Essay

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been deeply immersed in the digital world. My life has been a constant stream of online consumption, whether for academic purposes or purely for personal enjoyment.

For most of my life, I’ve felt like I was trapped in a real-life mega game of chess.

It's summertime in Montana, and because we ranch, because animals and plants and the weather are on their own time, I sit around and wait a lot.

I am out at night because I can’t stand myself.

People are milling on the street. Nobody looks at me. They all look at each other as they pass, and the lights decorate their faces to be tall and luminous.
 

Dear Congressman, 

The provisions of this bill are concerning, to say the least. 

Introduction

     In my tenth grade English class, we read Fahrenheit 451, and we were asked to answer this question: how did Ray Bradbury's predictions hold up? It was an intentionally broad question that once stumped me.

There's a grapefruit spindrift on the kitchen island where I’m sitting. The digital clock at the top of my Mac Book Air screen reads 9:16 p.m.

I am someone who is waiting on a dock in the middle of the night. There is a gross, green electric light shining on me. There is something out in the waves. 

I drink soda probably way too much. It's sitting here beside me in the car, full to the top of the Pepsi symbol, and the condensation is making the cup-holder damp. DN24, the light post says in front of the car. R6.

I have been feeling like I am even more different then normal because of my math teacher that I have. When I ask for something that I need to do well in school even though we are done with class and are waiting for the next class to be ready.

I’m still stuck in the same grade, with the same people, doing the same thing. I’m ready to expand like steam filling a room, like water gushing from a spigot and into a basin. I’m ready to float, or maybe sink.