Facebook Shrugged

3:47 PM

The encirclement has completed its task. I was tapped. I looked around, and there was nothing there. Impossibility did not precede, nor did it follow in its pre-eternity or post-eternity presence.

And so a familiar voice has made its first sound over my head by the sidewalk:

“What’s that book are you reading?”

“Al-Ghazali’s The Incoherence of the Philosophers. How did you find me?”

“Any good?”

“Better than spending a day at Disneyland. It is… nostalgic. What do you want, Marlene? Shoo, shoo, and leave me in peace,” I said. I mumbled quietly:

As regards habitual things, what is brought about through our intentional act is not delayed after the intent when the intent exists except by an impediment. Once the intent and ability are realized, [all] obstacles being removed, the delay of what is intended is not rationally intelligible. This is only conceivable in the case of resolve, because resolve is not sufficient for the existence of the act…

“Are you still here, Mar?” A pause. There was a heartbeat of breath held in the air.

“You know the feeling when your liver rumbled to the point when you almost thought that it burped for thirst, like empty alcohol container waiting to be filled, that begged you to drink?” Marlene said. “Well, I just had a hunch, John.”

“Don’t you hate that?”

“Yes, sir. It’s a sign. Of things to come. You up for it?”

“I’d almost forgotten that today is Friday.” I got up to my stance, and rest the book in backpack. “Weather is changing. It’s supposed to rain tonight. Let’s go out and eat something before that. Is Fat Tuesdays fine?”

And Marlene merrily jogged away in the arm from behind. I uneasily felt her soothing, if not smooth, linen of cloth that covered her right breast on my shoulder.

______________________________________________________________

8:15 PM

Marlene brought strange words out of the mouth.

“You know what I was thinking?” She was slurring during a fifth round of pitchers. Or sixth. Maybe seventh one. I lost the count. She uttered the words.

I was inattentive and watching the sports on TV, and filled my stomach with beer and food. “What’s that? Say again?”

“Is egg meat?”

I was lost in words. “It’s called dairy. A dairy product.”

“When it is cracked apart, you see the nucleus and its elongated goo ooze around its–”

“How about this?” I interrupted. “Let’s say that you decide to call egg the womb, and its yolk the embryo meat-being: Would you call it meat or dairy?”

“You’re sickening me,” the eyes glittered.

“Thank you. Where does this take on egg come from?” I looked over at her.

“Facebook. I was just thinking about facebook dot company.”

“Facebook? What about it? I hardly use it.”

“When you crack an egg… it oozes and expands over its nucleus. When you crack facebook… it doesn’t ooze and expand. It leaks over its nucleus of nebulous community. It rips and leaks through,” her voice screeched. “In essence, facebook digests information and dumps its organic wastes. Like body pieces. Deliberate, too.”

“So don’t use Facebook, dear Marlene. What is there is no longer there. As if it is surgically removed. Like the fetus. And throw it in the boiling water–”

“Your thoughts are permeating,” she sank her face in both palms. “You’re unusual, you know that? You don’t think like others.”

“I’m trying to make a point. The loss of personal information is being surgically leaked through third parties until there is nothing left,” I thought. “When you crack facebook… I think it oozes and expands until there is nothing left. Like a leaking pipeline full of oil. Like that Louisiana spill.”

“What about rips?”

“You mean glitches? Why, they’re the movers. The movers that move personal information through the cyberspace. The data itself. You’re probably right… When you crack facebook, it does rip and leak through… only a part of large entity that oozes and expands…”

“…Bingo,” she finished pouring the fifth pitcher. “Leaks fill the container, and it gets dumped into the system. All rounds upon rounds of communications system as we know it. It does arrive at the point where the container is tainted with blood… like water and oil. And all the hell break loose over the rainbow of gold-pouring pot.”

I thought for a moment, looking for words to break the atmosphere as Marlene went on.

“Well, the game is over,” I turned around as my lifeblood filled with goosebumps, looking at the door. “Let’s finish this thing and hit it on the road.”

We were walking up to my truck. Marlene moved zigzagged a bit, not so much as to imbalance her walk.

“John?”

“Yeah?” I answered.

“Is Facebook shrugged?”

“As in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged? In what way, economics? Socialist utopia versus corrupt capitalist system? That kind of plot?”

“It is overloaded… slowed down. Entities tangled and ripped apart. Data shattered like pieces of glass. Everything is… embroiled for its master community’s appetite in one giant soup. Privacy handed over to strangers and third-party organizations. Heck, even credit information. Users robbed of freedom.”

“You’re drunk, Marlene,” I assured her. “I don’t really care for these PHP website or its Perl cousins. Shrugged or not, it is sure a popular social network. But it is no Atlas Shrugged, I can tell you that…”

“It is. Facebook is somehow designed with an objectivist agenda…”

“You think everything is conspiracy,” I noted.

“Everything is, John. You needn’t be detached about it. I know you. Don’t use that defense mechanism,” she hollered lightly. “You did that experiment yourself, John… And you executed it perfectly.”

“You riding in taxi tonight, Mar?” I asked in a sudden movement of the change in subject.

“Yes.”

“See you later, lady. Sure you don’t need ride?”

“The last time you gave me one, John, I pulled the trap and you fell for it,” said Marlene.

“Till the next time, then,” one side of my lips smiled at her choice of words. “Take care of yourself, Marlene.”

______________________________________________________________

1:59 AM

I picked up the phone.

“John?” Marlene said.

“That you, Mar?”

“Is Facebook shrugged?”

I looked at clock. “Christ, not now. Why don’t you be a little nice pest and let me sleep,” I groaned.

“Is it getting cracked in bits?” Her voice echoed as I hanged up. Phone soon rang again.

“What do you want, Mar?” I sleepily answered. “Better yet, why are you obsessed?”

“Because I was thinking about you,” Marlene whispered. “And I have decided that Facebook and you are one. That’s why you don’t use facebook as much.”

A pause. “How so?”

“You are John Galt.”

“Are you still drunk?” I asked.

“John…”

A pause.

“John?”

“Mhmm?”

“I’m sorry,” Marlene said calmly. “Good night, John. I wish you were here.”

The phone clicked. And that night I couldn’t go back to sleep.