<blockquote>I’m here to make you doubt

You wish I weren’t.

I hold no answers in my loaded heart.

I only sit

and wait

and wait

and wait.

<i> - from the ending of “As the Last I May Know”, copyright © 2019 by S.L. Huang</i>
</blockquote>

I was inspired by the poem at the end of this short story, which won some awards a while back. I'm not too much into reading anymore, not for any lack of trying to get back into it. Anyway, as I was saying.

I was inspired by this poem, and decided to go back to writing some of my own. Here goes... something.

For all my tries to get the prize

Of a healthy, painless life

All I got was a tangled knot

In my stomach, lined with strife.

**Time to reboot.**

`xen: Booting virtualized kernel under dom0...`

Virtual. Not real. Not exposed.

So that it doesn't hurt.

You virtualize to mitigate vulnerabilities.

In a way... So do I.

I am a `virtual void()`.

No interface, no vulnerabilities.

No interface, no point...

**Time to reboot.**

`xen: Booting virtualized kernel under dom0...`

`systemd[1]: Starting Load Kernel Module social-firewall...`

The answer is in limitation.

Social distancing at its literal.

Allow-list: Three people. Drop all other traffic.

...

Eight months later, someone on the allow-list undermines my kernel's integrity.

*Panic.*

`CPU: 2 PID: 2 at drivers/emotion/love/uncond_love.c:483 - assert "significant_other.emotional_support != null" failed [emotion_engine]`

**Time to reboot.**

`xen: Booting virtualized kernel under dom0...`

`systemd[1]: Starting Load Kernel Module social-firewall...`

`systemd[1]: Starting Load Kernel Module iface-fake-emotion...`

`socialtables -t nat -A POSTROUTING --out-interface fake-emotion -j MASQUERADE`

`socialtables -A FORWARD --in-interface emotion0 -j ACCEPT`

No one comes in anymore.

...

*No one comes in anymore.*

It's getting lonelier by the minute.

*Why do I have to make these stupid fucking hacks anyway?*

**Time to reboot.**


`Booting paravirtualized kernel on bare hardware...`

`Broadcast message from person-f1a830b3df@outside-world (pts/1):`

Go find help, please. You need it.

`Broadcast message from person-1cedb817eb@outside-world (pts/1):`

You're acting really weird and you're creeping me the fuck out.

`Broadcast message from person-84dcfb24df@outside-world (pts/1):`

Dude, what the fuck is wrong with you?

Oh. Right. Now I remember.
**Time to power off.**