Station 2 Station : THE LOST ART OF READING A (PAPER) BOOK (24)

Wordz by Alfred Balcon

Tuesday morning. Cartier Metro.

It felt weird getting down the stairs in the subway today, trying to catch the morning train to get to work (on time).

I made it in just in time before the doors closed, feeling trapped like a mouse in a cat’s mouth.

The feeling got even weirder once I was confined in the small transportation space with all these strangers. Heavy winter coats and backpacks of careless students did not help the matter either.

I felt as if all eyes were set on me. Like a vulture scanning a prey. But why? I was not dressed differently than either other day. And I even had my favorite perfume on, the one that got me all those nice comments last week-end at my friend’s book launch.

Since there was an empty seat right in front of me, I decided to sit down. The man sitting next to me was sleeping, probably lost in some digital dream, a set of earphones plugged in his hearing organs.

I took a deep breath, sat up straight and decided to take a good look around me. Nothing had changed. Everybody was still staring at me, or should I say at what was being held between my two sweaty hands.

Oh my God! I was simply holding a… BOOK.

A real BOOK. Not a digital one, but a real BOOK made out of paper… Burroughs in wordz.

What was so horribly wrong with that?

A quick look at the crowd surrounding me made me realize that I was the only one with such an archaic artifact in his possession.

Everybody else was holding some sort of an electronic gadget in order to get informed, to listen to muzik or to just simply chill.

I felt like an alien.

Homesick.

Drowning in a pool of megabytes.

Different. Inferior. Even borderline stupid.

I felt so sick to my stomach…

As the doors opened at Jean-Talon Metro Station, I tried to get up, my stomach slowly starting to send the rest of the body signals that the greasy breakfast ingested early on was soon to be recalled outside of its walls (hasta la vista, baby), but I was forced to stay seated by what seemed to be two strong robotic hands.

Suddenly, THEY started to get closer to me. Closer. So bloody close.

I wanted to scream, but they all belonged to the same cult. It was no use.

A million fingers started to tear up my coat…

Until they could reach inside my shirt.

It seemed as if they were ALL looking for the same stuff.

The invading hands abruptly switched from the front to the back of my torso.

And a few seconds later, everything stopped moving. There was a deadly silence.

Their hands quit their insane bodily search cold turkey…

They had found whatever the fuck they were looking for.

I felt my skin being pulled. Stretched. But it did not hurt.
An unknown button was unexpectedly pressed in my back…

Switch on... Motherfucker!

I passed out as the lights went off…

When I opened my eyes again, I was one of them…

-30-

Karnet 219 / BOT 2015.1

Muzik pairing:

Me I Disconnect From You / I Die : You Die - Gary Numan