laptop

They teach him how to open his laptop. This is the first humiliation. He holds it with his one hand. He tests the weight of it against his knee and he knows this thing. He knows what it can do, messages sent back and forth without the aide of a telephone. He does actually remember the women, their photographs posted, the images of them turned to jerky static lag, the one who removed her top and continued to talk with him as if she were completely dressed, the one who kissed the camera and made her face turn monstrous in his view. he knows that they are trapped inside this thing, but he balances it, watches the little heartbeat of it's light breathing in time to his own breaths and there is a catch to his. He is sad. He thinks that he might cry. There is always this flood of emotion overwhelming him. He does not remember crying much before the stroke. He feels like perhaps his eyes have become an open door between his heart and the world. He is no loner protected by their poker shrewd detatchment.

He takes air into his lungs and holds it there and touches the laptop with a finger, scratches his nail into the slit in the thin end of the thing. It must open. He remembers that it will open somehow. The (man in a suit) leans across him and he flinches. He can't remember the man's name, although he knows that he tolerated him. They chatted occasionally. The man worked there, somewhere close by. They had this and only this in common.

The (man in the suit) presses something in the front of it and it pops open. A screen, a keyboard. Evan feels his shoulders heave. He sees (man in a suit) look away, his brow knit tight across his forehead.