vagueposting

prompt 00. of ctrlcreep's Invisible Networks 2023. a deeply personal theme.

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences
Word count: 547
Content warnings: Gaslighting, emotional abuse

‘Pataphysics has a frighteningly poor reputation in the city, especially after the High Priests’ bloodline fell. Well—I could describe said reputation as “frighteningly poor,” in the way something like a cult would be, because most 'pataphysicians tend to be pretentious preachers.

A run-of-the-mill 'pataphysician-slash-preacher once advertised a new means of filtering our social connections. The rough gist of it is this…

Too few connections will cause us to cease to exist.
But too many slow us down… too many will kill us.
That’s why we have to control our relationships.
It’s high time we prune the strings that weigh you down.

Everyone who fell for the grift started to follow the 'pataphysicians advice. His humble little start-up created an app, CutBack, that analyzed the social dynamics of its users, and provided advice.

“Here’s the people you have to treasure. And here’s the people you can throw away, no problem; all they’ll do is weigh you down. You don’t need horrible friends like that, trust me.”

There were people who saw through the app’s veneer of life-improvement, and quit before things got bad. What kind of right did a dinky little piece of software have to tell people what to do with their lives, their relationships? Where was it getting all of its data? It was an inherently terrible idea.

Unfortunately, this was the very moment where things started getting bad. The app deemed these deserter unworthy to all their CutBack-using friends, and ordered their deaths.

The moment you strayed away from the guru born of lines of code and sorcery, it saw you unworthy of life.

“Cut Theo off,” CutBack tells its users. “He just does what he wants without regard for what YOU want. He doesn’t care about you, he has no desire to change, and you’re truly better off without him. You don’t need him in your life. Cut Theo off.”

CutBack had been right before. Potentially abusive partners, parents who enforced insane standards, even the pyramiding scheme losers. It was right again; the more people abandoned Theo, the more people ostracized him, the less weight he had.

61kg—his body didn’t change.
55kg—he didn’t get any skinnier.
37kg—but…
34kg—he turned lighter,
27kg—and lighter,
20kg—and lighter.
14kg—dissolving gradually, like sugar in water.
2kg—until one day, they broke open his apartment’s door
0kg—and found no furniture, and no Theo.

No-one even remembers his last name. Not even me. There is only a vague echo of “Theo” in the annals of small-scale history.

Every month, fifteen people disappear into nothing. It’s mostly through mundane, violent crime, or people choosing to walk out of their life. But I know that there are two to three people who vanish because they have been abandoned by the people of the city. I guess CutBack’s expediting that process. Pruning human lives and connections from existence, all in one fell swoop.

Theo was just the beginning, and if allowed to continue—

Look, I know this is heavy. Look at it this way—inevitably, people who are ignored fall out of existence. It’s a sad way to die because you don’t even die, you cease to be. It sucks that—

Fine. I’ll stop for now. You can leave.

—Just, if there’s someone who matters to you, let them know of that.

I’ll see you tomorrow.