for jenny
Beauty and the Beast.
The French one.
Oh, the Jean Cocteau film.
Yeah. Maybe.
La Belle et La Bete.
Yeah.
You like it?
Yeah.
I suppose you are Beauty and I'm the Beast then?
:-)
:-)
:-I
?
I was sweating over
the computer in nervous anticipation of her reply. We'd managed to get over the awkward
introduction and she had now indicated a willingness to respond, though it
wasn't exactly a free pass to
smileytown. My emoticons had so far
landed on a blank screen and lay by themselves desperately hoping to be joined
by a companion. Meeting people for
affairs or relationships online was not as easy as it had been in the entrance
days of the internet. That world was
now bigger than ever, a sleazy modern metropolis, over-populated, horribly polluted. The sleazy joints were the best places to
pick up chicks.
Www.chickschickchicks. That kind
of shit. So it was more difficult to get
to the next stage with young women who were constantly picturing you with your
hand down your pants as you typed with the other.
Noooo, you're not a beast.
Thanks. But how do
you know that?
:-) (she smiled..........;-)
I might be doing beastly things right now. You would never
know. You are halfway around the world. You don't really know me. And you don't know what I'm doing at this
moment. I could be cutting my toenails
and chewing on the shrapnel right now for all you really know. :-)
I don't think you're doing that hahaaa
That's very confident of you.
But you are right.
Pardon?
I don't know who you are.
I can't see you. This doesn't
seem real right now. You could be doing
beastly things.
Yeah.
I don't think you are a beast. If you were a beast, I
wouldn't be talking to you.
What does it take to be a beast? Maybe I can live up to your
standards. :-)
I don't know.
Come on, describe your perfect beast. Ugly - check. Weird - check. haha
;-)
A fake. A sleazeball
who wants to scam you out of your money?
Maybe.
A wretched misogynistic
social mistake taking out all of his anger and frustration on unsuspecting
members of the cyber community?
Hmmm.....
A filthy old man in his hovel indulging in all the sick
fantasies he missed out on before the internet came along?
Eh...perhaps. Well, I
don't know. There are many beasts
online, but it's the simple things that someone might do in real life that I
consider beastly.
Simple things?
Yeah.
Like what?
Like smoking. I think
people who smoke are beasts.
I remorsefully eyed my
bag of tobacco, the glossy packaging glistening in the shine of the laptop
screen. I was just planning to roll
another one. I didn't know how to reply
to her. Didn't know if I should just
tell her immediately that I was in fact her ideal. Her ideal beast. I rolled the cigarette anyway to deliberate
on the next comment. She wouldn't
know. She wouldn't be able to see this
beastly act. And my deception was safe,
so the beasts would have been proud of me.
:-I Smoking? Yeah, it's bad.
I hate it.
Me too.
Do you smoke?
Eh, yeah. Well, I used to.
What?????
Not anymore. I use
the e-cigarettes.
E-cigarettes?
You know, the electronic ones. They are not real cigarettes. Not real tobacco. They emulate the sensation of smoking. It's not smoke. It's 'vapour.'
E-cigarettes?
Like E-mail. It's not
mail. It just exists in another
place. An electronic place.
What was real
anymore? The smoking. The beauty. The beast. We prayed in our
hearts to invisible gods for it to be real.
But nothing seemed material. Everything
in a dark foggy cloud. No. No, a vapour.
Yes. A vaporous mist. Modern being is the nightmare of the
solipsist.
The last love story goes like this:
So Beauty and the Beast is your favourite film?
Yeah.
Great.
You may be a beast, and I may be a beauty. But come what may, in reality or in fantasy, we
may at
least each have this day.
