The Return of the Native Son

And lo, the son turned his face again upon his jilted blog and found favor with her, for she was pleasing unto him. And the son mused at his absence and how to proceed with his estranged blog and at his superfluous use of the conjunction “and” and he thought it was wonderful.

“A month has passed since last we met,” spoke the son, tenuous, like a child speaking to a mighty gorilla. “How shall we proceed?”

The blog—she has been anthropomorphic all along, has she not?—stared back at the son, blinking once per second with the soul-crushing gaze of a blank cursor.

“I thought so,” said the son, sighing a sigh beyond his twenty-six years. “The problem is that I’m not the person I used to be. I’ve changed, see. What we had was nice, but it just doesn’t exist anymore, y’know?”

The cursor blinked-blinked-blinked.

“Don’t look at me like that. You know I hate it when you do that.”

He might as well have been talking to a deaf and blind gorilla with cotton balls in its nostrils for all the good it did him.

“Fine. What do you want from me? You want me to tell you about my new job? Is that it? You already know how much I’m loving it, how I get to help the environment by polluting her in controlled quantities. It’s thankless and I’m hated by the people in production, but that’s environmental, right?” The son laughed a not quite sardonic chuckle. The great-and-terrible eye blinked-blinked-blinked. “Or would you rather me tell you all about the housing situation? Stewartland has been under a contract to sell for three weeks and she’s scheduled to close two days after the Ides of December. We’ve been frustrated waiting on the buyers to get an appraisal—which still hasn’t been ordered, by the way—because the house we’re moving into—currently unnamed—is all contingent upon our successful sell of Stewartland. It’s a crazy and mind-numbing process, especially with Christmas approaching and the very likely possibility that we’ll be spending the holidays in transition, wonderful for Keisha and Avonlea’s holiday spirits, I’m sure.” He couldn’t help but let the cynicism in this time. Blink-blink-blink.

The son made a fist. “I could delete you, you know? It’s not like I would miss you.” And he thought seriously about it. “It would be… easy.” Blink-blink-blink.
The son collapsed into a crumpled and tired form. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just, well, I’ve not forgotten you, but I don’t have the time to carry on like we used to. We’re not just some bumbling teens any more. I have a career and a wife and a seventeen-month-old and a son on the way and a million, billion other things and honestly you’re just not that high up in the priority list. But it’s not just you, either. Life is a crazy, wonderful, beautiful thing, too short by far. The time we spent together, it was good. But let’s face it, that was in the past. If you want to still be a part of my life, then you’re going to have to accept my decision. I’ll still visit you from time to time, if only for journaling. That is, after all, one of your primary purposes. I’m sure I’ll still even give you reviews from time to time, too. It’s not like I’m tying you to a tree, coating you in honey, and leaving you in the jungle for a gorilla to find. It’s more like I’m locking you in the basement and turning out the lights, but I’ll come down there from time to time just to check on you. That’s not so bad, right?”

Her eye reminded him of Sauron’s and he shivered.

“Right?” he asked again, but he already knew her answer.

“Happy Thanksgiving,” he said with an appropriate adverb applied to his tone. “Until next time.”