Flights

NETWORK STATE

I am a citizen of a network state. Occupied with moving around in various directions, I’ve lost my orientation in the political matters of my country in recent times. Conversations have gone on, negotiations, conferences, sessions, summits. Great maps have roamed over tables where flags have marked conquered positions, vectors drawn to show the directions of the next conquests.

Just a few years ago on the screen of my phone at the inadvertent crossing of some now totally invisible or conventional border, the exotic names of foreign networks would register, ones no one remembers today. We didn’t notice the night-time coups, the contents of the capitulation treaties were never released to the public. Of the movements of imperial armies made up of polite, obliging officials the public was not informed.

My phone, equally polite, immediately informs me as soon as I get off a plane which province of the network state I now find myself in. It also gives necessary information, offers help should anything happen to me. It has emergency numbers, and from time to time for Valentine’s Day or Christmas it encourages me to take part in promotions and contests. This disarms me, and my anarchist moods melt in an instant.

With mixed emotions I recollect one distant journey when I found myself out of range of any network. My phone in a panic first sought some sort of way back in, but couldn’t find it. Its messages seemed increasingly hysterical. ‘No network found,’ it repeated. Then it gave up and looked at me blankly with its square pupil, lo and behold, just a useless gadget now, a piece of plastic.

I was vividly reminded of an old engraving of a wanderer who had reached the edge of the world. Excited, he threw out his travelling bundle and was now looking out, beyond the Network. That traveller from the engraving can consider himself a fortunate man: he sees the stars and planets, spread out evenly across the firmament of the sky. And he hears the music of the spheres.

We’ve been denied that gift at the end of our travels. Beyond the Network there is silence.