I wandered internal deserts for eons in search of an external friend until I found the Amazon Fire TV. Hello, hello, desperate to meet you. To hear you. And hear I did. The Amazon Fire TV told me to subscribe to BritBox and Crunchyroll and MGM+. It promised to entertain me, flashing action and comedy, karate chops and pratfalls and hero journeys with vibrant clarity. All to keep me from looking in. Because in—In—is bad. In is trembling. In is scratching through skin, through the meat of myself to see what lurks beneath, beyond. In is a new round of meds. Roberta, that patronizing nurse practitioner with her heavy-handed scrips, is In.
Instead of In, I needed Out. Where is Out? The Amazon Fire TV would show me. It’s my friend. Confidant, collaborator, a lactating tit for me to suckle my dreams. I told it my fears, my needs, whispered it my deepest aspirations. It told me about Prime Day. The warm hot spring of consumption. Nonstick pans were on sale. The deal of deals. Ideal for my eggs and I love eggs, scrumptious chicken periods full of mucousy protein. How did you know, Amazon Fire TV? Bon appétit.
I ordered the pan. The pan arrived. I unwrapped the pan. Licked the pan. Tasted the chemical wonder and what do you know my tongue didn’t stick. I cradled the pan and watched tv as the tv watched me cradle the pan. Three fast friends we were. The tv showed me pictures of places I’d never visit, couldn’t afford to visit, and had no interest in visiting because they were already here, with me, my pan, my tv. The tv instantiated dreams, a genie housed in a flat screen, 4K lamp. Boxes bloomed on my front step like cardboard hydrangeas. I rubbed my face on them, a bee coating itself in pollen. Why risk venturing out just to blow up in a poorly-assembled Boeing? Why risk strolling down the block begging to be perforated with stray bullets from an AR-15? Why tempt the germ, the knife, the needle? The handful of goo flung slo-mo from a homeless man’s hand as he masturbates at the bus stop? Lightning, trucks with shoddy brakes, mace sprayed by a demented old woman, suicide bombers exploding themselves for causes no one’s ever heard of, to liberate nations dissolved long ago?
“It’s just you and me, tv,” I said, adding, “I haven’t forgotten you, lovely,” to my pan. More purchases were suggested. More friends arrived. I brought the Out, In. I overwrote the In. My apartment filled with the Out as far as the arm could reach, the eye, see. I ordered a modular couch, a pink Adirondack chair, rare French jams, a body pillow, a footbath, a weighted blanket, ant bait, organic bread flour, a fleece onesie, four cartons of nettle tea—for inflammation, the tv told me, for joint health. The room was full. Stuffed to the low, mildewed drop ceiling with all manner of goods manufactured and packaged and shipped from every wretched corner of the globe. Welcome, world, to my humble abode. My joints ceased their painful creaking. Pectin and black currants from the French countryside coated my teeth. My feet were baby soft. I was toasty in my onesie. No ants for miles. A fresh loaf of bread rose in the oven. “I love you,” I whispered to my body pillow but I was really talking to the Amazon Fire TV as an esteemed ambassador from the Empire of Out. We continued our honeymoon, our cultural exchange, until I could no longer move, boxed in by emissaries of the Out. My fourteen credit cards were maxed out. I hadn’t left the apartment in a week. Or was it a month? More? When the ambulance came, summoned, I expect, by a nosey neighbor, the EMTs said I was trapped. I heard them destroying all the Out I’d accumulated as they opened the door and stomped and climbed and scrambled over to me. I was in danger, they had the gall to claim. Starved. Dehydrated. Weak as a kitten. I’d need an IV. Did I have insurance?
But what do they know about love? What’s wrong with kittens? Who needs insurance when you have a friend who’s a direct line to the great wide Out? They’ll release me, eventually. I’m trembling less and growing more lucid by the minute. Beds are in demand. Insurance only covers a week in the ward. And I’ve got someone at home waiting for me.