THE DAY INTERNET DIED

While this story is self-contained, to fully appreciate it, please read it in tandem with the updated version of "The Day Death Died".

It was widely known that Internet had been ailing for some time. Its poor health had made it rather slipshod in the execution of its duties. Some people had to endure days of frustrating waiting until an online connection was established, while for others the connection kept going on and off every second, like a flickering light globe.  

For a while Internet hovered in a half-dead condition, with one foot in the grave, and mankind held its breath, fearing Internet would continue to deteriorate and then give up the ghost altogether.

And then the day came when Internet breathed its last and nobody could believe their ill fortune. It was hard to grasp that Internet no longer dwelled in the world, and that the burden of living would never again be lightened with the ever-present alternative of escaping into an online existence. No one would be privileged any more with the luxury of having two worlds to live in.

The most eminent computer technicians of the land were assigned the task of performing an autopsy on Internet. Their unanimous conclusion was that it died of virtual causes. What nobody had suspected was that Internet possessed a finite life span. Everyone had always assumed it would be around forever, yet it too carried within itself the lethal seeds of eternal offline-ness.

The next most pressing issue was the burial of Internet. Issues never considered before needed to be addressed urgently, for the sight of lifeless Internet lying prostrate on the ground was too heartbreaking for the world to take. Where should the funeral ceremony be held? According to which religion’s rites should the memorial service be conducted? Who should give the eulogy? Where to entomb it?

The matter of whom to invite to the service proved to be the most intractable issue of all. A certain number of tickets were reserved for those most deeply affected by Internet's passing - online pornography addicts, social misfits, ingrained introverts, Twitter-obsessed celebrities, Nigerian spammers and long-term residents in Second Life's virtual world. Otherwise, it was nearly impossible to determine who was genuinely grief-stricken and who only wanted to attend the ceremony so as to be a part of this historic occasion.  

Eventually, all of these matters were resolved, although not to everyone’s satisfaction, and the world gave Internet the sending off it deserved. Straight after the funeral, the world went into a shutdown, mourning its passing and remembering wistfully how it could answer any question; satisfy all emotional, mental and bodily needs; thrill the mind and the senses; provide instantaneous information, entertainment, relaxation and titillation; and cure loneliness. Tragically, given the magnitude and depth of the loss, some could not bear to continue living in a world without Internet and logged out permanently from this world.

When the unbridled, hysterical wave of grief at losing Internet finally subsided, people sobered up and gradually realised how it had debased and disfigured their lives in the past.

They recalled with horror and consternation the way Internet enabled people to dawdle their lives away, leaving vital tasks undone and crucial issues unresolved; how googling and Wikipedia had supplanted the wisdom that comes with age, experience and learning; the way it robbed life of its multifarious richness and beauty and reduced the world to a small, rectangular screen; how online reality became the only reality and real reality was jilted and forgotten about, like the plain sister of a gorgeous girl.

Mankind recognised how fundamentally Internet had altered the nature of social relations and the nature of one's relationship with oneself. Without it, no one would have to grapple any more with the problems of how to balance one's life between the two worlds; how to incorporate one’s online existence into one's life; and how to reconcile one's web identity with one's real identity. Having friends and partners in the physical world meant that you were free from the precariousness, uncertainty and unreliability of online friendships and relationships, and no longer subject to the capricious actions and decisions of your web pals, to whom, after all, you were just an ethereal, abstract entity that could easily be deleted permanently from their life. Consequently, the constant threat of online friends and lovers inexplicably ceasing all contact and disappearing forever was gone for good.

People discovered that fingers were not just for typing and shifting mouses but had other uses too; that out of their torsos extended a pair of lower limbs which could be used for perambulating across the spatial dimension; that Evolution has equipped their bodies with tools perfect for conveying thoughts and feelings; that their faces possessed well-developed muscles which could be employed to signal emotions such as (amongst many others) surprise, annoyance, happiness, and frustration and that, consequently, emoticons were not essential to expressing one's inner state, and successful communication could be achieved without intermediary electronic devices. Most startling was the revelation that other people were not identical to their icons - flat and forever stuck in the same pose with the same smile on their faces - rather they were three dimensional beings, moving about and changing their facial expressions all the time.

"Back to Reality" tutorials proved to be very popular and helpful, covering such topics as  "Learning How to Single-Task"; "Becoming Acquainted with the Sun and the Sky", and "How to Survive in a World that Cannot be Photoshopped". 

Life slowly regained its meaning as mankind clambered, one small step at a time, out of the abyss of the online world it had dug for itself. Time started to flow slower; instant gratification was no longer craved; contemplation and patience revealed their true values. It was now clearly seen that online reality provided only fleeting pseudo-meaning; that emotions felt in the web world were only ephemeral ersatz feelings; and that real self-worth came not from social media popularity, but from within. 

Each human being now experienced life directly, rather than through the distorting and diminishing lens of a computer screen; facing the good and not so-good things in their lives without evading the reality of their existence; and being true to their inner selves, instead of hiding behind their icons and online identities. Only then was it realised how inextricably Internet had woven its fateful thread into every aspect of man’s existence and how much had been gained the day Internet died.



Illustration by Andy Paciorek

Reviews

[SquinklaPsyOps]

Very unexplainable and juicy.

[Boris]

thank you for reading this Squinkla! I appreciate your feedback!