Low Definition

There was a time when movies made us.
When TV shaped our nights.
When games lit our eyes up like fire.
When stories gave us meaning, purpose.

Now?
We scroll.
We post.
We shuffle.
We vanish.

What defines me now but this static I pour into the void,
day after day,
hoping someone reads it,
knowing no one does.

You're not a savior.
You're not a prophet.
You're not the one who wakes them.

Let them sleep,
content in their curated existence.
Let them dream in low definition.

The Menu

They hand you a laminated menu. Two choices. Red or blue. You ask if there’s anything else. They smile like you’re stupid.

“These are the only options,” they say, like it’s natural. Like it’s always been this way.

Both are bland. Both are cold. Both are owned by the same kitchen in the back, run by people who don’t eat what they serve.

You point out the grease. The mold. The roaches crawling in from the floorboards. They call you a radical. A conspiracy theorist.

“You must pick one,” they say. “It’s the only way to be part of society.”

So everyone sits. Everyone chews. Everyone complains about the taste but keeps coming back.

They don’t realize they could flip the table.
They could burn the kitchen down.
They could grow their own damn food.

But that would mean standing up.
And standing up is scary.

So they sit.
And chew.
And swallow.

And call it freedom.

An End That Fits

“Welcome to the afterlife. You’re the latest in a long line. How do you feel?”

“Honestly? Terrible. Who’s going to take care of my family? Will anyone even remember me? What was the point of it all?”

“Wow, a lot of questions right out of the gate.”

“Are you God?”

“Some call me that. I go by Ted—‘God’ just carries too much baggage.”

“So… what now? Am I going to heaven?”

“Heaven? Heavens no! Heaven’s just a fairy tale humans tell themselves to cope with the fear of death. Don’t worry, there’s no hell either.”

“Then what was the point? What happens to me now? Will I be remembered?”

“You’re stuck on that. Let me reassure you: you will be remembered. In ways you can’t imagine. Tell me—how do you feel about spiders?”

“Uh, they’re fine, I guess.”

“When you killed one, did you feel bad?”

“No, of course not. It’s just a spider.”

“Funny, isn’t it? You took its life without a second thought. Those spiders had lives, untroubled—until you came along. People forget the spiders. But the spiders never forget.”

“So what? Everyone’s killed a few spiders.”

“A few? Look again. This house here—it’s yours now. Inside, every spider you ever killed is waiting for you. They remember. They’re ready to make sure you never forget them again.”

“That sounds like hell.”

“I prefer to call it: the gnashing of teeth.”

Offline

People are strange. I'm a person. Something I don't understand about us is why we add people as friends on social media and gaming platforms and then always show ourselves as offline. It's weird, isn't it? Do we just not want to be bothered? Or is it so that if someone messages us and we don't want to deal with them, we can just say we never got it?

I think it comes down to this: some people are connectors, and some are floaters. The floaters are terrified to try to connect people together, to make new friend groups, to be friends in general. These are the people who ignore a message even though they’re actually online, hoping to avoid that little ping of connection.

They’re afraid—afraid of one of two things: either the fear of speaking to you and being rejected, or the fear of making you mad by saying that they really don’t want to be your friend.

I remember hovering over the green “online” dot so many times, my finger twitching but never clicking it. Back when I was younger, I was a connector. I wanted everyone to feel like they belonged. But now, I’m a floater. I’m terrified that I’m bothering people just by saying “hey.”

Why do I think that? What am I so scared of? If they don’t want to talk, they won’t. And yet, every missed message feels like a missed connection—a chance to be a part of someone’s life that I let slip away because I was too afraid of that one little dot.