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| Photo by fame of God studios on Unsplash |
She lays in his little cubicle in Akure, bare tits bathed in the glow from the phone's backlight. Her finger swipes once, and with it, another dopamine hit fuels her invisible addiction.
It's a video of mindless drabble. An obviously fake conversation with absolutely terrible acting. The dialogue was basically inexistent since they were all just saying a whole bunch of nothings. He was getting irritated even just watching the damn thing, even if it was just by proximity.
Yet she smiled through the whole thing, hitting the like button as the video did the loop at its end.
Her finger swiped again, and with it came another hit.
It’s a gossip girl video. You know the ones where a girl sits in front of the camera and tells a definitely real life story sent by a definitely real person looking for advice from the definitely wise listener. Yes, those ones. He rolls his eyes at every obvious plot hole in the story and can't help but wonder why these people keep pretending to be sharing true stories.
Yet she uhs and ahs in sync with the video's cues, hitting the like button at the end of that one too.
Again, her finger swipes, and with it yet another hit.
It's a zombie video. He sits a little straighter at that.
There were three zombies playing a game. It was some bastardized version of pop the balloon. Each zombie was wrapped in several of those tube balloons and was expected to pop itself free. Off-screen, their master throws a large fluffy die to determine how many balloons each one can pop at a time. On popping the number of balloons commanded by the almighty die—and echoed by their master, its stern-sounding prophet—they did a silly dance.
Nothing looked fun about the game. But it wasn't meant to be fun. Fun was for kids. Zombies don't get to have fun. They just get to do what the machine says to keep the audience watching.
And watch she did. For the three plus minutes it took for all three to pop all their balloons. She watched each roll of the die, each call of the number, each accompanying pop, and each silly dance.
Yet she finds nothing wrong with the video, and at the final pop of the last balloon, she follows the same old ritual:
Leave a like, then swipe.
