How to Find an Answer to Everything

Why do you stand there, staring in your fridge? Nothing has changed since the last time you looked. That same foil-wrapped package is staring you down, next to the yoghurt carton with the eternally smudged sell-by date. You bought them, you should know.

There’s the half onion, the desiccating remnants of a proper meal, cooked two.. three weeks ago. It’s almost smiling at you, but its grin doesn’t match that of the orange, looking almost red as it flushes in the cold. See? No surprises. The juice looks at you hopefully, but is rejected in favour of the cheap wine, over and over.

Don’t move the margarine. There’s something ominous in the back there. It’s the Tupperware package that time forgot. Open that box only if you feel the need to release the spores of a million green molds. Heck, some of those can kill a grown man. Biohazard.

There’s the cheese and milk- all anyone really needs to get by, really. Sidekicks.

Why do you sit there, staring at the Google home page? Wondering if it’s going to transform into something other than what it is? Everything has changed since the last time you looked, but it’s curiously predictable.

Want a job? Need to find out more about that slight inflammation on your wrist? Want to track down that old girlfriend/colleague/schoolmate? They’re all there, somewhere. Need to explore a country or a school of thought, track down a good joke for a presentation? They’re all in there too.

You get answers from Google. Answers leading to questions and then still more answers. A mirror held up to a mirror, it sends a cascading flight of answers which help you to explore every possible thought you could have.

A fridge? Doesn’t change, unless you count those mad empty-stomach forays to the supermarket when you buy a host of groceries which begin to spoil as they get folded into your shopping trolley. It may be full or nearly empty, but it’s more or less the same.

Which is more life-stopping? An answer that comes as you feed in keywords into a machine, or an epiphany that shivers through your spinal cord as your unfocused eyes bore into that smooth ice sculpture in the back of the fridge?

Answers. Depends on how you look for them, I guess.