A writer struggling with an idea for an article enters a café that’s full to capacity. The song of the year, before it is replaced, squeals out of unseen speakers overhead. I make my way towards a lounge area where other people congregate, all just as homeless and connected as I am. Bodies are hunched over laptops, their brains exuding electrical exile. Various white battery charger cords as long parasitic worms are fed into the walls, leaving spaghetti patterns on the floor, each socket stuffed and sucked. My laptop is dying. I can feel the hollowness and fear in my marrow.
My eyes travel around the mass of bodies hunched over their laptops doing vague and unnecessary things to the internet. There’s no outlet but I plow on because I am a pensive and dour man. Cords mock me as I take a seat and open up my word document, the blinking cursor stalk still amidst a draining battery. The minutes tick down. I need power. It is unbearable. I ask a nearby woman if she needs a lamp on.
I unplug the lamp, its missing light unnoticed by all. Sliding my charger which is my life with excited verity into the socket gives me hope. It gives me purpose but what can I write about?
The typing bodies are a symbol, a sign that the document I am trying to will to write itself is gonna remain empty. I look around me to see a man staring at my occupied outlet with enough sadness to bring about better taxation. I do some quick calculations in my head. I can make it home and plug my life in again in a matter of minutes. I could even return home and write about this brief encounter involving humans and wall sockets with no love. Closing the blank document, I grab my bag and stick my cord and laptop into the safe space. The man, who has a Kindle, has just been cured of death. He can go on living. It occurs to me that I could write about this moment.
Hoisting my bag onto my shoulders, my soul and I ready to depart with 5%. I give a small smile towards the saved man before I give my cappuccino a final, tender kiss.
