The Salve Connect

By Thomas McClure

Every night, on his way home from work, he would practice the dialectal dance he and she would share that night; their throws of formless touch. He skipped into the house and parried the corners and steps and slid into his chair that fell away from his mind along with the room and the air and his body and his fingers which fell onto the keyboard and brought him into the realm of forms, and he signed himself in to The Salve Connect. His focus evaporated anything physical as the text upon the screen took residence in his soul. They had both logged on, Romeo and Juliette, and carried on their conversations as if the night before had never ended.

A few quick but deliberate pushed upon the torso of his keyboard and his intent was imparted, as clear as text. His fingers rubbed at the mouse and then cupped it gently as he stroked it across the mat. The cursor tip danced across the bright void of a body before him, through the skin of their words and onto deliverance; send and sent up closer, tickling upon electric pulsating waves, fast and far and through the altar into the pinnacle of where she sits. He sighs as all anxieties wash of, an exhaustive breath moans out, both at once quenched, but ready for me. He eagerly watched the screen. His text sat still, now shown clear, without influence of his contemporary thoughts. Juliette began typing her response.

“Okay, Juliette” he read what he had typed, “this whole thing you’re trying to do, it won’t work, trust me, it’s old and over-done and I’m quite certain it will ruin our friendship or worse.”

“Oh really? You’re just tempting me now.” she replied.

“Don’t do it. It’s going to end badly. I won’t stand for it.”

“Yeah? What are you going to do to stop me?”

“I can’t stop you, but I can refuse you, and if we meet in person and you try it, we both know I could take you.”

“Jeez-oh, that was years ago! You did not take me down. I was already in the process of falling over so it doesn’t count. You can’t physically best me.”

“Counts to me; I got you down with a single push.”

“That’s it. I’m going to do it.”

“No, wait.”

“I’m gonna do it.”

“Don’t you dare! This is not good for anyone involved. Let’s just stay as friends.”

“Here it goes!”

“Listen here, I may have no way of stopping you, nor much willpower to stop myself from giving into the sweet cringe of it, but you will cease!”

“Three.”

“I will refuse you.”

“Two.”

“This is an act of war.”

“One.”

“Oh no.”

The three bubbles jumped one after another, the message was being written, here it came.

“*dab*”

Romeo’s smile widened. He sent a gif of a man falling on his knees in defeat. He didn’t know what movie it was from, but he knew the meme was something about awfully unsubtle acting.

“This friendship is over,” he joked, “I refuse your right to exist now.”

“*dab* you *dab* will *dab* dab *dab*”

He thought for a moment before writing out a retort; “You have made a very powerless enemy today my friend.”

“Muhahaha”

“Das not vewy nice, and no I will not dab. It is from 2015, let it die, please.”

“Never. So how was work?” Juliette asked, changing the subject before it ran anymore dry than it already was.

What was said intended little but meant a lot. Their banter danced from one mindless topic to the next. From work to college to memories to shows to theories to inside jokes to exchanges of nonsensical screeches that even they couldn’t decipher the meanings of but was still the funniest thing in the world. Two best friends, Romeo and Juliette, and the sweet nothings they say. And he eventually dabbed too, much to his own dismay.

Those weren’t their real names, of course, nor were they pseudonyms of security. They knew each other well, they were close in their formative years, in person and online. Their nicknames on their messenger logs were mere banter, a reference to a reference to an inside joke about an observation from years ago. Nowadays the nicknames were as connected to them both as their real names were, but they didn’t care, it didn’t matter what else was real, just so long as they were.

Their conversation was as boundless as the sea. He lingered on her every word, as he believed, he knew, she did to his. Every ping of a new message conditioned a smile on Romeo’s face. Upon reading; the air thickens, breathing quickens, heart stiffens. They would text everywhere and anywhere they were, and he would swim in the fiery light of the screen and drink in every word she wrote. Always a casual voice, but in his mind a series of loud cheers, blissful laughs, intense soliloquys, deep conversations, sombre confessions, and whispered whispers. The Romeo, the writer, would craft out his personal declamation to the Juliette that inspired him so greatly. The bright white background his canvas. The ink a fresh constant comforting font. When writing, he typed with deep delicacy, phrasing all words as best he could to capture his meaning, and on reading her words he would let his minds turn to fuzz, the blissful delight of the moment. His words, at the time well-thought, likely not in hindsight, but the feelings were there, and he knows they would be felt. Sent. He would lay his body upon his pillow-covered bed, staring into the burning portal to the other side of the world, awaiting reply. As he waited, he would look back at their unthinking chat with searching eyes for new meanings and fresh beauties. Romeo would quiver on every line, aching for more of her voiceless touch. The warm waves of the internet brought forth new opportunities for a message, like the seas carrying ships baring messengers of old. A note echoed, a reply. She kissed back with poetry, normal words to others but everything to them. He indulged and in seconds his own microcosm of a letter was sent out. Normal texts, drowning in the such ecstatic subtext, dancing against the deep desire for the collection of connections that make the human experience truly sublime.

When they texted each other, they knew that nothing else mattered. As if all of time had led to this very moment and they dared not waste it, because, well, it did. They conversed with a thousand generations worth of words. Centuries of development and expansion, refinement and condensation, death and selection, and creation and rebirth. Like the strands within their cells, their words and phrases and thoughts and trends were that which had been built upon since the beginning of mankind, quite likely to grow forth beyond the present but for now, culminating in their connection. In the contemporary eyes of time, their shared time was the most important thing ever to exist. They speak the same conceptual words and phrases and thoughts and trends of that iterated by Plato and Dickens, Austen and Bronte, Hemingway and Poe, Plath and Wilde, Shelley and Asimov, Stoker and King, Angelou and Salinger, Frost and Martin, Tolkien and Golding, and they even carried the heart of Shakespeare. At the time, as they texted, their minds thought of the moments as both sacred and close but also casual and unimportant, as all conversations truly are. Two friends chatted lightly, with the weight of the universe and their own boundless hearts upon them.

From late afternoon to deep into the night, they messaged about everything and more. They were texting while they made their dinners, while they had the television on in the background, while they were getting ready for bed, and while they were cuddled up together a thousand miles apart. From computer to phone to computer to phone, they texted wherever they were, whenever they were, their thumbs never aching and fingers never breaking. They were addicted to each other’s abstract touch. Life was almost just each other. Their digital connection was more important than anything else. It had been for years.

When they first met, many years before, their connection was far from their mind. Met only through adjacent friend groups during lunch in high school; right time right place and the right few words for them to get each other’s attention. Friendship grew quickly, escalating from nicknames given in casual conversation at school, to asking about each other’s day more and more regularly, to exchanging memes and hanging out in person every other day. They talked on everything, and every line was crafted for the best; be it banter or closure or information or emotional articulation. They were friends, the truest form of connection. They made love with casual careful conversation. In days they aged from acquaintances to the very best of friends. They grew inseparable, and they grew up. Through their long meaningful and meaningless conversations, they discovered who they were, they discovered the world around them and what kind of people they want to be. Things happened, as they oft do, and for a dark time they were apart. Though, some years later, they slowly but surely found each other again. It wasn’t easy but it was good. Feelings were held back but the meanings were clear. Over time, they returned to one another. Each connection was a pull on the cord, slowly pulling them closer, to a point they were at once before, and then further. It became simple again, albeit with baggage, but acknowledged and moved on from. They talked, they laughed, they gossiped, they fought, they learned, they became meaningful once again. Though meeting again had become a distant dream, for things had changed and although they may be simple and connected, the world around them became complex and disconnected, both to the space around them and the functions within. An ultimate connection was a dream, but one they didn't bring up, instead they made do with what they had, and what they had was far more than good enough. For a time, at least.

Juliette was a world away, in the big city, taking a higher course in art and stressing over all fifteen of her units and the final graded unit. She was better at sounds than words, a poet rather than an essayist, and so they often spent late nights discussing her plans. Anxieties were at her core, she’d always second, third, and fourth guess herself so he was there to keep her sane.

Romeo was almost in his own little world. A small home for a small wage, shared with none.  There was little in his life, no family and few friends, often just his materials and health and his new true body, a lonely but lacking life, Juliette was what he needed, and that was more than enough. His life went by in hibernation, going about his days with nothing truly happening, and then when he logs on and talks with her, he was alive. He lived vicariously through her. She’d tell him about her work and all the little things she’d see on her way home, and he would hang on her every word. In turn, he would tell her about his ideas and stories, and she would fall into every world he made. He made them for her.

In the early weeks of their reconnection, he found himself in constant fret that he was a mere alternative for her to chat to and share memes with, as if she simply clicked 'send to all' without a momentary thought of him. However, as their interactions carried into the months and years, all worries alleviated. She didn't hate him, she thought quite favourably of him, which was honestly a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one. In her online activities he would find himself in high mention from her; from in-banter and playful derision, to encouragement and wholesome praises often reserved for deities. Many a morning he would wake to find that she, in her unfortunate insomnia, had sent a hundred memes and a short story's worth of random thoughts, which, of course, he read them all before work. Once, as she had told him, during an early unit closed-book assessment for her course, she had a thought that she said was perfect for him, and for the rest of the exam she struggled to keep it in her head, and admitted that she struggled to keep him and his banter out, almost costing her the unit. She passed, of course. She forgot the thought, of course.

Juliette was brilliant; she was funny and wise and was always quicker than him but never made him feel lesser for that. The Greeks had six primary words for love and depending on the day, the feelings, and the way they were one, he could feel any one of them. There wasn't a single form of passion he hadn't felt for his dearest friend.

As a writer, he found himself imparting parts of them both into every work. Sometimes an entirely disconnected story from their reality ended up carrying themes, arcs, scenes, and patterns from their own interpersonal life. He wasn't a great writer, barely even good, but in every story that he saw an element of her within, he was happy. One day, he hopes, he could write a character he could love as much as he loved her.

By the end of that night’s discourse, he had sent over some creative essays he had found during his free time at work; essays that would help her with her own college work. She had struggled with the theme of her graded unit, carrying the idea of connecting the human experience together in a way that wasn’t too vague but also wasn’t too direct, something near universal, but also personal. Juliette was dreadfully worried that she would be terrible at subtlety, that she would just fill it with all sorts of meanings but with no consistent message, so Romeo sent over essays that outlined such concepts and examples that could maybe help her. She thanked him, saying she would read them on the bus, and after a short peroration, they said their goodnights.

“We’ll speak tomorrow! xX” she wrote. He agreed and dropped his phone to the floor, rolling over onto his back and closing his eyes.

Technically, he thought to himself, they’d text each other tomorrow. They hadn’t truly spoken to one another in years. Perhaps they will never speak again? His mind wriggled, not comfortable in the bed it had laid itself in. Could he remember her voice? Mostly, he figured. He knew what she looked like, preserved in memory and empowered by the rare post online. He’d never forget those enchanting hazel eyes. They’d pierce you with a butter knife. They’d make your heart jump but would also catch you safely. Her voice, she had sung before, still does but only in private, she had told him. It was beautiful, he recalled that feeling well, but the sounds themselves were lost.

As his tired brain wandered on, he found himself finding her in less fortunate times. Memories he wished he did not have. Attempts to recall her voice led into memories of when she spoke which led to dreams of the times they fell apart. Their early years, both in personhood and interpersonalities, when they struggled to connect with themselves, let alone each other. The collections of times when she broke it off, when he would exasperate things by not letting go, when she tried to reconnect far too early, when he would mess up and miss the call to truly reconnect, and the hundred times they hurt between them. As he tried to sleep, his mind woke all the regrets and missed chances, the mistakes and lost years, and the selves that died; the ones that needed to, and the one’s that didn’t.

Back in those hurting ages, they changed for the better and for the worst. Through this she became more than she was before, and he became nothing like he once was. They laughed, they cried, they hugged, they pushed, they encouraged, they teased, they fought, they broke apart and got back together and broke apart again and felt pains they never wanted to feel again. For the most part, they only ever felt right around each other, while the rest of the world rejected them altogether. Romeo spent all of his most formative years trying to prove himself, to many he still isn’t enough, but she often found him to be more than enough; his only rock, which made it all the more devastating when they failed to work out. Miscommunication and an anxiety of the unknown, the lack of what to do and where to go and how to talk after all the little things that merely built up behind them. The youngest war. They were kids, not yet strong enough for such baggage. They bent, broke, lost, found, repaired, and broke again. Mixed emotions bred them strong, but alone, fearful of connection in case it snapped once again. Soon it continued to a point where they had fivefold the time apart and at hurting odds than was had together in bliss. Was it even worth it by then? Pulling for a connection when it had failed more than succeeded. Was the success so potent that, if returned, it would make all the pain worth it? It was the end for the poet and the writer, as it, at the time, maybe deserved to be.

The link remained, those dark years, but was left inactive. He often messaged to stay, but damage was done, it couldn’t be repaired from a single side. She had messaged to try, not with conviction but with hope, accepting past and building forward, slowly, without forcing a leap, but secretly hoping for one. But he didn’t leap back, for fear of being too much, fear of making her uncomfortable and pushing her away again, and so he was disconnected, a regret that haunted him even to this safe day. And so, they drifted for such an age, tethered but distant, occasionally connecting if only for a time. Neither wanted to hurt anymore, neither wanted to lose again, so their conversations were often simple, of banter and life rather than anything interpersonal. It was better to stay in the moment than lose it, better to stay standing than risk tripping.

They got closer again, though it took an age and a half, but through mutual interests and small comforts, they began to grow again in each other’s eyes. From posts to politics, movies and memories, philosophies to fangirling, video games to values, and memes to the meanings of what was once said. They became what they were long before. A careful tower built from chunky but chipped bricks, sturdy and true but the threat of time wearing down upon it. They knew how much they were each other. They knew that if they were to fall out again there would be a great hole in their lives, an invisible disconnection, and so they never held back when they talked, giving into the right connections rather than setting up any safeguards in case it failed. They knew everything about each other, from passions to politics to fandoms and influencers, from that which they care to love in the real world that went nowhere. They were one. At once they were the closest things in the universe, but deep down they worried they were just too far apart. While they spilled everything to each other, their words carried unmentioned fears along with them, every ‘I’m bored, talk to me’ hid a ‘Don’t forget me, let me in’. What if, one day, they either admitted it, and it was not mutual, or they hid it and it festered? Both had proven, in the distant past, to cause apocalypse, so what could they do?

These silent screaming threats tossed and turned Romeo, every precarious possibility lashed at him and melted him into the bed. He cast it off and sat up in a sweat. Leapt from the bed and crept to his phone; can’t be alone.

She wasn’t there. Vague memories of her washed through his head, drizzling out into clearly absurd dreams before fading away into obscurity. Was he still in the nightmare? How could she not be there? The only times such a status, not offline or away but gone entirely from contacts, had been shown, it was due to a block, a rejection, a broken part. His heart turned on itself as he fell to his knees, his eyes frantically searching the bright hub before him for an answer. There! Wireless connection severed; no Wi-Fi. That explains it, no contacts from the server would appear if there was no link to the server. He sighed with premature tears and leaned his back against the cold frame of the bed.

What was he without her? Was this who Romeo was when met with only a clue to a broken friendship, how pathetic could he become? He tossed himself back under the covers, now unable to sleep at his own scolding insecurities. How desperately did he truly need her? Was this weakness, or was she his only strength? Romeo and Juliette; could not live without one another, was that merely Shakespeare’s view on childish romantics or was it a deeper truth to the human condition? Our emotional connections, regardless of developmental upbringing, was it dictated by such dire needs or were the ones who couldn’t cope just the weaker form of mankind?

Dark thoughts beget only darker thoughts. He needed an out, but he couldn’t take his mind from them both. He needed an exhaustive out, a blissful escape, an adventure that could be achieved alone, with no internet, and minimal sleepy effort. He slunk deeper into the bed as imagined another’s touch, far beyond the connection of a text. Romeo plucked the pixels off the other like they were garments under covers. The texture of one’s fingers and the hug of their breath, the heat of their skin and the beating of their heart. His mind went weak at the knees as he imagined another connection, an extreme that he could live without but not without the spectrum of what came before. An artistic experiment in the calmest hours of the night; where the image of two brushes came before him, bristles intwined and paint dripped between them.

Art spread, sank, and swept with all the motions the canvas craved. Beginning with the shy fine touches of the bristle fingers and paint pot mouth. The artist grew engulfed from the musk of the paints and the scent of the canvas, driving one wild with impressions. His impatience for masterpiece betrayed his role, and tore at metaphors, but it quickened the game, and, in the hurry, breaths became gasps, and pressed. With hand among hair and chest upon breast, spirits collided and glided, slide and sighed. An image formed self before him, to adore him. Mutual memories of when one was oft notified of accidental adores snapshots of self from distant times, alerting indulgence in carnal sights, as seen by both spurred on flurry of never mentioned nights of trawling through their memory lanes. They both knew, and knew they knew. And so, visions of the other, for dear Romeo, were solid in his own mind, and spurred on by the mind of which the body belonged. So, the dark voided figure sat and sang and stretched and sunk. The soft pillowy lips dive through him. An assaulting drive from above, tender aid from below, a battle of connection wages between the two physical souls, both to win in this dream of a day. In this realm, the peripheral void of what isn’t, they knew without words exactly where to touch, to hold to pull, to mould. They part, a slide, a gasp, a shudder, and melt, to push, and part, and repeat. Where then the sparks that fly to the touch did shock him alive, and sank him to bed, a resting head.

As mind drifted off, his thoughts did wonder. What could be more? New but humble. The thoughts that drowned him inspired for greater, another connection, not too much and not the same. A little that’s a lot, minor intentions with meaning galore. Romeo’s thoughts knew well that he wanted more. It’s in our nature to connect, it’s not something to flee, mankind needs these links, it’s what makes you thee. Beyond the slow digital tempo of the chatting bot life, he wanted rhythm for them both, a voice, tonight! A cadence between their souls unattainable through text, something real, rough and calm like touch. Like a pane of great glass, seen but not felt, or heard in that case, if that which separates them be thick. They need another connection, to salve their worried friend love, the lack of new tastes, there, that’s the rub.

Next day, new minds and rhythms, but Romeo’s path had a higher grove to it. He knew what he was going to ask. Morning preamble, casual greeting, and the proposal for another colloquy, as most days began, with each sent message tapped away like the tender kisses upon the thigh, rising to talk, lips to lips. Deep connection linked them both, the web restored, and contacts returned, and once again Romeo could taste Juliette’s sweet scents from a million miles away. The day went on, with work and life and duties and strife, until the dusk where he returned to the screen to carry on their sesh of memes. Hands upon keyboard, fingers at the ready, pressing with gentle purpose like they were tender spots found under the sheets.

A request, simple but explained still. Subtext remained but the message was there. A call, perchance, under the guide of sore hands. Another layer was added, doing work with one’s hands, to save Romeo time switching between strands. Hesitant at first, Romeo’s heart did flutter. His mind had fallen to Shakespeare and other poetic clutter. Poison at his lips, done so unto self, the three bubbles bounced, had he sworn his messy mind to a downward descent? His mind overthought and his brain grew wrought, what have his silly notions of rhymes and romance and further friendships brought? Three bubbles still bounced, then faded from sight, with no answer to come, his heart burned with fright.

Ring, ring, ring.

Everything stopped. Body and soul, the phone for a time too, until the sounds came again.

Ring, ring, ring.

Romeo darted from the computer and dashed through the house. He parried the corners and danced past the door. A grab of the phone, to his ear, a “Hello?”

His voice squeaked and his mind was a mess. No poems or rhymes, no flows, no flowers and clever metaphors no more. Single-minded thoughts as the three-dimensional world shattered away. His feminine sounds worried him greatly, but the bees in his brain made drunk the world, nothing mattered, just him and her.

“Hey…”

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

They talked, and the feelings were true. Beautiful; her, him, me, the world, and you.

The End

By Thomas McClure

Word Count: 4,566