The Night I Put My Phone Face Down

The phone screen is playing a video of someone else’s cat. You have already watched it four times. Your thumb slides up, then slides back. The same cat. The living room light is off. The kitchen faucet is dripping. You hear it, but you do not get up.

There are seven cigarette butts in the ashtray. Takeout boxes are stacked next to the keyboard. You open a game, find a match, then cancel it. You open a short-video app, swipe through three clips, and exit. You open the game again. You are thirty-seven this year. On a Wednesday afternoon, you took half a day off and told no one. You sat on a park bench and watched an old man feed pigeons. You tried to remember the last time you did something useless. Nothing came. You made a decision and told no one.

You turn your phone face down on the table. You open your laptop. The document is blank. You type three lines, delete two. One line is left. You look at it and think it is terrible. But you do not delete it. You save it.

Tomorrow, for the interview, you have decided to wear the leather shoes that pinch and rub. You want to see whether you can get through the whole thing without grimacing. You tell a friend about this. The friend says, “What is wrong with you?” You laugh. It is the first time you have laughed this week.

Wittgenstein’s last words before he died were “Tell them I’ve had a wonderful life.” He gave up treatment and died at a friend’s house. He did not have much money. The manuscripts he left behind stack up half a person high. You think about your bank balance, then about his phrase “a wonderful life.” Something is off. You cannot name it. Imagine if people could live for a thousand years. You have put off a project for three years. Which year would you put it off until? You have wanted to see someone but still have not seen them. Which year would you schedule them into? You cannot rank them. A thousand years is too long. So long that everything can be “tomorrow.” The “tomorrow” you are using now is the same algorithm used by someone who lives for a thousand years.

You open the photo album on your phone and scroll to this day three years ago. You are at a dinner party, laughing loudly. You cannot remember what was eaten, or who was sitting next to you. You only remember that on the way home that day you bought an ice cream. It melted and dripped onto your cuff. You were annoyed at the time. Now, looking at the photo, you miss that melted ice cream a little.

On Saturday afternoon, you close the curtains, put your phone on silent, and lie on the bed. You are not asleep, and you are not scrolling. You are just lying there. You hear people arguing downstairs. You hear a courier ring a doorbell. You hear your own stomach growl once. You do not move. It gets dark. You get up and drink a glass of water. No one has looked for you. The world has not collapsed.

At night, while brushing your teeth, you look at yourself in the mirror. Toothpaste foam is at the corner of your mouth. You think: if you lay down tonight and did not wake up, what from today would you want to take back? The thing you want to take back is not the big thing you did not finish. This morning your mother sent you a WeChat message, and you replied “mm,” then closed the chat window.

You wipe the toothpaste foam away. You go back to the bedroom. There are three unread messages on your phone. You swipe two away. The third is from your mother: a photo of a flower she planted, now blooming. You type three words: “Looks nice.” You send it. Then you put the phone down and do not wait for a reply.

You open the document you have shelved for three months. The cursor blinks. You type for ten minutes. You write four lines. It is terrible. You save it. You close it. You walk to the kitchen and turn the faucet tight. The dripping stops. You stand in the kitchen and find the quiet a little unfamiliar. Then you go to sleep.

Tomorrow, the pair of shoes that rub your feet are still by the door. You have not worn them yet. But you know they are there.