(1 min read)
Weakened from the day’s events, both good and bad, I find myself laying on the couch scrollin’ through social media. (At the end of a long day sometimes it seems like the only energy I have left is barely enough to fit inside my thumb.)
Amidst pictures of friends (yay!), there are clips of news (boo!) and it seems the job of the news is to reveal the underbelly of our world. I’m not sure if the news has gotten more depressing or the underbelly has gotten bigger. Either way, the shit is dark and I have no business filling my head with this stuff just before bedtime.
But, I can’t stop scrollin’. That would take two hands, or two fingers, or at least a different kind of swipe with the same finger and I don’t have it in me. I’m like the defeated mixed-martial-arts fighter laying flat on my back while my opponent punches me repeatedly in the face, and there’s no ref to stop the fight…
Over there, across the expanse of carpet, is my daughter, playing with magnetic sticks and little silver balls. She’s building them up and knocking them down.
It’s my only chance – the balls and the sticks – to get away from the punches.
I drop the phone, literally (I have enough energy for that!) and roll off the couch, with the desperation of Rose Dawson, at the end of Titanic, falling off her piece of driftwood to force herself into in the ice cold sea.
Yeah, it’s exactly like that.
Except I experience a thud, not a splash after my tumble, and I reach for little tiny sticks and balls, not a searchlight or a hand.
The balls feel heavy in my palm. The sticks click together with ease.
It works. I’m saved.
I should call the press.