Laying in bed, his muscles are relaxed, close to numb. In front of him is the low light of his phone which he grips in his left hand and navigates with his right. His peripheral vision is a circle of black that pours through the rest of the house. Its possessions are sensed like in a dream; you never saw them, but you knew they were there. Everything is quiet. His senses are almost canceled out leaving him like a floating ghost before a screen. His breath is shallow but steady. Soon he will be asleep, but not before pixelated pictures and blue light flash on his face.
Cats, there are a lot of cats. Cats in hats, cats falling, cats jumping. Worldstar fights. Sports. News. He takes in the silent information that isn't much more than colors and keywords. They serve as jumping off points for trains of thought. Does that mean his thoughts are derailed and unfocused, no longer linear but more like unorganized splashes? Have they ever been linear?
"Frank Ocean's album coming soon" pops up on his phone. It floods his thoughts with the artists music and recent rumors surrounding him. He thinks about related artists, the feeling of that entire genre and sound, and car rides where his music perfectly harmonized with the engine and road. All this lives in one article title. He doesn't even need to read on. He gets it. Reading on would be a waste of time. Articles are set up now expecting you to only read the titles; there is no meat. After days and weeks on the internet you start to notice the patterns and the algorithms, things become predictable. At the very most this is worth a bad conversation starter.
"Did you hear Frank Ocean's album is coming out soon?"
"Yeah, I saw that."
Seen and then forgotten. Felt and then gone. Information only matters until the next page loads. But energy is never destroyed so in the black of his peripherals all that he has seen floats around him creating a glaze of impression, of worry, of unprojected laughter, of possibilities that coat his mind and heart as he scrolls and clicks deeper into the infinite web.
Some more cats, a thousand memes, two inspirational videos, a tragedy and a piece of new technology are all taken in in 5 minutes time. His mind branches to possibilities in the dark as the wind, unnoticed, crashes against the window near his bed trying to see what he sees.
His shallow and steady breathing carries over seamlessly into sleep where his dreams also appear in flashing images, short clips, sounds, feelings, and darkness. The young man appears in a library with his friends gathered around a table reading. Trees are growing through the windows, and a river runs through a few bookshelves.
"Sir please be quiet! This is a library," barks the librarian.
"Novocaine, baby," belts Frank Ocean from atop the librarian's counter. The librarian pushes him off, and he crashes through the table. Some of the other people in the library laugh, others help him up, and he apologizes, still singing. Frank walks away and sits down. The brief moment of excitement is over. The young man and his friends turn back to their tables, and he awakes, never noticing Kyrie Irving was sitting next to him. But he did sense his presence.
The room is dim, and his eyes are tired and glassy from his phone. They feel slightly sore. Groggy and somewhat assaulted by his surroundings that were most recently shrouded in darkness, he needs to transition slowly into being awake. He reaches for his phone to catch up on what he missed while he dreamt. More light, more colors, more things sensed.
He connects with others through his phone to create a degree of separation. It is the most convenient middle man as he is now gathered under a tree at a patio table for brunch with his friends without speaking a word. The people at the table next to theirs are talking about basketball. Who is better Steph Curry or Kyrie Irving? One of them plays with the running water of a fountain.
Our protagonist's ears perk up, and he is again flooded with all the useless information he has been filled with over the last few days. Now he has something to say, but he doesn't want to copy his neighbor's conversation, so he uses a different topic to spark conversation with his friends.
"Frank Ocean's album is supposed to come out soon."
"Yeah, I saw that. I think it'll finally happen."
Almost exactly how he thought it would go. The patterns of life show and they are predictable, and the predictable is boring. He is surrounded by videos and news of grandiosity, forcing his inferiority to be blindingly apparent. But somehow, witnessing the grandiosity of a man diving from a hot air balloon with no parachute, even through a phone makes him feel a party to it and therefore, less inferior. The phone acts as a playground for his imagination like his dreams do. But what he is gaining in dreaming, he is losing in living. He vigorously debates which one is more valuable.
