'3 poems' / Luke Patitsas
Chapter 7
I’m upstairs, trying to be as quiet as possible.
My dad’s downstairs,
liquidating his company.
We can’t go outside, so it’s done in our backyard.
I wanted to play football, but I guess I’ll have to wait now.
He’s not sad about it,
the people there weren’t helpful,
possessing optimistic fantasies
that clashed with risk-aversive tendencies.
The knocks on my door were slow and sour.
As I gently reclined its hinges, he appeared,
and asked if I would say a few words on his behalf.
As I walked down the patio stairs,
those around me looked up in holiness,
as if I were the socially-sanctioned sultan.
I nodded, and everyone sat. There were no chairs, and no people,
so whoever was left knelt on the cool tiles.
In the corner of our yard, one of those patterned, yellowing slabs had been smashed up by a shovel,
uncovering a connection to our roots.
My dad nodded in its direction, and I moved towards the pit.
Kneeling beside it now, I looked down in pity at what was resting.
If all of its brothers and sisters were to be buried alongside it, would we have space?
Turning to the mourners,
feigning dismay, I put to bed, the root of their anxieties.
It didn’t take long for those listening to realise,
that I had little experience in anything, and still possessed the reckless dismissal,
of those blessed with new beginnings.
And so, no one who was there left, hissing with the soft wind.
My dad pat me on the back, kicked some dirt over the hole, and walked up the stairs.
I asked him if he’d be alright, he said he would.
He wasn’t sad about it anyway.
Focus
I enrolled in a class called “The meaning of life”.
Many classes claim to be, but this was supposedly the real deal.
Knowledge that transcended research, transcended practicality,
and sat contentedly on the shoulder of morality,
who herself rested in the sky.
Focus had been an issue of late,
so it only seemed natural to supplement my work,
with a myriad of delightful distractions,
as a way to remain energised.
In the sixth week, on the fifth day, my teacher sent me an email.
The subject was blank, but the video attached was titled
“Your Questions Answered.”
Command T. There was more junk to look through. The buffering symbol
coincided with a rustling in the grass.
My eyes darted from this screen to the bigger one behind it.
I had just found an incredibly powerful Pokémon.
I hadn’t pressed play, but the video began anyway, expecting I’d have nothing better to do.
The first meditation was on happiness. I was too powerful, and all my moves were super effective.
“Ultimately, our deep, human satisfaction, or happiness, comes from feeling connected to our deep self, feeling connected to other people.”
I switched out to my weakest team member, whose moves were whittling, at the expense of its own wellbeing. The second meditation was on the value of purpose.
“Purpose isn’t just about finding something to do. We spend time exploring our passions, attaining industry insight and knowledge, which, when applied in a variety of settings, brings great personal achievement. But even more so, sharing that information outside your industry, with communities, places, the vulnerable, is a purposive state of wellbeing.”
Its health bar was now in the red. A guaranteed success was required. Purple pastels flew around the screen, as the stunned creature meditated on autonomy.
The final section, which was only a few seconds in length, was on life’s meaning. Or, as the subtitle read, “what to do now?”
I had to pause it.
The voice-over was female, but editing-deep, and tsked disapprovingly at me.
The voice over in my head gasped, foreseeing an increasing ineptitude in my future.
I shut the screen closest to me. It was distracting.
One roll,
two rolls,
three rolls…
click
Ah, there it is.
Legacies
I spread my legacy thinly, over multiple tabs,
translating the potency of personality,
into pixels.
One profile can mean the difference
between a life of solitude or stardom,
so choose yourself wisely, and adopt brevity.
The urge to update those on consumed books,
or swallowed sweets, continues to consume me,
the screen-light burning into my ridges,
distinguishing people from their site-istic form is now impossible.
However, I’m beginning to understand the value of technological adaptation.
Eventually, when cloning solves our modern, mortal crisis,
the practitioners will access my URLs,
and claw me into reality, piece by piece, using stories
I spent decades cultivating, decades manipulating.
What use they’ll find for me in the new world, I’m unsure of.
Perhaps I’ll exchange mortality for indented servitude,
compiling the profiles of other labourers,
hoping for a day in which our future,
doesn’t involve these fuzzy, gentrified renditions.
Image: “ONT Port Carling Muskoka CANADA Meeting Hall" by UpNorth Memories - Don Harrison is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
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