The Day the Web Broke

It was 2am. I was just some teen guy in his room, chatting with this girl I'd just encountered on a shooter game I was playing. Lying in bed with just the overly bright phone of my screen lighting up my tired eyes.

"Hey, we should add each other as friends. This is nice, I'd like to talk to you more."

"Sure!" She followed

... And then it just went black.

"Dang it, are you kidding me?! What the hell is this..."

I tried getting it to work again but to no avail. I assumed I just had to wait it out so I went to bed.

It wasn't as trivial as I thought.

The night felt long. Abnormally so.

I saw so many things... a dream, one would assume.

A mother crying to herself. Living on the countryside. Her daughter hadn't come home all night, and no way to reach her, or any help services. She'd never felt this powerless or alone on this planet.

A man sitting on the ground of a train platform, 132 miles from home. He usually kept it all on his phone. The way to follow, his boarding passes, his payments. Now he'd lost all his tools, he was utterly stranded.

People were all so lost. They were scared, some got angry. Some took advantage. Masses stormed buildings of leaders, blaming them. Some pillaged stores, what were those owners going to do, call authorities?

I woke up in a sweat. When i came to my sense i quickly rushed over to my phone. I went to my mom, my big brother... it was true, every phone had "left" us.

I thought I'd take the time to go for a walk, not sure what else I could do. I wasn't used to this. It was calm outside, more than unusual

I saw a boy, look away from his empty phone, up at the sky with a look that went from furious to serene in a matter of seconds.

I saw an old man, gleefully playing with his granddaughter at a table, basking in this shared moment, a dead tablet sitting on the table, no longer the piece of focus.

The web had broken. It felt destabilizing yet freeing. I didn't know how life would be from now on. I didn't even know how to meet up with my friends. Yet I had a feeling we would all just figure it out, as humans always have.

I went to school. None of the digital stuff worked anymore, so we simply had a teacher, talking with his voice, passionately writing away on the blackboard.

During breaks, students just talked like they always did. We didn't need any technology to communicate, share smiles, get mad at each other, share a hug...and that felt nice. So nice. I truly understood that, no matter what tools we've lost, we still have our humanity and will to live.

Not being able to communicate from a distance as easily, I'll be honest... quite the adjustment, but I like it. No constant e-mails, grandma getting mad when I dont respond to her text within 5 minutes, and none of the constant noise of social media. All those people being gratuitously cruel to each other behind the safety of their screens.

For once, I was living in just my own head.

They say they can't fix it. The physics of it all just decided to break that day and it's not reversible. It's a bit scary and it makes me wonder about all those other things we take for granted.

But I'm not worried about the phones. Life is just sweet without 'em

I still wonder though... what even could caused this immense change in the blink of an eye... doesn't feel right...