Dillon

Dillon was majoring in computer science and minoring in psychology at Boston College. Dillon was failing, but did not care. Dillon’s grades were by no means an accurate measure of Dillon’s ability to navigate the digital and mental worlds. Dillon was failing, rather, because Dillon skipped class too often to instead labor over Dillon’s own personal projects at home. Dillon’s dingy studio apartment smelled, unbeknownst to Dillon, of hamster even though it was hamsterless.
         Dillon was depressed. The suicidal thoughts were there like little lesions of non-existence on Dillon’s otherwise perfectly functioning mind. A closed garage and a running car seemed best since it was the least vulgar way Dillon could think to do it. Carbon monoxide, Dillon once read, even leaves an attractive pinkish hue in the face. However, Dillon was both garageless and carless.
         Dillon was majoring in computer science and minoring in psychology. Dillon spent approximately 18 hours a day staring at Dillon’s computer screen, appropriated as follows: 8 hours playing RPGs online (Dillon’s two closest friends would often play with Dillon. Their names were WarlockKing420 and D3ATHtoAllElve5); 7 hours creating viruses that turned bank clients’ heavily encrypted personal data into plain text that was then made public, but more importantly, made Dillon feel more intelligent than everyone else; 1.5 hours of interspersed masturbating (Dillon was a heterosexual, which meant Dillon would stare primarily at the woman while viewing heterosexual internet porn); 1.5 hours watching nature documentaries on Netflix. The incredible height of the Redwoods and depth of the ocean riveted Dillon.
         Dillon was depressed. One day, Dillon decided that Dillon was ready to become Dillonless. WarlockKing420 and D3ATHtoAllElve5 were left to wonder, while being slaughtered by a hoard of Orks, why Dillon did not appear at their side in battle.
         Instead, Dillon had been doing all Dillon could to erase Dillon’s digital existence. Dillon sifted through the internet, recalling vastly forgotten, but never gone, memory of emails, financial accounts, screennames, IM conversations, social networking statuses, videos and photos that were viewed and uploaded and downloaded. Trolling support forums for teens suffering from anorexia and bulimia would leave a giddy, tickling sensation in Dilllon’s belly, and now Dillon suffered regurgitating and deleting every single comment. At the end, all that was left was the memory of a computer screen, which was stained so deep into Dillon’s retinas that Dillon could still see the bluish-white glow on the inside of Dillon’s eyelids for several hours.
         When finally finished, Dillon crawled under the covers of his futon in Dillon’s dingy studio apartment that smelled of hamster. Dillon slept for a very long time, though not as soundly as Dillon would have liked. Dillon dreamed that Dillon was at an academic conference for Jungian psychologists where Dillon was about to present a paper on the persona’s extension into the digital world. In order to calm Dillon’s stage fright Dillon imagined that the whole audience was clotheless. The audience in turn called Dillon a fucking prude and rushed the stage to forcibly tear Dillon’s own clothes off.
         Dillon awoke to the sound of aggressive knocking. Rubbing the sleep from Dillon’s eyes, Dillon answered the door and an FBI agent marched in, shoving a warrant in Dillon’s hands and demanding an explanation f