connections.

I stumbled around cyberspace, with a fervent need to find something interesting enough to distract me, to take me into altered states where I can take for granted my current thought processes that were taking a life of their own, the underlying emotional structures almost visible now.

"Not now, not now, not now..." I told myself and massaged my head and continued on with clicking the links that would take me beyond my usual circle of data and the usual network trash. I tried to go beyond the webcomics that had characters with the same smile as you, with the childlike humor that comes out in that burst of laughter and your eyes will disappear for a moment. Downloading was like watching paint dry and I know that in the space as I watch the peers come and go my mind can betray me and come looking for you. I looked at the RPGs on my shelf but shrugged. It would only led to mental exhaustion and there was only one reason why I would play that way. The hangover from playing is almost inescapable, sleep being the only way. So I trudged on and somehow found myself reading about horse-headed anthromorphic creatures and large beings with a predilection for cigars. I read on and got engrossed despite my current self.

Inside, a part of me grew a smile. So, I continued to read and clicked on balete...

"A banyan is a fig that starts its life as an epiphyte when its seeds germinate in the cracks and crevices on a host tree (or on structures like buildings and bridges). "Banyan" often refers specifically to the species Ficus benghalensis, though the term has been generalized to include all figs that share a unique life cycle. The seeds germinate and send down roots towards the ground, and may envelope part of the host tree of building structure with their roots, giving them the casual name of strangler fig. The "strangling" growth habit is found in number of tropical forest species, particularly of the genus Ficus, that compete for light. Any Ficus species showing this habit may be termed a strangler fig."

Then I stopped and knew that I had lost.

"No, you don't strangle like the balete, you don't... rather you embrace and I can't die in that embrace because it let us live instead."

It was me talking inside myself, knowing that it didn't need any citation and the thought took me like the pull of the ocean; and as I went under asked myself - balete... balete... I was reading about balete...

Not you. Not you.

And as I feebly felt reason and logic give way, I knew that I was wrong again. I should have recognized that your hypertexts were everywhere.