My iPhone 6’s camera snaps a photo of my upturned face and pouty lips for the tenth time in the last half hour. Bringing the screen closer to my face, I scrunch up my nose and shake my head.
“Ew. No way.â€
With the press of a button, the snapshot is gone into the ether just like its 10,000 predecessors. This time, I tilt my head further and arch my back more, extending my neck and bringing more of my tits into the shot. I remember to smize like Tyra Banks always says and press the camera button again.
CLICK
This one is the keeper. My hair catches the fluorescent light of the hospital room just right, and the glitter on my cleavage is sparkling perfectly. It’s the sort of pic that will get 100 likes in an hour. My face and skinny arm framing Vinnie as he sleeps behind me, somewhere deep within himself as he has been for the past several weeks.
“You always look perfect, bae.â€
I lean over and kiss him on the forehead, hoping as I always do that the familiar feeling of my lips on his skin will somehow bring him back to the world of the living, but of course it doesn’t. His chest rises and falls with the help of a respirator, and the heart monitor continues to beep at the same pace it has for days on end.
With a few swipes of my thumbs I add in all the necessary filters and hashtags, then upload the pic to my Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and Facebook accounts. Before I even turn to show the picture to Vinnie’s closed eyes, the first like notifications start chirping on my phone.
“Look baby. Hashtag Sleeping Beauty. Hashtag Hello Nurse. Hashtag Sleeping It Off. My hashtag game is on fleek right now. Did you know “#LoverboysComa†has been trending all week? My followers love you, baby, and so do I.â€
I kiss him again, and hope for him to kiss me back again, and sigh again when nothing happens. I try to keep him subconsciously updated with the goings-on of the XWF… I know he’d be obsessing over the feuds and title switches that have been happening since he got put into the hospital. I go slow, making sure to keep the minute details in place. Vinnie’s a perfectionist about his art form. He needs to know the little details.
“… and that’s when a bunch of klansmen tried to make sure Trax would get lynched instead of beating Dim for the X Title… but he won! It was really cool, Vinnie, I wish you could have seen it. The whole world was shocked. I know you wanted to face off with Dim, and maybe you still can someday, but he isn’t the X-Treme Champion anymore. Oh! And baby, did I tell you I was the Federweight Champion for a few days? It’s true… I pinned Drew Archyle and he tried to act like he let me win. Isn’t it funny when losers try to use that excuse? Anyway, I had the title for a bit, even though OF COURSE John Black tried to take it from me… then Samuels showed up and he won it from me. I though he was retired, anyway?â€
Eventually I get tired of listening to my own voice, though, I admit, it helps drown out the machines helping keep my lover alive. I kick off my heels and lift my newly-pedicured feet up onto the bed next to Vinnie and start swiping my way through various apps. This is the way I learn about the real world. The mobile-friendly version of real life. I keep up with current events 140 characters at a time and usually only see a sunset through a Mayfair filter.
That’s what life is in 2015. We spend hours making ourselves look perfect, take dozens of pictures of ourselves to get the right angle, the right lighting, the right curve to our lips and the right gleam in our eyes – all so we can upload them to an audience that’s doing the same thing in return. The great big world is almost empty because everybody’s inside, watching everyone else’s life through tiny electric screens.
We’re all locked in rooms alone, and the walls are made of websites - but at least we’re pretty.
#DigitalWitnesses
Hey Nico!
Listen, I’m starting to feel a little bad about calling you out the way I did. You don’t seem like that bad of a guy, honestly. I’m sure you just put on a show to try and look tough in front of the other boys, and you thought you could maybe get a little cred by trying to slut shame me. Did it work?
Did the other, more successful boys in the locker room stop pulling your underwear over your head and sticking you into the toilet? Did they stop coming up with degrading nicknames like Nico LeGay or Freako LaVey? Did you earn their respect by being one more misogynist in a crowd?
Of course not, baby… it takes more than that, doesn’t it? I’m sorry. It’s been tough for you. Abandoned by your poseur father and yet you still grew up to be just like him, didn’t you? A sham. A joke.
Hey, Nico, don’t worry… I don’t think you’re a joke. I know you’re misunderstood and just different from all the rest. I know you have thoughts and ideas and emotion that you keep walled up behind a façade of disenfranchisement. Someday all these guys will finally understand and respect you, but by then it’ll be too late, right? By then you’ll have won. You’ll be looking down on them all and shaking your head at their begging for forgiveness.
And to think… it all starts with a loss to a girl.
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