Road to Nowhere

I am sitting in my room right now in this apartment my parents bought when I was little. I sit across from the blank, cotton colored walls and the bed that is never made properly. The bed is adjacent to the desk with my computer, barely enough space for the chair. I am in front of a computer. A computer that has controlled me for as far back as I can remember. I always wanted to be on the internet. Because to me, being on the internet was like being outside, but without the fears the world gives me. For example, wolves, or math, or even girls. Being on the internet was like being a master of my domain. I had power. Respect. Attention. I matter online. 

I am glued to the screen, addicted to my mouse, and attached to my keyboard. My brain has been stimulated so much that my face is as blank as my walls. Mom and Dad don’t mind that I spend so much time in my room. In fact, they stopped checking up on me upon my 23rd birthday. I guess they sort of just accepted this is how I want to spend the rest of my life, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. This is where I live, and this is where I will die. I am 30 years old next year. Born in 1997. I am 29 years old for those who don’t do math. 

I know it’s not healthy, but frankly, I don’t care. I like my computer. I named her Dela. I spend more time with Dela than I do with anyone else. My brother would do the same. But I don’t talk about my brother anymore. More on that never.

I start my day by skipping breakfast this morning and see a new notification on Twitter. I talk to people from all over the world. They talk to me too. But unless someone is sixty, they already know that. The notification is another freak wanting to sell me something. I don’t block because that means I lose, so I ignore it as any other normal person would. I continue to talk to people until I get bored of Twitter. Usually, the conversations look like this.

AmyCamoro1 says “I think the state of this nation is crumbling before our eyes and no one does a thing about it. If that’s you, kindly do better.”

A99784546 replies, “Worms for brains.”

Funny stuff. I am A99784546. My profile picture is of Elvis Presley’s face on toast. I think it’s really funny. Then I go to Instagram and repeat the process until I get bored of that place too. I like using my computer. I go from site to site and app to app and repeat the cycle with Facebook, YouTube, and Looksmax dot org. Also Reddit. And Kiwifarms. All these places have a comment section, Kiwifarms and Reddit are just comment sections. I feel like I need these places to survive, without these places I am nothing, without my computer, I am nothing. These are the facts. Twitter is my favorite and I talk to frequent regulars there all the time.

Today, I am awake on what seems like a Tuesday, and leave my room in what seems like a while. I look around my parents’ apartment and quickly pass my brother’s room to protect myself. I reach my parents’ dining room, where they look really sad and isolated. I don’t talk to them. They look sad and isolated. I just get more of the food I need, or else I can’t survive. I get a month’s worth of supplies and go back to the room where I also dump out the waste bucket. I am not proud of the waste bucket. It looks like mud on a doormat mixed with cement stains. Vomit.

Anyways, I go back to my computer and go online. I talk to AdonisBad2002 on Twitter. We have something called a group chat going on where we talk and talk and talk some more. About everything, from politics to the world itself and girls. He was extra miserable today for no reason and started calling me stuff I will not repeat because I am a good and honest person with good morals and good intentions. But we are friends, and that’s how friends sometimes communicate, through insults. I forgot if I had any friends before I had a computer, except maybe my brother, but I will not talk about him. 

Next, I talk to some radical weirdo called Saviat, talking about hunting me down for calling him stupid. I cannot block him as it means victory for him, so I ignore him like all the other weirdos I come across. 

I don’t really sleep except when my body tells me to. I love my computer. Her name is Dela. I think I said that already. I don’t really know, nor can I tell. I don’t really sleep. Eat. Or anything else that. You know. Every day feels like the last. I am a bit hungover even though I do not drink. I feel brain zaps. I would search for what those are to see if they are real. But I can’t tell sometimes because I have brain zaps. But this day, Dela is acting strange. Her circuits start making that humming noise after downloading too many things at the same time. I thought I was doing that at the moment, but I checked the download queue on the computer and found nothing. She is a fatback, meaning old. One of those computers from the 90s, but from the 2000s and not the 2010s. She is gray, not black. With holes on the sides. Dela started smoking and humming. Then Dela turned blue and died.

My only love, my outside. Gone. I couldn’t believe it. After all we have been through, I never thought I would become a widower. What a joke. I punched a hole through my wall, which alerted my father. He charges into my room like an animal that charges into rooms. One with horns and steam from its nose.

Dad says, “What the hell is your problem!”

I reply, “What?”

I told him that the computer crashed and burned. I asked him for another, but he yelled at me for no reason. 

He says, “You spend all day here. And doing what? Get a job! If you want another computer, pay for it yourself.” 

Then I got kicked out of my own parents’ house. My own parents. Kicked me out. The nerve. All because I punched a hole through my wall and made my Dad come over. Well, I’m homeless. I’m homeless! What do I do now! I’ll freeze to death if I don’t! Do something fast!. 

I was out on the streets walking over and making the best of my situation. I walk aimlessly to the middle of downtown.  I walk up to the local fast food joint and beg them for a job. They laugh at my face. The more I walk, the more tired I get. I’m ruined. I walk to a church looking for work. They don’t laugh at my face. Instead, they drove me to a nearby homeless shelter, where I am now. 

Up to this point, when someone would look up my name on a search bar he would find nothing. Now, well after about three months of looking and crashing from homeless shelters around the edges of the city, if someone would look up my name on a search bar, he would supposedly find that I work at a hamburger fast food shop down the street. The same one I begged for a job because I was homeless. I don’t drive so I walk or sometimes my social case worker takes me.  I work at this shop like a drone. It’s amazing people still do this labor and not robots or computers at this point. I lift boxes and put them down and clean tables. That’s it. I lift boxes and put them down and clean tables. It feels so easy that it drives me insane. I’m surprised I am here, but if it pays for a house and a computer, I’ll take it. Every time a co-worker comes over and starts talking to me, all I see is a text box in voice form.

Old co-worker says, “Thank you, sir.”

I think to myself, “Drop dead,” 

I already missed talking to people. I miss talking to my friends. I really miss those insults towards me out of love and kindness. I miss my life, and I would like it back. I work from 9 to 5. This job is the end of my life. I have a thousand dollars saved up. Wait. I have money saved up! I show up the next day at my work. And the next day. And the next day. And if I can get enough money to save, I can actually get a place of my own. So for the next six months, the burger joint’s boxes managed to be neatly organized. Every table happened to maintain a glow, shine, and be clean. 

At the homeless shelter, I count the money I have collected over these six months, and count six thousand. So I went to rent a loft near the burger shop, and rented the smallest studio they have. The clerk at the counter says, “The lease is due every other month.”

I look around my kitchen, which is also my bedroom and my living room. The built-in wall bed is adjacent to the window. I am already imagining a computer under it.

It has been almost a year since I got kicked out. Four months since I live in the loft. I put those boxes in their place. People said hi to me today. It felt different. I look at my money I keep in my mattress, and I don’t even give it a second thought. I went to Best Buy promptly after.

And I was happy again. I named my new computer Haley because it reminded me of that funny space movie where the computer hurt those astronauts. I like movies too, but not as much as I love Haley. I love my computer. I love my new computer.

So I am back on the computer talking to people. Here is my most recent conversation.

MagictheGathering1299 says on a YouTube video comment section about infamous controversal internet celebrity, Enza Denino,” This kind of reminds me of a car wreck. You don’t want it to happen but you also can’t help to watch.”

A97784546 replies, “Up yours dumbfuck.”

MagictheGathering1299 replied back, “Relax u crybaby.”

This, in particular, pisses me off more than anything because they are not suppose to talk back. Usually, I get blocked or reported so I win, but I never talk back because they never talk back. It pisses me off. I close out of Youtube and go to Twitter and talk to a group of girls.

“Hello. Did you know men built society?” I wait for a reply, but to no avail. So I got to the Reddit to see what’s new there and maybe get better at talking to groups of girls.

I see the people on Reddit argue to each other like they are cavemen. Dumb, stupid, ugly cavemen who haven’t discovered fire yet. Normal people call these people trolls. These people are trolls. So I close out and go back to YouTube. I look at the people on YouTube and Instagram in another window and both completely different sites have users comparing themselves to each other. I watch a video, then immediately pause the video to go down to the comment section. 

A97784546 says, “This video is a good substitute for Niquil.”

Then I go back to Twitter and Instagram, then Kiwifarms and YouTube, and then Twitter, then Reddit, and finally Looksmax dot org. And somewhere along the third loop, I ask myself a very important question: “Why the hell am I doing this?” Then I looked out my window and saw a kid playing on the side of the road of the apartments. What the hell is he so happy about? I hate him. I hate his ball. I hate his clothes. I hate that I breathe the same air as him. I hate his brother. I hate his ball. I hate. His. He. He has a brother. A younger brother. A younger baby brother who is struggling to walk. They are hugging. Laughing, crying, and loving. And I am here, cold, in a room where I do not even know what day it is. I get a phone call.

Manager says, “You’re fired.”

I haven’t been to work in some time. But I didn’t care. I knew what I had to do. 

I rushed over to mom and dad’s where I would think they would be almost shocked to see me. I knock on the door and there is dad who does not look happy. But I was not there for him. I rushed over to my brother’s room. It is just how it has been left, untouch since I have been here last. I ignore the rope still dangling from the ceiling we had to cut up. Then came the waterworks as I lumped over my brother’s old bed and mom and dad came to cry with me.

My brother was younger than me. Four years younger to be exact. When I was young, I played with him, ran with him, hugged with him, and loved with him. We had a moment where I smashed a toy truck over a bully’s head because he was messing with my brother. He was the only reason I wasn’t a loner. I know he felt the same way towards me. We did everything together. Then I got a computer for my 16th birthday. Then every time he wanted to play catch I wanted to play on the computer. Every time he was sad or angry, I was laughing through text. And after isolating neglect, my brother was dead before his 14th birthday.

At first, I was to blame. Couldn’t really understand it at the time, but I didn’t see it until now. I’m an addict, and it killed my brother. Not just with neglect but also with hate. If I had never come in contact with these freaks, weirdos, or nutcases, I would have never became one of those people. I do not doubt in my mind that that influenced my brother to act so violently against himself. He was such a kind soul; the only room for hatred in his heart was for himself. Heaven forgive me. My mother comforted me after not seeing me in so long. My dad, not so much. But I did feel as if he had forgiven me.  I didn’t feel that in an even longer time. I’m sorry if that’s not descriptive enough. My computer has left me brain-dead.

I went back to my apartment to see if I could unplug my computer forever. For my brother, who I now remember was called Alee. But a notification came through, two in fact. This will be it. I will check these two and be done. One was Saviat, the guy who hates me because I was a huge jerk to him. He claimed to have my information. I told him if he ever comes near me I would do something to him so graphic it got removed by the system’s moderation. I don’t want to be a troll no longer, but this guy was asking for a death threat in self-defense. I hate him more than I hate. Well, I don’t know. I have no reason to hate anyone. 

The other notification was from Adonisbad2002 calling me stupid, ugly, and indian. Which is strange because I’m not indian. I blocked him immediately. Weirdo. I sit here staring at the glow that stares back. And as I unplug the computer from the wall, I sense a pulsing sensation up in my head. It wants more. I need the internet. But it hurt my brother so. But today I start a tally. I gave back the apartment and held on to the computer. It was the only thing I owned, everything else was either bought by my mom and dad, like the apartment. I didn’t even buy a desk. I walk back to mom’s house. Dad was there too. He wrestles the computer from my hands.

“Don’t plug that shit in. Let go!”

“Dad. Dad! I’m going to sell it! For Alee.”

He ended up taking it from me. But dropped it immediately when he hugged me the hardest I’ve ever been hugged. 

“Thank you son. We’ll get through this.”

I sleep in their house for the first time in a long long time. I slept all day. It is day three without the internet. I cannot take the pain inside my head. The aching is burning through my hair. I plug the the computer back into the outlet. It has a huge crack on it. Just one more. My brain eventually explodes and gives out.

I wake up from my coma that lasted about another day and hear there is this knocking on the door. I am too tired to answer it. But then my mother screamed.

I rush outside the room. Some guy has a knife pressed across my mother’s neck. Her back is pinned against a wall. My dad’s on the ground with his feet barely visible from the corner. This guy just walked up to my house with a knife. I didn’t even second guess it. Saviat. I rush back to my room as Saviat shouts and laughs like a madman. I grab the computer I named Haley. I unplug it, grab it, and carry it over to the hallway. This guy is crazier than me. It’s just the internet, it’s not that big of a deal. So without hesitation, I break the thing over his head, causing him to fall on his own knife. He screams in agony and says, “Call an ambulance!” I look over and see my Dad drowning in a pool of his own blood.

At the hospital, A detective enters the room and starts to ask questions. Saviat was going to jail. My Dad sleeps on life support. I look at him, dreading the inevitable. My Mom comforts her hand on my shoulder.

“I’m sorry mom. I shouldn’t have…”

“I’m sorry, son. I should have. I should have done more.”And as I sit adjacent to my Dad, I see him come back to life, “Dad!”

“Son,” he groans wearily, “You. I love you. Alee would be proud.”

I sit adjacent to my dad, next to my mother below Alee from heaven. I sit there for a while, staring in front of me, what used to be a screen, then I notice the wall and the counter of the hospital. I am finally free.