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"Fahrenheit 451 Revisited" (or, "The Inevitability of Virtuality")
I
"If your eyes deceive you, pluck them out!" the preacher cried. The Man with X-Ray Eyes* raked his sockets clean and stared into the camera, his fresh, almond concavities bloody as newborns.
He was glad for darkness, tired of seeing others naked, their capillaries, organs dissolve to endless transparencies like the partitions of a chambered nautilus turned to glass. As each new surface failed him, he more feared to reach the center.
II
Someday the cold separation between you and this screen will melt away, a virtuality receptacle be implanted in your brain (most likely in your occipital lobes) so you can jump the pixilated fence into the house of fractals without tether. But there will still be books?
Imagine the perfume of sweet Moroccan leather from the mint antique volume in your hand, a glass of brandy backlit by a fire and your late retriever curled at your feet.
Hours pass, days even, before the ejection sequence. You have just used three seconds to read The Brothers Karamazov twice though you miss your dog terribly.
*The Man with X-Ray Eyes is a science fiction movie from the 50s starting Ray Milland.
~C.E. Chaffin
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