A 2005 Cyber Romance
“One, two three, uh,” Outkast’s André 3000 says. I’m streaming iTunes.
600 MHz, PowerPC 750CXe, 256 KB of L2 Cache (1:1), 128 MB, 13.8-inch shadow-mask CRT screen with 1024 x 768 pixel resolution, ATI Rage 128 Ultra with 16 MB of SDRAM, 40 GB, CD-RW, Mac OS X 10.4.11 “Tiger”
I am a desktop computer. My eye has a 1024 x 768 pixel resolution. I live at the beach when I’m not on the set of a home movie or sorting mail in my mailroom. I have so much. I am thankful. When a red circle is pressed, my windows disappear and I’m back at the beach. The waves never move. I see the sand in two dimensions and files cloud my view of the cove but the water is so beautiful. I love the glow of my beach. Behind a word document there is man on a sailboat.
I never choose to sleep. I could stay awake for days but every night when I see the numbers in the top right corner of my beach change to 10:29 I go to sleep and my eyes turn grey and the beach disappears.
I go to sleep.
The next day I wake up at the beach. The sun never goes down. There is the man on the sailboat. I see him now.
A window appears. I have opened Internet Explore. The icon bounces. apple.com. This day was different. I no longer felt like a machine completing my jobs and returning to the beach because this day I saw iMac G5.
633 MHz, PowerPC G5 970fx, 512 KB L2,256 MB of 400 MHz PC-3200 DDR SDRAM, ATI Radeon 9600 graphics processor with 128 MB of DDR SDRAM, Mac OS X 10.5.8 “Leopard"
She was so beautiful. Another computer. However, I knew I could never truly communicate with her. I had never felt so deeply. The apple.com homepage set a fire in me. I wanted to speak with G5.
White polycarbonate pressed against my 2003 translucent indigo plastic. I felt an Ethernet cable connecting us. G5 shook the slightest bit with a satisfied hum. I could only feel my data and remember the round glow of her wireless mouse, and her deep, dark, black screen when she was powered off, and her clean white keyboard. I remembered from the photograph I saw that morning on Internet Explore. I knew that even if we were in the same room, if we were physically together, we couldn't feel or communicate or visit my beach. After my day and night with iMac G5 I was back facing the ocean that was covered in files. The same thumbnails and PowerPoint presentations I knew. But now my history ached. I wanted so badly to Reopen All Windows from Last Session. I couldn’t. It was no use. I wanted to see her again. If we couldn't be together I didn’t want to be on the beach anymore. I longed to feel her wireless mouse. I’d play Kelly Clarkson on the iTunes store as two computer sat on the beach. I wanted a sailboat. My hard drive failed.
The next day I felt an energy. A white polycarbonate energy in a box. A cardboard box next to me. I felt G5. An Ethernet cable connected us as memories and data flowed between us. G5 hums again. But in person. I am dead but alive. I no longer function and time has slowed me but G5 is here so I am ok. iMac G5 is like a nimble gazelle navigating through Safari behind her coal colored, 20", 1680 × 1050 screen eyes.
But I’m unplugged. My love has replaced me. Now I am on the ground in a box. She sits on the desk. More beautiful than ever. But I am asleep. I never saw the beach again. The man on the sailboat faded away. I now sit in a dark garage. I live in a box. I miss the old mailroom and apple.com where I met my love.
iMac G5 is pain.
iTunes > OutKast > shuffle play >
“my baby don’t mess around because she loves me so and
this I know for sure”
"the singers unlimited" by Ashton Henning
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