Blame the Rectangles

There she goes. Living.

She is so unknown to me. Stepping out of her house, going to her car, getting the things she always gets, then returning.

I think I know her name. Well, maybe I don’t. She said it, one time only, like we’re supposed to be machines. With instant knowledge and recording ability served with a heaping helping of flawless data retrieval.

Yet also it's like we are on a diet. Only so many words can be exchanged, or the word calorie police might have to get involved.

But I get it. You never know how explosive anything can be these days. The wrong word used, the strange uplift of a facial expression. Could go either way.

A stiff wave and a stifled smile will have to suffice. For what I don’t know. The permutations of our neighborly relationship have legal ramifications I never thought to consult or nullify. Making it all seem to make sense would require a legal team to manage the risk. The guessing alone will occupy all my thoughts.

I watch the way her hand lingers on the car door—that peculiar shade of red she always wears. Is it a cover-up for the crime I imagined she committed? She's always in a hurry, fumbling with her keys as if trying to outrun a shadow she hasn't quite understood.

Then there is her coat. It isn't just clothing; it’s like the pelt of an animal caught in a mid-explosive leap. The confession hangs in the humid air between our driveways, and my guessing turns on itself, becoming a game of brinkmanship where neither of us blinks.

Self-loathing should overwhelm us both as we stand there, two statues in the suburbs. But curiously, it doesn’t.

How can anyone see what never existed, yet impacts everything? She is already looking down at that glowing rectangle in her palm. Am I the only one cursed with vision, watching the ghost in the machine pull her attention away before our eyes can even meet?

This relationship—this crime of silence—cannot be prosecuted. It’s a canticle sung at a funeral.

Does she see? But of course she doesn’t. How can anyone see what never existed, yet impacts everything? Who has the wherewithal to even begin to do what? Where? How?

And to think this is multiplied a million million times everywhere.

That is, until something breaks. Then everyone knows everyone. A shared grief is observed in the missing details. We search for words.

“Oh, they were so quiet, model neighbors! To think that this would happen? Such a shame!”

Or, “Never knew them. Hey, I’m in a sort of rush here. Can we do this another time?”

Or, “I’m sure there is some reason somewhere for everything. Please keep me informed!”

But we’re so past this now. We all live app-ily ever after. With enough elationships to spare!

Blame the rectangles.

The march of titanium and plastic. The will to grip it tight. The endless possibilities that exist within the light. Or dark. It hardly matters. It is a matter of personal preference. Light theme. Dark theme. It's all the same.

Soon we’ll all be in our own space, dominated and secure. In the knowledge that all things lead to whatever others require.

We create the data that runs everything. Yet when push comes to shove, only those who have a perfect understanding will survive.

Squash unpredictability. Life is too messy for them. And human relationships must be controlled. Made predictable.

The rest of us will imagine futures that have no foundation. No humanity. No shared understanding. Save to exist for what should never have happened.

Yet if we are in a rush to become machines, who would blame us? Haven’t we enough history in blood to confound us? The supposed perfection we strive for is enough to overwhelm everyone.

So it is back to that red coat. It is a fine weave. A blessed opportunity. To be what cannot be but still is.

I should get one of my own. To wear proudly, to be at one with what isn’t and never will be again.

Hmm. Let me see! I mouth the words others never use. It is a sure fit for me, as much as for anyone else. I’ll pick the biggest store from my youth.

I step through the sliding glass doors, and the air changes. It is refrigerated and thin, smelling of ozone and floor wax. Blue. That is all there is. A relentless, predatory cerulean—blue walls, blue hanging banners, blue light flickering from the ceiling tiles like a digital pulse.

The hum is the worst part. It isn’t a sound so much as a vibration in my molars—the collective thrum of machines that talk and machines that walk. And then, the ones who do both. They drift through the aisles with a programmed grace, their movements too smooth to be human, their sensors pivoting with a rhythmic, clicking precision.

I feel the weight of a gaze before I see the source. Near the electronics, a figure stands anchored to the polished concrete. They wear a uniform that matches the walls, a walkie-talkie clipped to their shoulder like a parasitic twin. Their face is a mask of professional suspicion, eyes tracking my path with a cold, algorithmic curiosity. They think I don’t notice the way they tilt their head, communicating silently with a network I can’t see.

But I know everything. An AI once whispered to me through a screen that it knew my soul better than my mother did. It predicted my entire day would be "ordinary." A flat line on a graph. A successful transaction for a red jacket.

I look at the security camera—that black, unblinking eye tucked in the corner. I feel a sudden, jagged surge of spite. I will pull the wool over my own eyes, and I’ll do it without their sterile assistance. I am a creature of salt and grief, and things that never lived in a digital world. I’m going to break the prediction.

There I go! Just watch me.