People Are Strange

Thumb on the screen, she swipes up; nothing, just darkness. She swipes left, down, right, up again, similar to inputting a cheat code in an arcade game; still nothing, still darkness.

She taps a few times, soft then aggressive; a dark screen remains.

She’d been on Instagram and Threads, engaging in conversations of war, crime, politics, and malpractices; injustices all around. She’d played both sides, wanting the outrage it would bring; the attention she would get. And, boy, did she get it.

She’d been having so much fun, wrecking havoc then scrolling to the next topic of interest; all in the comfort of her bedroom, where they can’t get her. And they’ll never get her, and she’ll never be stopped.

Except she has been stopped. What happened?

The fun was no more; the excitement’s gone, the joy’s fading, the anxiety’s setting in, and the screen is still black. Why is the screen black? What the fuck happened?

She holds the power button. She taps the screen frantically. She takes it apart and puts it back together, then tries again. She does it eight times. She tries charging it, too. She swipes all around again, then twelve more times.

Nothing. nOtHiNg. NoThInG. NOTHING!

WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!

She hyperventilates. She's close to crying.

She’s tired of seeing her reflection; it teases, it sneers, it mocks. She throws her phone. She smashes it with things. She smashes it against things. She shatters the screen that no longer displays her greatest pleasure.

And she finds no pleasure doing so.

The tears fall and keep falling.

Denial hits.

Maybes, maybes, maybes.

“Maybe—Maybe—Maybe it wasn’t my phone. Maybe the WiFi’s down. Yes, that’s it; that’s all that’s wrong. It's just the WiFi. It's just the WiFi.”

The WiFi's fine.

She screams in frustration. She looks for her parents; they're not home. Are they ever home when she needs them?

She storms out of the house and sees every other teen, and young adult, in the neighborhood outside, waving their dead phones in the air or tossing them out of sight, thrown into the street, the gutter, the sewer, or the bin.

Everyone out there is losing their mind, including her.

"Are you shitting me right now?!"

"What the hell is going on?!"

"My phone is cooked!"

"I've been hacked!"

“I can’t believe we’re actually touching grass right now! Oh my god!”

“If my phone doesn’t start working in the next five minutes, I’m walking into oncoming traffic!”

“I wish I could record that.”

“WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?!”

"SOMEBODY FIX MY PHONE!"

Across the street, two older men sit on their porch chairs, drinking from their almost empty beer cans and munching on some freshly made popcorn. They snort as they watch the meltdown continue; a march of overdramatic teenagers and fuming young adults.

“Jim,” Andy says, nodding toward a sobbing teen five doors down, who has been running around his front yard. “Ten bucks says he runs into his mailbox.”

“Too late to bet on that; he already did it six times,” Jimmy points out. “He’s probably gonna keep on doing it, too.”

"Eh, maybe."

They are completely unbothered that their phones don't work anymore; they rarely used them to begin with. They hardly use their computers, which still work. They only use the WiFi to watch shows and movies on streaming apps.

Wait a minute...

Andy snorts. "These fucking idiots."

The door creaks open behind them. Jimmy’s sister, Gwendolyn, steps onto the porch, bringing them some more beer. Handing them over, she stares out into the road, watching the chaos that won’t end.

“They’re acting like the zombie apocalypse is starting.”

“Could be,” Andy comments.

“I doubt it,” Jimmy disagrees.

She continues watching for another moment.

Andy and Jimmy pop open their cans and get to drinking again. Bad idea, as they soon spit it out, bursting into laughter at her next words.

“They do know they can still use the internet, right?”