7

00:49:00

The only time when he missed the outside was actually the winter. He didn’t mind boiling during the summer as his room was on the shady part of the world. He didn’t mind missing stumbling on autumn leaves and rainy days. He wasn’t cheerful when the first buds of flowers appeared on the trees. You could see all this online. The best landscapes were actually digital. Thousands traveled across the world with their pricey cameras to take pictures of unspoiled paradises and then uploaded them on their blogs to make him world-conscious. He saw photoshopped Northern Lights about which his mother was telling him stories during their short phone conversations. He could see Kenyan safari, not risking being eaten by the lion. Mountain peaks were to him accessible as well as Ethiopian churches, Chinese palaces and Brazilian beaches. He wasn’t a traveler but he was traveling with the thousands of adventure seekers all over the world. He knew their stories and he absorbed their adventures.

But the snow was something personal. He used to like winter. He would go with his parents to a nearby park and they would build a snowman on condition that the snow was of enough quality. He could play for hours, pretending that he was an angel lying on the snow and wiggling his wings. He missed the streets which looked like the film’s negative with their white pavements and black skies. Even now he opened the window for the snow to enter the room. The air was different. Freezing. Maybe he would actually like Norway. Mother invited him many times but he just decided to stay.

The belly was getting bigger. He noticed her coming out of the bathroom one evening: her dressing gown waving on the sides, her nightdress a little bit tight around hips. Apparently, it was the size of a grapefruit. He laughed at the fact that human could be as big as a citrus. In our development, we were at one point no bigger than guinea pigs. Or fairies. Or Big Macs.

As he was born a man he could never be pregnant. He couldn’t develop as she could develop. He stopped somewhere after puberty, gaining his knowledge and experience. Biologically he couldn’t feel what she was feeling. He couldn’t feel the grapefruit. On the same note, she couldn’t feel what it’s like to have a penis or to be inside of a woman. She probably couldn’t feel what he was feeling when he was outside. There were barriers that just couldn’t be overcome. Maybe that’s why people developed speech. One person cannot experience everything. Some of us have to share for others to understand.

He spent his days off daydreaming. He had the right to be off work for full five weeks and he made use of this right for a week every two months. The whole month without work would make him crazy.

Thoughts came to him as avalanches. Suddenly and unexpectedly. What if he had been born in the Stone Age and decided to live in seclusion? Would he have hidden in a cage? Would he have entertained himself with pictures painted on the wall? Would he have entertained others with stories about hunting and gathering? And she? Oh, for her it would also have been a change. She would have been mother earth, pregnant with her first child, experiencing life with its pains and tribulations. She would have experienced pain. And fear? This would have been a different kind of fear. Fear of being savaged by a wild animal. Fear of dying of hunger. Fear of being eaten alive by the cannibal tribe. Fear of spending the rest of his life in a cave. The similar fear he felt when the internet was cut off. Or when there was a water malfunction and he couldn’t shower for a day. We didn’t really develop. We made each other disabled by technology. To be sure, he would have died in a cave. If civilization triggered fear of this size, what fear would he feel in the utter wilderness?

Was there someone who, taking into account his lifestyle, considered him handicapped? Was it his fault or the result of the century he was born? Will the grapefruit be even more disabled, taking electronic devices everywhere from the moment of its birth? Will it be dying after the last selfie taken before the final unplug?

Has anyone noticed that he wasn’t outside for years? Has anyone from his social media paid attention to the lack of his presence in the real world? Have all the traces he left contributed to the feeling of false security on the part of his circle of friends, colleagues, and acquaintances? On the same note, has anybody known about the presence of the grapefruit?