MICROFICTION

Search Your Soul for the Camera

Designing walls of compassion one click at a time

Slacken your shoulders and drop the smile. Don’t look at the lens. When I lock focus, keep moving ever so slightly, so I can extract imperfect frames.

Yesterday’s feed peaked at sixty-five percent, and we’re still looking at red on the vulnerability index. I needed more Friday night-ins than neon-lit selfies at parties with dilated pupils. The addiction to filters needs to end.

I deleted the photo of your dinner and replaced it with a behind-the-scenes shot. Too much flat lay, the table was spotless, and no one likes large leaves.

It’s scarcely edited and favorably queued up for near-viral success.

I see you sucking your stomach in, jutting your chin, and sliding backward for angular appearances. Your body is irregular, not a modeled 3-D cutout.

See the woman on the poolside waiting for the crowd to clear out so she can get a solitary snap, feigning to have a life-changing epiphany? That’s so mid-2020s. Pose with strangers, and keep your profile mid-conversation.

Upload the screenshot of the last time you were left on read.

Your living room looks like a serial killer’s lair. Throw a t-shirt on the couch. Move the remote to a diagonal position. And close the drapes.

We spent so much time delivering rhetorical jargon to bewildered masses looking for a crutch of sunshine. Every facade wrenched a recurring need.

Normal. It’s what no one sees coming.

Do you remember the no-makeup trend? That’s circling back but for life. You want to be real and aspirational. Show glimpses of your inner chaos.

Your screens should reflect your lives, feeding electric responses within numbed brains. A dynamic wall connecting threads of mortal fallibility. One only realizes the value of something when they’ve lost it irrevocably.