I Watched

I watched, as a thousand young people rounded the corner. It was a beautiful blue day. Looking through my window as if it were a television screen I became transfixed by the fact that every one of those young people, male and female, walking almost in single file were not a part of my world, the beautiful blue day that it was but rather are themselves transfixed by their own little windows held before their faces as they walk almost by instinct, one following the other. For twenty minutes the snake-like line rounded the corner into my view, headed straight toward me, then made a hard right turn exiting my field of view stage right, just following the walk. Not one looked up and away from their smart phones to notice my watching them. There was emotion on nearly every face. Some sad, a few full of anxiety and even fewer in a panic. By far the most common emotion beaming from their faces was amusement. Most were smiling, some laughing and even fewer in hysterics. I wondered what they were seeing on those little screens the way one might wonder what people were thinking before those little screens were invented, but faces hid feelings better in those days for private thoughts in public were just that, private. You were aware that you were in public and folks wore their poker faces with occasional laughter from the young. In this group there was no public. Everyone was in their own little world where the external world did not exist. Not those around them nor the beautiful blue day existed. What was real to them was in the palms of their hands. That world was an unending scrolling wall of mostly nonsense where nearly no attention span is required. It is a lazy diversion while walking when the only unconscious thought required is putting one foot in front of the other. Interactive conversation takes effort and wit. That was what I noticed the most in this group, complete disengagement from the here and now. Human interaction requires thought, facial expression and listening, and not one of them seemed to be using those basic communication skills seen in nearly all animals and perhaps even plants. These people were being stimulated by the same thing regardless of the content and they were dead to each other and the beautiful blue day. It was a sad thing to witness this and an overwhelming sense of loss is all I could feel. I wondered how this happened. How could an entire population of bright young people succumb to this mass hypnosis? It felt like I was watching a horror movie through my window and I had to look away for horror is not entertaining when it is real. I never forgot that event because of the horror but there was something else that happened that stayed with me as well. One young girl half way through her passage in the snake line was not looking at her phone. Perhaps hers was forgotten or broken or the battery run down or, perhaps it was by choice. It didn't matter. She seemed to be enjoying the beautiful blue day and before she exited stage right she noticed me looking out my window and gave a quick smile. There was a glimmer of humanity beaming from that split second glance and it made the entire event a bit less foreboding.

By Buckspinster

From: United States

Website: https://buckspinster.wordpress.com/