Full stop

Time to time a wind can take you out from the path you were drawing. It can happen that the path is just a dot and a whole universe of blank space is around you. It might be the end of the sentence, end of a paragraph, end of the story… a dot means that infinites path can go through it. D was a path of dots.

The night routine was, before falling asleep, thinking about the next move to start a line. In the morning he would be already deleting all the notes he had in mind. Just for standing on the same dot.
It was late for breakfast and too early for lunch. Coffee was a good deal. He checked the phone while he was doing his business on the toilet. An email from the National Healthcare System.

Hello D, please leave us your feedback and rate from one to five your experience with the Consultant Automa

There were 5 empty stars waiting for his thump. He was not impressed by getting the email. He knew if he switched to Instagram he may see promo of the sneekers that he had just thought about. It was a fucking robot able to speak and hitchhike, getting some data from his lincense plate or whereever wouldn’t be so hard. What was impressive was that the National Healthcare System was asking for feedback on a “first approach to therapy” like some kind of new wrap at Burger King. Fuck that damn stars.

It was time for the morning porn routine which was scheduled twice per week but not fixed days. Lunch was an easy salad while scrolling thousands of feeds. At 3 pm D decided that was time to be productive. It took him half an hour to make some infographics for two restaurants he was working for. He literally used to pick up things from Google, blend and send them to whoever was in charge to publish them. For the shit was paid, he believed it was the right thing to not involve any creative process. Just blend things like that smoothie you make with random stuff and then you convince yourself that is quite good. No one checked it anyway.
D went to the sofa for a Netflix and chill session. He would love to have a coffee in the meantime, to shake his brain, but cleaning that moka and setting it up again seemed a harder task than just scrolling on his phone, laying on the sofa and listening to the lines of Family Guy. After three episodes another flow of productivity went through his mind. D updated his portfolio, made it a bit nicer and sent some job applications. Making graphics for a few restaurants and bars was definitely not his dream in life. He felt like he had to take a nap and so he kept scrolling while waiting for Sandman.

The phone ringing on his chest was the end of his fake nap. Marta was coming over.
He made the dishes. He thought of preparing some joints but then he realised that all the process of making them together was something he liked a lot. She would make the filter. He would complain that it was too large and so on...so on...so on… A quite familiar scene that was never too old. Did he have condoms? Yes, he did. She might have them anyway.
Marta arrived bringing her usual sarcastic smile. They played a bit around, like thinking about which movies they could watch, what to eat… when this game was finished that was the moment for sex on the sofa. When also sex was finished they went back to that feeling of What are we doing? What is happening here? Same feelings on two different minds that couldn’t really talk about it. They were most on looking like I don’t give a fuck, let’s just have some fun. However they knew that both of them were like this person. They even doubted that a like-this-person existed in the universe. D liked Marta but he honestly didn't feel like setting up something. Just thinking about a serious conversation could make him freaking out. He liked Marta but he was not feeling over the moon to see her or to do stuff. He could switch to a lonely chilling with his laptop and he knew that was no-healthy condition to start any relationship.
They smoked some joints. D argued about the large filters. Marta genuinely said fuck off. Every time. While they were watching some videos he wondered if he had to talk about the ride of last night. The automa consultant and so on… He didn’t want anyone to worry so he kept smiling at some jokes on YouTube. She left as usual around midnight. It was nice for D to not have to share his single bad. They didn’t have to have sex multiple times.

Under the blanket he checked the mail again.

Hello D,
How would you rate your experience with the Consultant Automa?

He tapped on 3 stars.