everything except himself

Things I’ve yet to add:

• Establishing the time of day (it’s dusk and partly cloudy).
• Maybe clarify the references to Myspace.com profiles.
• Make the overloaded profile page idea more outrageous than I’ve presented it.
• Maybe add words like “thin” and “empty” or “basic” to help guide the reader through to the purpose of the online conversation part.

Part II - The Nation of Neglected Children, Profile of a Child of the City

Since the tower’s construction and subsequent activation, things have changed in the city. There seems to be a growing divide between people; the social landscape of the whole city has been altered by this thing! If you were to look down the city’s main road toward the tower, you’d understand: you can see the two sides of the city — the left and the right — and what looks like a deep and fearsome gash — the tower — separating the two. Looking at it again, maybe it’s more like an incision, as though someone had skillfully pierced the fabric of the city, taken out some important part, and sewed it up neatly, albeit noticeable, so that people could overlook it. If you’re curious, they commercialized it and sold it for profit like organs on the black market. That important thing — whatever you want to call it — got replaced with a lifeless “equal-value” alternative lifestyle.

Take this boy, for example. Male. 16 years old. That City, That Place. Looking for Friends. His day consists of sneaking text messages to his friends during class and chatting with those same friends online after school. However, he’s never met most of these “friends” in-person, face-to-face. Still, he has a girlfriend and a best friend all the same. If he’s never met these people in-person, how did he come into contact with them? Imagine, if you will, a place where you can post one long personal ad, complete with a description of who you are, pictures, your favorite songs, your favorite bands, videos, and the ability to comment on every part of it. Now, quit imagining; it’s reality. This kid has poured his whole life into such a page, and anyone with wireless access can view it. His “friends” — read “complete strangers” — saw his page and, having pages of their own, added him to their friend list. That’s how the makeshift relationship between the boy and these people started.

“lol! i liek ur new pic,” his girlfriend comments on his page around the time the boy would get home from school.

“yea i was tired of being like every ne else,” he replies on her page. “u like the pose? :D”

“me likey <3,” his girlfriend continues the conversation after about 10 minutes.

“well if i do change i change for myself and not for anyone else,” he posts back on her page. The part he left out was how he kept reloading his page to see if she’d commented and how he’d made sure to wait a minute or two before replying in order to make it look like he wasn’t being desperate.

“lol ur so sexyyyyyy. hehe and dont be sorrry. lol hehehehehhe,” she replies quickly.

“lol thanks,” he says. “wait, sorry about what?” Now he’s nervous.

And then there was nothing from her. An hour went by before he decided to check her page only to find he’d been blocked from viewing it! Fear and sadness came creeping into his heart like thieves, bent on stealing his common sense. Those time-honored masters did it, too. The boy, rife with confused thoughts, posted on his best friend’s page, “hey can u see her site?”

“her? o yea y wouldnt i b able to?” his friend replied shortly.

“can u check her mood for me?” the boy was on edge.

“o dude it sez she’s angry, sry man,” his friend returned.

The boy was crushed. To be blocked was to be purposely ignored, hated. Logging on to a different account he’d created out of paranoia some time before, he visited her page as that alter ego. Without even looking around the page, he found the area to send her a comment and went off: “i can’t b lieve u!! danny was teh best thing that ever happend 2 u and how cud u du that 2 him and youre going 2 die alone some day and regret it all the way to hell u fake!!!!” As soon as the comment had been posted, he stormed away from his desk in a rush to be anywhere but in that moment. Stealing the keys to his mother’s car from the coffee table, he ran out, slamming the door to their gloomy little apartment on his way out.

Starting in the parking deck across the street, the boy drove his mom’s car down onto the city street. A honk came from behind him, as he drove slowly down the road — really, where do you drive to when you’re a mess? In a split-decision to go forward on this side-road or turn right, he chose right, turning onto one of the city’s main roads. Like a boat dead in the water, the boy was looking for anything that could save him, and then he saw it — the tower — floating there down the road, off in the distance. In a sudden moment of anger, he shifted all of the blame for his pain to that inanimate object.

“I’ll kill you,” he muttered, driving towards it with the setting sun at his back. “I’ll kill you,” closer. “I’ll kill you,” closing in on the tower. “I hate you and your damn blinking lights!” 60 miles per hour, “You’re stupid and ugly!” 80 miles per hour, “I wish you’d never been built!” 90 miles per hour, “Go to hell!” And then it happened; he heard it — the unmistakable song that his phone played when his girlfriend was calling — but it was too late to save himself. He stomped his foot on the brake pedal, pulled up the emergency brake, but, instead of getting the car to stop, he crashed it into the massive base of the tower. In an instance of screeching wheels, crunching metal, and the shattering of glass, the tower turned off with a massive heave, as it and all of its artificial lights were drained of their electricity.

Part I - The Tower

There is something broken at the center of the city. Where once there was a vibrant pulse, all that can be observed now is a flat line. That flat line runs about for twenty or so feet each way to form a square, which is the foundation of a monumental, state-of-the-art broadcasting tower, but, in fact, that foundation is also the only thing left of the old City Hall building. Built on top of that foundation — around which the whole city was built — is now another flat line, which extends up from the city and goes on as far as the eye can see: the new center of the city is a gigantic, self-maintaining, lifeless tower.

For all the opponents to the tower being built where it now stands, tall and impregnable, many more were thinking about the positive changes this new structure would bring: anyone within the city’s proximity would be provided with free and unlimited access to all of the special content just floating around in the city’s information-saturated air. Yes, there would be no land lines or wires, and there would be no strings attached! Phones, computers, TVs — all revolutionized by this one edifice! Even the city’s remote-controlled traffic lights could be run in-tandem with the tower! So, how could the city not build this tower? Really, the issue was never the building of the tower but where it was to be built and what it was to replace, but this facet of the argument was largely glossed over by the tower’s proponents.

For better or for worse, the tower now stands — looms — at the center of the city, and, at night, it can be seen from anywhere in the city. It lights up one of millions-upon-millions of tiny diodes as proof of some tiny bit of information being received or transmitted, and there are lots of people in the city. As proof of this fact, the part of the tower that can be readily seen from the ground is always lit up in a most magnificent way. However, much like the moon, the tower, by itself a dark hunk of cold and inanimate white, merely reflects the light of the bright sun that is human communication, but who among the people of this city recognizes this? Indeed, for all the tower’s brilliance, the city has even taken down its streetlights in favor of that ominous and deceptive ever-glow.