Umouritis

It started off slowly. So slowly, in fact, that by the time I recognized it, it had already been happening for a long time. maybe 6 months or more.

I think it started with technology. Information technology, to be specific: Garbled voices on the conference line, ID badge-readers that need several tries before the green light, software that is just a little buggy around the edges...nothing crash-and-burn, mind you. just a subtle deterioration around the edges, of a kind that maybe soon they'll send somebody to come look at but it's no emergency. A general technological malaise and deterioration: Blame it on Gates and his bloatware. In the office I say: "Does anyone notice that all of the info-stuff seems to be deteriorating?" They look at me like I'm crazy but I can see the look in some of their eyes: They've noticed it too but they're scared to say anything for fear of sounding nuts.

But then it started creeping out into the physical. First, TV and radio started getting a little fuzzy/noisy around the edges, but that quickly expanded out into physical reality. The screech of breaking subway wheels is no longer sharp but almost a burst of patterned static; edges and shapes are now blurry at the edges; cars still function but somehow they seem to only just barely manage; and now the world appears as if through a rainy window: everything's blurry and gray and everyone is walking around drained of life and energy. The deterioration has gotten them, too.

But no one is saying anything. Why is no one saying anything? Everything is corroding, from the inside out, just barely hanging on to its outward form as if through habit, a perfunctory kowtowing to the need to be something. It's almost as if reality got tired of being reality; it decided to quit. We, too, are tired of the game and also too tired to go chasing it and begging it to return to continue playing the game for just a little longer.

As for me I am resigned to it, almost welcome it now. In fact, I can barely remember when things were normal. In fact, thinking back on before the deterioration, this sliding back into this primordial whatever, all of that seems unreal to me now, like some 1950s Normal Rockwell painting or commercial for Ginger-puffs.

Bring it on. I'm ready. We've had the sistole, the inbreath, now it's time for the diastole, the exhalation and relaxation. I'm ready for UMOUR.