RE: I Will Reply
07-25-2019, 06:36 AM
(This post was last modified: 10-29-2019, 08:30 PM by kilozombie.)
Six months.
Cent made the realization, connected the dots and saw that it had been an approximate six months since she had sent out the last batch of emails to unknowns so far off. In the time since, they had blossomed in her mind and become phantoms with shadows the size of block buildings, they had loomed over her for an impossibly long time. They had become parts of her day-to-day and she had never noticed them tear at her mind. The depression which swirled around her head like a cloudy, painful sickness was manifest at least partially because of these phantoms, and then she saw it had been seven months instead of six, and then she realized it'd soon be eight, then nine, then ten, then eleven.
There was no sense to cry out in sudden pain, because this pain was not sudden, but residual. It was lashing its slow lash against her soul again.
She couldn't even recall where the notebook was. She'd stuck it behind something a long while ago in favor of something else, but it would be impossible to determine what that 'else' even was. A slurry of malignant and pointless ventures into the darkness below her, a slew of mismanaged projects and attempts at connection, and now weeks upon weeks spent slumped in her carapace watching archival and recent footage day in and day out, ingesting as much caffeine as she needed to live but not a drop more.
She couldn't even recall where the notebook was. In her near upheaval, stomach contents riled up as her legs trembled, she rummaged through the cabinets and shelves near her desk. Her body was moving for the first time in ages, and when she retrieved the dusty thing from a corner within a corner, Cent let out a gasp of relief. She was surprised to be excited at all. Her path led her to slam the tome on her empty desktop and flip it open to the middle, where it was- of course- blank. She flipped back with a fading expression on her mandibles to just the first page, just the solemn first page of notes she was supposed to have to guide her, where she saw the list of monikers in thin charcoal:
Not A Member Of The Carapace Clique
Closer To Earth
Kinda Unsure
Concerned
Hollow Log
Realized Their Purpose
Another pang of frustration and pain found its way inside her armored chest again. The bug slid the cover back over the pages, regretted it, and then pulled it back open, clutching her head in two legs and straining a bit.
How could she go ahead further with this? How could this be enough? Instantly she was working out escape mechanisms-- ways to delve deep into some dripfeed of serotonin on the internet which wouldn't require much attention, or any thought. Even as she kept it open, she was sure any ounce of motivation would seep away soon, but she figured she could... try.
She tried. She looked at the list of open, unreplied emails, and her promise that she would reply, and tried to clam her mandibles shut and get to work on the impossible, easily-avoided task. With four deft legs, Cent began to type a reply to the first on her list.
Cent stopped typing. The emotion had quickly drained, and now all she had at present was an inability to move. Her body was falling limp, or the half-limp of somebody without a care either way. Certainly, she had no idea how to proceed with this line of thought. Maybe something shorter. With effort too much, she started again.
She grasped at her head and shut her beady eyes, huffing out in frustration. Every bit of the message would become more turbulent with six- no, seven- months between replies. Who was this bug? Surely they had moved on by now. It wouldn't be tough. It would be easy to have moved on for everyone else. This wasn't their project. If she replied now, none of them would care.
But was that what she was scared about? Maybe. It was part. The other half was the worry this would be only a coincidental twitch of a dead bug.
She tried again.
She banged at her carapace.
Gaaaah.
She stopped herself and gently, painfully muttered, why didn't you do this four or five or six months ago? The answer bubbled up: she had been feeling unable since the moment she missed a beat. Jumping back in, having to explain why she'd been incapable, was an impossible task after only a week of missed replies. The impossibility was only growing exponential, but what did it matter? She'd be unable the moment she screwed up once.
Cent wriggled in the chair and tried again with a dying demeanor.
She banged at her carapace again. How could it possibly be fair to lie to somebody, insinuating that they were the one who failed to reply? No, it wasn't hardly blame, but she was the one responsible. She was the one lying.
The idea came to her head to abandon everyone and just find a new list of emails to reply to. To try again. But it came to the same issue, that she would surely screw it up again soon and stop. Cent wouldn't even have the benefit of a head start, which is what she had now. A head start and a head full of guilt.
No, there had to be some way through. Some easy way through.
She sat back again, staring blankly at the screen. Of course this bug had probably already blocked her. Seven months was enough time to change a life, let alone enough time to talk to an ant about an errant email. As useless as she felt in the last half-year, Cent knew that there was an awfully good chance even she could do that.
Maybe it was time to try with somebody else. She scanned down the next reply and began to type once she'd agonizingly crawled through the contents.
Cent shook her head and stopped, and started again.
Maybe she could just dance around it. She was doing a pretty good job up until that point, and maybe she could just...
It didn't feel perfect. But it didn't feel hopeless, either, and Cent took in a somewhat cautious breath, starting down the list once more. Without a clue for how many more replies she would have to make, she kept that one in its draft form, ready to send at a moment's notice, and dug into another.
...No, for this one, she definitely needed to start it with some honesty.
She read further down at the comment about 'nobody replying'. She shivered. A lot of her messages were revolving around that, weren't they? She needed to address it. She needed to.
Cent rubbed at the space between her eyes and sighed, tapping the backspace.
A copypasted ending at least gave her some closure, again. It felt coyly apologetic, and far from perfect, again... but at least it was done. She could move on to the next.
Cent retracted from the chair and took in an extra-light breath. Her shell was now unaccomodating as it could be, and she struggled to approach the impossible-to-approach in any decent manner.
No.
No.
No.
No.
The issue couldn't be confronted. In no meaningful capacity could it be confronted. Cent would always, to this person, be the terrible cockroach filled with inhibition. She would never reply on time and never be an adequate friend or companion, and she would just have to live with it.
And she would just have to live with it.
Cent immediately began to hammer the backspace once again, huffing out. What could she say about creative projects? Every single one would die in a pit of neglect sooner or later. This one most quickly.
...but it was done. This was progress, at the very least. She had written three of four. Cent managed a weak, slightly satisfied smile on her mandibles, slightly shaky along with the rest of her. Every instinct to retract into her own dopamine palace started to slip away. In the back of her mind she heard a scratchy voice telling her-- just go for it! Write a message to the last bug, even if it's for nothing! You can do this!
She sat back with her carapace lifted by air. Was this it? Was another batch of replies actually done? Cent rattled her mandibles in surprise at the fact that she'd gotten over the hump, out of the pit-- she'd escaped and actually done what she wanted to do! It only took seven months, but she...
...she...
...the cockroach sat up weakly, and then collapsed back into the chair, and heard it squeak back with her chitinous weight. She had done something that took seven months. Maybe she'd pick up the pace for one, maybe two, batches... maybe a few, but then she'd falter again. There would be no continuation or completion.
It was pointless to send out any more messages, even completed as they might have been. All that would happen was the same thing, again. Another period of silence. Another seven months of lingering, LOOMING guilt.
She stared at the four completed messages, each in their own window, and kept staring for a while. Her beady eyes contracted inward, and she glanced briefly at the multitude of browsers and programs she could be enjoying otherwise. None of them would require her particular thought. She could grab caffeine from right outside of her house and wander back in without seeing the sky, as she had been doing for seven months. She could keep having short and sometimes meaningful but never earth-shattering conversations with her millipede and centipede neighbors, she could keep loose and occasional contact with close friends online, she could continue being alive without ever wandering out to the balcony to see the city.
Her legs gently and painfully moved the cursor to click away from the windows of failed obligation and fleeting contact to the browser window behind them. She already had twenty or thirty tabs open, which would surely absorb her for hours.
...then, at the last moment, she stopped herself.
Cent's entire body clenched up, and then breathed out. Then, she slapped at her own leg, and then forced herself up like a puppet on unsteady strings. She nearly fell to the ground and felt the floorboards creak as legs took her up for no pragmatic purpose she could ascertain. Her shell was not meant to be moving, but here it was. She needed it to move for no reason. She just needed to move. Her legs took her slumped and limp body, corpselike against walls and doors and sliding through hallways and hallways into hallways into hallways, then to the door to the balcony, then to the balcony.
She stood on the edge of the balcony and took in the thinly polluted air of Brooklyn. There was so much of it below her, so much she had seen before. The infinite flitting of fading lamplight, moths dancing on the streets below and fireflies greeting one another in tiny metal flying machines. She watched caffeine slurry drip from a float-tube and into the wide, gaping gutters off the road. Cent stared with her upper legs folded against the railing at a New York awash with the tiniest things living the smallest lives. She had long accepted that only two stories of height above it all would make her quake in her carapace, but it was when she got the sudden and painful and hopeless inkling to look up that she disassociated.
The bug was no longer there. No longer thinking about being in a place. She just took in the staggering sight of the skyscraping buildings above.
Scale or comparison would always fail to capture that height, that significance. It took all she could muster not to shout up at it desperately. But the thought was embarrassing, as was the concept of being in such mortal peril over a few damn email replies. What difference would it possibly make? What difference could it make if she spent her whole life unable to complete a single thing?!
...it meant everything to Cent. This was a crossroads she had never reached. She could revel in the street below or she could fly and improve. But she had never done that, even though she had wanted to since the beginning. All she had ever done was start and never finish, obligate and never fulfill. What in the world could it mean to promise something and follow through? What could it possibly mean to do something consistently? What could it mean to really, and truly, and without a doubt say that she would reply?
The cockroach had no clue.
But she wanted to know.
All she wanted was to know.
Cent stumbled back inside and began to draft again in a flurry. The hard work was already done. She knew that she couldn't keep up this pace, not now, not ever. She was inspired, and soon she wouldn't be. But she wanted to make use of it while she still was, knowing that the only thing she wanted was not to need such fleeting muse.
SEND
Cent sat back limply as the emails went out. They were far from perfect. They felt too self-centered, but at least they felt real, to some degree. She had no clue if she would ever reply, or if she would ever receive replies for them. But she decided that this state, this formless state at the edge of her rope, would allow her a little restructuring of her original message, which she decided to send again to a new list of public email addresses.
SEND
Late in the worst hours of night, it surely wouldn't reach a single person. Better for that, Cent supposed. But the little tingle in her gut, the inspiration as it faded away, no longer needed to exist. She no longer had expectations for it, or her fleeting muse. It would be what it would be.
The cockroach slid out of her chair, clicked the monitor off, and skittered to bed.
Cent made the realization, connected the dots and saw that it had been an approximate six months since she had sent out the last batch of emails to unknowns so far off. In the time since, they had blossomed in her mind and become phantoms with shadows the size of block buildings, they had loomed over her for an impossibly long time. They had become parts of her day-to-day and she had never noticed them tear at her mind. The depression which swirled around her head like a cloudy, painful sickness was manifest at least partially because of these phantoms, and then she saw it had been seven months instead of six, and then she realized it'd soon be eight, then nine, then ten, then eleven.
There was no sense to cry out in sudden pain, because this pain was not sudden, but residual. It was lashing its slow lash against her soul again.
She couldn't even recall where the notebook was. She'd stuck it behind something a long while ago in favor of something else, but it would be impossible to determine what that 'else' even was. A slurry of malignant and pointless ventures into the darkness below her, a slew of mismanaged projects and attempts at connection, and now weeks upon weeks spent slumped in her carapace watching archival and recent footage day in and day out, ingesting as much caffeine as she needed to live but not a drop more.
She couldn't even recall where the notebook was. In her near upheaval, stomach contents riled up as her legs trembled, she rummaged through the cabinets and shelves near her desk. Her body was moving for the first time in ages, and when she retrieved the dusty thing from a corner within a corner, Cent let out a gasp of relief. She was surprised to be excited at all. Her path led her to slam the tome on her empty desktop and flip it open to the middle, where it was- of course- blank. She flipped back with a fading expression on her mandibles to just the first page, just the solemn first page of notes she was supposed to have to guide her, where she saw the list of monikers in thin charcoal:
Not A Member Of The Carapace Clique
Closer To Earth
Kinda Unsure
Concerned
Hollow Log
Realized Their Purpose
Another pang of frustration and pain found its way inside her armored chest again. The bug slid the cover back over the pages, regretted it, and then pulled it back open, clutching her head in two legs and straining a bit.
How could she go ahead further with this? How could this be enough? Instantly she was working out escape mechanisms-- ways to delve deep into some dripfeed of serotonin on the internet which wouldn't require much attention, or any thought. Even as she kept it open, she was sure any ounce of motivation would seep away soon, but she figured she could... try.
She tried. She looked at the list of open, unreplied emails, and her promise that she would reply, and tried to clam her mandibles shut and get to work on the impossible, easily-avoided task. With four deft legs, Cent began to type a reply to the first on her list.
Privately Networked Wrote:To: Cent
Cent Wrote:To: Privately Networked
I am so, so deeply sorry to not have replied sooner. I'm sure that given you care about the privacy of your network you
Cent stopped typing. The emotion had quickly drained, and now all she had at present was an inability to move. Her body was falling limp, or the half-limp of somebody without a care either way. Certainly, she had no idea how to proceed with this line of thought. Maybe something shorter. With effort too much, she started again.
Cent Wrote:To: Privately Networked
Whoops, took too long to reply!
No, hopefully you haven't blamed Cutter by now, but
She grasped at her head and shut her beady eyes, huffing out in frustration. Every bit of the message would become more turbulent with six- no, seven- months between replies. Who was this bug? Surely they had moved on by now. It wouldn't be tough. It would be easy to have moved on for everyone else. This wasn't their project. If she replied now, none of them would care.
But was that what she was scared about? Maybe. It was part. The other half was the worry this would be only a coincidental twitch of a dead bug.
She tried again.
Cent Wrote:To: Privately Networked
Guess I'm better at hacking in than I thought I would be, but
She banged at her carapace.
Cent Wrote:To: Privately Networked
Guess it turns out I can hack into private networks, it just takes seven months! Also I didn't hack into anything, I just picked up some public
Gaaaah.
Cent Wrote:To: Privately Networked
Don't worry, nobody gave me an in! Don't go and blame Cutter for whatnot, I've just lucked on your address while trying to find people to reply to. Unfortunately I've been busy and haven't been able to
She stopped herself and gently, painfully muttered, why didn't you do this four or five or six months ago? The answer bubbled up: she had been feeling unable since the moment she missed a beat. Jumping back in, having to explain why she'd been incapable, was an impossible task after only a week of missed replies. The impossibility was only growing exponential, but what did it matter? She'd be unable the moment she screwed up once.
Cent wriggled in the chair and tried again with a dying demeanor.
Cent Wrote:To: Unknown
I know it's been quite a while, which means you probably didn't mean to reply to me, but just in case you did and I missed it: hey, I'm Cent! I think my previous reply might have gotten bounced off because it seems like you might be part of a private network, but this time I
She banged at her carapace again. How could it possibly be fair to lie to somebody, insinuating that they were the one who failed to reply? No, it wasn't hardly blame, but she was the one responsible. She was the one lying.
The idea came to her head to abandon everyone and just find a new list of emails to reply to. To try again. But it came to the same issue, that she would surely screw it up again soon and stop. Cent wouldn't even have the benefit of a head start, which is what she had now. A head start and a head full of guilt.
No, there had to be some way through. Some easy way through.
Cent Wrote:To: Privately Networked
Hey, who are you calling ratrace? Sure, I do live in Bends, Brooklyn, so there's a pretty ratty relationship around here, but I'm roach through and through! Though I guess I've never prided myself on any ability to circumvent cybersecurity, so I don't know what that's all about. I get if you'd like to block me, but
She sat back again, staring blankly at the screen. Of course this bug had probably already blocked her. Seven months was enough time to change a life, let alone enough time to talk to an ant about an errant email. As useless as she felt in the last half-year, Cent knew that there was an awfully good chance even she could do that.
Maybe it was time to try with somebody else. She scanned down the next reply and began to type once she'd agonizingly crawled through the contents.
Concerned Wrote:To: Cent
Cent Wrote:To: Concerned
Well, I think I get that naming scheme. When I put nicknames on stuff, those meanings are personal and sometimes kind of hard to describe! But 'the Devil' for a helpful plant is funny on its own merits. It's contradictory, and defies expectation when you tell people about it.
I'm sorry about not having replied until now, but
Cent shook her head and stopped, and started again.
Cent Wrote:To: Concerned
Well, I think I get that naming scheme. When I put nicknames on stuff, those meanings are personal and sometimes kind of hard to describe! But 'the Devil' for a helpful plant is funny on its own merits. It's contradictory, and defies expectation when you tell people about it.
So it's a metaphorical gas station at the edge of town? Makes enough sense! I'd say that my outlook on gas stations is probably different than yours, but for me they spell a very wide collection of varied and strange people coming to refuel. Nowadays that has to do with caffeine dispensers, but history has all kinds of these stations. And in your case it seems that the plantlife is the varied group of people, not the people themselves! It's good to hear that at least one flower seems quite positive. In another time, you'd see that kind of thing mass-produced, but maybe it's nice that we get to have our own special things to ourselves.
You know, I don't think I can totally dance around the fact that I haven't replied for a while! I've read that the internet is an effective asynchronous medium, but it's still a shame, because
Maybe she could just dance around it. She was doing a pretty good job up until that point, and maybe she could just...
Cent Wrote:To: Concerned
Well, I think I get that naming scheme. When I put nicknames on stuff, those meanings are personal and sometimes kind of hard to describe! But 'the Devil' for a helpful plant is funny on its own merits. It's contradictory, and defies expectation when you tell people about it.
So it's a metaphorical gas station at the edge of town? Makes enough sense! I'd say that my outlook on gas stations is probably different than yours, but for me they spell a very wide collection of varied and strange people coming to refuel. Nowadays that has to do with caffeine dispensers, but history has all kinds of these stations. And in your case it seems that the plantlife is the varied group of people, not the people themselves! It's good to hear that at least one flower seems quite positive. In another time, you'd see that kind of thing mass-produced, but maybe it's nice that we get to have our own special things to ourselves.
But... you know, life does lose a lot of magic if it's only things for ourselves. I'm glad I get to hear a little slice of your story in addition to my own. The world can feel so tiny when you can't see anything but what's right in front of you, or when you just don't look for a half-dozen months.
Thank you for replying to me when you got the chance, Concerned. How's life been at this metaphorical gas station?
It didn't feel perfect. But it didn't feel hopeless, either, and Cent took in a somewhat cautious breath, starting down the list once more. Without a clue for how many more replies she would have to make, she kept that one in its draft form, ready to send at a moment's notice, and dug into another.
Closer to Earth Wrote:To: Cent
Cent Wrote:To: Closer to Earth
It's alright, I can make things out just fine! Only a few characters are missing, and
...No, for this one, she definitely needed to start it with some honesty.
Cent Wrote:To: Closer to Earth
Oh, wow, that took me some time, huh.
The spotty messages are completely alright, I can make things out just fine! Only a few characters are missing, and like you said, it's a pretty fun puzzle when it doesn't obscure something too important.
She read further down at the comment about 'nobody replying'. She shivered. A lot of her messages were revolving around that, weren't they? She needed to address it. She needed to.
Cent Wrote:To: Closer to Earth
Well, I've done what I said I didn't like, and failed to reply to you for months. I'm deeply sorry, but I hope that like the pauses in your class after a simple question, the inkling of a reply is at least... promising, right? Ha.
Don't worry about the spotty messages. Like you said, they're a fun puzzle, and they rarely obscure anything that can't be figured out. I'm not sure what you teach, but I remember loving word puzzles like this when I was just a nymph. I wonder if you could weave it into something relating to computers and packet loss or whatnot?
There's plenty of confusion for me about where caffeine comes from, overall. I know at a granular level it's produced in factories by mass-growing the plant, and the scale works out easily due to our size, but it has to go through so many deliveries down the chain to make it home! Even the envoy who comes by can't get it from the direct source, and I'm sure that source is obfuscated from the factories themselves. But a glider really does help, and though I've only been on something like it once, if you get a chance, you should find somebody who can have you ride as passenger! I know heights are terrifying, but they can also transform your perspective. They put your thoughts in context, the kind that you normally can't get, just typing to a vacuum.
A vacuum that doesn't reply for seven months, especially!
Cent rubbed at the space between her eyes and sighed, tapping the backspace.
Cent Wrote:To: Closer to Earth
Well, I've done what I said I didn't like, and failed to reply to you for months. I'm deeply sorry, but I hope that like the pauses in your class after a simple question, the inkling of a reply is at least... promising, right? Ha.
Don't worry about the spotty messages. Like you said, they're a fun puzzle, and they rarely obscure anything that can't be figured out. I'm not sure what you teach, but I remember loving word puzzles like this when I was just a nymph. I wonder if you could weave it into something relating to computers and packet loss or whatnot?
There's plenty of confusion for me about where caffeine comes from, overall. I know at a granular level it's produced in factories by mass-growing the plant, and the scale works out easily due to our size, but it has to go through so many deliveries down the chain to make it home! Even the envoy who comes by can't get it from the direct source, and I'm sure that source is obfuscated from the factories themselves. But a glider really does help, and though I've only been on something like it once, if you get a chance, you should find somebody who can have you ride as passenger! I know heights are terrifying, but they can also transform your perspective. They put your thoughts in context, the kind that you normally can't get, just typing to a vacuum.
Thank you for replying to me when you got the chance, Closer to Earth. How's life been with teaching, in this meantime?
A copypasted ending at least gave her some closure, again. It felt coyly apologetic, and far from perfect, again... but at least it was done. She could move on to the next.
Kinda Unsure Wrote:To: Cent
Cent Wrote:To: Kinda Unsure
Well, apparently I'm not the kind of person who replies! Aha, well,
Cent retracted from the chair and took in an extra-light breath. Her shell was now unaccomodating as it could be, and she struggled to approach the impossible-to-approach in any decent manner.
Cent Wrote:To: Kinda Unsure
I'm sorry. It isn't that I didn't want to reply or that I forgot, it's just
No.
Cent Wrote:To: Kinda Unsure
When trying to keep up on a project like this, it's always really hard for me to
No.
Cent Wrote:To: Kinda Unsure
This slipped my mind too! I mean, obviously much worse, but
No.
Cent Wrote:To: Kinda Unsure
You must hate me.
No.
The issue couldn't be confronted. In no meaningful capacity could it be confronted. Cent would always, to this person, be the terrible cockroach filled with inhibition. She would never reply on time and never be an adequate friend or companion, and she would just have to live with it.
And she would just have to live with it.
Cent Wrote:To: Kinda Unsure
You sound like you could be great at creative projects! Seeing the world and coming up with possible answers is the foundation of our modern system of science-- the second step is just trying to prove them right or wrong. There's still plenty of blind spots in human history, and even some in our own. And it's not like one of these skills or professions locks you out of the others. They can all intertwine pretty well.
Creative projects are... a difficult thing. But they're so rewarding when you really get into the groove! It's
Cent immediately began to hammer the backspace once again, huffing out. What could she say about creative projects? Every single one would die in a pit of neglect sooner or later. This one most quickly.
Cent Wrote:To: Kinda Unsure
You sound like you could be great at creative projects! Seeing the world and coming up with possible answers is the foundation of our modern system of science-- the second step is just trying to prove them right or wrong. There's still plenty of blind spots in human history, and even some in our own. And it's not like one of these skills or professions locks you out of the others. They can all intertwine pretty well.
Have you ever had yuenyeung? It's a mixed tea and coffee drink that I'm not... sure how I feel about, but it's a way a few bugs take their caffeine. It's supposed to represent bringing those things you're interested in together.
By the way, thank you for replying to me when you got the chance, Kinda Unsure. How's life been in the meantime?
...but it was done. This was progress, at the very least. She had written three of four. Cent managed a weak, slightly satisfied smile on her mandibles, slightly shaky along with the rest of her. Every instinct to retract into her own dopamine palace started to slip away. In the back of her mind she heard a scratchy voice telling her-- just go for it! Write a message to the last bug, even if it's for nothing! You can do this!
Cent Wrote:To: Privately Networked
Nope, no in was granted to me, I'm just an errant soul on the Internet trying to make some connections. It's hard to make those! And it takes... effort, and... time. And it seems like an insurmountable goal almost every moment that I try to make it happen. But I want to try for it, so here I am. A bit late, but if Cutter hasn't fixed up your address being public, then hello!
I'm Cent, a cockroach. I live in Bends, Brooklyn, a long way from most other bugs, it seems. I mean... physically and emotionally. I imagine if you're on a private network, you've got a small pool, too, right? Or maybe a small pool, but an even more connected one! So far it's hard for me to stay in contact with anyone for long enough to justify having reached out. Or, at least, that's how I feel about it sometimes.
Well, sorry to bother if you're not looking for intruders. But if you are, hey! If you'd like to just talk about whatever, maybe how that ant you mentioned is doing now that seven agonizing months have passed, feel free to shoot a message back.
Either way, thank you for replying to me when you got the chance, Privately Networked.
She sat back with her carapace lifted by air. Was this it? Was another batch of replies actually done? Cent rattled her mandibles in surprise at the fact that she'd gotten over the hump, out of the pit-- she'd escaped and actually done what she wanted to do! It only took seven months, but she...
...she...
...the cockroach sat up weakly, and then collapsed back into the chair, and heard it squeak back with her chitinous weight. She had done something that took seven months. Maybe she'd pick up the pace for one, maybe two, batches... maybe a few, but then she'd falter again. There would be no continuation or completion.
It was pointless to send out any more messages, even completed as they might have been. All that would happen was the same thing, again. Another period of silence. Another seven months of lingering, LOOMING guilt.
She stared at the four completed messages, each in their own window, and kept staring for a while. Her beady eyes contracted inward, and she glanced briefly at the multitude of browsers and programs she could be enjoying otherwise. None of them would require her particular thought. She could grab caffeine from right outside of her house and wander back in without seeing the sky, as she had been doing for seven months. She could keep having short and sometimes meaningful but never earth-shattering conversations with her millipede and centipede neighbors, she could keep loose and occasional contact with close friends online, she could continue being alive without ever wandering out to the balcony to see the city.
Her legs gently and painfully moved the cursor to click away from the windows of failed obligation and fleeting contact to the browser window behind them. She already had twenty or thirty tabs open, which would surely absorb her for hours.
...then, at the last moment, she stopped herself.
Cent's entire body clenched up, and then breathed out. Then, she slapped at her own leg, and then forced herself up like a puppet on unsteady strings. She nearly fell to the ground and felt the floorboards creak as legs took her up for no pragmatic purpose she could ascertain. Her shell was not meant to be moving, but here it was. She needed it to move for no reason. She just needed to move. Her legs took her slumped and limp body, corpselike against walls and doors and sliding through hallways and hallways into hallways into hallways, then to the door to the balcony, then to the balcony.
She stood on the edge of the balcony and took in the thinly polluted air of Brooklyn. There was so much of it below her, so much she had seen before. The infinite flitting of fading lamplight, moths dancing on the streets below and fireflies greeting one another in tiny metal flying machines. She watched caffeine slurry drip from a float-tube and into the wide, gaping gutters off the road. Cent stared with her upper legs folded against the railing at a New York awash with the tiniest things living the smallest lives. She had long accepted that only two stories of height above it all would make her quake in her carapace, but it was when she got the sudden and painful and hopeless inkling to look up that she disassociated.
The bug was no longer there. No longer thinking about being in a place. She just took in the staggering sight of the skyscraping buildings above.
Scale or comparison would always fail to capture that height, that significance. It took all she could muster not to shout up at it desperately. But the thought was embarrassing, as was the concept of being in such mortal peril over a few damn email replies. What difference would it possibly make? What difference could it make if she spent her whole life unable to complete a single thing?!
...it meant everything to Cent. This was a crossroads she had never reached. She could revel in the street below or she could fly and improve. But she had never done that, even though she had wanted to since the beginning. All she had ever done was start and never finish, obligate and never fulfill. What in the world could it mean to promise something and follow through? What could it possibly mean to do something consistently? What could it mean to really, and truly, and without a doubt say that she would reply?
The cockroach had no clue.
But she wanted to know.
All she wanted was to know.
Cent stumbled back inside and began to draft again in a flurry. The hard work was already done. She knew that she couldn't keep up this pace, not now, not ever. She was inspired, and soon she wouldn't be. But she wanted to make use of it while she still was, knowing that the only thing she wanted was not to need such fleeting muse.
Cent Wrote:To: Concerned
Well, I think I get that naming scheme. When I put nicknames on stuff, those meanings are personal and sometimes kind of hard to describe! But 'the Devil' for a helpful plant is funny on its own merits. It's contradictory, and defies expectation when you tell people about it.
So it's a metaphorical gas station at the edge of town? Makes enough sense! I'd say that my outlook on gas stations is probably different than yours, but for me they spell a very wide collection of varied and strange people coming to refuel. Nowadays that has to do with caffeine dispensers, but history has all kinds of these stations. And in your case it seems that the plantlife is the varied group of people, not the people themselves! It's good to hear that at least one flower seems quite positive. In another time, you'd see that kind of thing mass-produced, but maybe it's nice that we get to have our own special things to ourselves.
But... you know, life does lose a lot of magic if it's only things for ourselves. I'm glad I get to hear a little slice of your story in addition to my own. The world can feel so tiny when you can't see anything but what's right in front of you, or when you just don't look for a half-dozen months.
I'm sorry I didn't reply. I am desperate for answers on how to reply more consistently. Sometimes, very rarely, inspiration will strike to finally do something, but most of the time it's not there. I just... want to be able to reply even when it's not there. I want to be able to fulfill my name. I have no idea how doable such a thing is, and so I'm asking you, somebody I suppose I really don't know, if you know a thing about it. How do you improve at following through? How do you work when you're not inspired? How do you reply when you can't bring yourself to reply?
Regardless.
Thank you for replying to me when you get the chance, Concerned. In whatever state I end up in after sending this, I can only, only hope to do the same.
- I Will Reply
Cent Wrote:To: Closer to Earth
Well, I've done what I said I didn't like, and failed to reply to you for months. I'm deeply sorry, but I hope that like the pauses in your class after a simple question, the inkling of a reply is at least... promising, right? Ha.
Don't worry about the spotty messages. Like you said, they're a fun puzzle, and they rarely obscure anything that can't be figured out. I'm not sure what you teach, but I remember loving word puzzles like this when I was just a nymph. I wonder if you could weave it into something relating to computers and packet loss or whatnot?
There's plenty of confusion for me about where caffeine comes from, overall. I know at a granular level it's produced in factories by mass-growing the plant, and the scale works out easily due to our size, but it has to go through so many deliveries down the chain to make it home! Even the envoy who comes by can't get it from the direct source, and I'm sure that source is obfuscated from the factories themselves. But a glider really does help, and though I've only been on something like it once, if you get a chance, you should find somebody who can have you ride as passenger! I know heights are terrifying, but they can also transform your perspective. They put your thoughts in context, the kind that you normally can't get, just typing to a vacuum.
Typing to a vacuum, I suppose, like the one I was for the last seven months.
I'm sorry I didn't reply. I am desperate for answers on how to reply more consistently. Sometimes, very rarely, inspiration will strike to finally do something, but most of the time it's not there. I just... want to be able to reply even when it's not there. I want to be able to fulfill my name. I have no idea how doable such a thing is, and so I'm asking you, somebody I suppose I really don't know, if you know a thing about it. How do you improve at following through? How do you work when you're not inspired? How do you reply when you can't bring yourself to reply?
Regardless.
Thank you for replying to me when you get the chance, Closer to Earth. In whatever state I end up in after sending this, I can only, only hope to do the same.
- I Will Reply
Cent Wrote:To: Kinda Unsure
You sound like you could be great at creative projects! Seeing the world and coming up with possible answers is the foundation of our modern system of science-- the second step is just trying to prove them right or wrong. There's still plenty of blind spots in human history, and even some in our own. And it's not like one of these skills or professions locks you out of the others. They can all intertwine pretty well.
Have you ever had yuenyeung? It's a mixed tea and coffee drink that I'm not... sure how I feel about, but it's a way a few bugs take their caffeine. It's supposed to represent bringing those things you're interested in together.
...I suppose the worst thing about trying to write creatively is how easy you can run into a block that seems insurmountable for months on end. And to me, this project was a creative one, or at least it's using the same juices, and it's as hard. And I'm sorry.
I'm sorry I didn't reply. I am desperate for answers on how to reply more consistently. Sometimes, very rarely, inspiration will strike to finally do something, but most of the time it's not there. I just... want to be able to reply even when it's not there. I want to be able to fulfill my name. I have no idea how doable such a thing is, and so I'm asking you, somebody I suppose I really don't know, if you know a thing about it. How do you improve at following through? How do you work when you're not inspired? How do you reply when you can't bring yourself to reply?
Regardless.
Thank you for replying to me when you get the chance, Kinda Unsure. In whatever state I end up in after sending this, I can only, only hope to do the same.
- I Will Reply
Cent Wrote:To: Privately Networked
Nope, no in was granted to me, I'm just an errant soul on the Internet trying to make some connections. It's hard to make those! And it takes... effort, and... time. And it seems like an insurmountable goal almost every moment that I try to make it happen. But I want to try for it, so here I am. A bit late, but if Cutter hasn't fixed up your address being public, then hello!
I'm Cent, a cockroach. I live in Bends, Brooklyn, a long way from most other bugs, it seems. I mean... physically and emotionally. I imagine if you're on a private network, you've got a small pool, too, right? Or maybe a small pool, but an even more connected one! So far it's hard for me to stay in contact with anyone for long enough to justify having reached out. Or, at least, that's how I feel about it sometimes.
Well, sorry to bother if you're not looking for intruders. But if you are, hey! If you'd like to just talk about whatever, maybe how that ant you mentioned is doing now that seven agonizing months have passed, feel free to shoot a message back. I'm far from owed, considering how long it took me, but I really, genuinely wished I had, because you seem like a primely interesting bug.
I'm sorry I didn't reply. I am desperate for answers on how to reply more consistently. Sometimes, very rarely, inspiration will strike to finally do something, but most of the time it's not there. I just... want to be able to reply even when it's not there. I want to be able to fulfill my name. I have no idea how doable such a thing is, and so I'm asking you, somebody I suppose I really don't know, if you know a thing about it. How do you improve at following through? How do you work when you're not inspired? How do you reply when you can't bring yourself to reply?
Regardless.
Thank you for replying to me when you get the chance, Privately Networked. In whatever state I end up in after sending this, I can only, only hope to do the same.
- I Will Reply
SEND
Cent sat back limply as the emails went out. They were far from perfect. They felt too self-centered, but at least they felt real, to some degree. She had no clue if she would ever reply, or if she would ever receive replies for them. But she decided that this state, this formless state at the edge of her rope, would allow her a little restructuring of her original message, which she decided to send again to a new list of public email addresses.
Cent Wrote:To: All Who This May Reach
I don't know what it means to create something and keep it going. This is my attempt, and after many failed attempts, this one is sure to fail, too. But here it is, regardless.
If you send me an email, I will reply.
If I can, if I possibly can, I'll dedicate as long as it takes to give a sufficient, meaningful reply. I'm alright completely opening up and dedicating myself to each and every bug who puts something forward. I have no special interest or price. It doesn't matter to me if you already have a friend, or several friends, because I know sometimes that isn't enough.
I know the world is vast. I know my story, and the stories of the people who live close to me, but it doesn't make sense for a cockroach to travel the planet crawling underneath each and every City hoping to find people to comfort. I don't know what the world is to you. I don't know what your story is.
But I'm willing to hear it.
And if you know a thing or two about writing, you know that I may hear it and never reply. But I want to get better at that, as I think I a lot of us do. And if you have a single thought about that subject, and have experienced anything along those lines... then I suppose we'll have that pain in common.
I Will Reply, as the mantra will go, is completely counter to the name. If you'd like to take your chances, then you now know my email address, and you know the risks of a story unfinished.
And I hope that the fleeting contact that an inhibited bug can provide is still somehow meaningful.
Thank you, if you choose to reply to this. And if you don't, don't worry! I know the feeling.
Well, that's all.
- I Will Reply
SEND
Late in the worst hours of night, it surely wouldn't reach a single person. Better for that, Cent supposed. But the little tingle in her gut, the inspiration as it faded away, no longer needed to exist. She no longer had expectations for it, or her fleeting muse. It would be what it would be.
The cockroach slid out of her chair, clicked the monitor off, and skittered to bed.
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