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She appears in the mirror next to me: younger, blond hair, bright blue eyes, glowing tan, the next generation of tech, the embodiment of the Valley, radiating probiotics and spirulina. Her name is Cat or Julie or Jennifer or Lindsay. I can never keep the new girls from Sales straight.
i don't like this. it feels unjustified in its cruelty
Today I write a report on how to capture and keep people’s attention online: how to leverage techniques first used on gamblers and how to appeal to our human love of games to encourage a user to click the buy button for increased gratification and keep them coming back again and again and again. I write about the colors of buttons, the optimal utilization of text, where the eye tends to land on a screen, how to subtly scam the human into being tracked, into the sales funnel, as if through a chute, like a cow on the way to slaughter, to the right place, to the right action, at the right time.
again preachy
“Cassie?” she says in a soft tone, her accent making my name sound more beautiful than it is.
My shoulders tense. I can’t have a single moment of peace in this office, no place is safe.
hate the last line. has so much potential to be funny and yet it just isn't
The door swings shut behind her. A wave of nausea hits me. I’d spent weeks on the project. The work was good, I know it was. But for an instant, my reality wavers: maybe I am terrible, maybe I don’t deserve to be here, maybe I am a nothing.
Above us, the very galaxies rotate and collide. Stars are born and die. The whole of the universe breathes and expands. Suddenly I can see the disparity so clearly—the men bathing in the river, and me in the bathroom, holding a porcelain plate, always failing.
lol
Once, walking the path along the bay, I saw a family of ducklings paddling after their mother. I stopped and watched as they neared the water’s edge. For a moment, I felt chosen by a greater force, as if a hand of light had reached through the clouds to reveal this miracle of life specifically to me. I couldn’t take my eyes off those baby ducks, their small hearts beating new and wild in the world.
Out of nowhere a crow descended and snatched one of the babies. It didn’t look real, but it was: the duckling in that black beak, in the air, then slammed against a rock until it went limp, the ruthlessness of nature horrifying me.
The office churns on around me. The receding water reveals: the bones of fish, rotting wood, empty chip bags, bright crushed soda cans. It feels good to see ugliness on the otherwise immaculate campus, where everything is polished to a sheen. The truth of the world bares itself when the tide goes down: devoured, used, rotting.
thx i hate it
Now, meaningless conversations buzz around me about softball leagues, Pilates, bridal parties, tee times, electric cars, protein powders, stock options.
hate this too
I pull out my pen and paper. In most meetings with the CEO, we are forbidden from looking at phones or laptops. We are only meant to gaze upon each other, our minds bursting with new and innovative ideas, data exchanging through the air between us.
this is almost funny
Our bodies moved closer. We continued speaking in low tones, until the kitchen shut down, until everyone went home. He brought down bottles of wine, and we whispered about who we were, where we were from, what we wanted, our secrets.
Eventually, his hand found my thigh beneath the table. We didn’t sleep together that night, but his mouth did find mine, later, out on the street, and the kiss felt like two galaxies colliding.
i mean this is kinda cute
Jealousy reared up in my chest at a series of scenes my mind created of him with this woman: mornings in bed together, drinking coffee in the kitchen, him with his arm wrapped around her waist. A woman with an eyeless swirling whorl for a face perched on a lithe body with perfect breasts. I hated the thought of their intimacy.
who writes like this lmao
There are moments in which a certain level of pain is chosen in order to avoid another, deeper pain. I leaned over and kissed him with a deliberate hunger, desperate to prove nothing had changed between us. I didn’t want the mirage to disappear.
kinda similar to my ending for BH lol