Static in the Signal

It started with a flicker. A blinking cursor. A screen that wouldn’t load.

Jamie slammed his laptop shut like it had betrayed him — again. Third time this week. He leaned back in his chair, rubbing his face, feeling the texture of another sleepless night creeping into his skin.

Recently, everything seemed to be wired incorrectly, as if the world had tripped over its own cord and never connected again. Notifications came in like flies. Pings. Buzzes. Someone always wanting something. And none of it meant anything. Not really.

He used to think being “online” was the future — now it just felt like a thousand invisible threads pulling him in every direction. Every demand No purpose.

He stared at the wall, the chipped blue paint, the place where he’d meant to hang that painting his friend made. Never got around to it. He didn’t even know where the painting was anymore. That was how things turned out; eventually, everything vanished.

The city outside mumbled its usual 3 a.m. nonsense — sirens, drunk voices, one angry cat. Jamie lit a cigarette, even though he’d quit six months ago. The word "quit" was so funny. He hadn’t quit. He just got distracted.

The smoke curled upward like a question mark, and he watched it dance until it vanished. Poetic, perhaps. Or just stupid.

He grabbed his phone, scrolled for no reason. Every app felt the same. People screaming into the void. Fake smiles, sad captions. Outrage as currency. Somewhere along the line, the internet had become a haunted house — loud, bright, and filled with things pretending to be alive.

And still, he kept scrolling.

There was this guy he used to follow — rich, smug, always building something “revolutionary.” Jamie used to admire him. He couldn't even say his name now without scowling. Same with that AI thing everyone was raving about. Excellent, the robots now had egos as well. Perfect.

He dropped the phone and let it slide off the couch onto the floor.

Barefoot, Jamie got up, stretched, and went to the kitchen. The tile was cold. The fridge was mostly empty — a bottle of orange juice, half a burrito in foil, and something unidentifiable in Tupperware. He didn’t want food. He wanted quiet. Real quiet. The kind that lived in forests and old books. Not this humming, buzzing quiet of machines.

He thought about driving out to nowhere. Just getting in the car, leaving his phone behind, and heading west. Maybe to a cabin with no Wi-Fi. Maybe to a motel off a road no one cared about. Maybe to the ocean.

But he wouldn’t.

He poured the juice into a cracked mug and took a sip. Too sour. He drank it anyway.

There was a time he believed in things — believed in change, in people, in the web of ideas that connected them all. Now? He wasn’t so sure. Maybe the web had rotted. Maybe the people did. Or maybe he just got tired.

He sat on the floor, back against the cabinet, and let the cool of the tile settle his skin. The city mumbled again, another siren in the distance.

Maybe it was okay not to know the answer.

Maybe it was okay to fall apart a little.

He pulled a pen from his hoodie pocket — the one he carried everywhere, even though he rarely used it. He started writing after reaching for the back of an old receipt. Not for anyone. Not to post. Just… to remember how it felt.

A line came out. Then another.

There was something honest about ink. It didn’t scream or sell or pretend. It just stayed. Quiet and real. Like truth whispering.

The world could glitch all it wanted. He’d find his way through the static.

One word at a time.