Ctrl M'ing all day...every ten seconds or so, almost involuntarily... Fingers twitch and hit. Expectant eyes claw into the Checking Mail icon... Receiving Mail, then nothingthisthingsomething...

What is he waiting for? Release perhaps. Release from an exceedingly banal and essentially vegetative life. Amid which his only source of salvation seems to be the Internet. E-mail, more specifically... His direct line to fate, so it seems when he is not on.

Mornings. The trip to office is one nervous ordeal; He walks, hires a cab, boards a bus, then walks again. But the gaze doesn't blink even for a flicker, the same old waiting game... Something in the mailbox today, deliverance perhaps.

Ctrl M.

Downloading 11 messages. 1, 2, 3... Eyes get sore, you see. Colourchroma or monochroma, a monitor is a monitor is a monitor. Window to the world and foe to the eye. No, I'm not talking 'visions' here, nor an eye specialist's dream.

ForeignHack@XYZPost, OwnerPublisherEditor@God'sownshit, X@America'sMostInfluentialBroadsheet.... Fascinating idea, but our man in the Pacific rim takes care of stuff there... Some place else... Hmmm.

Girlfriend@badtimes. We will pull it through? What if? Bleak, dark, uncertain... the countdown has begun--15 days to go.

Friend?@Youth. Parenthetic happiness. Something. Relating to? Connecting? Friend friend friend virtualnevermet--Instant Messenger eyes! What did you say? Who?

Colon, opening bracket equals semantic Shift.