Connected

1.

Sage often told his grand-daughter of a past when children actually went out onto the streets and played, frolicked with one another and spent the hazy summer days encapsulated in their own worlds.

The girl, pony-tailed and always well-dressed and groomed by her father when she visited, looked up into his eyes and tried to imagine what her grandfather was saying. Sometimes the words flew over her head, sailing high above her comprehension. When he spoke of species and industrialization.

“And there were animals outside, pigeons on the streets, insects in the gardens. Have you ever heard of those in school?”

“Daddy took me out of school. He gives me lessons from the computer now.”

He had not been informed of this and the second he heard it, his face dissolved into a distasteful slate. “I want you to talk to your dad and tell him that you need to get back in school.”

“Why? Did you go to school?”

“Yes.”

“And that’s why you want me to go?”

“I want you to go because its healthy for you. And because I want you experiencing things through the real world. Sophie, this is the real world.”

“But daddy says healthy no longer exists. And this world is ugly.”

“Don’t listen to your father. And don’t tell him I have these talks with you. About animals, and insects, and the past. Promise?”

She nodded, squinting her eyes the way she always did when she nodded. The skin of her temple was rounded and soft. 

His grand-daughter visited him once every two weeks, sometimes there were more prolonged absences, because of the time it took to reach the apartment complex on the outskirts of town. Her father was generally a busy man, and he compensated for the time he didn’t spend with his daughter by bringing her to him. It was a pleasant break for both and the girl seemed to enjoy it. 

Sage pondered if the girl dreamt of insects and bugs and birds and other animals when she slept. If they traipsed through the dormant reel of her conscious. 

Often, she sat on his lap, or in front of him when he was reading to her from an old tome. Their covers were tessellated squares of dust and the pages disintegrating to a coarse material.  

“Dad doesn’t read.”

“Your father never liked books. But you do, don’t you?”

“I like the way you read.”

Sage leafed through the pages, picking out the most interesting tidbits. In the pause between him overlooking the passages he said, “How old are you now?”

He knew his grand-daughters date of birth, but he was most worried that she didn’t know her date of birth. 

She twirled a lock of hair with her forefinger. Said, “Six. Although daddy says I act much older.”

“Reading improves the brain. You know that? Does your dad buy you any books?”

“He doesn’t allow any reading in the house. Besides reading on the computer.” 

“I’ll read to you every time you come.”

He pointed at a slimmer novel, “This was my favorite growing up.”

“What’s it about?”

“About a feline who goes around causing a lot of trouble.”

“Feline?”

“Oh, yes, did I ever tell you about cats or felines?”

The girl appeared genuinely bewildered. “I think I’ve heard about them before when I went to school. Our teacher showed us a lot of pictures of animals but I don’t remember some.”

“And I forget to tell you about the insects. My head these days,” he ruffled what little tundras of hair he had left for emphasis, “It’s like its been turned off, like a,”

“Like a computer?”

“No! Like a lightbulb. Or anything other than a computer. That’s what I meant.”

A monotonous bell rang, muffled to adjacent neighbors by the  sound-proof walls, taut cables running under the surface of the wallpaper and further behind the sheet of activity datum: the walls monitored his movements and applied variables to his actions. 

The structural architecture was meant to stipulate a safer environ, for the inhabitant and the government.

Outside the window, sun set its weary touch over ruins and crumpled cities, over sagging monoliths and stunted buildings. His son waited below at ground level; he rarely came up himself.

The girl gave him a parting hug and departed in gradual steps. She vanished behind the elevator door, rigged by six cameras which escorted her through the descent. Sage found his thoughts wander towards insects and felines. 

2.

Sage walked around the city every morning. He made his bed, tucked the sheets firmly under the mattress, positioned the pillows at the headboard and nestled into new garb: kakis fastened by a belt and a sleeveless shirt, over it a thermal sweater. 

 The sweater had been given to him by his son and he hated it. The sleeves were woven with electronically programmed thermal wires that provided a calculated insulation which he could adjust to a preferred temperature. 

 He had asked for a regular sweater. 

 He left the apartment complex at eight in the morning and the streets were bare. The image often came to him, as a child being led by his father through bustling avenues, brimming with iridescent flashes off taxes and the light glinting off parked vehicles. 

He walked with his hands in his sweater pockets, a custom he had gotten into, been forced into by the chill of winter. 

 He looked up at the sullen, sinking facades of buildings, doors shut, windows shut, impervious to the time or the morning. Inside, Sage could visualize- not just visualize- but feel, the countless souls attached to their computers, roaming and living and breathing in a new earth, while the one just outside their living spaces rotted and festered. 

And thinking of those people who lived without living, his wife entered somewhere. And she left just as quick.

 Her face: distant and fluctuating in a breeze, discomposed into a muddle of a face, a muddle of a person, a muddle of a life.

 Sage crossed the deserted pavement, stepped onto the opposite sidewalk, and halted to observe a gargantuan laminated poster: WE ARE THE VOICE. WE ARE THE REBELLION. A fist hung sketched between the words, triumphant and prepared for a lunge.

 Near the bottom was a stamp, the insignia of the radical group: REBELNOW. A few minutes later he came across another poster, identical, and clinging to a brick wall, and a couple further steps presented him with yet another, except this third advertisement was holographic and being projected into the sky by an intravenous circuit assembled below the blacktop.  

He sauntered his way back home and unravelled the sweater into a corner besides the elevator.