He Was Just Scrolling

He wasn’t searching for anything.

He was just scrolling.

In the morning — between the sink and the tea.

At lunch — instead of eating.

At night — until his eyes burned.

No goal. No thought. No pause.

Scroll. Scroll. Scroll.

Each video —

loud, twitchy, important.

“Five facts.”

“Three secrets.”

“You won’t believe this…”

He believed them all.

And yet believed in nothing.

Time — like bathwater

slipping down the drain.

You don’t notice

until the tub is empty.

Days passed.

He forgot to turn off the lights.

Forgot why he turned them on.

His eyes began to blur —

not from vision loss,

but because nothing stayed in them anymore.

Words slipped by.

Faces blurred.

Food — just background noise.

He ignored the calls.

Left the messages unread.

Like cobwebs in the corner.

Someone had written,

"Hey, are you okay?"

He meant to answer.

Later.

But later

always vanished.

Sometimes he went outside.

And the world felt slow.

Trees didn’t swipe away.

People didn’t talk like edits.

And that frightened him.

He couldn’t remember the last time

he did something not involving a screen.

Not “while the noodles boil.”

Not “before bed.”

Just… being.

He saw his own face

in the black mirror of his phone.

It was someone else.

A little tired.

A little lost.

Eyes that once lit up —

now held only static.

One day,

he scrolled through winter.

Then spring.

Then summer.

Then,

autumn came.

And he stepped out onto the balcony.

The leaves were golden.

The wind was warm.

His hands — empty.

His mind — quiet.

For how long?

He didn’t know.

But that day,

he didn’t scroll.

And somehow,

that was enough.