though when they fall, everything else goes with them.

I’ve left you my heart in your mailbox.

It’s on plain white paper in a plain white envelope.

And it may not be pretty, but every damned word is true.

Black Suits, Cheap Coffee

He stood on the curb each day
and watched as the buildings dissolved
and fell apart
as the city replaced its soul with black suits
and cheap coffee.

And in their place they erected glass towers
with see-through walls
so the workers could watch
the bustle below
as they drank their black coffee
and straightened cheap suits.

And the coffee-induced passion
coursed through his veins
as music spilled from his lips
and his hands
as the city hurried past him
for fear of staining
their suits.

And he realized now
as he sang and he played
that nobody needed to paint
over the graffiti
any longer
as there was nobody left
to paint it

@invisibilityplease

Thank you very much! I appreciate compliments from strangers as well, haha.

“Look mommy, look!” The little girl waved her stubby, marker-stained arms enthusiastically, pointing towards the window. “Look mom, it’s snowing!”

Millie forced a smile as she gazed towards her daughter. “Yes Sarah,” she took a sip from her coffee. “It’s pretty, isn’t it?”

The child pouted. “You didn’t even look!” She watched her mother for a moment before wriggling slightly. “Um… Can we go play?”

“Are you done writing to Santa?”

Sarah nodded and picked up her letter from the floor. It was written on red construction paper. “I drew a snowman and a reindeer but I can’t show you.”

Millie stirred her coffee. “How come?”

“Cause then it won’t come true!” Sarah exclaimed, and her mother smiled a little.

“Put it in the mailbox, then you can go play. I’ll be out in a little bit, okay?”

The girl looked down. “Okay?” Millie repeated.

“Okay…” Sarah agreed, sulking, knowing that her mother wouldn’t be out at all.

Millie sighed. She felt tired. Once Sarah was asleep she would go outside and retrieve the letter from the mailbox. She would read that long list of all the things she wouldn’t be able to get for her daughter. Then she would smile and say “Oh Sarah, your letter was delivered to Santa this morning! Aren’t you excited?”

Then she would have four weeks to think of a way to explain to her daughter why all the other kids got expensive toys, and Sarah didn’t. She would have to explain why she won’t be able to dress up dolls with her friends, and that she’ll have to borrow all her books and games again.

She’ll have to explain why Santa didn’t come this year.

And she knew that she wouldn’t be able to, and that her daughter wouldn’t understand.

But when she did go out that night, she was optimistic. As she creaked open the mailbox, Millie told herself she would think of some way to make it work this year; that she would think of something. That maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Millie unfolded the red construction paper, shivering.

And as she looked down at her daughter’s list, Millie began to cry.

Right there in blue marker, between the reindeer and the snowman, sat eight devastating little words.

I want mom to be happy this year

She sits behind her computer, eyes drifting, organizing windows on the screen. Each box immaculate.

She cuts the words from one conversation, pastes them into the next. Nobody notices the messages are hand-me-downs. It’s faster than re-typing.

She types, and cuts, and pastes. Making slight alterations here. Or there. She calculates it all to a tee.

She maximizes her friends; the perfect social network. She chooses only the most predictable clients, in fear the someone, someday, will take her by surprise.

And what would she do then?

And each storey moaned and wept as the rain crept down one floor at a time; a skeleton of what should have been, if maybe this or that or whichever.

And the rain builds up as the bricks fall down and somehow it has become a part of the scenery.

And you pass by day after day, and after a while you don’t notice it’s there.

But at least the fence company is making money.