The Invisibles

If you take away all of your online profiles, have all your data erased, find your passwords don’t work anymore, and your devices stop functioning, do you become invisible? Not in a metaphorical way, but I guess also in a metaphorical way. I mean, literally invisible. You can’t access any banking or be able to get identification or even call anyone.

This is what happened to me. About two weeks ago, I woke up and did what I immediately do - reached for my phone on the side table. I typed in my password and the screen went blank. It was an old phone and I figured that it had finally died. But then my computer wouldn’t turn on.

I went to the mobile phone store, but they had no record of me as a customer. When I went to pay for my new phone, my credit card was declined. I ran over to the bank machine to take out cash, but it ate my card.

At home, I wrestled up some loose change and went down the street to a coffee shop. I had just enough to buy a cup of coffee and sat outside on the patio. What do I do in this situation? I don’t even know who to call. All of these automated systems that we’ve come to rely on are just so faceless and impersonal. The whole point of them is to function in such a way that you don’t have to have contact. If there’s a breakdown in one of the links in the chain, it can be fixed because of its relation to another link. But what if the entire chain is gone?

“You have the face of a person who has been rendered invisible,” said a voice from the table beside me. I turned to find a man with an eye patch.

“Excuse me?” I asked.

“You’re one of The Invisibles,” he said, a little too matter-of-factly.

“What does that even mean?”

“You’re probably thinking, oh, it’s just a glitch in The Matrix or something like that,” he shook his head. “Nope. Your switch has been turned off. That phone of yours sitting on the table? That might as well be a brick. A brick that you could throw through that window. And if you threw it through the window, it wouldn’t matter because you’re invisible to the system.”

“And who are you?”

“Think of me as a life coach for Invisibles.”

“A life coach?”

“Yes, I help people such as yourself realize the power you now have. Instead of thinking of this like you lost something, I help you reframe it as seeing all that you’ve gained. You see, under the ground in a series of never-ending tunnels are the switches. They were built long before the internet even existed, and so this hybrid approach of merging old and new technologies has some glitches that still need to be worked out. And every once in a while, a troll-“

“A troll?”

“Yes, trolls supervise and maintain the switches. Don’t worry, they like it underground, that’s sort of their thing. Every person has a switch and one troll is assigned to each switch. And sometimes, through a variety of reasons that I don’t want to get into right now, a switch gets turned off. And the person whose switch that is becomes invisible.”

“So, my switch was turned off by a neglectful troll underground?”

“Well, I’ve simplified the situation somewhat, but yes, basically,” he winked at me with his good eye. “Let’s try a test, shall we? Take that brick of a phone and throw it through the window.”

“I would never do such a thing!”

“Why not? Because of consequences? What if I told you there are no more consequences because-“

“I’m invisible, right. But what about moral consequences?”

He found that very funny.

So, with the encouragement of my life coach, I picked up my phone, stood up, and faced the window of the coffee shop. I looked over at him and he nodded, taking a sip of his coffee. I winded up and threw the phone at the centre of the window, shattering it on impact.

At the police station, I gave them my name, but they couldn’t find any way to identify me. They pulled the security camera footage, but I wasn’t in the shot. After much confusion, they eventually let me go because there was no evidence that I had done anything.

The man with the eye patch was waiting for me outside the police station. I had a choice to make. A moral choice, you could say. He was recruiting me to do things that I just couldn’t do. Just because there are no digital repercussions for my actions did not mean that there were no consequences. I turned and walked in the opposite direction. I walked for a very long time. A person can feel quite lonely, even in a city of three million people.

After several hours, I came across a sewer grate that had steam flowing out of it. I looked around and crouched down. There was an indentation along one side of the edge. Sewer grates are heavier than they look. I climbed down into the tunnel. It was lit by faint lights as far as I could see. I started walking. I don’t know how long I was down there, seemed like forever. And just as frustration and a feeling of stupidity started settling in, I found a passageway that seemed to go further underground. This was where I found the switches. Resembling large light switches, they all had a metal nameplate above them and were in alphabetical order. I followed the switches to find my own.

I could have been down there for days. I could have just been walking around in circles. But, I finally found my switch and it was turned off. And as I was about to flip it back on, that’s when the troll pounced from somewhere above. He jumped right on my back and we struggled. More trolls came, emitting some kind of aggressive vocalizations. They bit and scratched. They piled on and I felt like I was suffocating. I heard a loud whistle and all the trolls disappeared. The man with the eye patch was standing in the tunnel.

“No one ever comes looking for their switch,” he said. “Don’t you get it? So many others have discovered the power they have as an Invisible. No consequences, no repercussions. But sure, if you want to plug back in, be my guest: flip your switch. But be warned: you can’t turn it off again.”

I stood up and put my hands on the switch. “But, if I stay invisible, there are still consequences. Moralistic ones. Even more so. I don’t want to switch back on, but I don’t want to be invisible in the way you want me to be.”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

That’s when I saw a switch off to the side of the man with the eye patch. I didn’t recognize the name, but the switch was turned off. The chances of me being right were about three million to one, but that didn’t mean I shouldn’t try. I lunged at him, pushing him out of the way, and flipped the switch behind him. The look on his face told me I was right.

I ran from that tunnel without looking back. I spent the rest of my days blissfully unplugged.