Ben’s legs begin to twitch. As always, whenever it occurs to him that everything they’re doing here is just to avoid surrendering. Forgot that. Which is easy to do online. So that you melt away, you idiots, so that you get hooked, without creating any medical costs. Without lying about on the street covered in abscessed needle wounds. The not-so-intelligent disappear, along with everything they represent, even if that isn’t much, online, rendered unable, or perhaps they were always unable, to read long texts, understand complex information. They live as headlines, churning at the speed of instant news updates. The more clever go insane as a result of the amount of accessible information. Ben and his friends are inclined toward going insane. They’re inclined to lose themselves, to become computers. The constant stream of information through implants and metadata stored in synthetic DNA, and the deficiencies of AI and multiresistant diseases and conspiracy theories and bitcoins and quantum computers running through their brains without leaving any traces behind. They don’t know where it’s all leading, though they have a feeling that it won’t end well, this endeavor to digitalize all spheres, and the effect of this is that your limbs twitch. Ben stands up. Since he’s been able to think he’s wanted to save people, protect his friends, everything, he just didn’t want to be a man. Ben had a deep, physical aversion to taking on the designated role as a lackluster member of society. He didn’t want to booze or fiddle around with his penis, to speak derisively about things he didn’t understand, and most of all he didn’t want to become some fucking scatterbrained idiot. Until recently the men he knew distinguished themselves by the fact that they wanted power and that they pushed people onto train tracks. Every week approximately seven people were pushed in front of oncoming trains. Just because it was possible. Every week paramedics were beaten up, police, nurses. That’s over now. People have calmed down. They get points. Assholes. Speaking of which, a nice hacker space has taken shape here—as always, with a sofa where pizza grease can be wiped off, servers, a refrigerator full of energy drinks to help stay awake, and some heat lamps. The others are lost in their screens, and Ben says: “I’m going to stretch my legs.” He stretches and walks toward the full moon, little ponds create noises that are almost romantic, the gurgling of putrid gas bubbles replacing what once would have been the sound of frogs. Whenever Ben is without his devices, when he is alone with himself, he descends into such deep despair that he can barely move. What is the fucking point of wandering through the landscape with this body, sitting with one’s thoughts, staring at walls, and

How long can you live like this?

It is all

KAREN