in *hey* i attempt to wake from the ai slumber party

Two nights ago, a sneeze blew my iPhone AIR with its bright shiny hard edges out of my hand. Bang. My MacBook Air’s screen turned purple and showed a small crack in the bottom left corner that soon became an enlarging spiral of chaos. And now, poof, black screen.

Here’s where the amazing part comes in. I have my brother’s old 2014 MacBook Pro, and this thing is a beast. 17″ is heavy, but look at that display. My brother and I are laughing about the irony that I’m working again on his laptop. The laptop that I upgraded for my mom after he died. The laptop I inherited back from my mom’s estate. I am the archivist. She still has a partition on this computer with her writings, letters, and thoughts. For a later spelunking adventure, down the river a piece.

Here’s where the old tech meets the new tech. It’s best if I just show you.

That little window in the top left, that’s my massive screen on the broken laptop, being streamed to this heavy 17″ MacBook Pro with screen real estate to make this work setup functional. Adaptive.

My brother is nearby. He is laughing about the time I held his bedpan. “Never thought we’d do this together,” I said. It got a minor chuckle from the beaten and dying man. I stayed nearby. I visited when I could. And, I learned I had to take care of myself and my energy or I would be no good for my mom and sister. I had to be strong. I also had to take days off to not be at his bedside in the living room of my mom’s house. It was a hard death.

Mostly, my mom and my brother puttered around the house. He stayed mostly on the couch (this was before hospice times) and watched a video stream of bald eagles being born. The sound was on. He was trippin, zonin, and seeking his invitation off the planet.

Here in this timeline, I am grooving with my ghosts and cats more than humans. I do have a few social events this weekend. I’m well socialised, not well kissed. My kissing has been discontinued for lack of oxygen.

{stream.wakeme.when.september.ends-greenday}

You only get five chances with me. She’s used up two. She’s off the ice for a clear violation of the gaslighting. All this time we’ve been breaking up… It’s been about my writing.

“You write terrible things about me. Mean things.”

Three days ago (I know, I know, cut off all comms) she emailed me, “It’s not about your writing. Never has been. You’re not listening to me.”

*poof*

My mind spintered into surreality. Nope. That’s a bridge to far. The entire reason you keep fighting me and kicking me out of your house: my writing. Part of me wants to get together just to hear how she crafts a some version of life where she hasn’t said, texted, spoken loudly, about the writing.

“Oh really?”

No further comms. There was another “wtf” in a more recent email, but I don’t even want to go into it. No more fear-based negotiations with an anxious divorcee. (In a few months or so…) No, pull out. Pull up. Pull your equipment back in. The refurbished spacecraft is preparing for launch. No copilot. Okay, we’ve done long hauls alone before. This life, this journey, is now more complete with Sid and Hunter. You’d call them cats, I call them Mana. (It’s from my science fiction world, Hyper*Soul.)

I had a few conversations outside the ship yesterday. Got some physical exercise with JF on the tennis court. The rain was pouring on my drive over at 8:30 am. The courts were wet. We chatted through the fence and discussed disappointment. Then the rain stopped. We kept chatting, him inside the court, me outside the fence, nearer my parked car.

“Let’s hit some mini-tennis,” he suggested.

“We’re here,” I said. “I’ll get my bag.”

We had a lovely tennis workout for an hour and a half. A few more sprinkles. Good exercise. And when I was loading up to come back to the ship, my father called and said he needed assistance. “I’ll be there in three minutes.” The courts were near his house. Tarrytown. Old Austin. Dad’s the one going through the aggressive cancer treatments now. My surrogate dad. Adopted in my late twenties.

back to *HEY* index

The Cloud Pilots episode on this chapter is in progress.