• Vol. 09
  • Chapter 12

Cyberpunk blues

On a beam of light
I passed through an eye of a needle
cutting through a binary fog of
0s and 1s, 0s, 1s, 0s, 1s, 0s, 1s …
and landed in a phosphorescent haze of
color — electric blue, glowing fuchsia, and
glittering yellow as bright as the midday sun

From the amorphous cloud there emerged
a flickering image of a city filled with
the shadows of people — the shadow people
who talked and laughed and flew, and sent messages
to strangers — the cacophony of their communications
rising up and generating an ethereal wind that blew
a tracery of clouds across an unfathomable sky

Each time I blinked, the city morphed
transitioning from one fantastical form to another
rising up momentarily and then subsiding —
winged buildings soared like birds high above
others disappeared into the spiral of a mollusc shell
— shadow people walked on the back of a tortoise shell
over a deep abyss guarded by sentries of Triclops

Each day I travelled far and wide, from c-north to c-south
and c-east to c-west — in search of you, and
each time I thought of you, the color of the sky changed
the shadow people looked at me: is that you changing the color?
sometimes they laughed and sometimes they scowled at me
sometimes they cried, and sometime they said Please stop!
though I tried, I could not make myself stop thinking of you

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Cyberpunk blues

Looking for clues, I visited the Tower
which grew taller and taller each time I opened my eyes
reaching into the void above with its virtual stars that
twinkled algorhythmically, reminding me of movies we watched
together a long time ago — there were no more heroes or going home
we had brought the battle here, or was it there
and the ending was always the same …

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