I’m writing this from work again, which means bad news. News that has just gotten even more awful within the past hour. I think I might be sick.
Last night I somehow managed to keep my promise to myself and refrain from turning on my phone and laptop. Those are my only two personal communication devices so I just had to deal with being cut off from everyone. After work I went to the nearby Starbucks to kill time and avoid being home around the devices longer than I needed to be. I ordered a latte and I sat at a table alone looking and feeling awkward. I looked at a free newspaper but didn’t really read it, and the latte was hard to drink when I was already so jittery. Everyone around me seemed to be on a laptop or a phone — business people, old people, hip work-from-wherever freelancers, teenagers, moms with their kids. Even the kids. All at once they’re sitting or standing, staring or typing or talking through their rectangular outlets into the world, and I was the outlier. I wished someone would talk to me, but I knew they didn’t need to.
The one-sided chatter and the clacking of keys and all the vacant eyes boring into illuminated screens kept making my mind drift to another set of vacant eyes — my own eyes — staring back at me.
I didn’t stay there for long. The environment and the caffeine didn’t help my nerves.
I reconsidered visiting a friend’s place, but without my phone’s GPS I knew I’d struggle navigating the city, and it would be out of character for me to just randomly show up. For the first time in awhile, I really thought about whether it had been a smart choice to move away from my family to pursue the urban professional life. I could drop in to see my mom and dad any time and they would not think a thing of it, and would probably feed me and genuinely enjoy my company. But that’s not so easy when you live a four hour drive away, you know?
So most of the evening I spent on the couch watching TV again and trying to nap or even sleep a full night. I don’t really know what I was watching, because I wasn’t really watching it. I forgot to eat again. I put my laptop and phone way at the back of the top of my refrigerator so I’d have to expend the energy to pull out a chair to retrieve them. Somehow that strategy worked. And somehow it was 7:00 AM again. And you can bet that I was standing right up on that chair reaching for my gadgets on the top of the hour.
I tried my laptop first. I held the power button. The start up screen illuminated as it should, but I didn’t get my hopes too high. It’s a good thing I didn’t because my panic might have been twice as severe as it was when the woman who is me was there again, sitting on that damn wooden bench in that damn empty grey room.
But something had changed slightly.
It was the same scene at the same angle, but something was different about her. I could see that her expression had become a little less dull. I looked closer but couldn’t quite make out the emotion. Not happy or sad but — something else? And there was more movement. Her hands in her lap seemed to be making more scratching motions, so that her arms were now moving slightly too, like a slow shiver. It seemed she was continuously rubbing or picking or scratching at her fingers or knuckles?
I thought I saw a shadow pass through the room and that’s when I snapped the laptop shut. I dared to check my phone next, though I knew what I would find. I was strangely compelled to see her face closer up to decipher what had changed in it. Had something happened to her — to me? When the phone loaded, her eyes were aimed directly into mine, and I can’t even describe my discomfort. Though I could see her face more clearly, I still couldn’t read her expression. At first I thought she might be frightened, but that might have just been me projecting my own emotions. Angry? Not quite. Her eyes were slightly widened and wilder. Her mouth neutral and her jaw clenched. The closest words I can find to describe it are focused or intense.
Despite this whole insane situation, I still have some rationality left in me. So, I thought I would put my pride aside and take the devices to work this morning to ask someone for advice. Well I did. But not until after a two coworkers on two separate passings in the office asked me, “Are you ok?” I hadn’t even mentioned anything about this to them. Do I really look that bad?
I targeted the same tech savvy cube mate that I had asked help from a couple days ago when my phone first stopped working. He’s a quiet guy that generally keeps to himself so I figure he won’t be too judgmental or start blabbing office rumors about me. I mustered the nerve to take the phone over to him.
“Do you know of any weird viruses going around lately targeting mobile operating systems?” I asked him. He said he hadn’t heard about anything too major lately.
“Nothing that would take over the whole system with a video stream or recording or something?” I dug. He said no, he hadn’t, but I seemed to pique his interest. That’s when I figured it was safe to show him firsthand.
I took out my phone and held the power button to turn it on. I waited through the loading screen until I saw her — me — staring back again, now with more intensity but the same ugly unkempt appearance. I handed the phone over to him reluctantly. He took it.
“Here. This is all my phone has been showing for almost four days now,” I said, providing no further explanation.
He studied it for a few seconds. He looked concerned and confused, and I felt helplessly self-conscious. He looked up at me with an eyebrow raised.
“So,” he said, “your home screen still just isn’t loading?” I didn’t register what he said at first. It didn’t connect with what I expected him to say.
“Well, no, it doesn’t load but the problem is —” I thought about what he said. “Wait, what are you seeing?”
“Um?” He hesitated. “A black screen?”
My stomach fell to the floor so hard he must have heard the thud.
“Why? What do you see?” he grumbled, handing the phone back to me with a sideways look. I glanced at the phone still playing the horrible video of my face.
I didn’t know what to say so I thanked him I think and put together words that sounded something like “oh yeah” and “I know right?” and “Weird. I’ll take it to get it fixed” and went away fast.
That was about an hour ago. I’ve been hiding out my cube, not talking to anyone since, and I of course didn’t bother showing him or anyone else the laptop. I sought advice from another human and and now have whatever the opposite of advice is. I don’t know what’s next. The rational side of me knows I should probably just take both my phone and my laptop to a professional to fix whatever’s wrong with them or trade them in for something new.
But the other part of me wants to know so badly what this is all about and what she’s doing and why I’m seeing her and — well, I just want to understand.
I want to watch her.
I want to see what happens.
I’m going to watch her tonight after work. I’m going to see what she does. Avoidance didn’t solve the problem so maybe attention will? Maybe I can help her, if she needs to be helped. Though I know she isn’t real. She can’t be. She’s me, and I’m here at my office desk and —
I need to go.
Submitted October 24, 2014 at 02:25AM by seeing_myself http://ift.tt/1nB4tYO nosleep
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