The Lady

It's a shitty disorder that doesn't let you leave the home, but she makes the most of it. Not that there'd be much waiting for her outside; a urine-stained corridor on the top floor of a severely dilapidated housing tower, all soulless concrete and claustrophobic staircases and marauding bands of knife-wielding 9-year-olds. It's a blessing, really, an excuse to stay wrapped up in her nice cozy cocoon, safe from the horrors of the Times We Live In. 

So she draws shut her windows, duct-tapes them, makes herself a lovely chamber hermetically sealed from the hateful sunlight, and turns on the telly. It's a bloody good one: as big as the wall and as thin as glass. It's amazing, the money you save when you never go out. She sits, safe in the neon glow, and drinks in the 24-hour news cycles, the hyperbolic documentaries, even those awful reality shows, because everybody needs a guilty pleasure. They say that television holds a mirror to the world; it's a pretty tarnished mirror, but it's the best she's got and she doesn't complain.

And then, of course, there's the web. That ever-present distraction-turned-social medium-turned-augmented and alternative reality (virtual is considered a dirty word in her circles - it implies something that's less real). She can be an actual person here, or as close as you can get, which these days is pretty damn close. In here she can be anywhere and everywhere. She dances and twirls among the threads; snooping and probing, hopping around firewalls like they were garden fences, always reading and always learning. With several lifetimes of information at her fingertips she takes the world's temperature and weaves herself a picture of the state of things. She doesn't always like what she sees. 

It's not a bad existence for a crippled introvert. But sometimes, lit only by cathode rays and plasma screens, she feels half-sick of shadows. 

I know a thing about contrition, 'cause I've got a lot to spare