13
99
07
92
CC
03
16
33
16

Color 99cc33 might be close enough for you to associate with this simple doppler radar GIF on dad’s amateur meteorology site. Maybe twenty years ago. The directional pulse rotating beneath a dancing multi-colored anamorphic umbrella GIF.

Tripod a simple free host and construction site—the platform. The Tripod community would award worthless JPEG trophies that made dad very proud. Were the trophies clipart? Maybe. The site texture was of some stratus cloud tiled to endlessly appear as you scrolled. And you would scroll.

You shared a computer.

You would hover.

You would glare.

Dad updated the website.

“Would ya quit breathing down my neck?”

Told yourself that you were happy for him.

Reality was, you wanted his time to be your time.

You needed ICR chat or MUDs or to be browsing through porn with humans and not cloud formations.

AIM and stargirl85, please.

It was your hormonal dawn. It was the internet’s hormonal dawn.

bghead39 / Matthew Goedecke is a writer and artist based in New York