[I had fun writing this entry for a poetry contest this week]
The Great Blue Cry
(or The Day the Internet Came to an End)
The day the Internet came to an end,
and all the cell phones fell into puddles
The day the TV sets
mades bets:
“Hey, who can play dead the longest?”
The day all the video games
ran out of levels
and texting thumbs
to hitchhiking were restored
The day a lone Googler
Googled “Gone”
and every gadget and gizmo with a
suck-em-in-screen-oh-ignore-the whole-worldo
Simply Vanished
in a flash,
in big and little puffs of smoke,
leaving hands empty,
open wide
and the air alive,
buzzing with static
It was on that magical day,
Johnny Doughboy and Jane Stiflebrain
sat staring at the charred, black spot on the floor,
a smokey, sulphuric place
where only seconds before
a gurgling, growling sound erupted,
the floor opened wide
and as for their iMac,
a sinkhole sucked it
The ground healed up quick,
fresh carpet even sprouted
but Johnny and Jane
were amiss,
even stunted
“What is life without a flashing screen?”
Johnny said blankly to Jane
“I would tell you if I could look it up,”
Jane replied,
her eyes, her face, her brain
as plain
as her name
And so Johnny and Jane sat frozen
for many days and many years,
their eyes zeroed in on the spot that swallowed their iMac,
hoping against hope it would one day come back
For food, they survived
on cheese curls and Ding Dongs
For talk, they exchanged the hums and beeps and whistles
of extinct video game songs
Their skin from the snacks emitted a pale, orange glow
and tossed candy wrappers stuck to their burgeoning bellies
like tinsel on a tree
But they beeped and they hummed busily,
assuming they were happy,
as happy
as happy can be
But then one day,
something blue crossed the corner of Johnny’s eye
It was on the other side of the window —
something vast, wide and splotched with wisps
as white as cotton or snow drifts
(if he could remember them)
Jane saw it too
Astounded, they turned their gaze,
searching for words,
finding only a haze
of beeps and whistles
Stuttering, staring and, finally, with tears streaming
Jane called out,
“Cry!”
“The blue,I remember
the blue is called,
“Cry!”
“Yes, you’re right,” Johnny replied
with words instead of whistles
He ran to the window
He opened it wide
“I remember the Cry,
the beautiful, blue Cry
Now stand by my side, he said,
so we can look at it forever
And drying their tears,
they did.
-- Sarah Johnson