The Push

It was a strange feeling, not being able to recall anything a few seconds later… or maybe it had been a few minutes or hours.

I set my phone aside, knowing I had to do something but what? Look up a recipe in my saved folder? Message an old friend? Was there an event I was missing? I could feel the cogs of my mind turn slowly, almost arriving at a definitive conclusion. Then, the dopamine rush-inducing ‘ting’ sound buzzed again and all was lost.

***

I’ve always found Instagram to be a window into the world of others. A glimpse of their lives shines through and then it’s gone as you scroll away. But there is a morbidity that comes as you lie on your back and flip from one reel to the next till your hand aches. It’s almost as if we are trying to find the end or go back to the beginning so that all that doom scrolling would mean something. I think I found it one night when I scrolled myself into oblivion. 

It was 3 am when I found myself in a lucid dream. My phone buzzed and I awoke, relieved to see I wasn’t buried in colourful meringue. Unbothered about how my unforgiving circadian rhythm would punish me for interrupting my REM cycle, I reached for my phone and tapped on the colourful pink icon. A quick scroll to get my heart rate back to normal or tire my eyes out, I told myself. 

I watched on as my screen lit up with different pieces of media with every scroll. Some news clips, some sports victories, some comedy routines I'd heard before and then silence. The videos/dance routines/skits kept playing but there was no sound. I pressed down hard on the volume button to discover that I could not hear any more. Instinctively, I closed the app and opened it again. I tapped all the buttons on the app in a desperate attempt to hear something but to no avail. 

All I heard was static noise.

Then I hit the explore feed button and a booming sound appeared, which I tried to hush almost immediately. Browsing through the explore feed, I cherry-picked a few reels to watch—a quick lunch recipe, a puppy video, and then an eerie thumbnail appeared.

As I scrolled away, I realised that it took over my feed, filling every box with the same egregious picture. It was a blurry aesthetic photo, a distorted face smiling and a knife. I couldn’t make out who it was or what they were doing. Curiosity soon got the better of me and I clicked on the reel and slowly increased the volume.

I held the phone up to my ear and then a blood curdling line, faint but assertive, was whispered, and I awoke once again.

Beads of sweat rolled from my forehead onto my pillow that was now soaked. ‘What was that and why did it feel like a warning?’ I shuddered at the thought of not knowing. It was a premonition of sorts, a bad dream that was slowly fading as my mind came back to consciousness. 

Trying to cling to every last memory of it, I reached for my phone to jot down what I had seen and heard. Suddenly, I was overcome by that strange feeling again of not being able to recall anything a few seconds later… or maybe it had been a few minutes or hours. Then a push notification popped up—‘ting’, pulling me back into the IG world.