It's usually late afternoon by the time I sink into the command chair and don my tinted glasses. Lighting the screen, I visualize a school of dolphins breaking surface. Hypgnosis recommends I use this method to safeguard against data overload.
Sacred mud. In the beginning only the infinite exists, a place where my subconscious streams unasked questions as I grope for reality in a world where personal gain and ethics are fighting it out.
“Words are easy. Thinking is more difficult. Nothing, is impossible.”
The light…
My hands are limp in my lap, my thoughts are mush and my heartbeat is a sixteen channel mixer. The screen is a peripheral blur through unfocused eyes. The pink lenses don't help. Background noises include voices chattering and mental static, except there isn't anyone else here. The bright light dims momentarily and allows me to feel like I'm dying; all the while someone is talking very softly in my ear, but the words are distorted and I struggle to make them out.
“You have escaped from the ordinary into the extra-ordinary, a place where ‘Business as usual’ is no longer contemplated as normal, whatever normal is become. You’re just experiencing a system reboot during a global ‘Spring Break’”.
"If it's not real then how come it hurts so much?"
“Of course tragedy hurts. What you’re witnessing is the decline of the American empire. The ethical and moral integrity it once sought to stamp on every country in the world in order to proclaim 'democracy' as it's raison d'être, is evaporating like water in the desert.”
“The future isn't what it was supposed to be.”
“According to some, the past isn't either.”
“This is where the battle of the morons really begins as everyone recounts the history that they’re happy or unhappy with. But most here on Substack seem to be on the good side of the wave of electrified particles that has melded us into a wave of human empathy, a behavioural pattern that’s still locked down for many.”
“Your past doesn’t need you, fool. Your future does”, my subconscious responds.
“Gimme me a break”, I whisper back.
My life is a Cyberpunk romance from another dimension, so replaying it seems to have everything, and also nothing, to do with wtf is going on now. We’re in a less esoteric time of no mercy and no romance. The multi-coloured lights flicker on the subspace transmitter. Caught between protecting my insanity and staying conscious, I breathe deep because low oxygen content distracts thought processes.
“Obey?”
“I’m all outta gum!”
Your Cybershaman
