I’m writing these words to you. When you read them and hear my voice, whether you know me or not, you learn something of my mind. You know a bit (but not everything) of what makes me tick. When I write I shake up my failings, my joys, my tendency to drift off into the Otherwhere. I’m not trying to sell you anything. You either twig to my choice of words, my syntax, all these commas, and yes, the dreaded em dash everyone is avoiding now – all part of my unique code – or you don’t, and you turn the invisible page with a flick of your pointer finger. This is the new book, the phone that we carry everywhere to have access to all information, false and real, and to document our lives. To prove.
I’ve been trying to use my phone as a phone. Why do we call this object with no discernable receiver or snug earpiece, or long coil of connection to twist around our fingers, a “phone?” I crave a proper word for it. Yesterday as I chatted with a friend on my “cell” (who uses that term anymore?) I experienced that phenomenon where for a moment you can hear an intrusive echo of your own voice. Everything I said was parroted back with a three second delay. My head was so crowded by my echo I couldn’t think to continue the conversation. We paused until whatever caused it passed, and I could speak again without me talking twice.
Maybe phonecho is the right word for it. It is an auditory, hallucinatory, visual canyon we shout into, our words bouncing off each other. Whoever shouts loudest gets their message across.
I can’t write or read on my phonecho. I’m in awe of people who do. I write best by hand, or on my computer. I comprehend what is read from the pages of a book, and I sluice what is read from a screen.
I also dream a lot, offline, and remember many of them. These dreams are not on my phone, or yours, or anywhere, really. Are they in my blood, soft tissue, nerves, pons? They are the rucksack of images I have processed throughout my days, hauled out and handed back and forth between the here and there.
Last night in my dreams I had a winter glove on my left hand, and in the palm was a strip of masking tape, and on that tape were some handwritten numbers. The numbers changed like a padlock code. I understood that I had to press the center of my palm when the sequence was correct. I had to unlock the code to be able to communicate. No matter what sequence I chose, I was never successful because the code was constantly changing, its language bending toward AI sameness.
Clipped numbness.
False humilities.
Whispered truths.
I made that last bit sound like AI, but was me, really. Trust me. I mean it. These are my words that I am writing to you, words I’m not sure I can prove.
Posts
