A long time ago I wrote a short essay-style piece of fiction that ended up inspiring a lot of decisions I made in regards to Poorly Wired Circuit and Sarah's character.
Do you know why I like computers I whisper to the darkened room, the midnight hour quick to swallow up my words, but there was no erasing them. No taking them back. They float free and loose, and without further prompting I answer my own question.
There are no tricks to a computer, no hidden meaning, no secrets. Piece by piece, cords and wires, circuits and disk drives, all snapped and stacked, a stunning mosaic, each little intricacy perfectly on display. There is no failure with these things; mistakes that are made are simply corrected; code is rewritten, wires are moved, screens are replaced. What is broken can be easily fixed, no mysteries, no riddles- just a quiet hum, a soft glow, the steady warmth of electricity beneath your fingers.
These things cannot hurt you.
It is an admission too daunting, pushing you out and away, locking your heart beneath a cheat code.
People hurt. They lie and they cheat, their secrets held onto with a shaking grip, buried deep in the darkness of their heart, unseen, unbidden and impossible to understand. If your screen cracks, there is nothing to be done. You cannot remove the glass, pull it away shard by shard, and place a new one upon yourself, your delicate touch skirting across your face. There is no solution for that problem. No chain of coding at the back of your mind, no numbers to rewrite, no lines of ones and zeroes waiting for you in the center of your chest. Frayed wires and blackened circuits remain, screams instead of hums, bright lights and frigid cold nipping at your fingertips.
There is no solution. There is no end. But if there was, you would bask in it, bathe yourself in the hazy blue iridescence, allowing the screen to pull you in and down, wired warmth and muted feedback wrapped around you; a freedom in the failure.
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