- Uncategorized
- 30 Apr 18
An 18 year old from the West of Ireland with a love of music and writing, Luke enjoys the work of authors from Robin Hobb to Hillary Mantel and everything in between. The songwriting skills of Rory Gallagher and Nick Cave are a huge influence.Plays a bit of guitar and does a bit of writing, from songs to stories that try to articulate his experience of life.
And now for Luke’s WRITE HERE, WRITE NOW entry ...
“ Fugue ”
I sat down at my desk, carefully laying out my books and copies. Maths first, I decided. Ah, but where was my calculator? I stood again to go in search of the missing mathematical tool.
I picked up my phone on my return, as the calculator was nowhere to be found.
Such is life, I thought wearily, as I opened the distinctly inferior calculator app to complete whatever excruciating question had been set.
bing
A Facebook notification. I checked it quickly. A meme involving a cat and apparently, inexplicably, Donald Trump. Chuckling, I returned to the calculator to pursue the question.
bing
What’s this? Unsolved ocean mysteries? Intrigued, I followed the bizarre rabbit hole I had been tagged in to its bittersweet, clickbait conclusion. Shaking my head to clear it, I left buzzfeed and picked up my pencil, assuming a position conducive to maths.
bing, bing
Ariana Grande at the 3 Arena! Praise Twitter! I wondered when the presale was, but quickly became lost in an ongoing war in a comment section of a relationship status post, involving tragic, star-crossed lovers and an ill advised bout of Facebooking from a previous romantic conquest now on the scene.
bing, bing, bing
Hours passed. Friendships were born and died. Tweets were tweeted.
BING, BING, BING
Notifications were coming hot and heavy and I loved it. Memes, clickbait articles and Instagram posts with pretentious captions filled my vision.
BING!
The ecstasy of it! Eleven things you didn’t know about crooked Hillary! John and Megan have begun a relationship! My frail body, weak from dehydration, could hardly stand it.
BING BING BING BING
I feasted on the gossip in the WhatsApp group. I drank from the tap of Tumblr memes. I suckled on the sweet likes from my profile picture. My breathing was shallow, but the snaps on Sarah O’Reilly’s story gave me sustenance.
BING, BING . . . bing
The notifications were my heartbeat now, the incoming tweets my pulse. I had ascended, knelt and bled and was reborn before the God of Popularity and Screenshots. My parents would be initially distressed but would understand. My mortal shell was cooling, but I was given warmth by the series of 30 day streaks I had amassed. It hadn’t felt like that long since I had started my maths homework. I took a final, shallow breath, closed my eyes.
I have become the contents of my Instagram profile, the tweets retweeted, the followers, the beauty of it all, the joy in the sharing. My likes exceed my days on Earth yet this incessant sound of notifications is POUNDING on the inside of my head and-
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“Sean!”
I blink and the page before me comes into focus. It is disturbingly blank. I’m not entirely sure what subject it is.
“What are you working on? You haven’t a stroke written, and that gadget has been going off constantly for the last two hours!”
My mother glares at me, hands on her hips.
“You are doing your Leaving Certificate! Your friends will survive without you for two minutes you know!”
I flex my fingers. Still functional, apparently, to my surprise. My thumbs are on the verge of being blistered from the fury of my typing. My mouth is dry, the backs of my eyes sore, the light of my lamp far too bright. My phone rests face-down before me, hot to the touch. I check the battery and find it distinctly dead. I get to my feet unsteadily, turning to go into the kitchen and maybe find a charger. Maybe not.
bing
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