dependence (day)

Guy I know told me the other day
about this guy he knows
who knows this guy
who got into this newfangled internet thing.
Decided he'd do this photoblip thing,
where he put up a new picture every day.
Being the high-powered
competitive
Wall-Street type that he was,
he did his research,
lurked for months,
watching what everyone did
and what people seemed to like.

Because just posting some little photo journal
wasn't good enough for him.
He wanted to be The Best.

First thing he needed was the right name.
He studied the popular journals,
crunched the numbers
and calculated the odds,
finally settling on
"Ocean Bird Without Bob's Anarchy Supper"
as the name that
everyone would absolutely have
to click on.

And so he went to work,
every day crawling in the mud
in search of that insect,
or child,
or animal
that he was certain everyone would just have to see.

He even had the thumbnails down to an art.
So what if his photographic skills were somewhat lacking?
Didn't matter, as long as the shot made a good thumbnail,
and got him that initial click.
And he realized early on
that if he waited until after midnight GMT,
and posted everything on tomorrow,
instead of today,
that his shot would stay on the front page
for much longer than it otherwise would.

But what he didn't figure in all his
calculations,
and machinations
was his own propensity for addiction.

Very soon, the blipping had taken over his life.

He thought of nothing all day long,
except where to find that impossibly adorable dog
that would put him into the spotlight.

His work suffered.
The productivity at his broom-handle factory fell to almost nothing.

And he found himself sliding down the slippery slope.
Blipping led to harder drugs -
alcohol, morphine, anything he could get his hands on.
He'd easily go through a whole bottle of scotch
any night his photo wasn't well-received.

Until finally, one morning,
his secretary came round to see why he
hadn't shown for work

She found him crawling on the floor
of his filthy apartment,
surrounded by pills, empty liquor bottles,
and cameras,
moaning softly to himself
something unintelligible about feet.



I offer this merely as a precautionary tale.

Do with it what you like.