First I'll need something metal and grounded. The leg of a swing-set or a buzzing high-tension pylon, the kind that carries wires down from the pass. Next I'll need to wrap my body around it, allowing as much contact as possible between metal and flesh. Flesh that is a conveyance of electricity to metal. Metal jabbed deep into the moist and conductive earth.

There is a laptop balanced on my knee. Daisy-chained through orifices that I will gloss over for the moment, I am an agent of conductivity. A liaison between terminals and earth, this is what I do next: I will hit Command S. I will save the world. Save it exactly as it has been up to this point. Command S.

So much work, so much ceaseless evolution built layer upon layer. So many words written, so many cities built, so many pop hooks constructed, and I woke up thinking I wonder if anyone has hit Command S? Either within the last few minutes, or lately, since the Bay of Pigs, for the past millennium, or ever. Imagine such a tragedy, to have accomplished so much and then to lose it because no one thought to save it? No one ever thought to hit Command S.

Of course, I could hit Command/Option/S and do a Save As.

Saving the world just as it is, but under another name like Greta or Babar. Another world with its own unimaginable potential for ceaseless evolution, revision, modification and deletion.

I could hit Command/Shift/S and give the world a drop shadow.

By hitting Command/Shift/W or Command/option/W I could either save the whales or free Tibet, I can never quite keep it all straight. I once tried to free Tibet but merely ended up italicizing everyone there. As if being repressed were not bad enough without being ruthlessly italicized.

What I think I should probably do is just save the world exactly as it is right now. What happens after is of course anybody's guess, but if push comes to shove, if we crash, if there is a fire, an accidental deletion, at least we'd have this working model saved that we could revert to. Even in its imperfect state, it would at least be there for reference.

Such a waste, to have accomplished so much and then to lose it all because no one thought to hit Command S.