Post # 3: Avoiding Self-Made Bear Traps in Self-Darkened Woods

Day three. Or probably day four if this one gets uploaded at exactly 00:00 again. I looked at it with a profound sense of surprise. Those two pairs of zeroes, and the date September 1st. But I was most pleased with me not actually having broken the information superhighway. That sort of thing tends to complicate the day, doesn't it? I would be waiting for the bus, people would look at me in a funny way (more funny than they usually do, anyway). The busdriver would look over his glasses, look me in the eye and reluctantly admit me entrance. I walk to the back of the bus, everyone staring at me. I sit down, starting to feel even more awkward in that bus than I usually would. People actually looking back. At me! Are they? Yes! I touch my upper lip if I might not actually be bleeding profusely out of my head without noticing.

The bus stumbling on, to the next stop, where people, looking impatient to get to work, enter the bus, cast a look into the bus, catch me there, turn around and run off. The busdriver unbelievably shrugs and drives on! I take out my phone to look at my face. Nothing really wrong with it, is there? Nothing changed overnight. It can't be that. Though it should be said that my face has been independently described by 28 women friends as -interesting-. And they usually left it there. And they were my friends! Or at least they used to be.

We now get to the bridge into town, and several motorways converge on the 2 lane passageway. That's what they would do, at least. Now, we appear to have full access to the bus lane; cars willingly giving way and actually turning back to where they came from, all boats, after seeing the bus crossing the bridge, stop, honk loudly and turn back full steam in all directions away from the bridge. At the traffic lights, people jump out of their cars and mess around with the wiring in the lights, so the bus drives on, wary-eyed people watching the bus make its way into the city. As we arrive at the station, I get out, leaving my bag on the bus, realising this, turning around, but then seeing the bus quickly driving away from me and the station. The bus turned and passes me one more time. All I can hear is the doppler-effect noise of 36 people inside the bus cheering, singing and burning my bag.

Not knowing where to look, I just take in my surroundings. A usually busy station, in the middle of the country; everyone gone. I take a few steps and feel some paper underfoot. I look at the headline. It says: Internet Broken! By Fat Bloke. And then there'd be a picture of my smiling face. I look up to the big poster sign over the station main entrance. The same headline, the same smiling face. So I had destroyed the internet? Apparently I had. So I would be executed by a horde of wild pigeons.

But then I, ever the pedant, would shout: HOW DID YOU KNOW? WHO TOLD YOU THAT I DESTROYED THE INTERNET? WHERE DID YOU LOOK IT UP? DID YOU READ IT IN THE PAPER? DID YOU SEE IT ON TELLY OR HEAR IT ON THE RADIO? OR WAS IT ON YOUR IDIOTIC iPHONE? NO, YOU COULDN'T KNOW, COULD YOU? EVERYTHING'S RUN VIA THE INTERNET NOW! IF I HAD BROKEN IT, YOU'D NEVER BE ABLE TO FIND OUT, WOULD YOU? ONLY AFTER MAYBE SEVERAL WEEKS, AFTER TELEGRAPHY WAS REINSTALLED! OR AFTER AN EXPEDITION HAD BEEN MADE INTO SILICON VALLEY, WHERE THE MICROCHIPMEN LIVE. YOU COULD ASK THEM! THIS DOESN'T WORK! THIS IS FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED!

Then I would see all the people of the city crawling out into the streets, heads hanging. They crowd around me and I would say: 'Well?'

- Hmmgrmble,
- What's that? I didn't hear you?
- We're sorry.
- Sorry for what?
- Sorry that we believed in an essentially flawed narrative.
- It's allright. I forgive you

And then they would raise me in the air and worship me as their God.

…

I am not weird.

So, there. I defeated myself in that short story there. Everything not to answer to yesterday's weird maxim. Thanks for reading. Bye!