goes on and on and on

would you share a meal with someone in a living room back in time? i sure would. it's not like food tastes any different back then. chicken was chicken, peas were peas. the soda in my glass tasted a bit sweeter (corn syrup hadn't proliferated yet) but it was just as cold as it would have been in the 21st century, still left a circle of perspiration on the marble table, just as it would have today.

spilling peas onto a shag carpet is equally frustrating then as it is today. peas never stay on your fork. the air in an unlit room is equally cold and darkened as it is today, but for some reason the shadows seem all the more menacing, perhaps because they conceal places and things that i'm not supposed to be around.

i feel the same thing when i see photos and video and flim from previous decades. the people all dressed garishly in their stripes and shoulder pads in the 80s, the svelte dresses and wool suits of the 40s--where did all these clothes go? are they deteriorating in the bottom of some dump in new jersey now? did they simply just disappear?

all those meals and all those clothes and drinks that are now just atoms again, where did they all go? my friend says a hole in mexico, along with the thoughts and memories and emotions. well i'd like to spend some time in that hole, just absorbing it all. i guess that's what the whole point of the machine was anyways.

and so you find yourself sharing a meal with someone in a darkened living room, trying to keep your peas on your fork. it all just feels so strange, even sharing meals seems like an antiquated practice.

i guess i can't stop thinking about how wrong all of this is: sitting in here, seeing that sunlight behind the drawn blinds, peeking out from the edges. the marble of this table, the air i'm breathing in and out, your knee touching mine, the blood coursing through your veins, the ice in my glass slowly melting.