A mime is a tragic figure, as they are contained inside a non-existent box, the projection of a world defined by its constraint. Their vocation and existential desperation is to communicate that which is not there. A happy mime is like a happy clown: a satire of itself, as anyone with a heart would be devastated to be locked inside themselves. One’s greatest critic are their organs, conspiring to spaz out any day. Comedy gets a smile and drama gets one salty tear drop because life is 70% sea water and that is some salty shit. Saline the sea of love. Ok I’ll stop.

RE: re: fwd: Re: _______________

If touching what is not actually there turns us into mimes, then we have the iPad to thank. Stuck inside the internet, soundless but not wordless. An email’s tragedy is contained in its header:

RE: re: fwd: Re: _____________

The endless reference(s) to a subject never typed, only bearing the “body” of the email, the things we can only say when the face isn’t looking, or looked at. Perhaps the visceral word “body” that describes the “meat” of an email is what we aspire to: to write a message, or read one, that makes the heart go glump glump.

We tap on invisible screens, in our morning robes drinking instant coffee. All things are instant, for instance: the IM, the aforementioned coffee that colors teeth the way time does a sculpture behind rope in a museum. The realest buttons are real — that index-finger evasive G-spot, that G-key that helps you type Get the fuck out — much more than any ostentatious G-thang. Ok I’ll stop.

I just wanna say this: Mine is a tragic figure, my fingers going to second base on these real ass buttons. If typing is a type of breath, and if breathing is a type of prayer, then “RE: re: fwd: Re: _______________” and you’re welcome.

Those who drink instant coffee know nothing of our inviolate earth; those who instant message have no time to cry a salty tear; those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones; and those without health insurance shouldn’t have kidney stones. What the fuck else is new.