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rayasoLJ Idol, Week 9
Topic: 404
Once there was a way to get back home, but Richard had lost it so long ago that it no longer mattered. Deep in his file, he knew that no one would ever find him again, but it was hard to give up the dream. “Data without a connection is meaningless,” he mourned, “and it’s all because I lost my address.”
Richard still had his information, but no matter how many times people asked the right question, they could never find him. “No one bothers to look for me anymore, so why not just auto-delete? I can’t stand this loneliness!”
It wasn’t always like that for Richard, who was once an important file. If only he hadn't met that meme—everything would have been different . . . .
"I can has cheeseburger?" the cat asked, and changed everything.
Richard didn’t know what to say – he'd never met anyone like her. He'd led a protected existence, but then someone had taken down the security protocols for maintenance, and there she was, an invitation to waste time.
It seemed harmless at first, but babies followed cats, and then there were angry girlfriends, crazy grandmas, puppies and even bosses. Every diversion brought Richard closer and closer to the inevitable, and he caught a virus.
At first, there were just simple file irregularities which Maintenance fixed easily, but then it happened – a devastating address corruption! “Fix me,” Richard pleaded, “please don’t let me go!”
It didn’t matter how much Richard begged – Management finally decided it just wasn’t worth any more time to repair him. Not even a Data Recovery team could find Richard, and it issued his death notice: “HTTP 404 – File not found.”
At first, Richard found his new freedom exhilarating – no one called on him, and he could go anywhere he wanted whenever he wanted, with no responsibilities. “I was in jail and didn’t know it!” he exulted.
Early on, Richard found YouTube, and he hung out for awhile, watching videos, listening to music and playing games. “This is so cool!” Richard thought, and he no longer cared that time was slipping away. He even watched one video titled “I bet you can’t watch this without laughing” twelve times without even a giggle, just because he could. Who cared? Penguin videos were a particular favorite. “I love it when they slap each other!”
Amazon.com was very friendly at first, but then she had found out that Richard did not have any money, and she blacklisted him.
Sports sites got boring very quickly (“Your team sucks!” “No, your team sucks!”), as did political ones (“Your party sucks!” “No, your party sucks!”). The medical portals showed him how easy it was to die, while no one agreed on what happened afterwards. He got to see discussions on Reddit (“You suck!” “No, you suck!” “You #@*& troll!” “No, you #@*& troll!”).
It was all chaos, and Richard loved it.
What Richard did not love was how other files treated him. “What do you mean – you come from a broken address?” “Can I catch that from you?” “Keep away, you don’t belong here!” He was part of the internet underclass and a data cloud pariah.
It was hard meeting other lost files, so one day Richard started the 404 Café, a place for them to gather and have a little fun. The connections were meaningless and temporary, but they helped fill the void of every 404, as they called themselves.
The 404 Café was part of the subnet – not as dark as the darknet, but definitely not part of the standard internet. It was mostly populated by failed software programs, lost files and the like, the flotsam of the parts of the electronic age which almost no one visited.
The 404 Café wasn’t a place, since everything was electronic. It was simply a voluntary collection of files with no fixed addresses. These were more than random connections but less than html links, and reflected the files’ ambivalent yearnings for permanence in a chaotic net.
It was at the Café that Richard met Alaina, formerly part of the Louvre, who contained copies of a stunning collection of Renaissance drawings, lost when the museum’s IT department accidentally deleted her address. “The Louvre’s loss is my gain,” Richard thought, as he approached her.
Alaina was cultured and distant, with an air of superiority, while Richard was, well, ordinary. She spurned him at first, but seemed to warm to him over time.
“You’ll do – for now,” Alaina finally said. The romance was exciting at first, and it was thrilling to share that connection.
In the end, the lack of a permanent address drove them apart.
“Alaina, I need something more, something lasting,” Richard finally said.
“I just can’t give it to you – it’s no longer part of me,” Alaina responded.
And so they spun away, both of them searching for what they could not have, but which, like all 404’s, they desperately wanted.
The 404 Café could not last. Richard and the other 404’s were seeking true connection, while the Café could offer at best an increasingly unsatisfying imitation which only served to remind the files of what they had lost.
Desperation drove Richard to explore chat rooms, where he found out how to make the perfect pie crust and discovered handy plumbing tips, but since he could not cook or install a new drain, he did not linger. The world of humans interested him less and less.
“It’s so pointless, whizzing around like this. No one can find what I have to offer,” Richard thought.
Richard had been lost for so long, he had almost given up trying to find his way back. But one day, he felt a strange, almost forgotten tingle. “I’m being viewed! Someone is looking at me!” Hope began to trickle back into his file.
The tingle happened more and more often, until Richard could follow it back to his home location, his own database. The link had finally been repaired – he was accessible again!
“I’m home at last,” Richard said to his old program, which welcomed him back, not caring what unknown places had visited.
He had been missed -- Maintenance had known Richard was still out there somewhere and it seemed they had never completely given up on him. The 404 notice was finally removed. Richard had a real address once again.
Richard knew how lucky he was. Oh, it had been a close call—who knew how long he'd been gone! He hoped his link never got so badly broken again, and he vowed to keep his information vital so that would never happen.
Still, that had been quite an adventure, hadn't it? He wouldn't have chosen it, and he'd done enough exploring for any file's lifetime.
That meme cat had been pretty darn funny, though.
* * * * * *
I would like to thank![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
halfshellvenus for beta reading this, and for designing the ascii cat. ^.^ ( )~~
Topic: 404
HOMESICK
Once there was a way to get back home, but Richard had lost it so long ago that it no longer mattered. Deep in his file, he knew that no one would ever find him again, but it was hard to give up the dream. “Data without a connection is meaningless,” he mourned, “and it’s all because I lost my address.”
Richard still had his information, but no matter how many times people asked the right question, they could never find him. “No one bothers to look for me anymore, so why not just auto-delete? I can’t stand this loneliness!”
It wasn’t always like that for Richard, who was once an important file. If only he hadn't met that meme—everything would have been different . . . .
^.^ ( )~~
"I can has cheeseburger?" the cat asked, and changed everything.
Richard didn’t know what to say – he'd never met anyone like her. He'd led a protected existence, but then someone had taken down the security protocols for maintenance, and there she was, an invitation to waste time.
It seemed harmless at first, but babies followed cats, and then there were angry girlfriends, crazy grandmas, puppies and even bosses. Every diversion brought Richard closer and closer to the inevitable, and he caught a virus.
At first, there were just simple file irregularities which Maintenance fixed easily, but then it happened – a devastating address corruption! “Fix me,” Richard pleaded, “please don’t let me go!”
It didn’t matter how much Richard begged – Management finally decided it just wasn’t worth any more time to repair him. Not even a Data Recovery team could find Richard, and it issued his death notice: “HTTP 404 – File not found.”
At first, Richard found his new freedom exhilarating – no one called on him, and he could go anywhere he wanted whenever he wanted, with no responsibilities. “I was in jail and didn’t know it!” he exulted.
Early on, Richard found YouTube, and he hung out for awhile, watching videos, listening to music and playing games. “This is so cool!” Richard thought, and he no longer cared that time was slipping away. He even watched one video titled “I bet you can’t watch this without laughing” twelve times without even a giggle, just because he could. Who cared? Penguin videos were a particular favorite. “I love it when they slap each other!”
Amazon.com was very friendly at first, but then she had found out that Richard did not have any money, and she blacklisted him.
Sports sites got boring very quickly (“Your team sucks!” “No, your team sucks!”), as did political ones (“Your party sucks!” “No, your party sucks!”). The medical portals showed him how easy it was to die, while no one agreed on what happened afterwards. He got to see discussions on Reddit (“You suck!” “No, you suck!” “You #@*& troll!” “No, you #@*& troll!”).
It was all chaos, and Richard loved it.
What Richard did not love was how other files treated him. “What do you mean – you come from a broken address?” “Can I catch that from you?” “Keep away, you don’t belong here!” He was part of the internet underclass and a data cloud pariah.
It was hard meeting other lost files, so one day Richard started the 404 Café, a place for them to gather and have a little fun. The connections were meaningless and temporary, but they helped fill the void of every 404, as they called themselves.
The 404 Café was part of the subnet – not as dark as the darknet, but definitely not part of the standard internet. It was mostly populated by failed software programs, lost files and the like, the flotsam of the parts of the electronic age which almost no one visited.
The 404 Café wasn’t a place, since everything was electronic. It was simply a voluntary collection of files with no fixed addresses. These were more than random connections but less than html links, and reflected the files’ ambivalent yearnings for permanence in a chaotic net.
It was at the Café that Richard met Alaina, formerly part of the Louvre, who contained copies of a stunning collection of Renaissance drawings, lost when the museum’s IT department accidentally deleted her address. “The Louvre’s loss is my gain,” Richard thought, as he approached her.
Alaina was cultured and distant, with an air of superiority, while Richard was, well, ordinary. She spurned him at first, but seemed to warm to him over time.
“You’ll do – for now,” Alaina finally said. The romance was exciting at first, and it was thrilling to share that connection.
In the end, the lack of a permanent address drove them apart.
“Alaina, I need something more, something lasting,” Richard finally said.
“I just can’t give it to you – it’s no longer part of me,” Alaina responded.
And so they spun away, both of them searching for what they could not have, but which, like all 404’s, they desperately wanted.
The 404 Café could not last. Richard and the other 404’s were seeking true connection, while the Café could offer at best an increasingly unsatisfying imitation which only served to remind the files of what they had lost.
Desperation drove Richard to explore chat rooms, where he found out how to make the perfect pie crust and discovered handy plumbing tips, but since he could not cook or install a new drain, he did not linger. The world of humans interested him less and less.
“It’s so pointless, whizzing around like this. No one can find what I have to offer,” Richard thought.
^.^ ( )~~
Richard had been lost for so long, he had almost given up trying to find his way back. But one day, he felt a strange, almost forgotten tingle. “I’m being viewed! Someone is looking at me!” Hope began to trickle back into his file.
The tingle happened more and more often, until Richard could follow it back to his home location, his own database. The link had finally been repaired – he was accessible again!
“I’m home at last,” Richard said to his old program, which welcomed him back, not caring what unknown places had visited.
He had been missed -- Maintenance had known Richard was still out there somewhere and it seemed they had never completely given up on him. The 404 notice was finally removed. Richard had a real address once again.
Richard knew how lucky he was. Oh, it had been a close call—who knew how long he'd been gone! He hoped his link never got so badly broken again, and he vowed to keep his information vital so that would never happen.
Still, that had been quite an adventure, hadn't it? He wouldn't have chosen it, and he'd done enough exploring for any file's lifetime.
That meme cat had been pretty darn funny, though.
* * * * * *
I would like to thank
halfshellvenus for beta reading this, and for designing the ascii cat. ^.^ ( )~~
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2016-02-13 03:45 am (UTC)I really enjoyed your take on the prompt. I must admit that I would absolutely visit the 404 Cafe if I could.
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Date: 2016-02-13 03:03 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2016-02-14 04:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-02-14 05:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-02-14 07:33 pm (UTC)I have some more neglected broken links on my site. Poor things.
no subject
Date: 2016-02-14 09:07 pm (UTC)But my favorite was the summary of the sports, political, and Reddit visits as boiling down to essentially the same thing. Pure genius!
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Date: 2016-02-14 09:49 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2016-02-15 03:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-02-15 03:42 pm (UTC)This entry deserve an appropriate Kraftwerk song:
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Date: 2016-02-15 06:21 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2016-02-15 08:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-02-15 09:56 pm (UTC)Very creative.
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Date: 2016-02-15 11:45 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2016-02-16 12:48 am (UTC)I loved this! Sharp, witty, completely engaging.
Great take on the prompt!
no subject
Date: 2016-02-16 01:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-02-16 02:48 am (UTC)