Dos: Chapter 7

 


 

She can’t let it go. Maybe she was real to Brandon only insofar as she is virtual, untouchable, 10,100 kilometers away. Wanting to turn the poison of her overthinking into the useful and productive blog post, she turned to to Baudrillard, and read: 

“Two metaphors have dominated figurations of internet: the ‘information superhighway’ and ‘cyberspace.’ Both these metaphors create an image of internet as a virtual world, one in which motion and direction become possible. These developments in the metaphorical presentation of the internet parallel Jean Baudrillard's discussion of an emerging ‘hyperreality’: a world of simulation in which ‘the real’ becomes less significant than its model. A Baudrillardian reading of internet presents the internet as a ‘hypertelic’ mode of communication. As internet develops, ‘sites’ of virtual reality become more compelling and thereby more ‘real,’ exposing the overall conceptual model of Internet as a comprehensive and comprehendible world and a substitute for the real world. But Baudrillard also provides room for a reversal of this reading in which internet becomes a challenge to these closed systems. Ultimately, the seductive qualities of the technology can also lead to the creation of a ‘space’ for drift, experimentation, and play.” 

She stared at the words again: “… a virtual world, on in which motion and direction become possible.” If she were to be pedantic, (as she was this morning) she would claim that Baudrillard got it wrong: in her case, motion and direction was rendered impossible by Brandon’s ultimate desire of keeping her while keeping her at bay. He did, after all, describe himself thus: “I am cement. Stir me hard enough and I become solid.”

He had gone to the pub after their training that day, for they had earned a civilian break for that day and that day only. He said he would read further her chapters, and write something of his own. He didn’t finish the chapter to his novel before he left for training, despite the promise that he would.

She waited for his text that he was in the pub, with his mates. Four hours later, still no text. She was getting worried, and then getting more worried that she was worried. She did not want to seem clingy, for he had, in his evocative writing and personification thereof, forbade her to show any insecurity or weakness.

In the very attempt at strength did she finally cave in: she called him.

 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sketch: "Eye Contact" in Shawn Wong's American Knees

Shawn Hsu Wong is a second-generation Chinese American, born in Oakland, California in 1949. He obtained his undergraduate degree in English at the University of California at Berkeley in 1971 and his Master’s Degree in Creative Writing at the San Francisco State University in 1974. After teaching in several colleges and universities, he is presently a Professor specializing in Creative Writing and Asian American Studies, at the University of Washington, where he is also the director of the University Honors Program. His multi-awarded works include Homebase , first published in 1979, as well as edited and coedited works Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian American Writers (1974) and The Big Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Chinese America and Japanese America in Literature (1991), among four other anthologies. Wong has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship and a Rockefeller Foundation residency in Italy, and has won several awards including first pr
Read more

Tricks, Love, and Magicks

To be able to perform magic trickery very well, you have to master the force, misdirection, cunning wordcraftery, and sleights. It is in these four essential principles that magic is most diametrically opposite to love, if we understand and reduce love to terms of the question, reassurance, honesty, and transparency - for, as one definition goes, magic is the art of deception, implying a cleaving from the other; and love is the closest we get to being one with an other. First binary: Force and question The force in magic is already a predetermined "choice" the magician presents, along with others, to his audience. Without going into mentalism and the magician's choice, the force is the principle of rigged order in what appears to be chaotically random concatenations of things or options. It is in this forced/rigged action of the magician forcing your hand, unbeknownst to to you, that the trick comes to fruition. When asking a question of a lover, you do not ask merely to
Read more

Bastard Freedom: Chapter 1

Image
"When two writers get together...", Joseph thought. Finish that sentence ,  you motherfucker, his brain, bored with the ride on the tram, lazily said. He couldn't even be bothered to write this thought on his notebook, which he always carries with him for times such as this, but the thought wasn't robust enough to be put on paper. It goes, "When two writers get together, a crime on art is committed."  God, it sounds so trite and so deserving of his Czech-Irish heritage: it's a bastard of a sentence. It's got all the right measure of pretentiousness, impotence, cowardice, and barren beauty all in one, like America. It was actually a test for a woman he was wanting to bed, who he met only a few days ago. He and Barry were interviewing all sorts of people for the purpose of what can pass as the desire for posterity between them, and this woman was among them. She was a metaphysics scholar and taught at the local university, although she came from the Ea
Read more