FLOOR  PLAN JOURNAL

Mark Parsons

             The Solution

 

Both Troy and I

believed

the developer's claim

that robust

asymmetric encryption

would counter my lack of decisiveness,

which had long bedeviled us.

But Troy starts

using the system to eavesdrop,

listening in

to our own conversations,

listening

by himself, later,

in private.

​

What Troy and I now say

to each other

with the words we carefully choose,

and the silence between our words: Troy's listening.

​

Maybe he's listening now.

Maybe he's listening later.

​

On my way to meet Troy

I wonder if I'm trying to make him believe

in the same trust we lost.

No need to prove anything, least of all to Troy,

not when it comes to selling him

the trust we lost

on the way here, to meet

for the first time.

After all, he was never there.