Polis Paralela

I. The Parallel Polis
Blink: he opens his eyes. While lying down he takes in the scene. He reminds himself that he is in his bedroom that he goes to college, that his name is John and when he is about to reconsider himself in order to prepare for the day there sounds a loud beep. It’s a Blackberry beep: something exciting is going on. He grabs his phone, laying next to him, he sits up looksdown and reads the message: it’s his friend Max who is sending him a link to a YouTube video where the girl he likes appears. After texting him back an “awesome” he checks last night’s “correspondence” and “ information” which he missed out on when he went to sleep. He checks the Youtube site and then sounds a tweet. It’s a fun fact sent by Guinness about some man who broke the world record foreating the most papaya seeds without water, the picture is funny. He forwards it to his friends. He checks his facebook on the computer for additional information on the girl, noticing a banner advertising a round trip to Jamaica and the images of a rave sponsored by Coca-Cola. Justin Bieber is singing on MTV, and John looks in the mirror very pleased because everyone tells him he looks like thesinger.
A cascade of beeps and tweets follow and he deals with them automatically as he walks around carrying out his morning routine always with his phone in hand or at least nearby. He has learnt to walk around the house looking down without bumping into things, texting , opening files, “beeps” and “tweets” again, even while eating breakfast. This time he receives an e-mail from a friendattaching the cliff notes from his last anthropology class, another “useless” class. For the third time his mother asks him what he wants for breakfast, he nods a yes without answering her. Finally for a moment when all seems still the kitchen TV blasts the images of Gadhafis last bombings of hundreds of innocent people in Libya followed by a brief note on Mel Gibson’s divorce and some advertisementon a discount for breast implants. Cereal with milk. Plain old Corn Flakes which despite their plainness always remind him of breakfast with his father before his parents got a divorce. Anyhow that sad feeling lasts about three minutes, he moves on to another feeling: that of being cool because he is the proud owner of a pair of “converse” shoes that he wears every day. All of this accomplished,he is now ready to start his day.
He drives himself to the university listening to some great music, adrenaline flowing and he suddenly bumps into traffic, he is obliged to stop. When he stops he pays more attention to the lyrics of the songs and he also takes in the advertisement, the billboards with much more force. Sometimes however, specifically when he is suffering he feels the need tothink, to ponder to shut things out, and in the midst of this necessary silence there interrupts a “beep” and a “tweet” once again. Answering the phone has become a reflex despite the continuous warnings saying “don’t text and drive”.
At a quarter to eight he turns on the radio and listens to his favorite morning program. By eight thirty he arrives at the University for coffee with Max. They havea lot to talk about: the girl, the jobs, the country. However although they are mentioned, other contents predominate. Last night’s episode of the situation comedy “Two and a half men” on Warner Channel, the latest special effects of the movie TRON, especially watched by 3D, the results of the Oscar nominations, the beautiful celebrities and of course the latest tweets and beeps.
John does notmean to not answer life’s “fundamental questions” and they need to be answered in order for him to make important decisions, lifetime choices. He is distracted or just chooses to ignore them or to answer them superficially. He is voluntarily narcotized. And when he decides to carry out the task of deliberating, his sources are often not based upon real life relations or experiences but on media...