Enjoy It, From Here On It's All Punches

1994 - Some random late night.

The monitor glows in the dark, the sound of the modem dialing cuts through the silence of the night. The connection finally stabilizes and there, on the green screen of some BBS, the world opens up. No social networks, no algorithms deciding what you see, no garbage.

Just text, message lists, files to download, discoveries waiting to be made. Every login is a small adventure.

And in the middle of that solitary, sacred ritual, an almost automatic habit: getting up from the chair, grabbing some change, and heading out into the night to the nearest 24h gas station. Back then, in Guará, Distrito Federal, a convenience store at a gas station was a rare thing, but that station had a Coca-Cola vending machine. And there it was, Cherry Coke, a rarity around here. Buying a can was an event. Opening it and tasting that half-artificial, half-addictive flavor was part of the late-night experience.

The world was quiet. The street deserted. Only the glow of the vending machine lighting up the sidewalk. Taking a sip and feeling the fizz rise while the cold of the night hit you. Then going back to the computer and losing yourself once more in that ocean of text and commands. The internet was still for those who wanted to explore it, not for those who just wanted to exist in it.

And today? What’s left? The BBSes disappeared, replaced by empty social networks. The silence of late nights was taken over by the constant noise of notifications. Cherry Coke vanished, like so many other things that seemed mundane at the time but today are relics of a time that isn’t coming back.

If it were possible to open a telnet session to 1994 and send a message to that 14, 15 year old kid, maybe it would be a simple one:

Enjoy it. From here on it’s all punches.

But would he understand? Or would he just take a sip of the Cherry Coke, type one more line on the green screen, and keep living without realizing that it really was now or never?