Siri had joined the two in secular matrimony

Webcam to webcam.

That memory of Val’s bride pulling away from his screen kiss

Circulated in his skull…..

Her lips, her mascara  

Her beautiful blur on the screen.

He had made sure to tell her to wipe her lip prints off the screen.

What was she using back then?

An HP or worse? It didn’t matter.

Val was in love ………with

“Winter Witch Rider 2” (Not to be confused with the poser WWR1).

And she was a beauty fit for pixilation

(Even if she needed to update her modem)

Back then, love saw beyond download speeds

And location? Why does that matter?

A ping is a ping and a poke is a poke

Regardless of your IP address

Winter always used a proxy

Winter, his Winter, where was she?

Somewhere in an unknown city

Unknown country, unknown world

(Probably next door, piggybacking on Val’s network)

But, now she was gone, a stranger

Lost in social media.

 

But, she was not a stranger.

No, no, no,—— definitely not

She had 468 friends on Facebook

143 followers on Tumblr

She was a Mage of Instagram

A pixie of Pinterest, plus

Winter was a tap dancer (well, when she was 7)

A writer of moon haiku

A ranting blogger of superb craftsmanship

She walked through wooded parks that didn’t exist

Full of photos of trees and snow

Uploaded with artistic discretion

Fixed with Adobe’s Illustrator

Why, even once, she

Virtually visited the Taj Mahal!

And it got better!

No one had ever seen below her neck

No need!

Why would someone want to?

She was up on all the beauty blogs

And was familiar with the Jedi ways

Of the eyebrow pencil

Ooh, her smile would launch a thousand views!

Who could not fall in love with her?!

 

But, Val had played it cautiously

Even though, he knew he had

The most beautiful girl on the internet

He had been private messaging her

For over two years.

There was no fooling him.

His wedding had not been rushed into.

It took more than one

Cute Youtube video

To crack his network.

He made sure

She wasn’t a sadistic pack of teenage girls wanting a good laugh

Or a lone fat fruitcake from Walla Walla

Or a troll, or malware, or ransomware, or even Tupperware

Attempting to hijack his browser.

She had to be clean of ITDs

Internet Transmitted Diseases

 

Two years. Two years it took!

He finally proposed

In a Google Hangout

(Which sounds a bit seedy if you ask me. But I’m just writing this stuff.)

That’s when they decided together

(If that’s possible)

To hire an online pastor.

It just so happened that Siri

Had the capability via the latest Apple update

And the deal was done

Cleanly, without need to

Meet one another and be disappointed

Or to show up two hours before a flight To Oshkosh

That gets cancelled, or…

God forbid drive, trapped inside

A dusty metal can of unconsciousness

Having to worry about the virus called traffic

Or write a letter and use paper! (yuck!)

Do people still use the stuff?

No! This marriage had been right

With a contract signed with the return key!

 

Their honeymoon had been one dreams were made of

It was full of intimate sexting

Not of the dirty, down low, trashy kind

But, sensitive sexting, between true lovers

Lovers who understood each other.

Ones who knew what an extra o in ooh meant

Or that mmh isn’t a moan, but an acronym

For Meet Me Halfway or Makes Me Horny

No embarrassing grunts or premature ejaculations occurred

Or “I have a headache”. They didn’t exist!

Fuck! The internet is a gift from Pan

Why would anyone want to meet physically?

 

 

Val and Winter had a pact.

They were opposed to the physical

Yes, those disgusting physical relationships

That cave people indulged in.

They had names for those creatures.

They called them Grubbies

To think of their dirty fingernails

Touching one another!

The audacity of physicality

Venturing outside and mingling

In cesspools called shopping malls

Bars, clubs, libraries, 24 hour fitness gyms

Where slobber and sweat

Comingled, not to mention the smells.

Val and Winter swore they

Would never leave their homes.

No telling what could happen outside

There might be, God forbid, wind!

Or a cat could meow for no logical reason.

 

But, that was all in the past

So long ago. Val’s memories weren’t backed up

And if he had been able to visit the cloud

Reliving the life he and Winter had shared

It wouldn’t have been the same.

It just wasn’t real

 

What was real?

2 long, long days of marriage

And one day of doom

First day marriage, second day honeymoon

Third day, divorce!

Three whole days

(What caused the demise you might ask?

 

(Egatuo Rewop A)

 

 

It started with the snow storm

Even though, Val never went outside

He would check weather reports.

They were kind of fun to look at

Weather sites were filled with unnecessary details

(That’s the kind of stuff the internet was made for)

Fudd was arriving

Weather people love to give storms names

Well, Fudd dumped an immeasurable amount white precipitation

On top of Val’s town, Crud

Knocking out power to Val’s internet connection

He had forgotten to charge his phone

(You thought I’d miss that one didn’t you?)

And the world he knew (or really didn’t know)

Became dead

This is when desperation set in

If Winter didn’t get a regular message from him

She would think he deleted her

Or worse, made some of their private posts public

The web was no place for wimps

So, he decided against better judgment to brave the wilds

And walk four blocks to a Starbucks

If he could struggle there with a laptop in hand

He could reconnect

And become the Lazarus of browsing

 

Dressed in three layers of pajamas

That’s all he owned

That’s all he had ever needed

He stepped into the unreal streets.

Snow covered the sidewalks of Crud.

As he looked down the few blocks

He had to traverse

Right away doom awaited him

Just as he thought it would.

He saw a blob moving towards him.

He had read all about such things

On those sites that answer all questions.

He knew about….

Big Foot, Sasquatch, Paul Bunyan,

Babe the Blue Ox. Serial killers, all of them!

And one was heading his way

With a leash in its hand connected

To a familiar, yes those sidekicks called

Idiotic names like Robin, the Boy Wonder

Bert and Ernie, Astro, Kazoo!

Val held his laptop above his head

In an act to strike down his approaching enemy

And at the moment they become close

Sasquatch smiled and Kazoo wagged a tail

Val lowered his weapon.

Shaken, but not fallen, he trudged on

When a branch fell from a tree

And smashed directly in front of him

Was it Treebeard the Ent?

Or a stick Inidan who kidnapped people

And hid them away forever?

He remained stil,l awaiting his death

For one whole minute!

Which is an eternity in internet time

 

The snow, which had taken a short break, returned

Val thought, what are these?

Evil Insects, flies of the devil?

He began swatting at them with his laptop

It was then, he noticed that he was

Swinging his laptop directly in front of the Starbucks

With power still intact, the people inside

warm coffee in their hands, were

Staring at Val with interest

He barged into the shop proclaiming

“Don’t you see them, Grubbies?” He pointed towards the window

Everyone looked towards the direction he was pointing at

Remaining quiet, with that look.

The look you use when you are dealing

With someone who might do something irrational

At any second.

But, Val hadn’t come to receive stares

Or to listen to the music inside Starbucks

Which sounded like Switched-On Kenny G by Wendy Carlos

He needed wi-fi and he needed it now

It was his right as a citizen of the free world

After ordering a Venti Pike from

A cautious barista, he was back online

The Grubbies forgot all about him

 

Quickly he signed back onto Facebook

Where a PM was waiting for him from Winter

Inviting him to play a new First Person Shooter game

Alone

He had been blocked from her page.