Paranoid Android

4001 AD - the sixth major ice age. Camped out in basement of department store. Between alternating schedules and astringent neatness, took us three weeks to realize that we were cohabiting.

Tonight, walked home from work. Tiled, lab-white interior of mall looks like sinister igloo. Passed digital advertisements. Crystalline pixels frost screens, then burst like confetti. Families, hands strewn with shopping bags - laugh, point, and gaze at something off-frame. Maybe at me. I hear fluid laughter.

Turn around - she runs under plastic Arecaceae, shimmying. Conga dancer. Hard to see her as natural. Cold numbed what was organic, mysterious about life. Maybe I’m referring to Earth’s core, in deep space. Once It glowed Valentine red, like a phone to God. Now It’s being forced asleep. No Opus Number One. When weather changed, there was a violent dial-up, then fax humming, and now death rattle. Like mom said, when we chewed ice. She hated the sound, “cata cata.”

Snow falls outside. Cata cata.

She jumps at my face, laughing. I rummage my brows, trying to make it obvious, so obvious she thinks I have a neurodegenerative disease. Tell her I’m not in the mood.

“It’s Christmas.”

Cata cata.

I recall the prophet in his catacomb, waiting for catharsis post-crucifixion. Mechanic being forced to become one with his material. Cruelty and… redemption. She’s taken my hand in hers.

Warm.

Screens turned on ads of revolving engagement rings - diamonds cata cata’d. Snowfall becomes unintelligibly soft, like it’ll melt at a whisper.