Sunderland’s Strip-Tease for the Shattered Selves

Three years since Mary died. Not peacefully—unless you count buffering eternally.

She died laughing. Literally.

The trigger? Me, in my underwear and a toaster crown, dancing at a bus stop to "We Are the Champions" (2009 upload). You can hear her wheezing, "Don't you dare stop!" in the background.

Cause of death: cardiac arrest. Contributing factor: 'acute, undiluted cringe.'

For the anniversary, I sought symmetry. To see if the universe noticed.

First, a synthetic red wig from "Soul & USB."

I locked my triple-bolted door, stripped to my Wi-Fi-reactive unicorn briefs, and fired up an ancient webcam via XP emulator. Stream title: "MRI-47: The Dead Pink Shadow."

I danced, stiff as a Start Menu. The wig flew into my printer, which whirred to life, spitting out a photo from my first date with Mary—us before graffiti reading "Site Temporarily Unavailable."

The stream lagged; a prompt asked every eleven seconds if I wanted to terminate. "YES!" I screamed, still dancing.

Chat erupted. "An affront to life." "Are you crying or laughing?" Then, a user claiming to be Mary’s ghost posted sparkling icons before vanishing.

At minute seven, the internet died for the whole block.

Silence. I stood panting in the dark, lit only by my glowing briefs.

The compulsion needed a liturgy.

By dawn, I bought a woman’s plaid shoulder bag—a sacred prop. At the bakery, I whispered for “a loaf and a little tomato for two.” The cashier’s stare was my applause.

I planted a pink flag at Mary’s grave: “She Would Want You To Stop.” A stage direction I ignored.

Home. Two places set. I talked to the empty chair. “Approve, Mary? Or lecture about sugar?”

The kitchen was silent. But in my head, her sigh was crystal: “James… have you completely lost it?”

"Perhaps," I answered. If lost, the next act needed a proper stage.

I booked Room 66.6 at the "Rotten Lotus" hotel—a space under a bridge, its entrance through a gutted printer's paper tray. I booked it for two: James and Maria Sunderland. The lie was now a database fact.

The clerk, in a hat of frayed ethernet cables, asked, "Will she be arriving?"
"She's already here. Invisible to low-bandwidth connections."
He handed me a key made from a warm, wiped hard drive shell.

I streamed at the hour when recommendation ghosts stir. Title: "LIVE: DANCING WITH THE SEEN." Password: Mary's last text. Candles were BIOS-chip wax.

Viewers trickled in. One asked if I felt her presence. Another saw a silhouette in my haunted eyes.

At critical mass, I stripped to the glowing briefs. I moved—a memory propagating over Wi-Fi. My wig flew off. And hung. In the air for seven terrible seconds.

Chat dissolved into glossolalia. A user typed that her router's LEDs wept "ACCESS DENIED."

The door exploded. The administrator screamed I’d violated Rule #69: a ban on spectacular grief and summoning ghosts via USB. Behind him loomed residents: a woman with a Neopets avatar face, a man with mice for hands, a glitchy child-entity.

“You’re buffering our shared psychosis!” Mouse-hands clicked.
“My trauma is stuck at 480p!” the face hissed.
I gestured to the glitchy child. “And his excuse? He’s rendering at five polygons.”

“You violate the Terms of Service!” the administrator shrieked. “I’ll have you de-platformed!”
“Fine! But I’m taking my engagement metrics!”
I ended the stream with a jab. “Strategic pivot to a new demographic.”
I pushed past. The glitchy child derezzed with a pop of sad data.

I fled on a neon scooter, its wheels screeching like a dying modem. Seven minutes later, I crashed at Bus Stop #37. The origin point.

The air was thick with evaporated laughter. Her voice lived here: "Don't you dare stop!"

The ritual. I lashed my phone to the pole with dental floss. Connected to "Linksys_GetOffMyLAN." Audio through a dented soda can.

Stream title: "LIVE FROM THE 404 ERROR: REBOOTING SORROW." I hit ‘Go Live’.

A catastrophic noise erupted. I danced the same broken rhythm. I felt it—a familiar frequency weaving through the wireless noise.

In the chat, reflected in a dark window:
cache_ghost: you are back at the source code.
router_whisperer: my ethernet port is weeping warm light.

Blue lights cut the night—police from "Anxiety Signals." One tall as a server rack; the other's helmet glowed "911.exe."

They charged me: illegal broadcasting, novelty underwear as protest.

I didn't argue. Art needs an exit. I mounted a scrap-built bicycle, its core glowing faintly. The pedals turned because I believed they would.

They gave chase, but their boots halted for a Windows 10 update.

I flew. The wind tore the last of my wig into a surveillance camera. It froze: "Object recognition failed. Probability: Ghost or Internet."

I reached Ghost Building #404. The elevator accepted code 666.

The first apartment was open. A wardrobe held a black three-piece suit. I put it on over my briefs. It didn't fit, but it felt correct.

I stood under a shower that ran black, then sickly green, smelling of archived texts. My hand found a heart-shaped USB drive under the couch.

file_001.txt read: "James... Please, keep dancing without me. That's when I truly exist. — Mary"

I read it three times. Threw it down. It cracked, a light inside still pulsing.

"To hell with this Mary!" I shouted. I opened the cabinet, took "Vodka 'Lost Connection'," opened it with my teeth.

I told the surveillance cameras: "Today, I am no longer a streamer. Just a man who wants to forget the password to his own heart."

The silence was a void. Void was another canvas.

I faced the mirror. "They think sorrow has a mute button. They are wrong." I shed the wet suit. From the plaid bag, I retrieved the sacred relic: the burger-print briefs. My flag.