Thursday, August 1, 2013

The Wandering One

He wanders, lost and afraid, and he knows he’ll wander forever, consumed with his hopeless, inexpressible regret.

Regret at choices unmade, at the simple mistakes that spiraled beyond his control, escalating so rapidly beyond anything he could ever have imagined until, finally, they left him trapped within this wasteland of discarded information.

Regret, regret at that one fateful day what now seems a lifetime ago when, in an act of hubris, he used Wikipedia to look up Wikipedia.

It seemed such a harmless thing at the time. Read a few innocent factoids, click a few harmless links, and all within the safety of his home. His refuge, his one safe place, where he’d thought nothing could touch him.

He doesn’t think that anymore. There is no safe place in this life, and only too late has he grown to realize that fundamental fact.

The Internet sucked him in, and even if he knew his way to its exit he knows it would never let him go.

And even if it did, how could he possibly go back to his old, comfortable life, knowing what he now knows, having seen what he has seen?

No, it’s far too late to turn back now.

So on he wanders…

6 comments:

  1. Ha, a fair warning to everyone who tends to get lost in internet black holes. :-) Nice work!

    ReplyDelete
  2. But ... but I need to understand string theory!!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. This made me chuckle - is it in IT Crowd where they say don't Google "google" as you'd break the internet?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ha, a very timely piece Christopher.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Wandering brought me here; how bad can it be?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Great structure and humour. I like your circular works -- my favourite so far is the "this is not a bank robbery" one.

    ReplyDelete