Avatar: Is That How It Is? by bob schroeder

The digital illustration shows a classic placeholder avatar from the internet, surrounded by several speech bubbles in the form of chat icons. The conversation with an invisible partner is limited to three meaningless dots in each instance. The drawing is deliberately simplified and minimalist; the avatar’s pale silhouette seems to vanish behind the non-existent communication. The colour palette comprises lilac, violet, black and white. The mood of the illustration is light-hearted and ironic. 'Je mehr ich von mir gebe, desto eher werde ich missverstanden' , Herb cursed, roughly wiping the last remnants of the fruitless phone call with the authority controlled by the mechanical widows from the gloomy corners with the back of his hand. His handheld was silent. Herb glared. He had been removed without comment from all notification, alert and greeting groups; all that remained was a bot model he had to train himself, with the capacity of a three-year-old macaque.
I nodded gloomily and wondered whether the echo chambers of the super-rich might not, after all, be lined with the egg cartons of a very special form of husbandry—one unknown to us, the nameless and historyless, let alone accessible to us. Whether silence and rest seemed available even outside the legally prescribed periods. Whether, in the end, it might all turn out to be a sophisticated deception of the not-so-working population. The stratospheric wanderer glinted on the slowly darkening horizon. He had long since learnt to be content with himself. Enviable.