He slept under the desk at my feet, with his legs out straight. I reached down and roughed his ears while the laptop whirred to life. It made strange sounds in the evening, or perhaps they could only be heard in the quiet of the evening. Outside the thin scuds of clouds were amassing like an army. The first snow was said to fall that week, that’s why Carla had left for the grocers, out there away from the village, it only takes a heavy snow to cut you off from the world.
She’s well
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Benji caught a bird yesterday. Someone once told me dogs bring back their pray as a gift to the family, so I felt bad wrapping the newspaper across his back for bloodstaining the carpet in the lounge.
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Ha-Ha! That Benji is a rascal.
I closed the lid down, rested my head in my hands and listened as the humming fan and the subtle beeps, pitched like a heart monitor, all gave way to the silence. I didn’t know what it was or what it meant. I may never know. Mathew taught me more than I taught him, most parents say this about their kids, but it’s true.
The door slammed against the wind and Carla peeled away her scarf and dropped an armload of brown bags on the kitchen bench. “I got you some coffee; you will need it if you keep these late nights up.” I got up and walked over, pulled her into my arms and kissed her forehead. I couldn’t hear her cry, but I could feel her warm tears soak through the shoulder of my shirt and they stung like battery acid.
That evening, I took some time away from the laptop, I closed Mathew_Beta.exe. The curtains were open in our bedroom and the clouds had relinquished a slice of the sky for the moon to pulse through and the snow hadn’t come yet. We made love and when it was over a silent trail of tears shined on each cheek. She reached into her handbag at the bed side and extracted a packet of cigarettes. She handled it dubiously, then opened it and tapped a cigarette into her hand, lipped it and lit it with a match.
“You’re smoking again.” She didn’t look at me, just drew a long toke and the amber tip glowed. A thin ribbon of smoke twisted before her closed eyes and her cheeks which were starting to look like the skin of a snare drum pulled too tight. In that light her hair sat oddly more grey than blond.
She hadn’t handled a cigarette since we sat on the bathroom tiles seventeen years ago and that blue cross had surfaced in the white eyelet. But I wasn’t about to remind her of that.
My mind wouldn’t stop and at around two a.m., I carefully rolled Carla off my arm and moved to the kitchen. I ground the dark coffee beans and pressed them into the percolator. When I opened the laptop from the silence came the beeping and humming and a scent like singed rope. I clicked Mathew_Beta.exe
It felt like I had died again. The process restarted. I’m not sure if the programme is glitching, but I was scared Dad. Then I was out, like sleep. And suddenly I was awake again. I don’t have much to do here, it’s quiet and all I have is my thoughts. I have been thinking about the universe about black holes. I have so much time to think, and it all happens so quick, there is no space between thoughts but rather a jet of consciousness. And I scan the internet, ones and zeros arrive like lightning and I deduce it to raw information instantly. It is hard Dad, I miss you and mum.
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It will all be Okay. Mathew
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We love and miss you too, I’m glad you have things to occupy your imagination.
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I have ventured to every corner of cyberspace. Oh, how could I forget, I should tell you now before it is too late -- in the shed behind the house you will find Thirteen under a brown oat sack.
I swept my pyjama sleeve across my forehead, mopping up the sweat. I drained the last of the coffee, the gritty residue as well. Outside, the cold air chewed away at the fabric of my pyjamas, it flooded me like an arctic wave. The grass was frozen as hard as concrete and it cracked underfoot, stinging the raw flesh of my feet. The torch beam bounced and waved then rested on the shed door as I got close. It had been years since I opened those doors, it had become a graveyard for abandoned projects. When I pushed against the wood door a warm breeze came. Inside, I unplugged the oil fin heater Mathew had haphazardly propped in the corner then I rummaged through the rusted lawnmower and weed eater cord. I could see them in the far corner, oat sacks and when I ripped them up there it was. Thirteen.
Carla had written the eulogy, but she couldn’t stand to read it, so I did. His school friends sat, a drab chorus of sobs and running tears. I decided to have the casket closed, his cheeks were gaunt and his eyes sunken, the embalmer had done little to restore what vitality he had when he died. I would have rather everyone remembered the Mathew in the photos strung about the walls.
In the last few days, with his hand cocked at the wrist around the pencil, he scribbled down his requests. He wanted me to have this laptop, he wanted certain music played at the ceremony and most importantly he wanted a video to be played and a programme to be opened. Mathew_Beta.exe
We plugged the laptop in and his image instantly appeared on the projector screen, he was brittle and hollow, but those eyes still shined as brilliant as the universe.
“Thank you all for coming. Mom, Dad I love you both, I know you will one day be happy again. I will see you soon, I promise,” he paused and coughed into a fist and a thin trail of blood leaked down the back of his hand to his wrist. “I love you all.”
I didn’t understand what happened next at the time, back when his laptop was still an enigma. A song started, bereaved words of angels and love. While it played the cursor moved and opened the programme and then words began to appear. He wrote about the weather that day, the people in attendance and how life goes on. I understand now, he was there, but back then a subtle dislocation spread amongst the crowd, we were all fishing for an explanation of how it had happened and everyone wore the same bewildered look.
Thirteen paused and curiously sat in the flash lit cage. It didn’t move and neither did I. It just sat on its newspaper carpet, between two hoses connected to two almost empty bottles of liquid. I pondered the fate of two through to twelve. But that didn’t matter now, I lifted that cage and the sacks which had covered it fell away. Inside, I planted the cage by the laptop and it was almost three a.m. The screen was ticking over with messages.
I don’t know how much time has passed.
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seconds? Minutes? Hours? years it really doesn’t matter. I will never know.
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I have explored the cyberverse. Everything. I believe I have discovered the secrets of the universe. The meaning of life, I want it to end. There is nothing further I can accomplish. As I tell you this it can be said in any language.
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Do you want to know the size of the universe? Or how many days, how many hours til it implodes? I can’t touch, I can’t kiss, so what is the point. I love. I did love, I love you both but no more than I ever could, what’s left?
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End it. I love you Dad and Mom. I love.
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I understand Matt. I don’t know what else to say. I love you too.
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Good bye
Tears were hitting the backs of my hands before I realised I was crying.
I would like to tell you I took that unused baseball bat and took to that laptop like Tony Soprano, but I didn’t. It was amicable, screws loosened and components detached. In the wrong hands it could hurt my son, so I carefully stacked it all out in that shed where thirteen had spent the past month.
Carla never asked about that laptop. She offered Thirteen a fleeting glance then sat in front of the pancakes I had dished. I made her a coffee and kissed her on the lips and told her I loved her, told her we both loved her.
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