Essay

Content Warning: This details my experience during a school lockdown that we presumed at the time to be an active shooter (it was not). There is no actual violence in this; there is only the dread of not knowing.

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On my first day of sixth grade, someone told me, “You’re the only person that has said that to me today.” I didn’t realize the weight of those words at the time, but looking back, I understand how much they impacted my life.

When I pulled up to my grandparents’ home in a cramped rented car with my family, I was always welcomed by the rumbling of the tires on the old and uneven brick pavement.

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.