Word Count: 444
The leak was getting worse. He knew it in the mornings when he noticed the stains on the pillow. He felt it in the shower but told himself it was just the hot water running gray down his body to float down the drain. He didn’t look too closely. He didn’t want to admit what he knew was happening and in full force likely for years. His brain was turning to mush.
Yes, he read all the articles, watched the news, heard the warnings. He even saw two of his friends die eventually from the disease. If it was a disease–which they seemed to call everything these days. Everything you enjoyed held warning labels. Cigarettes and booze weren’t even sold anymore. Now the Surgeon General’s warnings came right on every computer. Every laptop and tablet and phone. Even the old style TVs.
He wouldn’t go see a doctor. What was the use? He was an addict and couldn’t imagine life without the video games and the intricate graphic software and the internet–my dear Lord, give up the internet? Social networking with all of his friends? He wasn’t used to eating dinner alone anymore. Now he either made a date with someone online and they held conversations with live streaming sitting across from a screen. Or a virtual friend if no one was available. That worked well for sex too.
There was nothing but total abstinence as a cure, and even that depended on the amount of damage done. If there were still enough brain cells left to take over and adapt to complete even the simplest of requirements to survive. He knew that he had a good year, maybe two, before his state of mind would deteriorate into that of a banana.
So he plugged cotton into his ears. Sneezed into a handkerchief. Didn’t look at the gray matter and pink fluid that he blew from his nose. He adjusted to the quiver of his hands until it became nearly impossible to type on a keyboard. He reverted to voice commands on his laptop when even a mouse was not within his control. His last meal, the last one he was aware of, was a candlelit dinner at home with his virtual girlfriend Veronica. She even cried when he told her goodbye.
He passed away peacefully in the Home for Gone Geeks. Only one of his real friends was left and showed up to sit by his side. The monitors beeped and green numbers and lines flickered and fidgeted and died as the last bit of his brain seeped from the left corner of his mouth. The nurse kindly wiped it away.
