#AntiSocial
Pir closed the lid of the laptop and glanced briefly at the time on his phone. 3:43am. Hands reached up from the desk, pushing his glasses up to rub his weary eyes. He then scratched the back of his head in thought, causing his hair to stand out in strange ways.
He had found himself once again lost in the depths of social networking. Online, he was famous. Pir had a hundred thousand friends who were constantly sharing nearly everything he wrote. The god-like feeling of being able to shape the flow of online communication with just a passing thought was amazingly easy.
He was well aware of the addiction, but had managed to turn it into a decent career for himself. It actually seemed to work in his favor that his life in the real world was so quiet and reclusive. In this city, he was a stranger who could walk the streets in wonderful anonymity. In this building, he appeared to be nothing more than just another neighbor.
It was perfect.
As stood up to stretch, his phone lit up with a little notification. Pir had just been tagged in a photo.
This caused him to pause for a moment, but curiosity got the better and he opened it up quickly to see what was up. “Has to be a mistake”, he mumbled. He hadn’t traveled in awhile, and his settings would never have taken it straight to the mobile.
It took a moment to work out the details of the photo. It was just a sign of a bakery. Not very well taken, either. Several more moments passed for him to realize that it was a very familiar sign. It was of a shop right on the corner across the street where he picked up bagels once in awhile. There was little other context. Just the photo, his username, and a hashtag “#AntiSocial”. It came from an account he couldn’t read, in characters he had never seen before.
Pir’s eyes grew wide and he ran to the window. A soft rain distorted the streetlights, making it difficult to see, but it was clear enough that the streets were empty. Perhaps they ran around the corner. Picking up the phone, he quickly blocked the account and reported it for spam.
“Chirp”, his phone vibrated. Another photo. This time he could see that it was a shot of his building. Taken just seconds ago, from same username, same hashtag. He quickly opened his notebook to get a better “online” view of what was going on. “I thought I blocked you, you bastard.” he mumbled grumpily.
“What the f…”, his profanity faded as he realized that every account he had access to were left with just one friend. Just Pir and the other user. Sweat began to build up on his brow. For the first time in months, he launched the phone application to make an emergency call.
No signal. Nothing. Panic began to chill just behind his ears, and he realized that he had to pee. Pir was left not knowing what to do next. Not that he had time. “Chirp”, alerted the phone again. He didn’t want to look. But he had to. The desire to see the image was too strong.
Pir sat frozen in place at his desk and stared at his front door. The picture had been taken just on the other side of it. That close. Things had gone right to worse very quickly. His airway clamped shut to hold in the breath that was a heartbeat away from screaming.
“Chirp”
In the photo, Pir saw the back of his own head, his hair ruffled from where he had scratched not more than :30 minutes ago. His new and only friend was here with him now, to share a single hashtag with him.
“Chirp”
The phone fell on the floor, a small amount of red stained the screen.
*
Nancy was up late again checking up on all her favorite people and reading about the latest gossip on folks around the world. She had grown a little concerned because one of her favorite writers had vanished from the net recently.
“Ba-doop” a notification announced cheerfully. A photo… from Pir himself! “You’ve gotta be kidding me! PIR!!!” She exclaimed as she opened up the image to see what he had sent.
#AntiSocial
