Patrick's Surfaces V

"I turned the speakers off."

"Come on, honey, you should know by now that won't work with us. Nothing can come between us so easily."

I checked the speakers. They were off. I couldn't tell where her voice was coming from. The cold of the sweat running down my temple convinced me I wasn't dreaming.

"Sit down," she said.

"I am."

"You're not."

I wasn't.

I did. I sat in the desk chair, swiveled away from the monitor, and closed my eyes.

"Thank you. Now we can talk."

"Why does the computer need to be on if the speakers don't?" I said.

"So you can see me."

"If I can hear you without speakers, why can't I see you without the computer?"

"You wouldn't believe."

"I don't believe."

"Look at me."

"No." But I wanted to.

"Look at me."

"No."

"Zachary," she said. She said Zachary. My real name. I didn't respond.

"You need me to be on the monitor of your turned-on computer because your discernment of beauty is so poor that you would only see zeros and ones otherwise. Does this make sense?"

"No."

"Your world," she continued, "comes through here. Asking you to see me without the computer being on, your internet connection being active, would be like asking Emerson to write about trees if he'd never been outside. I need to inhabit your world. Or I wouldn't be anyone, or no one of consequence, certainly no one of beauty. Do you see?"

I still didn't answer. I did see though. It just didn't help me to understand.

"Look at me," she said.

And I did.

She hadn't changed. Her blue eyes were looking directly into me, her gauzy cream blouse showed a faint outline of the roundness of her breasts, but no nipple. Her legs and feet, and therefore ankles, were drawn up underneath her, hidden behind her blue paisley skirt. She raised one hand out, palm up. I imagined, but did not hear, the light gold chains on her wrist jangling with the movement.

"Yes," I said. "You are right. You are beautiful."

"So are you Zachary," she said. She said to me, Zachary, that I was beautiful and I decided to believe that she could see me.

"Why are you here," I asked. I did not ask "how."

"Because you invited me."

"Thank you for coming," I said.