ALL EXIT, NO INVITE

Can I touch you? 

If only just to say: You must understand the allure of apathy. 

Atlas shrugged. Care was burdensome. I know you know this. 

Consequently, life was reduced to a series of emotions and excretions, traceable on urban asphalt. Baser instincts were indulged with greater frequency, ironically endorsed by artifacts of technological advancement. Curiosity killed Cat, then Proliferation of Persona killed Curiosity. This was all registered on some level below immediate consciousness. In other words, appearances were kept up. It was all we had, after all. The appeal of seeming Being. The trial of being Seeming. 

Well, this isn’t entirely true. Not that I care much for truth anymore. 

The ability to ape joy—even contentment—in the presence of others was a signal of relative wealth. Those among the lower classes suffered openly and often. Toothless maw, aimless eyes. Necrosis. We watched humans decay in real time. Nightmares winked. Cortisol reigned. 

Libido, meanwhile, both waned and inflamed. Social exchange was reduced to barks and leers. We sought one another for fight or fuck. Nothing more. Romance had grown increasingly anachronistic, until extinguished entirely. How? When? Only idiots seek a single answer. We all had a hand in a multitude of sins. Pleasureless sins. The banality of evil. The banality of self-destruction. It was all very La Di Da. 

Corpulence was cute again. Filth was fine again. There was little time for tooth brushing, much less deodorizing. We were all subject to such beauty. We were all subject to such pain. Survival instincts blotted out philosophizing, the use of pretty words. Only the rich found time for idle mind, and they were the last ones to know what to do with it. 

I guess… If there’s one thing I miss, it’s this: Two lips moving meaningfully. 

So, I’ll ask you again, if only just this once more... 

Can I touch you?

by Lydia Sviatoslavsky

Lydia is a NY-based writer, editor, and publicist. She has covered arts and culture for SFGate, Spike Art Magazine, and the Bay City News Foundation. She is an associate editor and publicist at Hyperidean Press.