At work, you sit in a cubicle that was designed by someone who read one article about Scandinavian minimalism. The screen in front of you glows with spreadsheets. The numbers are fine. The numbers are always fine. A colleague stops by to tell you about their weekend — a hike, a craft beer, a near-miss with a deer on the highway. You hear the words but not the music. You smile. You say, “That sounds nice.” They leave. You cannot remember their face. Not because you are cruel, but because the city has made recognition expensive, and you are saving your attention for emergencies that never come.
Evening comes the way it always does — not as a sunset but as a dimming of screens. You return to your apartment. The walls are beige. The bed is unmade. You pick up your phone again. You scroll. A friend has posted a photo of a mountain. Another friend has posted a quote about being present. A stranger has posted a video of a cat falling off a chair. You watch the cat three times. It falls the same way each time. You laugh the same way each time. This is not tragedy. This is not comedy. This is the background hum of a life that has confused proximity with connection.
You walk to the train. Above ground, a billboard cycles through three ads: a perfume that smells like “nothing you’ve ever known,” a bank that promises to treat you like a person (as if persons are what they want), and a streaming series about a detective who solves murders by feeling the emotions of the victims. You think about that for a moment — the privatization of empathy — and then the train arrives, and you forget.
At 11:47 PM, you turn off the light. The city does not turn off with you. Outside, sirens practice their scales. A couple argues on the sidewalk — something about a key, something about a text you will never read. A train passes three blocks away, full of people returning from places you will never go. You lie in the dark and try to remember the last time you were truly aware. Not of your phone. Not of your to-do list. Not of the news. But aware — fully, stupidly, painfully aware — of something small. A crack in a wall. A stranger’s laugh. The way light pools on a wet street after rain.
At work, you sit in a cubicle that was designed by someone who read one article about Scandinavian minimalism. The screen in front of you glows with spreadsheets. The numbers are fine. The numbers are always fine. A colleague stops by to tell you about their weekend — a hike, a craft beer, a near-miss with a deer on the highway. You hear the words but not the music. You smile. You say, “That sounds nice.” They leave. You cannot remember their face. Not because you are cruel, but because the city has made recognition expensive, and you are saving your attention for emergencies that never come.
Evening comes the way it always does — not as a sunset but as a dimming of screens. You return to your apartment. The walls are beige. The bed is unmade. You pick up your phone again. You scroll. A friend has posted a photo of a mountain. Another friend has posted a quote about being present. A stranger has posted a video of a cat falling off a chair. You watch the cat three times. It falls the same way each time. You laugh the same way each time. This is not tragedy. This is not comedy. This is the background hum of a life that has confused proximity with connection. unaware in the city v45
You walk to the train. Above ground, a billboard cycles through three ads: a perfume that smells like “nothing you’ve ever known,” a bank that promises to treat you like a person (as if persons are what they want), and a streaming series about a detective who solves murders by feeling the emotions of the victims. You think about that for a moment — the privatization of empathy — and then the train arrives, and you forget. At work, you sit in a cubicle that
At 11:47 PM, you turn off the light. The city does not turn off with you. Outside, sirens practice their scales. A couple argues on the sidewalk — something about a key, something about a text you will never read. A train passes three blocks away, full of people returning from places you will never go. You lie in the dark and try to remember the last time you were truly aware. Not of your phone. Not of your to-do list. Not of the news. But aware — fully, stupidly, painfully aware — of something small. A crack in a wall. A stranger’s laugh. The way light pools on a wet street after rain. The numbers are always fine