Roadrunner Twice

Well I didn’t do Flash Fiction February, but here’s a little cyberpunk dirtcat fragment for ya. It is not about “medium the website,” I am reclaiming the word. 😈

Discourse on the Medium to a Young Node Runner

The Medium is not virtual reality.
The Medium is not a multimedia experience.
The Medium is not a compelling user interface.
The Medium is not An App.
The Medium is not even an API.
The Medium does not have a product designer, or a user experience architect, or a market fit, or an executive vision.

The machine does not construct the Medium. The machine does not serve the Medium to clients. The Medium does not serve the machine's purposes.

If you believe in your heart that the Medium is a mere interface to the machine, you will fall. Your habits will betray you. You will become predictable, pliable, complacent, sedated.

Instead, consider this.

The Medium is synesthesia,
echolocation,
presque vu,
the sensation of the machine's movements in the distance.

The Medium is an autoimmune reaction,
the machine's contradictions clawing at its own substance.

The Medium is the ringing sound of the machine's hammer striking your animal bones.

The Medium is your own ghost dreaming a haunted house into the machine.

The machine rules everything that is real. But the Medium is not real,
and its rulership
is up for grabs.