My most beautiful Christmas gift ever (or my life as a Keynote slide show)
“ — I picture the flow of life as a deck of slides”, he says. “You move from one to the next, and sometimes, one of them seems to animate, and it becomes like a movie on its own, and you can see various dimensions through it. Other slide shows.”
“ — It's called interaction”, I reply.
“ — Interaction is like radio. Sometimes you're tuned in, sometimes close, sometimes not at all. When you're tuned in with someone, the signal is like perfect and clear.
— Yeah, and sometimes it's just scrambled. Signal versus noise. I'm tuning...” planting my eyes in his.
“ — Those eyes...” he says.
“ — What?
— I don't want to hurt you.”
I'm puzzled and silent for a moment, but he's been looking at me for hours with eyes and smiles that contradict my sudden doubt about the reciprocity of our feelings. If it's not what I feel it is, we're both perfect mirrors. May be I'm just going too fast.
“ — Life could be a lot simpler, if only we didn't make it so complicated”, he says.
“ — I think it's because it looks less frightening that way. It's more reassuring to seem in charge, even if it's only a simulacrum of control.
I wish the time would stop now”, I whisper.
— It has.”
At this moment, I recall this scene from Shortbus where Severine describes her best orgasm, believing that she was alone and that time had stopped, but then realized that she wasn't alone and time hadn't stopped. He'll be gone soon and I'm sad. I feel my tears and make a useless try at hiding them.
“ — Don't go sad at me.
— I'm not sad, I'm happy.
— This is intense”, he says.
“ — How often do these things happen?” I ask, knowing the answer already.
“ — Not often.
— We're on the same wavelength. Now the question is about the bandwidth.
— And the volume! Those eyes...
— I'm looking at the dimensions in this interactive slide, where they can lead us to...
— We'll see. It's a PowerPoint show.
— I'm using Keynote!”, I reply, with a grin. I didn't know architects could be so geeky.
We've been like teenagers for three days and, oh gosh... does it feel good!
