Fear, Loathing and Flatbeds | A Scanner-Induced Breakdown
It starts with the quiet.
Not the usual kind- the pause between cars or the soft dip in weekday foot traffic. This is a new quiet. A complete shutdown of everything familiar.
You can hear birds in Manhattan.
Clearly. At night.
Not pigeons. Not sirens. Actual nature-show birdsong, piercing the evening air like something summoned, not native. The ambient noise of New York City- like everything else- is now a ghost of its former self.
And then there are the booms.
I’m being completely serious. Imagine the most realistic, heart-pounding, disaster-movie sound effects you’ve ever heard- then cast yourself as Victim #2. Super intense. Like some angry basement dweller is thumping at the granite core of the Earth with a broomstick the size of a Falcon 9 rocket.
The subway, if that’s what it is, has never sounded like that.
And I’ve been here for years.
The people who can afford to vanish, do.
The ones who stay wear masks.
Neighbors become strangers- just sad eyes over fabric. No laughter, just the occasional cough and the faint sound of a grocery bag splitting somewhere in the upper floors.
The entire city feels like a painting by Edward Hopper- the famous one.
But my mind? My mind is a carnival.
It’s a maxed-out data center lit on fire. A gang of angry, dust-covered demons on dirt bikes- revving through my cerebral cortex, kicking over memories, setting synapses ablaze with unspent petrol and the scent of burning oil.
No worries, though. I’ve been eyeing flatbed scanners on Amazon- and I hear that retail therapy provides everlasting spiritual healing.
Of course I’m serious.
I hit the BUY IT NOW button over three hours ago and I’m still high on the endorphins.
Let me know the second the scanner gets here so I can immediately begin hemming and hawing about how I should never have bought something so ridiculous. I’ll gesture dramatically, grieve performatively, and grandstand with righteous conviction about sending it back.
And no, I’m not changing my mind.
…For an entire hour.
Then the fear and loathing will kick back into high gear, and I’ll tear through that box like a pack of bloodthirsty hyenas on the last remaining zebra in the Sahara.
Negatives everywhere.
I forgot what I was scanning.
Or maybe who I am.
"Next scan loading..."
