Experi-mental

His mind races through the stillness of another quiet evening.  It's familiar, and happens often. When obligation has gone to bed, along with his wife and kids, he sits alone... alone with the peace and quiet. Alone with Depression.

Depression is like a relative who moved in long ago, decided to stay, and now follows him around like a stalker: creepy, stealth-like, and at the same time obvious. Depression sits on his shoulder, observes his life, and whispers a constant picture of despair into his ear.

He escapes to the cold, pixelated glow of the computer, which buzzes with distraction.  He wants to bore the hell out of Depression by checking a few twitter feeds and facebook status updates.

It's like a bad play in football.  Depression laughs at the misdirect and reminds him that too much stock is put into these social networks, thus wasting a lot of time engaging with complete strangers. An avatar, twitter handle, and a thousand updates does not a friend make.  Even more sobering, the people he actually knows (real life friends on the social networks) are becoming more and more like the pixelated strangers with each passing day.  All of these connections -- virtual in nature -- only illuminate the  unconnected feeling in the end.

Fine. He logs off and plays some music, or a game.  Sometimes he sits still in deep thought for hours, knowing exhaustion will come soon enough, and Depression needs rest too.