Darling, kill that cockroach!

Darling, kill that cockroach! Darling? Where are you? Get out of the bathroom, love! What are you doing in there? The cockroach isn’t there. It’s in the living room. Now I don’t know anymore. It may have gone to the kitchen. Hurry up, otherwise it will hide! Get out of there! Don’t be so fearful. It’s not fear, it’s disgust, ok. No, it’s not a Madeira cockroach. What an exaggeration, it’s not that big. No, it’s not a flying one either. You can relax. How do I know? I saw it. It didn’t fly. Yes, I know it could be just resting still. But I know a flying cockroach when I see one. I’m sure it’s not a flying one. I swear. I swear by my life. All right, I swear by the name of God. What kind is it? It’s little. That’s it, a little French cockroach. Exactly, you see? There’s nothing to worry about. Now open that door, darling. If you take too long it will escape and we won’t know where it is anymore. It will be worse, huh! No, no, wait, that’s not it. I didn’t mean to scare you. Calm down! All right, let’s review everything. In the living room, it was in the living room. And we already know it’s a little French cockroach. You speak French, don’t you? See? You can speak in French with it and ask it to go away. You don’t even have to get close to it. Oh, darling, don’t be upset, I was just kidding, to relax a little bit. Ok, I know it’s a serious matter, then let’s speak seriously. Actually, I think it’s not even an adult cockroach. It’s so little, so little, that probably it’s a baby. You won’t be afraid of a baby cockroach, will you? What do you mean by “many”? No, it was just one. I understand, if it was a baby, there must be other babies. Is that what you mean? Darling? Are you listening to me? Calm down, calm down, breathe, breathe. Count to ten and calm down. One, two, three. Take a deep breath. Four, five, six. Are you better? It’s only one cockroach, one baby cockroach. There aren’t others, you can trust me. Now open that door and let’s solve this matter. Look, let’s do the following, if you don’t want, you don’t have to kill it. There is a poison in the closet. You just have to put some on the wall corners and under the furniture, in strategic spots, you know. The cockroach will eat it and die by itself. No one needs to kill it. That’s it! What do you think about this idea? To call an insecticide spraying team? No, that’s not necessary. It’s just one cockroach. No, darling, I won’t go to a hotel just to wait a cockroach die poisoned. There’s no need. We will stay here at home. Look, let’s solve it once and for all. I’m getting tired. Ouch! Darling, I’m seeing it. It’s coming this way. I will go up the bed. It’s going to the bathroom where you are. It will pass under the door. It will go in there. Watch out! Darling, come back! Don’t go away! Don’t leave me here alone with the cockroach.

Hello? Darling? Where are you? Come back home, love! I have already killed the cockroach. Do you want to see? I will send you a picture of the dead cockroach by WhatsApp, ok? Done. Have you seen it? Of course, that’s the cockroach I killed. Do you really think I would download a picture of a dead cockroach on the internet? Give me a break! Ok, I will take a picture holding today’s newspaper and the cockroach beside it. Done, sent. Satisfied? It is dead. Yes, 100% dead. I am absolutely sure. I smashed it with the flip-flop and then I sprayed poison on the corpse, just in case. No, it’s not moving. No, it won’t resurrect. Say it, I will write it down. Ok, I will put it in a plastic bag, I will tie the bag’s mouth, I will throw it in the garbage, and put the garbage outside. Wait on the line. Ok, I’ve done everything you asked me. Now come home, sweetheart, because I don’t like being alone. It’s getting late and I am afraid of the dark.

The Frenetic Cursor

An emptiness took over my mind. I couldn’t write any word that was worth it; none satisfied me, none was good enough. I got the feeling that things would go on only if I wrote something, as if my life depended on it. The last line I had written was there: reticent, motionless, curious, waiting for the next one, although the words were no longer my friends. That sudden lack of creativity made me static. Only my eyes would move, by going from one side to the other on the screen.

My attention turned to the cursor that blinked at the end of the line. Suddenly it had become my tormentor, denouncing insistently my lack of imagination. I could scroll up the page to try to hide it down there, outside my sight, I could minimize the screen, or even close the file, but I knew it kept blinking latently, although invisible, somewhere in that sea of magnetic impulses. It blinked in the middle of my computer’s memory chips. It blinked also in my own memory, in my imagination. I couldn’t think in anything to write, but I could imagine an invisible cursor that insisted in keep throbbing.

The mechanical insistence of that computational element started to stun me more than anything else. Its attitude was, in a way, intimidating. Had that already happened to someone else? Or would I be the first victim of a sadistic cursor? And what was that thing, after all? I don’t even know if it could be called a character, or even a symbol. An intermittent, vertical bar. Whose idea was it? I think you can never know who has the idea of these little things that populate our lives. It’s the kind of knowledge that gets lost in time.

This cursor is such an inconstant thing: it’s there, it’s not, it is, it isn’t. Why can’t it make up its mind once and for all? Can it be that its temporary absence is part of its existence? Or is it the case that it stops existing just so it can be reborn later in the same place? It appears and disappears with an enviable regularity. Where does it go when it disappears? Does it go to another screen in order to disturb someone else? Maybe it keeps jumping from screen to screen, from computer to computer around the world, pretending to be a playful goblin, who wants to put the patience of humans to the test. However, I suspect that there are more cursors spread all around. This one can’t be the only one. I would love to have a better-behaved, calmer, less frenetic cursor. Perhaps that’s why some people prefer a typewriter, not because of nostalgia, or because they like to hear that noise of little lead hammerheads striking a rubber cylinder, but just because they are left alone.

I decided to call technical support in search for a solution.

– Good morning, how can I help you?
– I have a problem with my computer.
– What kind of problem, sir?
– It’s my cursor that doesn’t stop blinking.
– I think I don’t understand very well, sir, your cursor?
– Yes, my cursor, that little thing that keeps blinking on the computer screen.
– Hum, perhaps it’s a problem with your mouse. We have here excellent, state-of-the-art mouses. If you want to drop by here to take a look...
– No, my mouse is fine.
– But you’ve just told me it keeps blinking.
– The cursor that blinks is another one, the one from the mouse is fine, it doesn’t blink.
– I don’t understand very well. Are you saying that there are two cursors on your screen?
– Well, I hadn’t noticed it, but now that you mentioned it, that’s it, there are two cursors, but the one from the mouse is fine, the problem is the other one.
– The other one? Which other one?
– The one that blinks, of course.
– Sorry, sir, but which other cursor is this?
– The one from the text I’m writing, the one that stays at the end of the line, you know.
– Oh, I see. But, sir, I believe this cursor is just like that, its normal behavior is to blink continuously to indicate its position.
– But it’s bothering me a lot! I want it to stop blinking. Can you fix it?
– Hum, I’m not sure. I’ve never heard of making a cursor stop blinking. I don’t know if we offer this service here.
– Well, get informed. Talk to your supervisor.
– One moment, please.

The attendant left the phone and forgot to make the music play, so I kept listening to him talking to his work colleague.

– There is a guy here complaining about a cursor. He says it’s blinking and wants it to stop blinking.
– Stop blinking? Tell him to buy a new mouse.
– It’s not the mouse cursor, but the one from the text.
– Oh, I don’t know nothing about that. He’s got to ask the technicians.

The attendant came back to the phone.

– Sir, the technical sector is responsible for solving this problem. I will transfer the call.

The music started to play. Three minutes later, someone answered the phone.

– Technical sector, how can I help you?
– Here’s the thing, there’s a cursor on my screen that doesn’t stop blinking, and this is bothering me a lot. How can I fix it?
– Sir, it’s not usual that the mouse cursor blinks, we have to...
– It’s not the mouse cursor, I’ve already told it to the other attendant, it’s the one from the text I was writing, the cursor from the text editor, do you understand?
– Oh, right... In that respect, unfortunately we can’t do anything, sir. It comes factory-set like that, so there is no way to change that behavior.
– Are you saying that nothing can be done to change it?
– I’m sorry, sir, but text editors work like that.
– I don’t know, isn’t it possible to disable the cursor or something like that?
– Hm... not that I know of, sir.
– Not that you know of, but what about someone else, not that they know of too?
– Sir, try to understand, this feature is useful to help who is writing, to indicate the position where they stopped.
– Listen to me, young man, in my case it’s not helping at all. Quite the opposite, it’s taking away my attention, it’s hindering me. And I know very well where I stopped the text, I don’t need that a crazy cursor keeps reminding me this all the time.
– I’m very sorry, sir, but...
– But nothing, you are a bunch of incompetents. You should have a solution for it. Well, I imagine that many people must have already complained about the same problem.
– Not that I remember of, no. I’m sure you must be the first one to complain about it.
– Are you kidding with me, young man?
– Of course not, sir, I apologize if there was a misunderstanding.
– Just wait and see! I will denounce you to consumer protection. You can write down my words!
– Sir, unfortunately there’s nothing we can do in this case. Is there any other thing I can help you with?
– No! Goodbye!
– Thank you very much for your... (tututu...)

I was so angry that I hung up the phone on him. Now I was back to square one, hostage of my own cursor. And now I had learned there were two of them. At least the other one wasn’t blinking. The mouse cursor had never disturbed me, since it followed my orders obediently: up, down, left, right, still; but not the other one, that stubborn one was too much independent for me. I couldn’t control it; it had its own life. I decided I wouldn’t ask for anyone else’s help anymore. What if I was told about another one? A third cursor, I coudn’t handle it, that would be a complot against my creative flow. I started to realize that sometimes even the most ridiculous things could lead to a dramatic situation.

I went back to the computer and tried to calm down. I closed the file and reopened it. For some things that would work, but not for the damn cursor that kept accusing me patiently. I saw it wouldn’t help to continue thinking in a solution. Trying to push it would only make things worse. I turned off the computer and decided to give a break on all that. I went for a walk on the street to take my mind off things and try to think in something else. Who knows when I came back my ideas would flow better and I wouldn’t even notice the presence of that thing anymore.

I called the elevator and while I was waiting for it I looked at the city through the corridor window. The elevator arrived, I got in and went directly to ground floor. I looked at the elevator display while the numbers passed: 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. When it arrived at the ground floor, the display went off and something started to blink: a cursor. I found that strange. The door opened and I left quickly. When I walked by the lobby, I asked the doorman if the elevator was broken.

– Buddy, is there any problem with the elevator?

He had his back turned to me. He turned and answered.

– No, sir, everything is working perfectly.

When he stopped talking, a cursor started blinking in front of his mouth.

– Is there something wrong, sir?

When he started talking, the cursor disappeared; when he stopped taking, the cursor went back to blinking. Was I going crazy? Without answering to him, I opened the door and escaped to the sidewalk.

The street was very busy, full of people, bicycles, motorcycles and cars going from one side to the other. I walked in a fast pace. I looked at the people and I saw cursors blinking in front of their shut mouths. Some of them talked on the phone, without cursors while talking but that reappeared and went back to blinking while they were listening to the person at the other end of the line. I looked on my side and I saw a man seating on a chair having his shoes polished. He was reading the newspaper and had a cursor blinking on his mouth. The shoeshiner, who was seated on a wooden stool, worked silent while his mouth also showed a frenetic cursor. I kept walking and turned my eyes down, trying to free myself from that curse that stalked me. A dog walker passed by me holding eight dogs. Cursors also blinked in front of their snouts; only the ones that were barking made them disappear temporarily. No matter where I looked, there they were; the cursors didn’t stop blinking: on the beaks of the birds that weren’t singing, on the license plates of the parked cars, on the red traffic lights. Everything that was still had blinking cursors.

I saw a man seated in lotus position on a mat extended on the sidewalk. He was meditating in silence and had no cursor in front of his mouth. Would it be that he had managed to disconnect from the world and to think in absolutely nothing at all? I went towards him with the hope of being told his secret. I touched his shoulder and he opened his eyes. He looked at me mute and I admired even more his self-control; it seemed as if nothing disturbed him. Finally, I asked: “How can you do it?” He shaked his head as if he couldn’t understand me, he raised his hands, and started to make gestures and he pointed to his ears with a negative sign. I realized he was deaf-mute, and communicated with his hands, and when he stopped moving them, cursors started to blink among his fingers.

I turned away and started running. They were everywhere, and I couldn’t escape from them. I lost my breath in front of a store and, gasping for air, I leaned over my knees. After a few seconds, I stood up and looked at my reflection on the display window. I saw a cursor blinking in front of my face. With all my strength, I shouted as hard and as long as I could: “Aaaaaah!” I fell on the ground unconscious.

When I opened my eyes, many people were around me, a police officer wrote notes on a little paper block, and other officers moved the crowd away. When he realized I had awakened, the police officer asked:

– Are you OK, sir? What happened?

I was still a little dizzy, but I was able to see that there were no cursors blinking any more: neither on the mouths of people, nor on the parked cars, nor anywhere else. I was tremendously relieved. Then I answered:

– I’m fine. I was just a little dizzy and fell down, that’s it.
– Do you need a doctor?
– No, I’m fine. I live near here, I’m going home.

I stood up and passed through the rubberneckers. I looked at all sides and it seemed everything had really come back to normal. No cursor was blinking nowhere. I took my way home.

I arrived at my building, I went straight to the elevator, and the display showed the ground floor. I pressed sixth floor and went up. When the elevator stopped, it showed the number six. I walked through the corridor and got into the apartment. Everything was in the most perfect order.

I sat on my office chair, I got closer to the table and I hesitated a little before turning on the computer. I took heart, raised the monitor up and turned it on. I lowered my head and closed my eyes for a moment, while the computer was booting up. I took a deep breath, with my eyes still closed. Finally, I raised my head up, I took a last deep breath, I opened my eyes and there it was: the cursor kept blinking!