The Closeness of Distance
Originally published on Substack .
· Fragment
Everything that sits here on my desk is a future. The hard drive has a lacquered case. It is glossy black, welcoming to finger-marks. I can easily grab the tape measure’s silver clasp and hold it against a wall. It helps me structure a moment of thought.
These things know nothing of their effects. They work blind, perpetuating the present with an assurance that it won’t last very long. The MIDI notes in front of me on screen are virtual, skimmed by a thin vertical line. But they mark territory, just the same.
I click ‘Save As’ and the drive wobbles on its rubber standoffs, whining a tune from years ago. The mechanical vaudeville of storage technology. Bits of metal hovering above bits of plastic, always busy reading.
I look up. There is a box of ancient metal SATA drives with faded labels on a shelf above my desk. Each drive is swathed in bubble wrap. The thing about those old hard drives is that the head makes no contact with the spinning platter. It just hovers above.
The moment that I think of the future, the moment I am distracted from these objects, there is only distance. I look down again. The rocking drive has a plastic tether. My eyes follow its line. I remember seeing a small dog, sniffing the ground outside a convenience store.
Miles away, I hear a different space every time I shift my posture. This room is free of archives. There are no memories stored in paper or bytes. I am sitting in the middle of it, with nothing to impede any pulse or knock. There is much more to the continuation of the sounds that I make. Their onset is sharper, somehow seeming scaffolded. They shoot past their expected decay, rallying against their end.
The things I have brought with me will construct new edges, other angles. My files and clippings will baffle the room and make the space seem sunken, even illegible. I will welcome those old things in again. They will do the same time-work.
© N.G.Brown, 2026
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