A Day in the Life

Elle retreated to the basement and crawled into the queen bed filled with throw pillows and fuzzy blankets. The covers hugged her and she let herself fall into the mattress. She pulled the duvet over her head and stared up at the ceiling through the covers. It was a perfect cocoon. She could hear her mom’s voice above her and the noise in the kitchen, but with just enough concealment that she couldn’t make out a word. 

Her phone buzzed at her side. Elle reached over and turned the screen to face her, unlocking it to find a single notification. Her heart lightened as the magenta and pink colors of Instagram absorbed her and the red dot attracted her finger. As soon as she pressed it though, she wished she hadn’t. “Your friend has a recent post! Check it out here:” Elle let out a sigh. She pressed on the post. The faces of two blonde girls in graduation robes filled the screen. Their smiles seemed to seep through the phone and shove their happiness in Ellie’s face. Their dresses hugged their curves and their makeup was flawless. Elle zoomed in closer to read the title of the textbooks in the picture, they must have been from law school. The girl holding the thick book had a large silver ring on her finger, and without realizing it, she zoomed in again, this time checking that the ring was on the girl’s right hand. She didn’t know why she cared if the girl was married or not, but she would have been mad if she was.

Elle scrolled further down on the feed. Reels of trending workouts and food vlogs took over the stream and she scrolled faster. Occasionally there would be a funny video of a toddler tripping on something or a dog playing the piano, but even these seem tainted to Elle. She tried to smile at them- she had even started to laugh at one, but her throat caught. It was as if her body had finally given up on her- had enough with doing nothing. She flipped to the next clip, and as if the phone had sensed her feelings, she soon found herself engulfed in the blazing forest fires taking over San Diego. She stared at the video. She watched it again. She knew she was meant to be concerned by this, or at least thinking about those that lived there - some of her family even. But her body gave her nothing. Completely and utterly nothing. They say tears are meant to relieve the body of what it can’t express out loud, but her eyes were just as bare as the rest of her. She felt like she was hovering outside of her own body, looking in - trapped in a puppet that had lost its strings.

Elle put in her airpods. The familiar tunes of James Taylor wafted through her head as she tried her best to cancel out the nose around her. It was in times like these, between two worlds, that she felt most at peace. She started to reach for her phone, to make sure her Snap Map was turned off so no one could see she was home alone in bed on a Friday night. But something stopped her. Maybe she was too tired, or maybe she just didn’t have the energy to care. Or maybe, just maybe, she was starting to take back control of the strings.