Tomorrow’s Moments
Brian Hugenbruch
I met an Admin from an antique LAN
Who said, “Two webcams point into a room
Gone mad. We don’t know where it is, nor who
Configured it. The floor is littered: cans,
Chips, cigarettes devoid of breath. Upon
The wall a banner hangs: ‘Spring Break ’09!’
The feed is live, and yes, the frame-rate’s fine.
The bodies on the floor, we linger on.
Their limbs are gone. Their pallid flesh decays
On video. Their lifeless eyes regard
The comments coolly: but for all the far-
flung chatter, dead and motionless they stay.
One hundred million strangers watch, and pray,
And cannot help, and cannot look away.”
Brian Hugenbruch lives in Upstate New York with his wife and their pets. By day, he writes information security programs to protect your data on (and from) the internet. By night, he writes speculative fiction about the ways imagination fuels our lives. Occasionally, the two intersect in weird and fascinating ways. This is his first published poem. You can find him online at the-lettersea.com, or on Twitter @Bwhugen. No, he’s not sure how to say his last name, either.