You don't
have to
pretend anymore.
Blink once,
twice,
whatever—boom.
You're in a
grocery store, you're in some
all-night
diner smoking and
bull-
shitting, you're
at the gym, sitting
in a movie
theater—it doesn't
matter. Everything
overlaps.
Music is being
piped in already—"It's a
long way
to the top
if you wanna rock
and roll." Everything is
measured,
labeled, neatly
chunked,
temperature-
controlled
and manageable.
And you're afraid
even to
cry—tears
so real
and so
artificial
as light
as flavored
CO2 bubbles,
but lacking
that fizzy
pizazz
and pressure
of the
real thing:
constant one-
upmanship.
