Love & Power
A short story about the beauty of the web
Sitting at my desk, I put aside my digital pen and launch a basic text editor. The small window pops up and the blinking cursor draws my attention, urging me to answer its purpose. I obey. While listening to the rhythmic sound of the key strokes, letters appear in front of me. Dark pixels in a sea of white.
A less-than sign starts the journey to love & power.
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Not clearly understanding what I’m doing here, I hit more keys, their plastic groaning under my fingers:
html
Slightly confused, I want to break off this endeavor. This is not satisfying at all. I look away, expecting to find clarity elsewhere. The desk with my laptop. Both placed with a geometric precision, their rectangles aligned. On the other side of the room, a door sits within the wall, sharing the same replicable pattern. The shapes of my surroundings are clean, geometric, recognizable — differentiation through perfect symmetry. That’s it. Shifting back to the tiny, white window, I can finalize the picture and infuse harmony and visual aesthetic. All I need is a
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Leaning back, I try to get better view of my work. 6 black signs have populated my screen and thoughts.
<html>
I want to get up, grab coffee, move on, but the blinking cursor wants more. What are those letters without meaning, anyway? This is surreal. I want to connect more deeply with the signs, with the machine. I want to give her a face. By quickly typing
<header>
she starts to take shape. Hitting more and more keys, my mind attentively wanders down from her brow to her chin,
</header>
to her elegant shoulders.
<body>
I can’t help but smile, recognizing how beautiful she turns out.
</body>
</html>
Staring at her feet I flick back up. I shake my head in apology, trying to regain some trust. While I have shamelessly examined her from tip to toe, I hadn't even asked for her name.
<title>?</title>
She blinks, smiles back and replies
<title>Connect</title>
Connect? What a strange and interesting name. I want to know more. Careful now. She must feel very vulnerable. After all, she just revealed herself to me and the whole world.
I step closer to comfort her, listening to her voice, to her breath, to her heart. There, in the center of her body it beats with a constant rhythm. After a while, the rhythms seems to become a pattern. Slowly, from that pattern, words emerge.
<body>
<p>Hello world.</p>
</body>
“Hello world”? Seriously? This is so lame. It can’t be right. I created something that complex and beautiful and all I get in return is “Hello world”? How about my feelings, my dreams? Does she even care about me? Hoping this was just a misconception, I tilt my head slightly and listen, focused. More words appear.
This is your idea, your opinion, your message.
It slowly starts to sink in. This is a lesson in communication. A single word can take a country to war or bring instant peace. It can start a revolution or fix a crisis. It can be power for some and love for others. The right word at the right time and place can change everything. That’s what she’s been telling me all along. I could be nothing without her and everything with her. It’s up to me.
Grateful for the lesson learned, I step back. As her image slowly fades from my inner eye, everything becomes white. Black spots appear in this sea of white, forming characters, framed by the pixels of my screen. I hit save, close my laptop and leave you with a link:
