Epidemic

Shaz walked along the path, unaffected, alive, aware and courteous to the others around him. He was different, not exactly the same, but that didn’t matter as he was mostly ignored by each and every single one of them. Born different, hardly even noticed other than the ever present digitally created social circles, he remained a joyful, adventurous, singular creation within his world.

He’d been born into the time of the great epidemic, the changes now apparent to the few that looked above and beyond their digital artefacts. He continued his journey, avoiding the snail-paced people occupying various sections of the walkway. He was always first, to every single event, destination or planned online visit. He smiled, hands feeling warm within his thick winter jacket, his day simply moving with ease.

His parents were also different, to a point, resisting most of the temptations that arrived with the illness that gripped society. They had mobile phones, computers, tablets and electronic watches, but somehow placed the temptation aside for their actual living daily lives. Shaz, on the other hand, arrived into the world with a rare, complicated, vision displacement shift. He could see the world around him, as clear as day, with only the electronic displays appearing as blurred objects. The family had sought help, enquired for years, with no single establishment realistically caring. The refresh, the moving screens that displayed all of their technicolour splendour and information, causing him headaches as well as motion sickness.

It was odd for his parents, at first. Teaching methods had changed since they were young, with all modern curriculum being presented over electronic formats. Shaz didn’t mind as he’d eventually come to understand the world through learned eyes. The scholars of old, through old fashioned text booklets, expressing their wisdom with clarity and ease. He’d eventually discovered the wonders of text to speech but sadly, found the newfound teachings to be tainted with political ideals and endgames.

In School, the silence of each class, was a daunting event for a mind as young as his. He would read his book, discovering adventures as well as long lost forgotten places, while his friends simply shared nothing from his world. The divides formed, the ideals separated, with his eyes witnessing the intolerance and segregation of a world lived online. The more he touched the world around him, brushed against the very earth they all stood upon, he witnessed the great depressive state encompass all of them. Each of his friends, grasping, aching, caught within the ever present need to feel instant justification.

He wanted to say something, to express more and to help them as much as he could, but the eventful realisation that a digitally encompassed mind would never survive away from the stimulus of constantly searching for barren justification, silenced him. There would never be a saviour, the further they all stepped away from their own lives, to live a life online. He was present, in the moment, enjoying the very life in front of his own eyes. Even when eating, when surrounded by friends, they would be experiencing a disconnected online conversation with others.

The loneliness bothered him, pressing against his heart, until he released himself from the burden of caring for others than didn’t even care for themselves. The transitory, evaporated, emotionally vacuous nature of it all, stinging him to let go of the corpses surrounding him. Within a second, a moment’s release of barren connectivity, he’d smiled as he left them to their own closed devices. He’d let go of his parents’ memory, the years previous, his tears being filled with the warmth of a world filled with nature and tranquillity. He’d found peace through the remembered words of his own Mother, with his Father’s unfaltering wisdom raising him through the differences of the very basic function of his eyesight and more.

His smile grew, the feelings of freedom within embracing his aura, warming his very heart that wished for more. He already knew the answer to the question he’d not even asked himself. He’d already found the stability that each of his friends wished for upon each day. They’d whine, exclaiming their despondent notions, whilst making no realistic change to enable the chance of improving. Each outcome, the fault of another. Each upset, the biggest drama of the day. Any missed clicks and likes, becoming the abandonment living within their very dying hearts and souls.

Shaz continued to walk through the people standing around him. Each clasping their chosen wireless heart within their weak, chilled, shaking hands. The disease, the entrapment of a soft screaming consciousness, already written into their eyes and minds. This epidemic, freely and willingly embraced by all.