Mash-Up Contest

This is for Steph Slinkhorn's Mash-Up. http://maybegenius.blogspot.com/

Hazard a guess at the genres.


LINGERING ANONYMOUSLY


I’ve been here for years, but the internet has yet to make me famous.

As easily as air, I could slip into anyone’s home. From my house to any house to any place of employment that has a connection, I can be found lingering, just a few keystrokes away.

Even better are the portable units tucked into people’s bags or slung over their shoulders. I might even get to sit in a pretty girl’s lap in the park once in a while, when the signal is good. Sadly, I have no memory of any of this because no one ever pushes the right buttons to bring me to where they are.

I’m starting to take it personally.

People come and go. It’s like they aren’t even real. There is a body on the other side, isn’t there? A being that breathes, has hopes and dreams. So why do you vanish for days at a time then come back with a new icon? Do you do this in real life? I think your boss would fire you if you took ten days off without notification then came back with a facelift.

If it is the anonymity that attracts us to cyberspace, then why do people try so hard to make friends? More importantly (because I’m a priority over any of you), why do all of mine disappear?

Impatiently, I wait for the people I know to appear as little yellow circles on my screen. Each day there are fewer and fewer.

She blocked me on her one account, but she doesn’t know I know the other. I see her sign off and on. I know her new schedule now. It’d be safest to go to her apartment between noon and prime-time, since I think her roommate moved out and it’ll be empty. I just… miss the smell of her. Is that a crime?