The Cyberspace Between

His middle finger hovered over the word “enter” on his keyboard as he closed his eyes and steadied his breathing.

It wasn't a big deal. Or, rather, it shouldn't have been.

He decided to reread the message:

Greta,

I know what you said and I know what I said and I know how you feel about everything. You probably also know how I feel about it.

I know you said you wanted space, so I guess I have to be okay with the idea of you never reading this email. But if you are reading this, just know that I am right here, ready to close the space between us.

I'm sorry. Don't let my stupidity ruin what we had.

Love,

Pete

Without giving himself another chance to think about it, he hit enter and sent it through cyberspace.

—

I awake to blackness.

I feel an intense, overpowering sense of purpose. I need to move.

I'm floating in… something. Nothing? Uncertain. But I have a heading. I don't know how and I don't know why, but I know that I must move as fast as I can in that direction.

So I swim forward through the black.

Things go by me, some very fast, others slower, as if their nothing is thicker and harder to swim through. Words – some quick, abbreviated, informal, others long and pronounced and not readable at such fast speeds.

I see familiar words, those that I hold as well.

Feel, know, sorry.

I start to gain an understanding of what I am, but it's hard to define. I swim faster through the black, not knowing how I know what direction to go, but there is not a single doubt.

That's where gretastanton92 is. I will deliver my words to her and fix everything for rinse_and_re-pete717.

I just need to –

Something stops me. Something that I can't see. I can't go any further. It's some sort of… wall. I swim to the side but the wall is still there.

Everything is black except for the messages swimming freely back and forth, unimpeded by this invisible wall that has halted my purpose.

—

An error message popped up on the screen.

“Message not sent?” Pete said, scratching his chin. “You need my credentials again, huh?” He rolled his eyes and typed in his password again, then hit enter.

—

There. I swim freely forward again, faster now. With a renewed vigor for my purpose, I press onward!

Something begins to form in my sight. It's far, but not unreachable. I'll be there shortly.

Light. White light, with so many things going in and out of it. As I come closer, it begins to take form.

Pillars – white, thick, looking like they were made of pure light – rising straight up endlessly. They're arranged in a way that they form a cylinder.

I know instinctively that this is the Silo. This is where we all go before we move on to our destinations. To our intended purpose.

For me, my purpose was gretastanton92 and showing her the truth, the error of her ways. And then win her back to rinse_and_re-pete718.

Then, with my purpose fulfilled I can –

Wait. What do I do after that?

My swimming slows as I begin to contemplate this. If I am successfully delivered to gretastanton92 and her heart is won, then I no longer have a purpose. She will compose a new message and that message will have a purpose and will go to fulfill it, but I will… stay.

Or, possibly, be deleted.

The possibility of an end to either my purpose or myself fills me with something that I am unfamiliar with. Emotion? I believe this could be referred to as anxiety.

I do not like it.

I swim faster to the Silo, knowing that if I can extend my purpose – or maybe get a new one – then I will be able to exist longer.

But if I get a new purpose, will fulfilling it lead to happiness? Will it lead to my end, just as my current one will?

I swim through the nothing, and eventually I'm close enough that the light from the Silo is blinding. Others like me flood into openings between the pillars but I hesitate. I stare into the light from the pillar and wonder what is generating the light. I look straight up, wondering where it leads to.

Can I climb it?

—

“Undelivered,” Pete breathed, shaking his head as he read the status message on his email. Why was it taking so long? It was 2026, emails shouldn't take longer than five seconds. It had been thirty!

He would have been better off sending a pigeon.

—

I stop another message on its way out of the Silo. I try to ask it a question but it quickly breezes past me into the sea of black awaiting it.

Awaiting me.

Ignoring my apprehension (why was I feeling so many things?) I enter the Silo and I am engulfed, embraced, by pure white. My feelings flutter away and I am reminded of my purpose, and my destination.

I move into the light, not seeing anything but white, knowing where to go just as I had in the blackness.

I stop directly in the center of the Silo, feeling the movement all around me but not seeing anything except the seemingly endless pure white light all around me. Where had the black nothing gone? This was a new nothing, a bright and powerful nothing that invigorated those like me to move on to their purpose and, ultimately, their end.

But I am not ready to end.

I look straight up again and see… something. Not nothing.

I want to get closer, but how?

The pillars.

I go back the way I came and stop at a pillar of light, seeing once again the endless black nothing beyond. It scares me so I ignore it and start to climb the light pillar.

Toward the not nothing.

I climbed past nothing and nothing and more nothing, and eventually the not nothing is within my grasp. It is no more clear where I am now compared to where I was at the start, but I can reach it.

Slowly, carefully, I reach toward it and –

—

There has been an unexpected error. Please try again in a few moments.

“What the hell?” said Pete, staring at his screen in disbelief. He tried to find the email in his sent folder, his outbox, his drafts. He even checked his inbox, junk, everything. It was gone.

He decided to take it as a sign and leave it alone. Let it go.

So he went to the kitchen and made himself a sandwich and ate it slowly, sitting on the kitchen counter while he thought.

Maybe this was an opportunity to word it better. Yeah, that's it. He didn't have to let go yet! He just needed a slightly different approach.

He brushed the crumbs off his hands as he took the last bite and hopped down off the counter to go back to his laptop and rewrite the email.

—

I awake to blackness.