01

    felix clicks, stares at the orange bars stretch across the wall. behind the blinds birds screech. felix rearranges the remaining wikipedia tabs, lunar mare, yasenovo, hadeon, corpus callosotomy, man of the hole, growing block universe. felix gets up, grabs a bottle of water from the fridge, returns to his room, sits down. felix clicks, reads ‘holistically viewing phenomena’ and ‘multicellular god’. felix opens a new tab, types, clicks ‘search’, clicks, scrolls, clicks ‘serotonin syndrome’. felix reads words, sees light, hears sound. felix clicks ‘social media in industrial china’, drinks water, sees ‘without this account, the offline world would be unbearable- xuyuan, 22’. felix hears the shriek of a digital alarm.

    felix chops up sausage, onion, and spinach into a bowl, cracks six eggs, stirs the mess with chopsticks, opens a window to let out steam. ana walks into the kitchen, says good morning, dries her cheek with the white towel around her neck. while felix serves breakfast ana flicks through her phone, swipes, taps until music comes out, places it face down on the table. felix is staring at his plate, watching his fork pick up food. ana makes weird eyebrow shapes at felix. ana’s lips pucker and then turn into a smile as she stretches her arms towards the ceiling. ana says, ‘baby bro it’s summer!’. the clock on the oven reads 08:34. the room is drowning in sunlight. felix is watching his fork pick up food. ana makes a happy squealing noise.

    felix cleans the dishes and pan with green soap. ana shuffles around in her room. felix washes down the sink. ana is at the front door, shoving things into her backpack. ana says ‘bye!’, slams the door too hard.