I spent years
in the garage, trying to make my
vision real.
Dreaming of the systems, the software,
the networks,
code I could recite like poetry.
Then one day,
it all came together as I planned
and I saw
myself standing in the company
of all the
famous garage geniuses, and in
excitement
I tripped over a power cord and
dashed my brains
all over the floor of the garage.
I thought work
was supposed to be its own reward.
She’s always there, watching
me. Before, beautiful
and young, later
drained, accusatory.
Now, from behind my own
eyes. What did I
do to deserve this end?
Who am I fooling? I
know what I did.
My husband was a cruel
man. He never laid a
finger on me,
but there was no love in
his eyes no matter what
he said. I knew.
Years went by quietly.
He wore me down, and my
spirit smothered
until the face in my
mirror looked at me with
the same contempt.
I withered and died. But
I am content, because
now it haunts him,
that awful face. He knows
what he did to me. That
is my revenge.
I’m buried right next to
Jim Waring, the stockbroker.
I remember he made
a mint in the dot com boom,
went bankrupt, and somehow
ended up even richer
than before, while I lost
everything I had and more.
Seeing how the wealthy
just took what they felt they could
get away with, I went
and robbed a mini-mart store
and accidentally
shot the clerk at the counter.
He was an immigrant,
a father of four and I
killed him. I plead guilty
and got death row, where five years
later they gave me a
lethal injection. Now I
lie next to Jim. Seems our
two roads led to the same place.
The
holographic memory stores
en-
ciphered throughout our brains; our We,
our
Us, our I; the thing we whisper
night-
time pleas and stories to. The hub
of
feeling and of knowing and of
self.
You could have (sort of) eternal
life,
let it be imaged in software
and
built into your grave site. You’d be
long
expired, but your encoded
soul
might remain to tell your stories
or
damn your enemies. To confess
un-
love of your family or warn
of
those fatal mistakes. To pronounce
wise
edicts and foolish rules. And some
nights,
there’d be me there, listening for
you.
Spoon River’s legacy is here,
in
xerox-constructed epitaphs.
